Juwel Rio 125 Tropical To Marine Conversion

[-Nemo-]

Yep a sinulara... definitely a finger leather.

As per your lighting, no you cannot use just actinics for several reasons.
1) Actinic has very very poor PAR levels. (AKA about 1/3 LESS light than daylights)
2) It isn't natural. The corals and fish should have some kind of daylight going on.

What bulbs do you have in atm now?

 

[dannywrc]

hagen glo 10k t5 - hagen glo t5 actinic

arcadia 6500k t8 - arcadia actinic t8

im picking up an arcadia marine white 10k t8 on tuesday to replace the 6500 one. this sound ok for what i have?

tested the water again earlier after the ro change yesterday and the ph was 8.0, added some buff to make it up to 8.2. dont know if the test i done yesterday was wrong or if the small water change brought it down that much. whats the ideal ph level?

 

[dannywrc]

gonna buy a goby for the tank on friday and some sand to thin out the gravel. seen a few nice ones in the lfs so hoping they will still be there tomorrow.

theres lots of love in the tank atm...

the shrimp done its first cleaning job yesterday, the chromi was hanging around its cave and the shrimp swam out, grabbed it and picked away. was a treat to watch.

my starfish give a turbo a hug

the clown and the hermit have been cleaning a small dead patch off one of the star fishes legs

whats the white thing on the hermits shell?

the newest addition come out quite a bit

 

[dannywrc]

got a new addition today - a firefish. wanted the purple one but they wanted too much for it.

 

[-Nemo-]

To answer your previous questions...
The bulbs you have are fine
Ideal pH: 8.0-8.6

Firefish looks grumpy, as they always do

 

[dannywrc]

nice. yeah he does look pretty grumpy but gets on with the other fish.

bought a few more additions today..

Pussy coral

Blue xenia with blue star polyps

blue star polyps

toadstool coral - ill get a pic when its polpys are out

got some green star polyps that are still hiding

 

[dannywrc]

a few more now theyr all out

FTS

 

[dannywrc]

update time... been a few weeks.

had a bit of a re-scape the other day as there wasnt many places to put the corals. moved the xenia to the right and the star polyps where the xenia was this morning.

got some fluorescent green cloves.. cant see them properly with this camera

a xenia frag im trying

found this little snail popping its head round the shell earlier to release its eggs a stomatella snail i believe.

and these turned up in the long awaited post

not done much else to the tank lately. picking up another torch coral tomorrow. gonna strip down the sump next week and reposition the baffles. going to make a simple auto top up too, should cost around £10 to make. pics will follow.

edit: forgot to say i found the hermits scrapping the other day so the one that lost a leg has been sumped for its own safety. theres loads of chaeto in there for him to munch on. the shrimp wasted no time in munching on the lost leg.

hes back in his shell btw

edit: just tested the water

sal - 1.026
po4 - 0
no2 - 0
no3 - 10
ph - 8.2
alk - 3.31
kh - 9.3
ca - 440
mg - 1290

do these look ok?

 

[dannywrc]

Update

Iv been losing loads of water through evaporation lately. probs because the heatings been constant. i butchered the lid that come with the sump tank the other day and got it fitting nicely to accommodate all the pipes and wires. gone from using 5l a week to almost none. definately worth doing if anyones having the same problem.

bought a 6 line wrasse last week. easily the most interesting fish i have. wish id got one earlier.

todays purchase... a plate coral/fungia

bought a candy cane, hammer and some buttons last week too. one of the heads was dead when i got it but didnt get round to chipping it off.

bought this fella too but when i got him home i noticed his mouth was bleeding. took him back to be put in the hospital tank. if it he gets better ill have him back.

got about 10 new heads showing on the clove polyps

FTS

found one of the hermits a few days after i caught them fighting dragging itself along with its only claw. the other one must have pulled all of its legs and a claw off. i sumped him anyway and he disappeared into the cheato. spotted him yesterday and hes grown all of his limbs back gonna leave the fella in the sump so they dont fight.

 

[seffieuk]

Thats looking really nice - only problem I can see is that when your lovely toadstool gets bigger it will be attacked by your lovely torch - I would move one or other now

Seffie x

 

[dannywrc]

thanks

they were pretty close the other day when the toadstool was slouching. ill move it next time im in there.

bought another rio 125 the other week to replace my t8's for its t5 unit. sold the tank on with the t8 unit with enough profit to repair the t5 unit and buy the tubes . the t5 unit wasnt working so i checked the fuse and cut the switch off and replaced the tubes to make sure it wasnt any of them causing the problem before i butchered the light unit.

my ballast arrived yesterday and i wasted no time in fitting it.

got the light unit open and it was soaking wet in there.

one of the lamp holders seals had broken letting loads of condensation (probably a small glass full) and had burnt out the ballast.

i left the unit to dry on the radiator for a couple of hours and then resealed up all of the lamp holder arms.

i wired the new ballast up and switched it on and it worked i was well chuffed... there was a niggle in the back of my mind that it wouldnt work.

i sealed up the unit and left it to dry.

when i put the unit on my tank it was loads brighter than the t8s. could see stuff in there that i hadnt seen before.

anyway 2 hours later there was a bang the ballast had burnt out. i opened the unit up and there was a nasty smell of sulphur.

iv contacted the supplier and he said he gets the odd one that goes so hes posting me a replacement. hopefully this one will be ok.

 

[bae1994]

well that sucks but atleast hes sending you another out

 

[dannywrc]

yeah, was gutted when it went.

bought some more fluval phos remover, fluval carbon, salifert trace soft, salifert magnesium, salifert iodine and another pod/roti culture.

put the trace soft in and the duncan immediately went into its skeleton but the next day was stretching the furthest iv seen it stretch. all of the corals seem to look bigger too just of the soft trace. the other stuff hasnt been delivered yet. the iodine levels are untraceable so im looking forward to seeing what dosing iodine does for the tank.

iv started my phyto culture a week ago and it looks like its darkening so fingers crossed. gonna start a pod/roti culture when they arrive in the post. ill get some pics up later.

 

[dannywrc]

heres a link to the phyto set up. got zooplankton on the go now aswell. i hope it works.

http/www.fishforums.net/index.php?/topic/348740-just-set-up-my-little-phyto-and-zoo-plankton-farm/

 

[dannywrc]

been having problems with something moving corals during the night so i set up a camcorder under a red light to see what it was..... a eunice worm

today i had the task of diggin him out of his rock. ended up smashing the rock into about 10 pieces to find it.

here he is

the phyto looks like it is doing well and i harvested my first batch of zooplankton on friday

got a large ricordia and some star polyps last week but forgot to take pics. ill put them up next time.