Reef nutrition

Peter's Garage Tank

daddio

daddio

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Figured I would start a journal of my son Peter's garage tank. It will be fun to look at down the road. After setting up his 25 gallon reef tank in his room, I knew we would need another tank for overflow of corals and room for him to grow into the hobby. We are trying to do all of this on a "shoestring" budget. We picked up the glass 60 gallon Lifetech tank and stand for free on Craigslist. The tank used to house a turtle and the center support was melted away and needed a repair. We repaired the center support with a couple of plastic rods,aquarium adhesive and nylon bolts (not pretty but this tank is only temporary).
For the rest of the equipment, we scoured Craigslist and went though all of the old freshwater stuff that we had. We did need lighting so we purchased a t5 high output fixture that holds 4 bulbs and we have a Marineland LED fixture. For the t5s we are running:
1- PowerChrome aquablue+ 15,000k
2- PowerChrome aquablue coral ultralife
3- Actinic
4- ATI Blue Plus
and we are currently running the t5s 8 inches above the water
As for light timing,
the blue LEDS come on at 9am
all lights come on at 10 am
only blue LEDs at 8pm
all off at 10 pm
 
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Coral reefer said:
Way to start the journal! Is this going to turn into a 100 gal soon?
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Yes. We are going to put everything in there into a 100 gallon tank, then take a smaller (20-30 gallon) tank, cut it and plumb it into the hundred as a frag tank. But we probably won't start the project for a few months. Until then, we are searching for rocks and other materials so that we will be able to house enough bacteria to handle that much of a bio-load.


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This is such a great hobby for a teenager. I've learned so much practical stuff since starting this hobby. Electrical, woodworking, lighting, fluid dynamics, chemistry, biology, networking...some more practical than others.

I hope the nem does well in your tank!

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Yup, Peter is right. Towards the end of June, I should have cleared enough crap out of the garage to set up his 100 gallon tank with a sump and a smaller frag tank mounted above the main tank that will have sump water pumped in and overflow into the 100. Then our plan is to begin prepping our 2nd 100 gallon tank with sump and refugium to go into his new bigger bedroom next year when his sister leaves for college.
tank.png

100 gallon tank for garage. It has overflows on both ends. We will re-purpose the canopy to our 100 gallon freshwater tank that has a turtle, south American cichlids and a handful of very large plecos.

frag tank.png

This 30 gallon will have the top half cut off to become the frag tank.

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The 100 gallon for Peter's room next year

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A completely empty 30 gallon bow front tank ready to set up for keeping live rock alive til the 100 is set up.
 
Gablami said:
This is such a great hobby for a teenager. I've learned so much practical stuff since starting this hobby. Electrical, woodworking, lighting, fluid dynamics, chemistry, biology, networking...some more practical than others.

I hope the nem does well in your tank!

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Click to expand...
I agree! His nem is looking good - Thank You!
 
ashburn2k said:
Dang... my wife will throw all those tanks out if those where mine :/


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Well, no new tanks in the main house is my wife's "line in the sand" On top of Peter's 60g garage tank, he has a 25g reef and 55g freshwater in his room, and we have a 100 gallon and a 45g corner tank in the living room. We have to resort to keeping the new ones in the garage (for now)
 
Mark B said:
Well, no new tanks in the main house is my wife's "line in the sand" On top of Peter's 60g garage tank, he has a 25g reef and 55g freshwater in his room, and we have a 100 gallon and a 45g corner tank in the living room. We have to resort to keeping the new ones in the garage (for now)
Click to expand...

[emoji44]


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One idea that I am having trouble grasping as we move into reef tanks is that foam filter media is frowned upon. The current garage set up moves approx. 885 gph or 14.75 times tank volume. Being that it was/is a low budget setup, we adapted a lot of freshwater equipment (including a Fluval 204 canister that we run foam, ceramic media, and carbon) and left the foam filters in place. We are really good about maint. and we clean the filters once a week when we do a water change, and there is a lot of crap that comes out of the foam. Today's nitrate test was 5ppm (not too bad?) I guess I am wondering if we are good with maint. do we really have to worry about the foam becoming "nitrate factories"? Isn't it better to get the crap out of the tank?
 
I think if you clean/replace things regularly they won't become nitrate factories. 5ppm for nitrate is not bad, and for some it is their target. Do you test for phosphate?


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Yes, Peter ran tests on Wed. before we added 20# more live rock. His results were:
Phosphate - .25
PH - 8.4
Calcium - 530
KH - 8
Nitrates - 10
Salinity - .026
 
I think it is mostly about removing the nutrients out of the tank regularly. BRS just did a test on filter socks which have also received the same bad rap. They showed that if you change out the sock 1-2 x pre week, then it does help. So, may be the same is true for foam filters.
 
Mark B said:
Yes, Peter ran tests on Wed. before we added 20# more live rock. His results were:
Phosphate - .25
PH - 8.4
Calcium - 530
KH - 8
Nitrates - 10
Salinity - .026
Click to expand...
Everything seems acceptable except that calcium. Did you mean 430? Also that phosphate is on the high side, which may be fine on its own if you're not have algae issues. But as you add more livestock (like LTA and fish) warrants keeping an eye on.


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Hmm, how did it get that way? Are you dosing calcium? Maybe next time you buy your water, test the calcium level.


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