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Been working on this tank for the last couple months: Click here for the full 1920x1440 image. It's basically a babby's first sw/reef tank in terms of livestock, except it's a pico at 5.5g and has a custom-made LED fixture. I'm going to clean up the glass and get some macro shots of the livestock as they adjust and flourish under the new lighting. The 'scaping isn't final either, I've got to get some more dry rock from BRS or so and build up a little tower on the left and shift the center rock to the back right a bit. VAGENDA OF MANOCIDE fucked around with this message at 07:09 on Jan 13, 2010 |
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Jan 13, 2010 07:07
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fanaglethebagle posted:Wow, that tank looks packed. By BRS do you mean the Boston Reefers Society? Bulk Reef Supply, they sell these fossilized reef skeleton pieces in a plastic mason jar thing. The aquascaping in the middle of the tank right now is rubble of that stuff that a friend had left over that I epoxied together. VAGENDA OF MANOCIDE fucked around with this message at 17:52 on Jan 13, 2010 |
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Jan 13, 2010 17:50
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arioch posted:Bulk Reef Supply, they sell these fossilized reef skeleton pieces in a plastic mason jar thing. The aquascaping in the middle of the tank right now is rubble of that stuff that a friend had left over that I epoxied together. Oops, ordered 25 POUNDS of this stuff. With as light as this stuff is at least I'll have spare material. (I'm adding rockwork to the 5.5 tank as well as making rockwork for a BC14 I took in used)
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Jan 25, 2010 13:31
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Realizing that the original coral came off a reef somewhere, a lot of coral farmers can now do some REALLY crazy things in farming, propagating, and generally mixing up coral strains. Aquacultured can be worth the price, and you can feel good about it sticking to AC items. I generally stick to tank-bred or propagated livestock, myself. Except hitchhikers. I love my mantis shrimp. Currently I just put together a BC14 I bought used (with a DIY LED lighting setup) and added a RBTA that was a clone of a local reefer's "big momma" and a pair of bred and tank-raised juvenile onyx percula clowns. edit: in addition to feeling good about going AC, realize that wild-caught fish typically have problems like brooklynella, parasites, etc., whereas if you buy from a reputable local reefer or an established farming operation (through a reputable local LFS with clean facilities, not petco) you'll generally get a hardy, healthy specimen that is already raised on the kinds of foods you'll be feeding. edit 2: that being said, LiveAquaria's Diver's Den and Collector's Corner is great to trawl through every now and then for something just that Extra Special. VAGENDA OF MANOCIDE fucked around with this message at 04:42 on Feb 3, 2010 |
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Feb 3, 2010 04:32
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Trillian posted:That site looks pretty great, although I am tragically Canadian. It is good to know that it's possible, and I will see what I can find that doesn't involve putting fish through customs. It's definitely harder to keep water parameters stable in a nano, in terms of work, plus it becomes a lot harder to find equipment that will fit (and be decent at it). On the other hand, it really isn't that much harder to keep a decent sized nano, say of 20g size. Smaller than that (to the so-called "pico" category) and it can get really finicky. For a new reef system I'd just recommend the 40g "breeder" aquarium size and work from there.
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Feb 3, 2010 06:13
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Yeah, I dunno. I think I'm just coming from the angle of I'm really not that interested in keeping fish (esp. predatory) as in a fowlr tank or whatever. I'd rather keep a reef system with lots of corals, cool inverts, etc. In that respect, I have to really keep on top of the tank (the micromanaging) and I resign myself to not ever keeping the larger cool fish. But the upside is I don't really care about how big the tank has to be for a certain tang or trigger. I'll probably eventually do a medium-large fowlr tank for crazy stuff, but I figure then I'll do an even larger reef tank (and run it on the same system). http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ozwm2gKxsII ^ my new tank, just added that anemone and the onyx percs yesterday VAGENDA OF MANOCIDE fucked around with this message at 00:16 on Feb 4, 2010 |
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Feb 4, 2010 00:14
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Some things I'd check, not necessarily in order: 1) What's your water source? RO? RO/DI? What TDS reading? If you have your own RO/DI system, is it about time for a filter change? 2) What's your salt mix? Is it a relatively high quality mix like Reef Crystals, Tropic Marin, CoraLife? Or is it an inconsistent mix with varying resulting alk/salinity/calc and possibly detectable chemical nutrient levels? 3) Is it about time to change your light bulbs? 4) What's your phosphate export method? Chaeto in a 'fuge?
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Feb 15, 2010 18:03
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 Click here for the full 800x598 image. Bad photography hooray! But this is the goddamn coolest paly I have ever seen. Translucent surface all across, disc, mouth, skirt, you name it. Skirt and rim of the disc are translucent white, there's a splash of fluorescent green (under actinic) across the mouth area, mouth is bright fluorescent green. I got 9-10 polyps of it on a piece of tonga branch.
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Feb 24, 2010 20:26
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I just got a full, baseball-sized colony of a green/blue millepora for my tank today, and also snagged 4 acro crabs (the "Zorro" kind) to attach to various frags and mini-colonies in my tank.
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Mar 4, 2010 04:27
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They're hilarious and cute 
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Mar 4, 2010 04:40
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Trillian posted:I like Reef Central. It's more stodgy, but I find the ratio of newbie:knowledgeable better. The last time I looked at NanoReef's chemistry forum the most popular question appeared to be "do i need to use ro water????" whereas RC's is more like, "how do i vodka dose???" I noticed you really have to be on the watch for snake oil and groupthink on RC, like the stuff about vitamin C dosing. N-R has its uses, too ... the Lighting subforum is great because I'm running custom LED lighting on my tanks. Also Reef Central has like 6k users on at prime time and the hardware they're using is not anywhere clse to SA level so you really feel it around then. Most of my posting on RC tends to be in our local club subforum, then I venture out in the anemone and inverts subforums. VAGENDA OF MANOCIDE fucked around with this message at 04:55 on Mar 4, 2010 |
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Mar 4, 2010 04:44
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Availability can be scarce. You can usually get sea hares (not really what we usually mean by sea slug), Berghia (only eats aiptasia) are cultured by a few aquarists here and there, E. crispata (lettuce slug, eats bryopsis) are uncommonly available (out of stock on the online retailers I check). The problem with most sea slugs in general is that they're obligate SPECIFIC feeders. Like the two I listed, they will starve away without those specific foods. Some slugs are basically pests because all they will eat are zoanthids, or specific SPS coral polyps, etc. So, yes, you can keep sea slugs ... but you better make sure you can and are willing to supply its food. Zoanthids grow like a weed but still not fast enough for nudis chowing down, and SPS grows SLOW.
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Mar 4, 2010 14:08
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I would avoid large sea stars in general unless you aren't keeping a reef at all. Even if you keep no corals those stars will absolutely eat beneficial inverts in the substrate, like spaghetti worms and mini stars. Those mini stars are GREAT in any tank. (The ones that get to about 1.5" across, long thin arms included, not the asterinas which are hit or miss)
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Mar 4, 2010 23:09
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Psimitry posted:The brittle stars (other than green) are also great tank dwellers - though in truth, you often never get to see that they are starfish, but rather just a collection of spiky arms sticking out from under a rock. They freaked me the gently caress out when I first saw them, to be honest. I got them from some live rock rubble.
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Mar 5, 2010 00:20
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 Click here for the full 800x598 image.
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Mar 10, 2010 05:20
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Should we even be able to tell, this early?
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Mar 11, 2010 19:28
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I.W.W. ATTITUDE posted:I'm not interested in practical specifics right now, but there's something I've always wanted to do and I'm wondering if any of you guys could tell me if this is feasible or not: That's probably too many anemone, the hosting types will generally engage in chemical warfare and once one dies your entire tank will probably die off in a 10g. Most if not all anemone capable of hosting will also individually outgrow a 10g if healthy (and trust me that you want them to be healthy). Not to mention that you will want enough space clear of anemone to place a powerhead of some type to maintain good flow that anemone like. (All precautions with powerheads and anemone apply, use a foam guard on the intake no matter how small the holes look) 10g is generally enough for a pair of clowns, though. And maybe one hardy/easy anemone like E. quadricolor (commonly, bubble-tip anemone, keeping in mind that it still will outgrow a 10g eventually and can split to produce clones--which won't engage in chemical warfare with itself). Don't plan on keep anything else of value in the tank (I'm talking like, sps and lps corals), so that when the anemone takes a walk (and it certainly will at some point) it doesn't kill anything expensive on you. Stay away from leathers, toadstools, and most other softies in that tank as well. I'd go with corallimorphs (which are closer to anemones than corals) and zoanthids to fill out that tank, since the anemone probably won't be able to kill those. VAGENDA OF MANOCIDE fucked around with this message at 06:02 on Mar 13, 2010 |
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Mar 13, 2010 05:54
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Haddoni are generally harder to keep, are highly aggressive, and trying to get it to host anything is a crapshoot (it might decide to eat your clowns, even after they've started hosting in it and have been for a long time), and grow to enormous size. Sounds like you really want rbta (which is what those in that pic are). They're not as super aggressive, most clowns coexist with them extremely well, and since they reproduce half the time by division you can have a tank full of them without having them fight between themselves. Again, standard precautions on powerheads, overflows, filtration equipment, etc. VAGENDA OF MANOCIDE fucked around with this message at 08:34 on Mar 13, 2010 |
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Mar 13, 2010 07:24
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You could improve water usage by running the waste water back through your system or an additional cartridge (uses up your cartridges something fierce, though) before disposing of the rest (watering your plants, in this case)
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Mar 20, 2010 02:56
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 Click here for the full 800x598 image. Nearly fully colored up 
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Mar 23, 2010 17:24
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Other people quoted, like Borneman, are also some of the most respected names in the trade, so to speak. It's also an article that basically manages to say nothing.
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Mar 23, 2010 23:26
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Like, literally a HOB filter that you take the media out of and just run the thing as a 'fuge. You can probably do it for $20, mini light fixture included.
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Mar 26, 2010 01:20
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Since it's an estuary and not an NSW reef environment, how much do brackish salinity fluctuations factor into the life cycle of the fish you want to keep?
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Mar 28, 2010 01:52
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rrOjKpSZ8PI Figured you guys would get a kick out of this, if you haven't seen it already! Probably one of the funniest things I've ever seen in relation to this hobby. (Hitler ranting, AEFW subtitles substituted in)
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Mar 30, 2010 15:37
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The fact that your other zoo frags are also not opening up is worrying. Have you tried placing them higher for light? I find that zoanthids really LOVE light and that in my tanks even many of my deep water zoanthids thrive under high powered lighting. Some of my (more "regular") zoanthids are even under the same amount of light that I put my high-light-loving acros under (400-600 PAR at the surface). I use high powered LED lighting, one tank has a custom fixture and the other has a PAR38 unit from Nanocustoms. I don't have any experience with leathers, but I'm guessing flow as well. VAGENDA OF MANOCIDE fucked around with this message at 17:17 on Mar 31, 2010 |
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Mar 31, 2010 17:15
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It's amazing to watch my MP10W ES at work with the ES NTM mode. (It does a long period of standing wave generation, then switches to moving a HUGE volume of water, then back to the standing waves)
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Apr 1, 2010 02:40
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Welp, running a wavemaker in the biocube made the bottom spring a leak, so I guess I have to advance my plans for a new tank ASAP. Current plan: custom acrylic tank, 35-45gal range, shallow (11-12" high), wide, eurobraced.
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Apr 5, 2010 23:06
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I think I'd be alright with an eurobraced, welded, acrylic tank. I'm really addicted to wavemaking now, wouldn't really want to give that up. I'm aiming for a shallow 40B-style of tank currently. A friend's just grown out of his custom 45G-ish tank and stand (tank is 11" tall), so I might jump right on that and just add the eurobracing with like, 1/8" acrylic. Other stuff I'd have to get: sump skimmer lighting for tank (thinking about a cheap $100 MH setup, DIY as a pendant) lighting for sump (I might take down both the biocube and the 5.5g in which case I'd use the Nanocustoms PAR38 LED for the sump light, even though it's got 3 blue LEDs, the 2 whites should carry the chaeto growth perfectly) plumbing including pump (friend would help with this) Hmmmm, doesn't look too bad right now. To save on cash I could probably do without the skimmer for a few months and just run on carbon/GFO bags/water changes while everything settles down...
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Apr 6, 2010 01:08
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Hmm, it's actually a custom 35g-ish tank. 34"x22"x11" (the edges on the original acrylic cut were not suitable so he had it cut down by 1" on all sides except top). I'm going to have a guy roto out an euro-brace for it, drill a hole in the bottom for an overflow in the smack dab middle of the tank, then do my rockwork surrounding the overflow. Next, I just need to think about doing the sump. I've decided instead of MH pendants to go with a T5HO setup with 6x39W tubes. A 36" fixture over a 34" tank shouldn't be terrible. It'll save on the electricity bill and it's a shallow tank so I wouldn't have to worry about light intensity/penetration too much and I can worry less about heat transfer.
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Apr 7, 2010 01:06
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Welp, didn't really want to have to do this so quick, but have to jump right into the new tank by the seat of my pants. Sump construction done, pretty basic affair, 20 long 30x12x12 with 7" skimmer section (for ASM mini-G skimmer), 3 layer baffles 1" spaced, 9" fuge area, 2 layer baffles, 3" for heater/equipment, 1 layer, then about 5" for a return pump. Going to have a guy do the work on the eurobrace this week, probably have that back by Friday or next Monday. Going to work on the stand while the acrylic work is going on, it's a 40" stand to keep the shallow tank relatively high, what I need to do is make a thing to hang the lighting fixture from, and add shelf space below the tank. Then I'll waterproof the inside and paint the outside... Tomorrow I'm going to pick up some lumber pieces, some paint/sealant, and plumbing. Hopefully I can have everything together ready to water test in under 2 weeks, and after that I'd have to really jump the gun on a quick cycle (going to put in some dry rock, some live rock, some sand, some live sand, dump in a couple bottles of bio-spira, then piss in the tank for good measure ... and run a phosphate reactor). Can't delay moving out from the BC14 any more than that. On the plus side, I'm already thinking about stocking the new tank (on top of putting the clowns in there). Current plan is to try to order a couple of the new CB Mandarin dragonets from ORA (which are supposed to come already trained on frozen and pellets). VAGENDA OF MANOCIDE fucked around with this message at 03:15 on Apr 13, 2010 |
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Apr 13, 2010 00:52
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My LFS should be able to order by sex, if not I might just go for bluezooaquatics, (unfortunately WC, but at least I won't have to worry about ich/etc. with Mandarins) but DO sell by sex. Alternatively, order one from ORA through LFS, it'll be feeding off frozen and pellets, then have it train the opposite sex that I then get from BZA. That should be fairly foolproof. Not decided if I want to get a 5th fish yet. Probably not.
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Apr 13, 2010 13:38
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Halving the wattage, quartering the heat transfer, more customizable light color seems like a decent trade-off for losing the shimmer to me. Or you could go LED. DIYing a fixture together would save you money over MH in energy and bulb costs, result in no heat transfer, and still give you lots of that fancy shimmer.
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Apr 23, 2010 12:23
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I like the Sunlight Tek and Tek Elites myself. You could always buy a couple of metal tube things from a HD/Lowes/etc and have them bend them there for you, then you'd just attach them to your stand and voila, hang a pendant. Go open-top in that case.
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Apr 23, 2010 13:24
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It is entirely possible to be cycled in a week. Depends on what you started the tank off with. Did you use pre-cured live rock and decent quality live sand from another reef system? (LFS, or another hobbyist) Did you seed with live bacteria samples? Did you jump-start cycling with a source of ammonia?
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Apr 24, 2010 04:52
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Also keep in mind a slight, low level of nitrates is better than none, if you're keeping any corals. Fortunately, your chromis and such will keep that going. Too high and your inverts will die though your fish can stick it through, too low and your photosynthesizing corals will suffer. Keep phosphates as close to 0 as you can, that will: 1) reduce unsightly algae in your tank 2) not prevent calcium uptake and deposit by your corals To keep phosphates down, you can use: 1) skimming 2) phosban/rowaphos/etc (preferably in a decent "media reactor") 3) macroalgae in a refugium, such as chaetomorpha or ulva As far as the clean-up crew goes, the most common one that typically hitches around in LFS rock is the stomatella. Very good snail to have, will reproduce, but you will need to supplement. I do not recommend most crabs, except the scarlet leg reef hermit (bright red legs, yellow eyes, do not get the red leg hermit--check the eyes, it's easy to tell once you know the difference) and SMALL emerald crabs. Snails I can easily and categorically recommend: 1) the banded trochus snail (not regular astraeas) 2) the "strombus grazer" as sold by ipsf, but properly named probably Euplica or some such, will easily breed in tank, and also available from other sources (fragglereef is one) for cheaper and without the expensive package 3) fuzzy chitons (reefcleaners.org, among others) Cerith snails and nerites also readily reproduce, you can get them from pretty much anywhere as well. You need some detritivores. If you got good live sand from a reefer or your store it might already have little 1" across white sea stars with thin long legs already. Those are good, you should also add sphaghetti worms and nassarius snails (I recommend the "Tonga" variety because they're a LOT faster and funner to watch than Atlantic ones). Not sure what the PAR output on that light fixture is, but I don't expect that you will be able to keep anything that really wants intense light, so don't expect to keep most SPSes (except maybe some montipora) or clams. Most everything else should be fine, judging by that picture. Final advice, don't go around ordering these online until you exhaust local sources such as local reefkeeping clubs and high quality LFSes. You're going to waste a LOT of money on shipping. VAGENDA OF MANOCIDE fucked around with this message at 15:19 on Apr 24, 2010 |
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Apr 24, 2010 15:16
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"cleaner shrimps" don't clean your aquarium so much as prefer to eat parasites off of fish. They are fun and interactive otherwise, but I wouldn't get one unless you were set on it.
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Apr 24, 2010 21:14
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I received a pair of green mandarin dragonets today, along with a tomini tang. The dragonets are already at work picking pods off the viewing glass in the tank, and the tang went and hid under some rockwork. I'll have some pics of them later. The dragonets are really cool, I bought a regular male and a "red variety" female so they'd pair up.
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Apr 27, 2010 20:19
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I was similarly warned about Dwarf Flame Angels so I've stayed strictly clear. I've heard horror stories about them and clams as well, and I'm keeping a crocea and intend to also add an ORA maxima. As an aside, a peppermint shrimp decided to take a chunk out of the crocea, and took out the exhalent siphon, leaving a jagged hole, so I've had to move the crocea because gently caress hunting down the peppermint. Eventually when I move all the stuff (that I want to move, not everything) from the 14 and the 5.5 to the new 35, I will put a mantis shrimp back in the 5.5, sayonara peppermints! VAGENDA OF MANOCIDE fucked around with this message at 23:11 on Apr 27, 2010 |
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Apr 27, 2010 23:08
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^ that sucks. I actually went looking for a device that will turn OFF something for a set number of minutes at a push of a button, but couldn't find one through cursory searching. Anyone know of anything like that? I'd like to put that on my new return pump (along with the UPS) to avoid any similar mishaps. (Ideally I wouldn't have to spend as much as it would take to get like an AC Jr) VAGENDA OF MANOCIDE fucked around with this message at 00:22 on Apr 28, 2010 |
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Apr 28, 2010 00:19
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Psimitry posted:Red sea wavemaker has a fish feeding timer mode for that. It's like $100 but you get the wavemaker aspect of it too. I will be using a Vortech MP40W ES for water movement in the display, it has a feed mode. I'm basically looking for something to hook up between the UPS and the return pump.
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Apr 28, 2010 01:41
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