An Alaskan Reef (38G)

koffee · 10-31-2007, 02:46 PM

I’ve only been doing aquariums for a few years. Oh, sure, when I was a young teen, I attempted a "community" tank - through in a bunch of cool looking fish without understanding a thing, and watch everything (except the algae) die. When I was an adult, got married, and had space and money, I got heavily into reptiles. My wife is a critter person too. Unfortunately, when we escaped California to Alaska, we had to rehome all of our critters.

It was here that I got into fish. I still have reptiles (skink, beardie, and iguana) and even some birds (cockatiel and goffins cockatoo). My wife has numerous rodents and four snakes. And we have two dogs and two cats.

My wife had a cheesy 10G community tank - rainbow gravel, fake plants, and a No Fishing gremlin - almost as soon as we moved here. A few years later, I got into aquariums starting with a 29G planted tank. I experimented with DIY CO2, soil substrate, and so on. Currently, I have 6 FW tanks: two 1G betta hexes, a 2.5G mini-bow with an albino paradise, a 6G Eclipse mini-bow with a pair of gardneri killi and some lemon tetras, a 10G for an electric blue lobster, and a 20G low-maintenance no-filter planted tank with lots of algae eaters (ottos, clown plecos, zebra snails) and some tetras (serpae and kerri). All of these, with the exception of the lobster, are planted. No rocks (other than gravel or sand) - only wood.

A few years ago, I adopted some feeder goldfish from my wife’s co-worker. She had four large ones (biggest was 6-8 inches) plus a pleco in a 29G with a half-functional UGF. I set these up with a better filter, and cut down the load by one - sent him to live in a nice big pond with a 3-foot catfish. At the time, I was working at an aquarium and pond store, which later closed. When it closed, I got a bunch of equipment for free or cheap. This included the SW hospital tank: a ReefKeeper wet/dry sump, overflow, and pump, a ReefKeeper skimmer, and a 29G tank. I immediately put the wet/dry on the goldfish.

My wife scored a 38G tank for free, and I took all the goldfish to an LFS for resale, getting fancies instead. Even though I maintained good water quality, I had little luck with the orandas. So, I decided that if/when the last one died, I would give up on fish bred for certain deformities and go for a naturally rotund fish instead. I was going to rebuild the tank for a dog-faced puffer. I had wanted one ever since I first saw it in the LFS I worked at.

Here is one of the last shots of the goldfish tank.

The Telescope Eye (far back left) and pleco survived and went to the LFS for resale. The plants went into my other tanks. All three died. Notice the wet/dry sump underneath.

koffee · 10-31-2007, 02:51 PM

So, by now I had a tank, sump, pump, overflow, coil-tube denitrator, some power heads, heaters, a 24-inch CF fixture with a bad bulb, and other stuff. Most of this stuff was accumulated for free or cheap. Some of it was running the goldfish tank, while the rest was sitting in the closet.

I tore down the tank, and cleaned everything with bleach. Once it was aired out, I thought all I needed was some sand, rock, salt, and eventually the puffer. ("Thought all I needed" - is this one of the common beginner mistakes?) I decided to go with mostly tuffa with just a pound of LR. Since I had some nice coraline on the rock, I also got a 50/50 55W CF bulb for the fixture I had sitting in the closet. Once all of this was in place, I decided that the sump had too-little water. So, I cut it in half, and put the bio-ball chamber on legs inside a 20G long. It could hold the return pump, heater, powerhead to drive the skimmer, and small pump to drive the denitrator. All I had to buy was the tank - all of our 20s were in use.

Here’s the sump redesign.

And here is the tank.

The return feeds through a custom PVC diffuser bar. When the tank had goldfish, the pump returned through a simple U-tube, and I had to throttle it back a lot or it would stir up the gravel. Now I can run the pump wide open.

The LR came with algae and more grew in the tank. So, I added a small clean-up crew consisting of 5 hermit crabs, 3 snails, and 2 mollies. The mollies were FW, so I acclimated them to salt over two days. Each night, when I got off work, I would check to see if everyone was still alive. I really enjoyed watching the crabs climb all over the rock. So, at some point, I decided that I did not want a tank with just one fish no matter how cool it was. (I already had a one-lobster tank.) I gave up on the idea of the puffer, and decided to go for a simple reef instead.

By the way, I know this tank is too small for a puffer over the long term. I will move to a 75G in a year. My only decision is: FOWLR, reef, or hi-tech planted.

Since I was going to shoot for a reef now in this tank, I added a bit more rock. I went form 1 pound all the way up to 4.5 pounds of LR - whee! Note that I also have about 25-30 pounds of tuffa. I also added a second powerhead and a simple wavemaker timer.

Here’s the tank with those additions.

At this point, I also added Reef Complete and a Calcium test kit to my collection of stuff. I already had alkalinity and phosphate test kits from my FW tanks, plus I had a SW master test kit and pH buffer from day-one of this tank.

koffee · 10-31-2007, 02:58 PM

I love Craigslist! Someone was selling their 29G SW tank for $65. I called about it and was told it had 40-50 pounds of LR. This I had to see! Well, by my estimates, there was at least 20 pounds, but not much more. Still, LR goes for $10-13 a pound here in Alaska. If there was only 20 pounds, I would get it for $3.25 a pound. It also had nice coraline and mushrooms, so it was probably worth even more than the $10-13 for basic LR. I bought it, of course.

I also got a 29G tanks with wrought-iron stand, the most basic of 30-inch fixtures, a Magnum 350 filter, heater, Prizm Protein Skimmer, various test kits, crushed coral, a clown fish, a black sea urchin, and anemone, and a camelback shrimp. The rock worked out to 21.5 pounds.

So, I redid my tank yesterday. I moved all of the tank life into a 10G with water from the main tank while I went to work aquascaping. While doing this, I also took the bio-ball chamber off the legs, and took out about half of the bio-balls. And I also replaced the main pump with a new one - the old one worked fine except that it would not start after being off 9 times out of 10. I had to whack it around a lot to get it going again. The new pump started right up. It was a very busy day!

Here’s the sump now.

Yes, I’m using the Prizm. The old wood airstone skimmer was being too flaky, and the air pump was the loudest thing in the system. The Prizm was free. I should buy a better one, but my next purchases will be more LR, more light, and some baffles for the sump.

I still have the denitrator running. Once I rebuild the sump and get some macro algae, that will go away. The tuffa (under the bio-balls) was in the main tank. It probably has some bacteria growth, so I kept it for base fuge rock.

Aquascaping the tank created a sandstorm, of course. I even ran the Magnum 350 for a few hours to help clear that up. Once the water was only slightly cloudy, I moved everything back from the hospital tank into the main tank. Remember, everything at this point was two mollies, five crabs, and three snails.

All during this process, I had the new critters drip-acclimating. I wasn’t going to QT since I didn’t have much to risk. Once I determined that the shrimp was really a camelback, he did not go into the main tank. I’ll probably take the anemone to the LFS since it still does not have enough light. I had my doubts about the urchin since they can eat coraline, but seeing how much was there, I’ll give it a go.

I even have a fake plant in the tank now. There’s just too much coraline to pass it up. As it spreads on my LR and tuffa, the fake plant will eventually go away.

Here’s the tank this morning after aquascaping (and the resulting sandstorm) and all of the new additions.

I not entirely thrilled with the aquascaping. I was careful to not put any of the rock against the back. But as I built up, the sweet spot where the rock fit and didn’t wobble kept moving the tower forward. Oh well, I’m not going to redo it until I get a bunch more LR.

I think I’m going to clean up the 29G, stand, and heater, dig a Whisper filter out of the closet, and sell it for a reasonable price, cutting the price I paid for all of this LR even lower. I’ll keep the Magnum as a power vac. I might run it on the main tank temporarily during my next planned project - adding baffles and a fuge to the sump, and getting rid of the bio-balls.

lcstorc · 10-31-2007, 03:23 PM

Sounds like you are off to a great start. Looking forward to more pics as the project comes along.

Melanie · 10-31-2007, 03:33 PM

Very nice introduction!

Craig Manoukian · 10-31-2007, 03:43 PM

Keep up the good work!

koffee · 10-31-2007, 04:08 PM

Thanks, all. With all the turmoil my tank went through yesterday, it is not surprising that the test results are not so good.

SG: 1.022 - good
pH: 8.0 - added more buffer
Ammonia: 0.25
Nitrite: about .75, ouch!
Nitrate: between 5-10, not horrible
Calcium: 300 - been adding Reef Complete every day (was 195 when I started)

I didn't test my phosphates today, but I am running Kent Phosphate Sponge. I didn't test my alkalinity either. Last time, it was 4.5 meq/L (don't know what that works out to in DH or whatever). I think that is a bit high. I'm going to switch to buying water. Even if I had to pay 50 cents per gallon, it would take around a year of weekly 20% water changes to pay off an RO/DI, not counting replacement filters. I'll save that purchase for if/when I upgrade to a 75G tank.

BTW, I tried to keep everything submerged as much as possible when I move the other tank, and redid mine, but it wasn't 100%. Now I'll just leave it alone for a while except for testing, pH buffer, and calcium.

Oh, now that I have mushrooms, I'll have to look into what/how/when to feed them.

blue_eyes53813 · 10-31-2007, 04:58 PM

Very Nice set up.

Doot77 · 10-31-2007, 05:09 PM

Looks like a good start.

vdituri · 10-31-2007, 10:59 PM

Great intro man!

Do shrooms need to be fed? I thought they were all photosynthetic?
Maybe someone will chime in.

JFK_Jr · 10-31-2007, 11:07 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by koffee

I not entirely thrilled with the aquascaping. I was careful to not put any of the rock against the back. But as I built up, the sweet spot where the rock fit and didn’t wobble kept moving the tower forward. Oh well, I’m not going to redo it until I get a bunch more LR.

One piece of advice... make sure your live rock is resting on the bottom of the tank and not on the sand. There's a very good chance you could expierience a catastrophic collapse when your tank's inhabitants decide to dig!

koffee · 10-31-2007, 11:56 PM

JFK_Jr: That's part of the reason for the sandstorm - I took out a lot of the sand, did the aquascaping, and put the sand back. So all of the rock is on glass, except some tiny stand-alone chunks scattered at the base of the formation.

vdituri: After doing some searching here in the forums, mushrooms don't need to be fed. Now that I have something other than the mollies in the tank, I'll be feeding just a wee bit.

On another note, I dumped some very smelly water out of the Prizm cup tonight. It may only be worth the price I paid for it (free), but at least it is doing something.

Craig Manoukian · 11-01-2007, 08:01 AM

The bioballs in your sump may in time be a source of unwanted nitrates. You want to watch your trates. You could always replace the with sum LR rubble.

lcstorc · 11-01-2007, 08:17 AM

Sounds like you tank has gone into a mini cycle. Do water changes to bring the am and trites to 0 if you have fish in the tank. If not then let it cycle. I agree about removing the bio-balls but do it slowly. I wouldn't mess with them until the am and trites are gone. Then start removing them a bit at a time. If you go too fast you will end up with amonia and nitrites again.

koffee · 11-01-2007, 02:26 PM

I'm sure it is cycling again. I probably should have taken out less bio-balls at one time. Oh well, too late for that now. I think I was as careful as can be when moving the rock and sand, but that process still stirs things up and causes some die-off.

I don't plan on doing anything for the next two weeks other than buffering the pH, adding calcium, and water changes. In two weeks, I should have time to tear down the sump to install baffles and a fuge. At that point, I'll also remove the last of the bio-balls.

10-31-2007, 02:46 PM	#1 (permalink)
koffee Midas Blenny Join Date: Oct 2007 Location: Alaska Posts: 119 View Gallery Karma Komment Add yours!	An Alaskan Reef (38G) I’ve only been doing aquariums for a few years. Oh, sure, when I was a young teen, I attempted a "community" tank - through in a bunch of cool looking fish without understanding a thing, and watch everything (except the algae) die. When I was an adult, got married, and had space and money, I got heavily into reptiles. My wife is a critter person too. Unfortunately, when we escaped California to Alaska, we had to rehome all of our critters. It was here that I got into fish. I still have reptiles (skink, beardie, and iguana) and even some birds (cockatiel and goffins cockatoo). My wife has numerous rodents and four snakes. And we have two dogs and two cats. My wife had a cheesy 10G community tank - rainbow gravel, fake plants, and a No Fishing gremlin - almost as soon as we moved here. A few years later, I got into aquariums starting with a 29G planted tank. I experimented with DIY CO2, soil substrate, and so on. Currently, I have 6 FW tanks: two 1G betta hexes, a 2.5G mini-bow with an albino paradise, a 6G Eclipse mini-bow with a pair of gardneri killi and some lemon tetras, a 10G for an electric blue lobster, and a 20G low-maintenance no-filter planted tank with lots of algae eaters (ottos, clown plecos, zebra snails) and some tetras (serpae and kerri). All of these, with the exception of the lobster, are planted. No rocks (other than gravel or sand) - only wood. A few years ago, I adopted some feeder goldfish from my wife’s co-worker. She had four large ones (biggest was 6-8 inches) plus a pleco in a 29G with a half-functional UGF. I set these up with a better filter, and cut down the load by one - sent him to live in a nice big pond with a 3-foot catfish. At the time, I was working at an aquarium and pond store, which later closed. When it closed, I got a bunch of equipment for free or cheap. This included the SW hospital tank: a ReefKeeper wet/dry sump, overflow, and pump, a ReefKeeper skimmer, and a 29G tank. I immediately put the wet/dry on the goldfish. My wife scored a 38G tank for free, and I took all the goldfish to an LFS for resale, getting fancies instead. Even though I maintained good water quality, I had little luck with the orandas. So, I decided that if/when the last one died, I would give up on fish bred for certain deformities and go for a naturally rotund fish instead. I was going to rebuild the tank for a dog-faced puffer. I had wanted one ever since I first saw it in the LFS I worked at. Here is one of the last shots of the goldfish tank. The Telescope Eye (far back left) and pleco survived and went to the LFS for resale. The plants went into my other tanks. All three died. Notice the wet/dry sump underneath.

10-31-2007, 02:51 PM	#2 (permalink)
koffee Midas Blenny Join Date: Oct 2007 Location: Alaska Posts: 119 View Gallery Karma Komment Add yours!	Re: An Alaskan Reef (38G) So, by now I had a tank, sump, pump, overflow, coil-tube denitrator, some power heads, heaters, a 24-inch CF fixture with a bad bulb, and other stuff. Most of this stuff was accumulated for free or cheap. Some of it was running the goldfish tank, while the rest was sitting in the closet. I tore down the tank, and cleaned everything with bleach. Once it was aired out, I thought all I needed was some sand, rock, salt, and eventually the puffer. ("Thought all I needed" - is this one of the common beginner mistakes?) I decided to go with mostly tuffa with just a pound of LR. Since I had some nice coraline on the rock, I also got a 50/50 55W CF bulb for the fixture I had sitting in the closet. Once all of this was in place, I decided that the sump had too-little water. So, I cut it in half, and put the bio-ball chamber on legs inside a 20G long. It could hold the return pump, heater, powerhead to drive the skimmer, and small pump to drive the denitrator. All I had to buy was the tank - all of our 20s were in use. Here’s the sump redesign. And here is the tank. The return feeds through a custom PVC diffuser bar. When the tank had goldfish, the pump returned through a simple U-tube, and I had to throttle it back a lot or it would stir up the gravel. Now I can run the pump wide open. The LR came with algae and more grew in the tank. So, I added a small clean-up crew consisting of 5 hermit crabs, 3 snails, and 2 mollies. The mollies were FW, so I acclimated them to salt over two days. Each night, when I got off work, I would check to see if everyone was still alive. I really enjoyed watching the crabs climb all over the rock. So, at some point, I decided that I did not want a tank with just one fish no matter how cool it was. (I already had a one-lobster tank.) I gave up on the idea of the puffer, and decided to go for a simple reef instead. By the way, I know this tank is too small for a puffer over the long term. I will move to a 75G in a year. My only decision is: FOWLR, reef, or hi-tech planted. Since I was going to shoot for a reef now in this tank, I added a bit more rock. I went form 1 pound all the way up to 4.5 pounds of LR - whee! Note that I also have about 25-30 pounds of tuffa. I also added a second powerhead and a simple wavemaker timer. Here’s the tank with those additions. At this point, I also added Reef Complete and a Calcium test kit to my collection of stuff. I already had alkalinity and phosphate test kits from my FW tanks, plus I had a SW master test kit and pH buffer from day-one of this tank.

10-31-2007, 02:58 PM	#3 (permalink)
koffee Midas Blenny Join Date: Oct 2007 Location: Alaska Posts: 119 View Gallery Karma Komment Add yours!	Re: An Alaskan Reef (38G) I love Craigslist! Someone was selling their 29G SW tank for $65. I called about it and was told it had 40-50 pounds of LR. This I had to see! Well, by my estimates, there was at least 20 pounds, but not much more. Still, LR goes for $10-13 a pound here in Alaska. If there was only 20 pounds, I would get it for $3.25 a pound. It also had nice coraline and mushrooms, so it was probably worth even more than the $10-13 for basic LR. I bought it, of course. I also got a 29G tanks with wrought-iron stand, the most basic of 30-inch fixtures, a Magnum 350 filter, heater, Prizm Protein Skimmer, various test kits, crushed coral, a clown fish, a black sea urchin, and anemone, and a camelback shrimp. The rock worked out to 21.5 pounds. So, I redid my tank yesterday. I moved all of the tank life into a 10G with water from the main tank while I went to work aquascaping. While doing this, I also took the bio-ball chamber off the legs, and took out about half of the bio-balls. And I also replaced the main pump with a new one - the old one worked fine except that it would not start after being off 9 times out of 10. I had to whack it around a lot to get it going again. The new pump started right up. It was a very busy day! Here’s the sump now. Yes, I’m using the Prizm. The old wood airstone skimmer was being too flaky, and the air pump was the loudest thing in the system. The Prizm was free. I should buy a better one, but my next purchases will be more LR, more light, and some baffles for the sump. I still have the denitrator running. Once I rebuild the sump and get some macro algae, that will go away. The tuffa (under the bio-balls) was in the main tank. It probably has some bacteria growth, so I kept it for base fuge rock. Aquascaping the tank created a sandstorm, of course. I even ran the Magnum 350 for a few hours to help clear that up. Once the water was only slightly cloudy, I moved everything back from the hospital tank into the main tank. Remember, everything at this point was two mollies, five crabs, and three snails. All during this process, I had the new critters drip-acclimating. I wasn’t going to QT since I didn’t have much to risk. Once I determined that the shrimp was really a camelback, he did not go into the main tank. I’ll probably take the anemone to the LFS since it still does not have enough light. I had my doubts about the urchin since they can eat coraline, but seeing how much was there, I’ll give it a go. I even have a fake plant in the tank now. There’s just too much coraline to pass it up. As it spreads on my LR and tuffa, the fake plant will eventually go away. Here’s the tank this morning after aquascaping (and the resulting sandstorm) and all of the new additions. I not entirely thrilled with the aquascaping. I was careful to not put any of the rock against the back. But as I built up, the sweet spot where the rock fit and didn’t wobble kept moving the tower forward. Oh well, I’m not going to redo it until I get a bunch more LR. I think I’m going to clean up the 29G, stand, and heater, dig a Whisper filter out of the closet, and sell it for a reasonable price, cutting the price I paid for all of this LR even lower. I’ll keep the Magnum as a power vac. I might run it on the main tank temporarily during my next planned project - adding baffles and a fuge to the sump, and getting rid of the bio-balls.

10-31-2007, 03:23 PM	#4 (permalink)
lcstorc Sunshine Reefer Join Date: Mar 2006 Location: Cocoa Fl Posts: 18,528 View Gallery Karma Komment Add yours!	Re: An Alaskan Reef (38G) Sounds like you are off to a great start. Looking forward to more pics as the project comes along. __________________ Peace LYNN You can't change the past but you can change how you view it. A reef tank is like a racecar. The faster you go the harder you crash. Lynn and Franks saltwater adventure Lynn's 20g clown tank Lynn's 90g of sunshine Every 60 seconds you spend upset is a minute of happiness you'll never get back.

10-31-2007, 03:33 PM	#5 (permalink)
Melanie Golden Moray Join Date: Jun 2007 Location: Naples, Florida Posts: 2,120 View Gallery Karma Komment Add yours!	Re: An Alaskan Reef (38G) Very nice introduction! __________________ My Reef Journey Latest Recap My Videos My Flickr Photos Pres. of Dork Club I love ScubaDrew and North East Coral! Read why HERE...

10-31-2007, 03:43 PM	#6 (permalink)
Craig Manoukian Regular Guy Moderator Join Date: Nov 2003 Location: Marina Del Ray, CA Posts: 17,915 View Gallery Karma Komment Add yours!	Re: An Alaskan Reef (38G) Keep up the good work! __________________ Currently tankless. 20 Gallon mini reef with mated pair of Maroon Clowns given to Rougiem! 80 gallon reef given to Rougiem/Wooster HS.

10-31-2007, 04:08 PM	#7 (permalink)
koffee Midas Blenny Join Date: Oct 2007 Location: Alaska Posts: 119 View Gallery Karma Komment Add yours!	Re: An Alaskan Reef (38G) Thanks, all. With all the turmoil my tank went through yesterday, it is not surprising that the test results are not so good. SG: 1.022 - good pH: 8.0 - added more buffer Ammonia: 0.25 Nitrite: about .75, ouch! Nitrate: between 5-10, not horrible Calcium: 300 - been adding Reef Complete every day (was 195 when I started) I didn't test my phosphates today, but I am running Kent Phosphate Sponge. I didn't test my alkalinity either. Last time, it was 4.5 meq/L (don't know what that works out to in DH or whatever). I think that is a bit high. I'm going to switch to buying water. Even if I had to pay 50 cents per gallon, it would take around a year of weekly 20% water changes to pay off an RO/DI, not counting replacement filters. I'll save that purchase for if/when I upgrade to a 75G tank. BTW, I tried to keep everything submerged as much as possible when I move the other tank, and redid mine, but it wasn't 100%. Now I'll just leave it alone for a while except for testing, pH buffer, and calcium. Oh, now that I have mushrooms, I'll have to look into what/how/when to feed them.

10-31-2007, 04:58 PM	#8 (permalink)
blue_eyes53813 Hey!Its not my fault Join Date: Nov 2003 Location: Lancaster, Wisconsin Posts: 6,258 View Gallery Karma Komment Add yours!	Re: An Alaskan Reef (38G) Very Nice set up. __________________ 265 Gallon Reef built into basement wall. Lighting = 6x250 watts MH, 2x96 watt PC ,and 2x140 watt VHO for a total watt of 1,972 watts . New addition on 4-14-07 of 100 gallon sump and 100 gallon refugium. I think I have lost my mind. Gotta love this hobby Vicki Life is like a pathway of untrodden snow. Be careful how you step in it for every mark will show Definition of FRIENDSHIP: All lives touch other lives to create something new and alive My tank chronicles. http://www.reefsanctuary.com/forums/...wall-reef.html

10-31-2007, 05:09 PM	#9 (permalink)
Doot77 Scopas Tang Join Date: Oct 2007 Location: DeKalb, IL Posts: 467 View Gallery Karma Komment Add yours!	Re: An Alaskan Reef (38G) Looks like a good start. __________________ Matt ________________________________ 110 Gallon Oceanic with dual corner overflows and 40 gal Oceanic 150 Sump Livestock : - 1 Mystery Wrasse, 1 Fairy Wrasse, 1 Royal Gramma, 1 Diamond Watchman Goby, 2 Turbo Snails, 6 Nassarius Snails, 1 Fighting Conch, 6 Dwarf Blue Legged Crabs & 6 Dwarf Zebra Crabs, 3 Emerald Crabs, 1 Purple Reef Lobster, 1 Skunk Cleaner Shrimp, 1 Red Sea Star, 1 Brittle Star, 1 Sand Sifting Star Fish 20 gal Quarantine tank Doot's Reef Chronicle

10-31-2007, 10:59 PM	#10 (permalink)
vdituri Excellent Guesser :D Join Date: Aug 2006 Location: Sacramento California Posts: 5,725 View Gallery Karma Komment Add yours!	Re: An Alaskan Reef (38G) Great intro man! Do shrooms need to be fed? I thought they were all photosynthetic? Maybe someone will chime in. __________________ Victor ----- People come into our lives for a reason, a season or a lifetime. When you know which one it is, you will know what to do for that person. When someone is in your life for a REASON, it is usually to meet a need you have expressed. They have come to assist you through a difficulty, to provide you with guidance and support, to aid you physically, emotionally or spiritually. They may seem like a godsend and they are. They are there for the reason you need them to be. Then, without any wrongdoing on your part or at an inconvenient time, this person will say or do something to bring the relationship to an end. What we must realize is that our need has been met, our desire fulfilled, their work is done. The prayer you sent up has been answered and now it is time to move on.

10-31-2007, 11:56 PM	#12 (permalink)
koffee Midas Blenny Join Date: Oct 2007 Location: Alaska Posts: 119 View Gallery Karma Komment Add yours!	Re: An Alaskan Reef (38G) JFK_Jr: That's part of the reason for the sandstorm - I took out a lot of the sand, did the aquascaping, and put the sand back. So all of the rock is on glass, except some tiny stand-alone chunks scattered at the base of the formation. vdituri: After doing some searching here in the forums, mushrooms don't need to be fed. Now that I have something other than the mollies in the tank, I'll be feeding just a wee bit. On another note, I dumped some very smelly water out of the Prizm cup tonight. It may only be worth the price I paid for it (free), but at least it is doing something.

11-01-2007, 08:01 AM	#13 (permalink)
Craig Manoukian Regular Guy Moderator Join Date: Nov 2003 Location: Marina Del Ray, CA Posts: 17,915 View Gallery Karma Komment Add yours!	Re: An Alaskan Reef (38G) The bioballs in your sump may in time be a source of unwanted nitrates. You want to watch your trates. You could always replace the with sum LR rubble. __________________ Currently tankless. 20 Gallon mini reef with mated pair of Maroon Clowns given to Rougiem! 80 gallon reef given to Rougiem/Wooster HS.

11-01-2007, 08:17 AM	#14 (permalink)
lcstorc Sunshine Reefer Join Date: Mar 2006 Location: Cocoa Fl Posts: 18,528 View Gallery Karma Komment Add yours!	Re: An Alaskan Reef (38G) Sounds like you tank has gone into a mini cycle. Do water changes to bring the am and trites to 0 if you have fish in the tank. If not then let it cycle. I agree about removing the bio-balls but do it slowly. I wouldn't mess with them until the am and trites are gone. Then start removing them a bit at a time. If you go too fast you will end up with amonia and nitrites again. __________________ Peace LYNN You can't change the past but you can change how you view it. A reef tank is like a racecar. The faster you go the harder you crash. Lynn and Franks saltwater adventure Lynn's 20g clown tank Lynn's 90g of sunshine Every 60 seconds you spend upset is a minute of happiness you'll never get back.

11-01-2007, 02:26 PM	#15 (permalink)
koffee Midas Blenny Join Date: Oct 2007 Location: Alaska Posts: 119 View Gallery Karma Komment Add yours!	Re: An Alaskan Reef (38G) I'm sure it is cycling again. I probably should have taken out less bio-balls at one time. Oh well, too late for that now. I think I was as careful as can be when moving the rock and sand, but that process still stirs things up and causes some die-off. I don't plan on doing anything for the next two weeks other than buffering the pH, adding calcium, and water changes. In two weeks, I should have time to tear down the sump to install baffles and a fuge. At that point, I'll also remove the last of the bio-balls.

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