Head First Into The Salt

[wildechild_01]

okay just a few quick pictures here, I am finally getting things put together now.. i should have my LR next week, i could have gotten it sooner but with the waiting i am getting an amazing price (about a 1/3rd of what LFS's charge) on it so i'm willing to wait

This is the tank with stand open, water in the tank had not been salted at that time since i was waiting on my return pump. Water is now circulating and SG is at 1.022 im not sure if i should bring it up a little more or if its fine there.

this is with tank lights on and room lights off

Here is one with room lights on and tank lights off

Here is a closeup of the Sump, I have since added a 2.5inch stand for the skimmer to get it working properly once the water became salty

So its definitely coming along, will update again when rock shows up

P.S. I have cleaned up the the wiring haha.. stuff was just plugged in quick to make sure everything was working. There is room there for a container to hold water as i plan to put an auto top off system i am also looking at putting in a low water level cut off as well to protect the return pump.. not hard to do.. i just need to do it.. haha

 

[seffieuk]

Woohoo, nearly time for rock watching

Seffie x

 

[wildechild_01]

Should be getting the rest of my rock today will post pics when its in the tank. I might have toooo much rock, but will wait and see hahaha......

P.S. Hahaha i just realized i never posted that i had gotten some from a local guy breaking down his reef last weekend cause the tank was really smelling bad.. the rock made the smell worse for a few days and now its better, so adding rock helped.. but with the 20-25ish i picked up and the 100ish im getting today, thats a lot of rock in a 90g tank but also gives lots of options for aquascaping and lots of places to put corals.

 

[ozzie2011]

Great start so far

 

[wildechild_01]

woot woot... today i got 100lbs of Live Rock in the mail.... shipped wrapped moist and bagged, the rock is aqua cultured, a non profit place on the east coast of canada makes the rock, and seeds it at their facility and yes its live rock not base... (just sayin). All their profits go to reef conservation. and it was less than $3/lb i also have 30lbs of rock that i aquired from a local person who was breaking down their reef tank. So... YAY... i have rock in my tank now... bring on the rock watching... re-scaping, and water tests.

this is what the rock looked like when i got it

In the tank, i kinda feel like i have too much rock at this point

how it sits right now.. pretty cloudy, i kind of like the scape but i may change it

but thats what 130 lbs of rock in a 90g tank looks like... okay maybe more like 120, cause i put some in the sump

 

[ozzie2011]

Nice one on the deal, you gotta love a bargain

Nice start on the rock, guarantee it will look different by this time tomorrow, then Saturday, then Sunday, the........ lol

 

[wildechild_01]

Nice one on the deal, you gotta love a bargain

Nice start on the rock, guarantee it will look different by this time tomorrow, then Saturday, then Sunday, the........ lol

hahaha.... ive already re-scaped will post new pic when tank clears

 

[wildechild_01]

ok so ive re-scaped a few times, right now looks like

i think i like it this way.

Also did tests for
Ammonia, NitRITE and NitrATE and everything came up 0.... confused as i definitely expected Ammonia, since there other rock in there as of last week, although it had gone from other guys reef to a bucket and then into my tank, so possible no die off.. How quick should i expect an Ammonia spike from the newly added rock??? in the absence of ammonia i had expected nitrates, but i guess i will just keep and eye on things for the next little bit, and will also get second oppinion on stats from LFS, but for now i guess i just wait and see...

 

[wildechild_01]

K, so LFS gets same results as me... the older rock was in there for a week, while i didn't do any water tests, and the rock i ordered brags little to no die off during shipping, they have stored their rock in boxes, the way they ship it for 10 days without seeing any significant die off... Is it possible im cycled already

Thoughts and ideas appreciated

 

[wildechild_01]

Ok, so i'm kinda at a loss here... a few days ago my tank went crazy cloudy.. often symptom of end of cycle.. woot woot, although given my test results it was cycled a week ago, still a little confused. after the 3rd LFS confirmed my test results, we decided tank was cycled so added hermit crabs and some snails, to start cleaning up the loverly brown stuff everywhere (despite never actually seeing a cycle in my test results )Hermits are doing great but i think i killed the snails during acclimation.... (the bag floated away and then sank so they got shocked pretty bad) anyway 4 of the 5 snails are gone, and the other is doing great... so that makes me think that my ammonia, nitrite reading are correct, but the NitrATes are still reading 0 which i find hard to believe given diatom growth and what not.. Anyway.......... the plan was to leave the CUC in the tank for this week, and then this weekend pick up a pair of clowns, but then tues afternoon, BAM tank cloudy... so im a little confused atm
Ideas Suggestions?

will let you know if i figure anything out, but for now i think it beer and pondering time.

 

[wildechild_01]

And I said. "Let there be Fish"

they are surprisingly difficult to catch with a camera, also only the blue lights were on will try again later with all the lights.

Also picked up a Galaxy coral, and while the nice lady at the LFS was bagging it she is telling me about the drip acclimation process for the clowns (they are ORA captive bread) and i ask. "should i drip acclimate the coral to?" she says, nope just float it for a bit and then put it in your tank... so thats what i did, and today its not so open... im thinkin i probably should have dripped it like the fish??? hopefully its okay and decides to open up more soon.

on the cloudy water front, adjusting power heads helped quite a bit, but today the water is a little cloudy again, mostly im guessing to the crazy sump maintenance i had to do... Skimmer issues... had to take the whole thing out and clean it really good... not sure what was wrong but cleaning the pump and all helped a ton, but now tank seems to have a lot of stuff floating, looks like sand that i think was settled on the skimmer in the sump and is now water borne again... hahaha.. adventures in fish keeping continue

 

[seffieuk]

You are right, corals need acclimatising just the same if not more than fish

How are things today?

Seffie x

 

[wildechild_01]

You are right, corals need acclimatising just the same if not more than fish

How are things today?

Seffie x

Ha Ha, well next coral is definitely getting the Drip process then, on that note, if i pick up fish and coral at the same time, can i drip them together or am i better off doing one then the other... i figure they ship these things across countries in bags so if it needs to hang out in the bag from LFS for an Hour while i drip the fish not really a huge deal.

The clowns are still doing great, and loving the fact that they have a 90g tank to themselves and the coral looks to be doing a lot better this morning. Only the blues are on right now but it is definitely extended more than it was when i went out last night.

My tank is lookin pretty cloudy again yesterday and this afternoon.. had to turn down the Vortech a little, i could see sand rolling across the bottom of the tank and getting picked up from under the vortech... cant ever complain it doesn't create amazing flow... too amazing even... hahaha. But im not entirely convinced this is the cause of the cloudy water... and im not sure what else to be looking for or what to do to fix it at this point... :sigh: <---- how is that not an emoticon

will probably update again later today,

so just had a thought... and since i didn't hit post yet here it is...

the cloudy water definitely LOOKS to be stuff suspended in the water column, would it harm my tank in any drastic way if i were to turn OFF the power heads for say and hour to see if that allows tthings to settle? im concerned that the flow in the tank may be preventing some of it from settling.... just an idea

 

[wildechild_01]

Alright so in a moment of "wow im an idiot why didn't i think of that sooner" i picked up some filter floss yesterday and tossed some in the sump... tank is a lot clearer today so really, just add "swap out floss" to my sump maintenance list and i should be good.

I had another oh no moment yesterday too as i went.. i probably need some food for filter feeders in my tank. As of this point the only filter feeding going on will be the little Fans in the Galaxy coral and anything the coral itself may decide to filter out over and above the Photosynthetic nutrients... and the fans seem to grab the little bits of shrimp that the clowns don't well at least for the last 2 days... hahah... so wondering what people recommend for food for Filter Feeders, obviously this is something i am going to need to look into...

also wondering what corals people would recommend as suitable for the clowns to host. Obviously they will host what they chose to host if they host at all.. i've read that captive bread sometimes don't really settle down and host anything. anyway, despite knowing that they will host what they host, i would like to make sure i am putting in some corals that will tolerate being hosted. A local guy is selling his corals as part of his reef break down and has a rather large Frogspawn.. i think he said 9 heads, and is asking 90$ for it, im going to counter lower since LFS seems to charge $10/head, and if guy isn't willing to lower i will have to decide betwween his frogspawn or a nice hammer they have at LFS...

also hoping to pick up some zoa frags this week. LFS sells quite a variety for $10/frag and each frag has 5-6 polyps on it to start... seems to be a reasonable price at least for where im living.

Well..

ok so i was just going to ask about filter foods, but there it is a Mini update... i need to crack out my good camera and do some shots of the tank to post on here, so hopefully pics coming soon.

P.S. what happened to Nemo, is very difficult to hop into the chat and ask questions now that she doesn't seem to be around so much now.

 

[wildechild_01]

Ok so just a quick couple of pictures... tank currently houses a pair of clowns (i bought them as tank bread ocellaris but i think they may be percs) a flame angel, some Peppermint shrimp, a couple emerald crabs, a galaxy coral and some zoa frags.

Galaxy Coral, like so many say doesn't do colour justice, but thats cause i need to get my good camera out and re-learn how to use it properly, but im putting up a less spectacular photo cause in the bottom left corner you can kinda get a glimpse of how awesomely green the tips are.

The Flame angel, hard to get a pic, seems very shy, but from reading this is very normal for the first few days to weeks for flames in a tank, this is a view i have of his hiding place if i move slowly and he doesnt see me comming

zoa frags, they were supposed to be 5-6 heads per frag, but the rock broke funny while guy was fragging so they are more like 10-12 haha there are 3 frags here all of them different color combinations.. i am headed back to this store again tonight so may end up with more hahaha

the clowns, cant really see it in this picture but there is definitely a black line between the orange and white.. from what ive read, sign of true perc over ocellaris... oh also.. ignore the air bubbles and crap floating around.. im working on it.

Emerald Crab

Shrimp

and a FTS... not the most impressive tank yet but its coming along.. a local guy is selling a rather large frogspawn.. 9 heads... i may grab and put it mid left in the tank.. depends what his $$$ is... that said.. what would you people pay for a 9 head frogspawn, green with purple tips.... also i just notice the flame angel is out in this picture

and thats my tank for now.