Oceanic 29 Bc

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Hi all! After about a month of reading I finally got myself a tank and thought its time to start my own nano journal. At this point I have set up the system and waiting for the LR to cure but I thought of giving a brief overview of the events that took place in the past few days.

Few weeks earlier
I went on to BigAlsOnline.ca and made a list of stuff (including brand names) that I would need beforehand

Wednesday Dec 26 – Boxing day sale!
Best time to buy the tank and equipment, I was waiting for this day to buy stuff and until that time I was doing my research. I was going for an oceanic 29 BC with stand. When I went to the shop there was only 2 tanks left; I got the last tank in the store! Here’s the complete list of stuff I picked up;

Oceanic 29 gallon BC
Oceanic 29 gallon BC stand
Oceanic BC protein skimmer
Hydro Koralia 600
Ocean Direct 40lbs Live Sand
Roughly 30lbs of Live Rock
100watt Eheim Jager Heater
Tom Aquarium Digital Thermometer

Instant Ocean 50 Gallon Salt
Syron Refractormeter
API Saltwater Master Test Kit
Rena Air 50
Pen-Plax Air tubing
Aqueon 50watt heater
Digital Thermometer
Coralife Pure – Flo 24 gpd R/O system
Two 5 gallon buckets

 

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View attachment 48698

Hm..we’ve got a problem..

Oceanic BC’s seem to have a common problem with one of the ballasts not working. I’ve got no idea why this problem persist...don’t the manufactures check these systems before putting them to the market? Well, anyway I plugged in the ballasts and only 1 light was working. Then I checked all connections; crosschecked with the manual then since everything was correct I figured there must be something wrong with the ballasts. I changed the ballasts between the lights and this time the light that didn’t work earlier worked. Problem with ballast? – confirmed. Then I called Big Als and they told to bring the hood so I took it to them then and there. They checked, took the malfunctioning ballast and told me to check tomorrow or day after tomorrow for a new one since they didn’t have any more in stock.

Thursday Dec 27
Checked with Big Als for the ballast but they told they didn’t get it still.

It was a bad idea to buy LR and equipment at the same time but I do not regret it either. I might have lost some valuable critters but on the other hand I would have lost any pests too. My main problem was I didn’t have water, as I couldn’t fit the R/O water filter in any of the taps without a proper connector. Went in search for a connector but couldn’t find one.

Since the LR has been out of water for too long I thought of at least keeping it in FW but since I didn’t have a dechlorinator, I filled two buckets with FW and left it out to let the chlorine evaporate.

End of the day;
No lights
No water

"Since the LR has been out of water for too long I thought of at least keeping it in FW but since I didn’t have a dechlorinator, I filled two buckets with FW and left it out to let the chlorine evaporate.";

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Friday Dec 28
Put the LR in FW and set salinity.
Got the ballast from Big Als today. Lights are working now.
No water as I couldn’t connect the R/O system to the tap still.

 

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Saturday Dec 29
Finally got a proper connector for the R/O water system and connected to tap.

Sunday Dec 30
Waited for the R/O system to produce enough water.
While waiting I did some more research on how people configure the back three chambers.

Monday Dec 31
Had enough R/O water produced. Tested it for pH, nitrate and nitrites just in case. All results were 0, except for pH at 7.

Filled the tank with water (finally!!!)

Here’s how I configured the back chamber,
Chamber 1 – Oceanic skimmer, Temperature probe
Chamber 2 – Empty for now (plan on making it a refugium in the near future)
Chamber 3 – Stock pump (243gph), Heater

All three chambers are filled to the top (beyond the Max point indicated in the tank).

Mods
Removed the bioballs
Removed the top and bottom grills of the chamber 2
I increased the flow from chamber 1 to 2 but I don't think that this is essential.
Switched the lights so that the fans would work when I switch on the actinics, not daylights.

Set salinity and aquascaped the tank.
Turned on lights and ran the system to check how the temperature fluctuates. It started at around 79.8 and went upto about 83.6. So now I have set the temperature on the heater at 78. Temperature fluctuates from 81.2 to 83.3. However, it seems pretty stable at 82.2. I will keep monitoring it.

 

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Tuesday Jan 01
Added Live Sand.
Made small changes in the aquascape.

Wednesday Jan 02 till present
Salinity is at 1.026. I didn’t perform any tests yet as the tank was properly set on Tuesday only. I chose the LR that had the most pores and coralline algae. During the time I kept them outside of water and in FW the algae had turned pale in colour but now I’m seeing some areas getting darker. Looks like it’s recovering. Tomorrow I’ll run some tests on the water.

The tank as it is today..

Rear chambers;

Chamber 1 - skimmer and temp probe



Chamber 3 - Heater and stock pump



Shot of all three chambers (middle chamber is empty for now)



Note : Chamber 1 is the chamber at the right side (water inlet) and chamber 3 is the outlet...just so that everybody knows what I'm talking about when I say chamber 1 and chamber 3

 

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I put tags on the plugs just so I know which is which...



Full system..

 

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Aquascape..



And finally my personal favourite - moonlights



So, what do you guys think? Any ideas, suggestions, criticism is welcome.

 

[Lynden]

Putting live rock in FW is a good way to "kill" it. Too late now anyways. It will recover in time.

I see nothing else wrong with your startup, all looks good to me. Nice scape, overall good start to this tank. What are your plans for it?

 

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Hi Lynden! Thanks for the reply. Yes, I know it's too late but as I told I don't regret it either. m..yes, I like the scape too; took me a long time to get that. Only problem with that is the powerhead keeps pushing sand near the front glass backwards.

As for my plans hm..havn't got a real lot of plans right now but I'm working on it. I'm thinking of going only snail and shrimp for the CUC becuase crabs seem to be somewhat problematic...but to fill that space I'm going to go with a pom pom crab if I could find one. I'm also working on a way to get a to the 2nd chamber without cutting black covering at the back of the tank. ah..now the lllooonnngg wait..rather irritating I should say to wait for 2 or may be even more weeks..hm..but I'd have to wait it out. But at least that'll give me more time to do some more planning on the tanks inhabitants.

 

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Friday Jan 04

Did a quick test on water today;

pH - 7.8
NH3 - 0
NO2 - 0
SG - 1.025
Temp - 81.5

Strange that both NH3 and NO2 are 0. May be its too early to a die off to take place? hm..

 

[steelhealr]

If the LR was put in FW, as Lynden said, it would kill off a lot of stuff..including the biologic filter. You'll have to wait to see if you have a 'recycle'. Make sure you have room about all sides of the glass walls so that you can get a Magfloat in there and also to reduce dead areas. You'll be bummed out of you get an area of coralline algae on the glass and be unable to get to it to scrape it off. You want a nice unobstructed view of your reef. SH

 

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Hello steelhair! Thank you for your input. Since my reading were at zero I put a piece of shrimp to produce some ammonia to boost the cycle a bit. The LR has a lot of white areas and by far doesn't not look lively at the moment. Hopefully the shrimp method would work. As for the tank placement its placed near a wall so it can be viewed from only two sides..I'm fine with that. I can let the coralline algae grow on the right side as no one would be able to view from that side. For now I'd keep it like that, may be in the future I might do some changes.

 

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Thursday January 10th - 1 week 1 day after tank has been set up

I'm not seeing any ammonia yet!!

Ok, so I did a tests on my water parameters on the 6th, 8th and 10th. These are the results:

January 6th:
Ammonia - 0
Nitrite - 0
Nitrate - 10

January 8th:
Ammonia - 0
Nitrite - 0
Nitrate - 20
Ph - 8.2
Temp - 81.5

Jan 10th:
Ammonia - 0
Nitrate ~ 25

There is an increase in nitrate, but why am I not seeing an increase in ammonia or nitrite???
I have not seen any critters, pods, algae nor diatoms in my tank.

What should I do now?

P.S - I am working on making my temperature stable.

 

[SkiFletch]

Seems to indicate that many bacteria survived the freshwater bath, but some other organisms did not. Rise in Nitrate indicates the decomposition of something dead. I'd leave it till the nitrate settles off, then do a BIG waterchange (at least 50%) to bring the nitrates down before you add livestock

 

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It's quite strange I'm getting these readings. Yes, when I took the rock out of the FW I found like 2 small shrimps...but I'v been expecting to see some ammonia all this time. Anyway, I'm going to let it be for some more time and see what'll happen.