Cali Kid Corals

Spoon v2.0 - IM Nuvo 16 + Kessil + Apex

aquatic mouse said:
I only follow hockey, so I'm done watching sports for awhile. :(

Very nice tank! The Apex in a drawer is clever and it's a very organized setup. I love the Iwagumi style, but have yet to try it with a reef set up. I look forward to watching your progress.
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Thank you so much for the kind comments!! That Sharks collapse about broke my heart. Ugh. :(


On the bright side, here's a couple pics from this evening!

Qq, my water just isn't as polished as I'd like it. I'm new to the AIO style of filtration. I'm running bags of carbon and filter floss folded over twice over that in each overflow chamber. I ditched the stock useless trays. Any tips?


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Just time. It took my tank almost a month to become crystal clear. Sounds like you are on the right track with the carbon and filter floss.

I can see your nozzles are pointed down, are they blowing anything around?
 
Cool thanks. That's what I'm hoping. I had a sump with filter socks on my last setup so obviously my water was like Waterford Crystal no matter what lol.

Nothing is blowing around, even with the upgraded pump. I used Fiji Pink. I was super tempted to use Oolite. I've never seen it before until I was at ReefRaft and they use it in their tanks. I allllllllllllmost did it but I chickened out.

;)
 
Kensington Reefer said:
Did you consider going with 2 of the kessil 150's?
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I actually didn't think about the 150, a little bit because I wanted a light that had the dials up top to adjust spectrum. Not only that, but what I really wanted to incorporate was one single light fixture, I guess I wanted the least amount of clutter on this tiny tank.

I almost went Radion if you can believe it, but then I read about Kessil, and how Kessil controls all of it's manufacturing processes, and how they're based right here in the Bay Area, and how Kessil is still run today by it's original founders, three UC Berkeley grads. That's where my lady went for undergrad, and admittedly I have an inner hippie living deep down inside of me so as soon as I saw "Berkeley" I knew I had to have them.

Kessil has an attractive form factor in both the 150 and 350/360 light fixtures. My goal also is to always view my tank from the top, in which case both of these Kessil's fit my needs much better than any other fixture on the market. In hindsight, I probably could have went with the 150 Sky Blue because I've seen it in person now and I think that color is perfect for me. I really don't like blue in my tanks. But again, I think it was something about the good ol' fashioned knobs that did it for me in the end. I'm weird like that lol. ;)

It's Friday! :beer:
 
Testing the Big Three

I have been looking up my favorite corals, and what my water params need to look like if I want to keep them successfully. I went to Reef Raft and purchased a Red Sea Reef Foundation Pro test kit.

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Although my tank is still cycling, is it worth it to keep tabs on my alkalinity, Ca, and Mg parameters? I'd like to make sure all params are completely on point when I add my first coral.

@Devon and @Bluprntguy are very kind to offer, and are holding a frag each for me of my favorite coral in the world of all time ever. So of course since I have something like this to immediately look forward to, you can understand my eagerness to get all my levels right. I was never this precise 10 years ago. My oh my have I changed.

Does it even make sense to do this now? The OCD part of me wants to track everything, all the time. Thoughts?


Current Parameters:

No current supplements, no water changes, no livestock (besides diatoms lol)

Salt - D-D H2Ocean Pro+

Specific Gravity - 1.026 (35ppt)
pH - 7.93 (7.89 low)
Ammonia - 0.50
Nitrites - 0
Nitrates - 0
dKh - 8.4
Ca - 340
Mg - 1280


Here's the viewable area from above. I heart Kessil. ;)

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I would definitely get levels in correct positions before adding the corals. It will be easy with no live stock in there to get them stable. Once they go in, they will start to use up trace elements. In a small tank this is always going to be a battle. Between evaporation and dosing, your OCD may just be tested ;)

I used to keep a log when I started my pico for about the first 3 months. Once I understood water chemistry I then only really began to keep track of my Alk daily and others weekly.

Once you gain that intimate relationship with your corals and your tank, you will begin to learn what it needs. I started with just a calender style dry erase board. Works really well.

Its really hard to keep those perfect numbers. Try to just be in the habbit of acceptable levels. Its better to keep your Alk to 10.0 and let it drop to 9 .0 than from 9.0 to 8.0. Does that make sense?

All your levels at this point look low except your salinity and pH. Time of day you test also changes readings so try and do them at the same time(ish) to help with accuracy.

Here is a reef calculator that I use and I think some other members use as well - http://reef.diesyst.com/chemcalc/chemcalc.html

Look forward to your livestock!
 
Thank you so much for the tips! I thought as much.

My levels do appear low. This is the first I tested them. It's intriguing because D-D advertises slightly higher levels. I will test again just to make sure I have a correct baseline.

I have that same calculator bookmarked! Glad to see a fellow using it. I'll keep you updated.

:beer:
 
Started dosing B-Ionic using the popular reef calculator linked above. Thanks so much for the support! I'm trying to get my Ca and dKh just a tad bumped up. Cycle looks to be almost done, but I plan on continuing ghost feeding as I have no clue what I'm going to do as far as fish go and don't know when I'm going to finally get a fish. No idea. Lol.

Here's RS view w/stand as of tonight, everyone likes new pictures. I still have my ATO project to start too now that I think of it. Never ending lol.

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And I made a little pipe doohickey to help with my water changes. 1/2" hose barb at the bottom. The hose will route to the bathroom (about 15ft away) for the old water. The only bucket I will have to lift is the one with brand new tank water..which will only be about 2 gallons usually. :)

Unless...I get a pump that has the power to get a couple gallons from the garage (30ft away) up the stairs and into my tank? Then I won't have to lift any buckets. Anyone else do it like this?



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Well looking at that pipe in there, you could potentially accidentally do a 50% + water change if you forget and leave it, which shouldn't be an issue on a small tank like that. I know plenty though that have "a system" to get the exact desired amount of water removed, personally I don't do it since I tend to run bare bottom setups, and doing a water change is a way for me to get out excess detritus out of the tank.
 
Yeah the days of sloshing buckets around the house are gone! :)

sfsuphysics said:
Well looking at that pipe in there, you could potentially accidentally do a 50% + water change if you forget and leave it, which shouldn't be an issue on a small tank like that.
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I saw a video on YouTube where a guy had little tick marks on his tank so he knew exactly how much to drain. I'll figure something out after the first couple changes.

Yeah, it won't take long to drain two gallons so I don't have to worry about forgetting it . ;)

If I can find a pump to get water 30ft around the corner and up about 7 steps, I'll do that instead of lugging the one 2 gallon bucket. Actually I won't lug a bucket now that I think of it. I will set the new water bucket right next to the tank, fill it with RODI (which I have to lug around anyway), mix it for a day and pump it in.

Worst case, I will have to deal with a little Rubbermaid tub sitting next to my fish tank for one day. I've seen much worse things sitting next to other people fish tanks permanently. ;)
 
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Yeah, I envy people with tiny tanks... hell when I started I had a 10g tank, I did a 20% chance every week on that guy happily. (also put salt water in to deal with evaporation... but I don't like to dwell on the mistakes I've made back in the past :D).

As to tick marks, you could always just find out how deep 2 gallons is, and cut your siphon pipe in the tank so it only drains that amount. And really complaining about lugging around 2 gallons of water? That's less than 20 pounds!
 
Devon said:
Your lucky! I change 20 gallons every other week. Brut trash cans with wheels are my container of choice.
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Must have the dolly for those Brute cans! Changing a couple gallons every other week ain't so bad. I'll post a 30 second vid when I do my first one. ;)


sfsuphysics said:
Yeah, I envy people with tiny tanks... hell when I started I had a 10g tank, I did a 20% chance every week on that guy happily. (also put salt water in to deal with evaporation... but I don't like to dwell on the mistakes I've made back in the past :D).
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I was thiiiiiiis close to buying Bob's 110 (I think?). I don't know if he's on here but he was letting his tank and stand and plumbing go for super cheap. It was simply too big..the sheer size of it all. It overwhelmed me..just the logistics of having to move it from his place to mine almost made my head explode.

And I almost killed a Lionfish when I first started out. Imagine that! I was pretty bad myself. And since then I've read a lot of books.


sfsuphysics said:
As to tick marks, you could always just find out how deep 2 gallons is, and cut your siphon pipe in the tank so it only drains that amount. And really complaining about lugging around 2 gallons of water? That's less than 20 pounds!
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Hey! I was being sarcastic about the 2 whole gallons! You'll get to know me at one of the next meetings. ;)

But good idea about adjusting the siphon pipe. That way even if I DO manage to lose focus while the 2 gallons is draining, I can't possibly mess it up.

One thing I actually thought about just now was using my MagFloat..top of the float is water level, bottom of the float is drain amount. No tick marks on the tank.
 
With my old pico I used 2 - 1 gallon jugs and filled them with water and poured them into an empty salt bucket and marked the bucket is several spots. I did that for 2 buckets, 1 for mixing water and one for pulling old water out. This gave me the exact water change I needed.

Granted, I was doing water changes every 2-3 days just to keep things spot on in such a small environment but this method may help you out ;) No matter the case, its still an easy water change :)
 
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