Dan's 450l Marine Tank...

[_daniel]

Nice lookin tank Daniel. What are you planning on doing with that mantis shrimp? If you're planning on getting rid of it, and you live in the States, I'd be more than happy to take it off your hands

Thanks Ski. I was planning on keeping it, but unfortunately it died. I had it in a large jar with gravel in the bottom and a tiny bit of LR rubble. It was fine for a day, then the next it was dead, along with a few random worms that were in the rock also. I was really depressed about that, I was planning to buy a small tank, filter and light for it the next day. I guess there was still some die-off happening on the tiny bit of rock I put in and it caused an ammonia spike.

I'm in Brisbane, Australia too btw.

On a lighter note, I spotted hundreds and hundreds of pods all over my glass last night. Should be a good little colony of them growing by the time I put some fish in.

I spotted some tiny amounts of hair algae growing that I don't think was there to start with. I bought a phosphate test kit today. I'll post the results a little bit later.

Anyone have any comments on the sump set-up? Just to explain the pic a bit further, on the right hand side, the drain pipes from the display tank feed into two rotating arms that sprinkle water over the filter floss. The bio-ball bit is pretty obvious. In the final chamber on the left hand side there are my 2 300W heaters, the skimmer (see how the outlet from the skimmer is pointed directly at the glass - this removes all of the microbubbles), and the 2 return pumps which are on the back wall of the sump.

I'm planning to run a bag of phosphate remover in the gap between the two sections of the sump.

I would also like to encorporate a refugium at some stage later on down the track. Would anyone recommend splitting the bio-ball section into two parts and having one section filled with LR rubble and cheato? I could easily achieve this by adding a partition such as this:

Before:

After:

The red is the filter floss, blue is bio-balls, brown is LR rubble, green is chaeto, and the dark blue line is the water level.

Would sacrificing half the bio-balls be worth it? Obviously, half the water from the display tank would bypass the refugium each pass, but I don't see this as a huge issue.

 

[_daniel]

Alternatively, I could get a custom tank about 400mm(H)x400mm(W)x150mm(L) skinny tank made up to sit next to my sump tank. Water from the LH compartment in the main sump could be pumped into the buttom of the refugium, flow up through an eggcrate rack, through some LR rubble, through some chaeto then overflow back into the main sump tank via a drilled fitting.

 

[_daniel]

Tested phosphate at about 0.1-0.25ppm. Is this a problem? Should I add some remover now?

Ammonia measured at about 0.75ppm on one test kit, and at about 2.4ppm on the other. Meh, I have to wait until it is zero anyway...
Nitrite 1-2ppm.
Nitrate 15ppm.

Still cycling...

 

[SkiFletch]

0.03ppm or less of phosphate should be the goal. Above that stimulates algae growth and inhibits calcification.

As for the sump, what are the dimensions in that tank you posted earlier?

 

[_daniel]

0.03ppm or less of phosphate should be the goal. Above that stimulates algae growth and inhibits calcification.

As for the sump, what are the dimensions in that tank you posted earlier?

It's 36x18x18.

0.03ppm? Is there a test kit available with that resolution? Or do you mean 0.3ppm?

 

[Matthew5664]

Second that Ski, the phosphate levels should be kept below 0.05ppm. With the Ammonia test kit readings you might find one of the test kits is for FW only or that one measures total ammonia and the other one measures ammonia in the NH4 form.

The sump is a good idea splitting it because the Bio balls will be good for the breakdown of ammonia to nitrite and then nitrite to nitrate but that’s as far as it goes. Because of this you’ll have high NO3 levels. I would get shot of the lot and have the whole sump as a Fuge. In the diagram you have the water level below the Cheto. This will need to be submerged in water or it will fowl.

 

[_daniel]

How do you guys measure phosphates so low? The lowest increment on my tesk kit is 0.1ppm, and it is very very nearly clear (just a tint of blue).

What do I need to be worried about, total ammonia, or just NH4? Sorry, I'm sounding a bit ignorant here.

I thought I did draw the water level about the chaeto, sorry if the diagram was unclear. I think I will simply place a second skinny tank in the cabinet for a fuge. That way I'm not compromising on either. I don't see any way that I could fully replace my bio-balls with algae without compromising the filtration capacity of the system in the interim. What sort of circulation rate should I design it for? 1000L/hr?

Also, I just want to say thanks to everyone who has posted in my thread. All the advice is greatly appreciated! One day, when I learn a lot more I want to be able to add something back to the community! Especially thanks to you Ski, if I had suffered the same loss as you, I would be a lot more bitter and not charitable at all. Thanks!

 

[_daniel]

I've noticed a couple of weird things in my tank.

First, periodically (maybe once every 30 mins, but I'm not always watching so I can't be sure) a spray of a white stringy substances comes out of the rock directly upwards. It sort of hangs around for 15 seconds or so and gradually disperses into the water. Comes from 2-3 locations in the tank as far as I can tell. What is this from?

Second, there are strange little white things everywhere over my rocks. They are about 1-2mm in diameter, pretty much round, with tiny little bumps around the edges. A few of them even look like tiny little stars with 5 points. They are hard to the touch and seem to stick to the ends of bits of marco algae and things like that. They don't "seem" to be alive, but they appear in places they weren't previously, so they have to get there somehow. I've never seen them move or anything. They are just about impossible to photo too. Can anyone ID these without a pic?

 

[SkiFletch]

Ok where to start. Phosphate test kits. You're correct, very few phosphate test kits available to hobbiests have resoloutins below 0.1ppm. You pretty much have to buy an industrial kit which will cost hundreds if not thousands of dollars. As an aquarist, you should be striving for 0ppm on your test kit which while maybe not as low as 0.03ppm, may be close enough...

1000L/hr flowrate through the sump should be fine. You're prolly lookin at 1.5" drain to be safe, and a return pump that at ~5 feet of head will push 1000L/hr.

The white stringy substances are probably from something spawning, who knows what

And the little white things... Sounds like either Limpets or Chitons. Maybe look around the 'net for those

 

[littleme1969]

Just a thought but the stuff that keeps getting shot out sounds more like a spagetti worm having a poo..lol Took me ages to see exacly where it was comming from, then when I looked closly I saw the strigy arms collecting rubbish of my gravel. there is generally a pile of debris around the hole of the wrom

 

[Matthew5664]

If you can find it theres a test kit made by Salifert that will mesure down to 0.01ppm.

 

[_daniel]

Ok where to start. Phosphate test kits. You're correct, very few phosphate test kits available to hobbiests have resoloutins below 0.1ppm. You pretty much have to buy an industrial kit which will cost hundreds if not thousands of dollars. As an aquarist, you should be striving for 0ppm on your test kit which while maybe not as low as 0.03ppm, may be close enough...

1000L/hr flowrate through the sump should be fine. You're prolly lookin at 1.5" drain to be safe, and a return pump that at ~5 feet of head will push 1000L/hr.

The white stringy substances are probably from something spawning, who knows what

And the little white things... Sounds like either Limpets or Chitons. Maybe look around the 'net for those

Alright then, I'll pick up some sort of anti-phosphate product this weekend. Some green har algae is growing on one of my rocks, I guess its feeding off the slightly elevated PO4 levels.

Just to clarify on the flowrate question, the fuge tank will be a second sump next to my main sump. I would pick up and return water to the main sump, not the display tank. So a 1000L/hr pump would be operating at just about its full flow rate. There are currently 2 x 2300L/hr pumps recirculating water back to the display tank, with two 20mm drains.

 

[_daniel]

Quick update...

Purchased 1L of PhosGuard today, and placed about half of it in a tied-off stocking inside my sump (wedged into the gap between both compartments for a lot of flow). Some rust-coloured algae (diatoms?) started appearing on my substrate and rocks overnight, so hopefully this will kerb that somewhat.

Ammonia levels dropped massively overnight also, so it's an encouraging sign that the cycle is finishing off. I'm buying the rest of my base and live rock tomorrow, so I hope I can get some fully cured stuff so that I don't have a full second cycle.

Will post pics soon.

 

[Matthew5664]

nice to hear is comming along. You could also use carbon to take out some of the organics the new rocks die-off will product, just might stop a second cycle.

 

[_daniel]

Ok, today I burnt a massive hole in my wallet and purchased the remaining live rock for the tank. Added 26kg's of live rock and 15kg's of man-made base rock. That brings the grand total to 50kg's LR and 30kg's BR.

I also purchased some activated carbon filter pads and placed them beneath the filter mat in my sump.

Had some nasty hitch-hikers on one piece of LR - a whole bunch of tiny aipstasias. I battled them with a needle syringe with boiling water for about an hour and got all the ones I could see. An early addition to my tank will be a peppermint shrimp to keep these in check. Does anyone have any further advise here?

Now for a whole punch of pics:

FTS

Side shots

Spot the clam

Mystery anenome

Big clam

Dead brain skeleton

Polyps (the close one got camera shy - I swear he closed up the second I pointed my camera at him!)

Hope you enjoy!