Cali Kid Corals

Pork's tank #1

porksmash

porksmash

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I think it is about time I started a thread. I'm still in the construction phase so hopefully I can get some tips and opinions to avoid any future issues. Right now I am thinking through the plumbing, which I would like to hear some thoughts on. Details will come later once I get some pictures of it. For now I have a few pics of general construction.

First hole drilled! You can see my test hole on the $10 walmart tank in the back there (it cracked).


Painting! I used a spray-on appliance enamel but forget the brand. So far so good, but we will see how well it lasts after a few years.


Just last weekend my stand was completed. It was built by fellow BAR member Orion (aka Gus).


Somehow this pile of plastic will turn into an efficient plumbing system. The 55gal there will be my sump.
 
Yeah I really like the stand. LOTS of space on the inside.

I had some glass cut for sump baffles, but they ended up being about 1mm wider than I would prefer. Any suggestions on a good way to thin them out a little? Sandpaper?
 
Well it's been more than a year since my last post. I put the tank on hold once I decided I was moving. The problem was my lease wasn't up for another 6 months from when I made the decision, but I wasn't too keen on moving a 100gal tank. A true exercise in patience, staring at a beautiful empty tank. Anyway, I've moved and settled, and the tank is now up and running. I just got live rock last Saturday and with it my first two inhabitants: a hermit and an elephant snail. The elephant snail is interesting.

The live rock I bought is cured, and was back underwater within 20 minutes of purchase. I expected at least a little bit of die-off and therefore a mini-cycle, but in the last few days my ammonia and nitrite have both been 0, while nitrate may or may not be moving upwards depending on which eye you look at the color chart with - really hard to tell. Any idea what I might see? Crab and slug have been fine so far, if lonely while under the stand in the refugium.

Tank shot - click to enlarge:
 
Well in the last two weeks I didn't see any sort of cycle. My previously dry rocks did turn a little brown but not much. I discovered a couple neat hitchhikers on the live rock. My favorite is an elephant slug, along with several tiny unknown starfish.




I did have a TON of hair algae growing all over, which some new turbo snails are solving very quickly. They remind me of cows. Endlessly grazing. I also got a couple blue chromis as my first fish, and a member was kind enough to donate a couple clove polyps with some live sand. Apparently they grow like weeds. We'll see if these weeds stay alive. They seem very happy, though. Opened right up while I was acclimating and have been every day since. I also have noticed purple spots appearing everywhere on my rocks, which I assume is coralline. I am having a bit of a problem with micro-bubbles in my sump which make it out to the display, but I think I have a solution for that.





 
Cool, as long as they aren't pests. I saw a couple more extremely tiny ones here and there, less than 1/4" across. This morning I saw one of the hermits inspecting a new shell, so I sat down to watch. He picked at it, flipped it a few times, then ZIP moved his butt right on over before I could blink. Then he tried to move and found out the shell was too big for his britches and had to move back. I suppose that's a sign I need to get a few more various sized shells to scatter around.

I'm currently setting up a QT tank. I have a 20 long laying around that was going to be a sump before I decided to use a 55. I think it should be plenty big as the largest fish I plan on having is a young yellow tang. All I should need is a small powerhead and heater, plus a couple pieces of live rock, right?
 
porksmash said:
I'm currently setting up a QT tank. I have a 20 long laying around that was going to be a sump before I decided to use a 55. I think it should be plenty big as the largest fish I plan on having is a young yellow tang. All I should need is a small powerhead and heater, plus a couple pieces of live rock, right?
Click to expand...

No, you do not want live rock in your QT. (Or reef sand either)
The key issue is if you end up having to treat with copper. It reacts very quickly with any calcium carbonate.
Suggest using cut up PVC pipe to make fish feel comfortable.
 
I noticed this guy when I turned on the lights this morning. He disappeared in a minute and stays hidden the whole day. I couldn't get a great angle, but it's about 3/4" of an inch across. Anyone know what it could be?
 
You were right. What I read about them describes its behavior perfectly. Mine was still pretty tiny but apparently they can become fish eaters when they reach a large enough size.

I now have a couple baby clowns, and when I was picking up a wad of chaeto from a generous member he also gave me a birds nest frag and a couple candy cane polyps. I wasn't thinking to jump into SPS or LPS corals just yet but the birds nest was being stung by a neighbor so it may do better here. So far so good! It's been about a week and both are happy, and the smaller candy cane polyp seems to be getting larger. The birds nest did have some hair algae growing on the dead sections, but I removed as much as I could. This picture is from before the removal. Looks better now.



I also have a new round of unknown organisms. These are about 1mm across, spiral design on the bottom visible through the glass and some sort of feathery appendages on the top. Bonus points: what is that even smaller brown creeper. There are other different, smaller animals I saw on the glass that were most definitely copepods but they had a different shape, so I'm not 100% on the one in the picture.

Mega macro zoom go!
 
Peter, I have ball anemone and they can detatch and move around to other places. They also multiply, but never did to a bad point for coral. Mine had an orange base with clear arms and white tips. About an inch across at the most open. They seemed to thrive under the rock out of sight for the most part.

The last photo in post 5 shows what looks like bryopsis algae to me. If it were my tank, as in a do over, I would remove the rock and cut out rock where it is connected and dospose. It will spread to new spots in the tank and was not grazed by much in my 36g.
 
Unfortunately it was pretty much everywhere from the day I bought my live rock. My crabs and/or turbo snails seem to eat it, though. I've seen many spots where the algae was growing then disappeared the next day. I'll look into some methods to reduce it. Thanks for the tip.
 
Just playing around with the camera. This guy among countless others most likely came with the chaeto I got from a fellow BAR member. Someone on ReefCentral identified the spiral thing I posted earlier as a spirobid worm.

 
Another picture. My 2 clove polyps just turned into 3. I didn't notice the little guy yesterday. They also look a lot healthier in general than when I first put them in. I'll take this as a sign I'm doing things right! Sorry if most of this stuff is old hat to some; seeing things grow like this is exciting especially since I have a secret fear of killing everything through ignorance.
 
Undertow Aquatics:

Porksmash:
57 gallon tank stand: DIM: 36 1/2" X 18 1/2" X 30"

This is our first project, finished framing and initial sanding. Next we will bondo the screw pilot holes and finish the cabinet doors. In the end we are going to use a fiberglass mixture and add it to the corners and floor of the stand to add more water protection. The final project will be finished with a black gloss paint. As you can see in the pictures (link below) the entire stand is square with a perfect bubble level!


http://www.flickr.com/photos/75990733@N02/
 
My, my, that was all a long time ago. It's been 7 months since my last update here. I've been posting on my own website every once in a while so friends and family can follow along.

I've learned quite a few things from my first tank and it's time for tank #2. I have a much better idea of how I want things done, and with all that in mind I decided on an 57gal rimless Oceanic Illuminata as my next tank. Lateralus/Undertow Aquatics is building my stand for me, as he posted above :)

I plan to use the two pre-drilled overflow holes for a herbie style. I want to drill another hole in the back for the return. I wanted to avoid running it over the edge because I think it will spoil the rimless look. While I wait for the stand I'm building a controller based on an Arduino Mega. I have a controller on my current tank that was also DIY, but I did it with industrial hardware as befits my profession. I'm happy with it's performance but it is HUGE. The enclosure is 30"x16"x 8". You can see a bit about it here. Hard to hide. By using the arduino I can package that down to a fraction of the size that will easily fit inside the stand. I can also add many more features since I have more I/O available. As things develop I'll post some more details.
 
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