Reef nutrition

Ray's LPS Reboot

magnetar68

magnetar68

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Hi All. It's been a while since I have been active, but my soft coral tank is still going strong. The tank has housed sea horses for that last few years, but alas, the last two recently died. I am therefore thinking about a reboot of the tank. I am thinking about a minimalist rock approach with more fish than coral, but since there will be a fair amount of open sand, I am thinking about some long tentacle plate corals (Heliofungia actiniformis) and Folded Brain Coral (Trachyphyllia radiata) or other bottom corals that do well on the sand. I also will likely stick with LPS corals or easy stony corals. My tank has been invaded by Xenia and I don't want anything with weed-like qualities.

For example, I really like this tank by Andre Silvestre, but I will do less rock:

andre-silvestre.jpg

reefscaping01-642x336.jpg



Some initial questions:

1) The tank is acrylic (1" thick) and has some scratches. Anyone know someone who can come to the house and buff out scratches? If so, what is the going rate and about how much would this cost? the tank is 48"x24"x24" and some of the scratch are 30" long. I would say there are about 10 scratches in all ranging from 5" to 30".

2) With the minimalist approach and hence low rock, what are some ideas to ensure enough denitrification surface area? I am thinking about using biopellets. I have a reactor and was relatively successful with this approach in the past, but I did have a couple of cloud blooms. Someone else mentioned SeaChem Matrix in the sump or a canister. It seems like this could be a nitrate factory in the long run.

3) Fish Ideas: I am looking for easy colorful fish that are OK in an LPS tank. Flake or pellet food from an auto feeder. After cuttlefish and seahorses, I am looking for a break from needing to feed live or frozen meaty foods (I will supplement here and there, but I do not want to have to do this daily).

Any insight is appreciated.
 
For denitrification, couldn't you just do macro algae or algal turf scrubber? Those would remove more proportionally the nitrate-phosphate ratio.

From what I have read bio-pellets and carbon dosing rely on overgrowth of bacteria to be then skimmed off by your skimmer.

This means the bacteria nitrate-phosphate ratio dominates.

Most foods we feed (main source of nitrates and phosphates) has a different ratio of nitrate to phosphate.

Of course, you could always just compensate by running GFO to reduce phosphates, but that seems like a hassle to periodically refill GFO.

I am all for "easy maintenance".

Growing certain types of algae in a controlled manner (ATS or macro algae) are an indirect way to make sure nitrate-phosphate ratio are at a good ratio for coral growth.
 
1) There is a guy on Craigslist that advertises scratch removal from acrylic tanks.

http://sfbay.craigslist.org/sby/for/5377219118.html

2) take a look at Marinepure blocks.

http://www.cermedia.com/marinepure-products.php

3) Fairy wrasses are colorful and active. As are flasher wrasses.
1 Basslet or Dottyback.
Lamarck or Bellus or Lyretail Angel are reef safe.
Kole or Tomini or yellow tang.
If you are good with qt, chromis.
If you want to take a chance, damsels.


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Hey welcome back!
  • Removing minor scratches from a dry acrylic tank is relatively easy. Assuming they aren't deep. Run your nail along the scratch. Does your nail get stuck in the scratch?
    • My 40 gallon acrylic tank came with scratches. I used an ordinary drill, with a car buffing wheel from Autozone, and an acrylic polisher (Novus 3 and 2) from Tap Plastics. Scratches were gone! Took about 3 sessions lasting about 30 minutes long.
    • If you want someone to do it for you, you can contact people who do aquarium maintenance. The Bay Area local fish stores might do it for you depending on which ones know how. Or you can choose someone more specialized.
  • Less Rock Aquascape
    • I love the minimalist rock look.
    • When you say denitrification are you talking about Nitrate removal/conversion or are you talking about Ammonia conversion to nitrate?
    • It sounds like you don't have a sump to store extra live rock in.
    • I personally don't rely on my liverock to convert Nitrate into Nitrogen Gas. My water changes and skimmer help with nitrate removal.
    • The bio-pellet reactor would help but make sure you do your research on how to use it efficiently.
I googled it, your tank is about 120 gallons.

That's huge (compared to mine lol)! Your fish options are pretty wide. Just stay away from Predatory Fish, Coral Eating Fish, and you'll be fine. It's your personal preference.

  • Fish List
    • But if you want my opinion I'll give you my fish list for what I would stock that tank with. (I like having fish that occupy different parts of the tank, having a bunch of cruising fish is kinda boring in my opinion). I'm also a fan of nano fish diversity.
    • A yellow tang, a midas blenny, a beautiful mature male melanarus wrasse, a pair of designer clownfish (S&R Flurries, or a black morph), a yashia goby+shrimp combo, a pair of blue neon cleaner goby, a pair of green banded goby, a pair of clown goby, a pair of Springeri dottybacks.

Some of the fish I pointed out may not work with your minimalist rock structure depending on how much rock you actually put in. You can have islands of tall rock structures with open sandbed/bare ground between the islands to maintain the minimalist look.

If you want your aquascape to be amazing check out @jestersix He's been doing professional aquascaping for people throughout California for years now. He has a facebook page too.
 
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1) Don't know the going rates, I've done it myself, and yes even deep gouges I've removed fairly well.

2) Going to have sand in the tank? Probably more surface area in the sand than there is in the rock (up to a particular level), you could also just load your sump with rock too, the surface area does not need to be in the tank proper for all the bacteria to do it's wonders.

3) I'd probably go with a more semi-aggressive style of tank, things like damsels and chromis, they're relatively in expensive, and probably could hold their own against other aggression, and they typically are easier to keep fish. I personally would stay away from tangs, they tend to get large and that tank isn't terribly big as far as size, maybe one of the smaller ones (Tomini comes to mind) would be fine, but the picture above shows a Sailfin? yikes, no way that fish is going to get huge, and regardless of what people like to think there isn't a huge availability of places that will take a large fish because it outgrows the tank.
 
Vhuang168 said:
1) There is a guy on Craigslist that advertises scratch removal from acrylic tanks.

http://sfbay.craigslist.org/sby/for/5377219118.html

2) take a look at Marinepure blocks.

http://www.cermedia.com/marinepure-products.php

3) Fairy wrasses are colorful and active. As are flasher wrasses.
1 Basslet or Dottyback.
Lamarck or Bellus or Lyretail Angel are reef safe.
Kole or Tomini or yellow tang.
If you are good with qt, chromis.
If you want to take a chance, damsels.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Click to expand...

Thanks for the craiglist guy. I might try that.

What's "qt"?
 
sfsuphysics said:
1) Don't know the going rates, I've done it myself, and yes even deep gouges I've removed fairly well.

2) Going to have sand in the tank? Probably more surface area in the sand than there is in the rock (up to a particular level), you could also just load your sump with rock too, the surface area does not need to be in the tank proper for all the bacteria to do it's wonders.

3) I'd probably go with a more semi-aggressive style of tank, things like damsels and chromis, they're relatively in expensive, and probably could hold their own against other aggression, and they typically are easier to keep fish. I personally would stay away from tangs, they tend to get large and that tank isn't terribly big as far as size, maybe one of the smaller ones (Tomini comes to mind) would be fine, but the picture above shows a Sailfin? yikes, no way that fish is going to get huge, and regardless of what people like to think there isn't a huge availability of places that will take a large fish because it outgrows the tank.
Click to expand...

Yes, sand is in the plan. My sump is not huge. What's the difference between a bunch of rocks in the tank for a bunch of these Marienpure blocks or Seachem Matrix?
 
Enderturtle said:
Hey welcome back!
  • Removing minor scratches from a dry acrylic tank is relatively easy. Assuming they aren't deep. Run your nail along the scratch. Does your nail get stuck in the scratch?
    • My 40 gallon acrylic tank came with scratches. I used an ordinary drill, with a car buffing wheel from Autozone, and an acrylic polisher (Novus 3 and 2) from Tap Plastics. Scratches were gone! Took about 3 sessions lasting about 30 minutes long.
    • If you want someone to do it for you, you can contact people who do aquarium maintenance. The Bay Area local fish stores might do it for you depending on which ones know how. Or you can choose someone more specialized.
  • Less Rock Aquascape
    • I love the minimalist rock look.
    • When you say denitrification are you talking about Nitrate removal/conversion or are you talking about Ammonia conversion to nitrate?
    • It sounds like you don't have a sump to store extra live rock in.
    • I personally don't rely on my liverock to convert Nitrate into Nitrogen Gas. My water changes and skimmer help with nitrate removal.
    • The bio-pellet reactor would help but make sure you do your research on how to use it efficiently.
I googled it, your tank is about 120 gallons.

That's huge (compared to mine lol)! Your fish options are pretty wide. Just stay away from Predatory Fish, Coral Eating Fish, and you'll be fine. It's your personal preference.

  • Fish List
    • But if you want my opinion I'll give you my fish list for what I would stock that tank with. (I like having fish that occupy different parts of the tank, having a bunch of cruising fish is kinda boring in my opinion). I'm also a fan of nano fish diversity.
    • A yellow tang, a midas blenny, a beautiful mature male melanarus wrasse, a pair of designer clownfish (S&R Flurries, or a black morph), a yashia goby+shrimp combo, a pair of blue neon cleaner goby, a pair of green banded goby, a pair of clown goby, a pair of Springeri dottybacks.

Some of the fish I pointed out may not work with your minimalist rock structure depending on how much rock you actually put in. You can have islands of tall rock structures with open sandbed/bare ground between the islands to maintain the minimalist look.

If you want your aquascape to be amazing check out @jestersix He's been doing professional aquascaping for people throughout California for years now. He has a facebook page too.
Click to expand...

Thanks for welcome back! I will have a sump. Thanks for the fish suggestions and I will ping jestersix.
 
Vhuang168 said:
QT = quarantine. Chromis are very vulnerable to uronema


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Click to expand...

Got it, thanks (I figured that's what you meant, but wanted to be sure). What is a good treatmeant for Uronema? Should medicine be give even if no signs exists? I looked on several websites and see several different answers. Looks like an initial freshwater dip is very usefule and then Acriflavine and Chloroquine phosphate look like newer drugs that are easy to use and effective. Metronidazole also looks effective for internal infections.
 
magnetar68 said:
Yes, sand is in the plan. My sump is not huge. What's the difference between a bunch of rocks in the tank for a bunch of these Marienpure blocks or Seachem Matrix?
Click to expand...
Well sand will definitely add quite a bit of surface area, more so there;s denitrification bacteria rental property. Unfortunately I don't know what the qualities of either of those other products are, only thing I can say is that you have to be careful about stuff getting stuck up in the area, just like carbon if you have too much crap (literally and figuratively) get stuck between the pieces, then you start making an area where stuff takes a while to break down, the infamous "nitrate factory", so while those other products might have more surface area than the same amount of rock, rock won't catch as much macroscopic waste particles. That said, much like a filter sock or sponge, as long as you keep it clean you should be fine, maybe use an old school gravel suction hose and and just make sure it stays clean :)
 
In my experience (yeah, anecdotal stuff follows) - it doesn't take much rock to make a system work. I ran a 100 gallon stock tank with a ton of frags using only about 25 pounds of rock. Had a few fish in the system, a small sump and a protein skimmer rated for 50 gallons. Nitrates were never an issue.

I've done a bunch of minimalist 'scapes and never had an issue where extra rock in the sump was needed. My average build is around .75 pounds per gallon and with minimalist 'scapes I regularly go with .25 to .50 pounds per gallon (again, no issues and no extra rock in the sump needed). Always happy to have a discussion on your specifics if you have questions - feel free to PM me or drop an email to jestersix@gmail.com... Good luck on the reboot!
 
Good to see back in the game Ray. You might want to see if Denzil is available to buff out your 120. He did a great job on a heavily scratched 250 I service.
Also, with a 1" think acrylic why not consider a cold water set up?
 
gimmito said:
Good to see back in the game Ray. You might want to see if Denzil is available to buff out your 120. He did a great job on a heavily scratched 250 I service.
Also, with a 1" think acrylic why not consider a cold water set up?
Click to expand...
I though about cold water, but I like the colors of a tropical reef setup. BTW, I have not been out of the game. I have had my clowns since early 2010. I will ping Denzil.
 
jestersix said:
In my experience (yeah, anecdotal stuff follows) - it doesn't take much rock to make a system work. I ran a 100 gallon stock tank with a ton of frags using only about 25 pounds of rock. Had a few fish in the system, a small sump and a protein skimmer rated for 50 gallons. Nitrates were never an issue.

I've done a bunch of minimalist 'scapes and never had an issue where extra rock in the sump was needed. My average build is around .75 pounds per gallon and with minimalist 'scapes I regularly go with .25 to .50 pounds per gallon (again, no issues and no extra rock in the sump needed). Always happy to have a discussion on your specifics if you have questions - feel free to PM me or drop an email to jestersix@gmail.com... Good luck on the reboot!
Click to expand...

Great input. It's going to be a couple of months before I take down the tank. I need to setup the clowns in my other setup.
 
Here is what I plan to do differently from my first couple of tanks:
1) No weeds: Xenia keeps outgrowing everything in the tank and I do not like the constant gardening. I have always regretted polyps.
2) I followed the advice at Indo-Pacific Sea Farms and got these small mini-stars and mini-snails and had a pest problem and, more disastrously, things on the glass that caused scratches when I was not careful. I still stick to snails and pods.
3) I did not fully cure my eco-friendly dry rock and fought phosphates for 8 months.
4) No closed loop for flow. Power heads limit what you can put into the tank, so I plan to add a closed loop (maybe with a variable DC pump).
5) Buying animals that are too hard to keep. I want simple foods for daily feedings. I don't mind supplementing with frozen meaty foods but it's nice to be able to go away for a few days and use a fish feeder with some flake food in it. The Cuttlefish were super cool but required constant trips to the bait store for shrimp. The Seahorses needed frozen mysids two to three times per day. and the ORA mandarin pair needed frozen as well.

My current plan is to sell off the current soft corals, put the three fish in a spare 29G, and then break down the tank and sump and start from scratch with cured eco-friendly rock and sand.
 
I like all ideas @magnetar68 except Im worried about one of them, the closed loop.

Im not familiar with closed loop systems, but I read something about closed loop tanks being an outdated technique that people are moving away from?

What does everyone think? Can someone tell me about closed loop systems?
 
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I am sure Vortech wants everyone to believe that ☺ If you have a glass tank, it sure is a lot easier to use a vortech. So, yes, in general there has been a trend away from closed loop systems. But closed loops have advantages and now with DC controlled pumps they have less disadvantages. It is quite easy for acrylic tanks too. The main thing for me is to provide an additional source of flow without a blade to chop up animals. You can put foam around a powerhead but that limits its output. Also, for my 1" thick acrylic, the Vortechs dont work (at least the affordable ones had 3/4" max separations the last time I checked).
 
Btw, the basics of a closed loop are simple. There is one or more intakes and one or more outflows connected by a pipes with a pump in the middle. These are below the water line and do not affect the water level when the power goes out. You can Google closed loop to get more detail.

One thing I forgot to mention is that I think i can plump a closed loop from my overflow back to the tank. The means the intakes are not in with the animals.
 
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