The reef of ufotofu

[ufotofu]

Well, I've been gathering info on here and everwhere else for a while now. I had a 30 gallon reef running some 15 years ago, but got outta tanks for quite a while. Well, I'm back!

What follows is a chronological account of my 50 gallon reef tank build. I should have started this about 3 weeks ago when I really started putting it all together, but I just couldn't find the time to edit the pics.

Anyway, here goes...

My tank began its life as a simple Oceanic 50 Show from their Contrast series. I got the tank, light fixture and matching stand on sale at a local shop. It has the black compact flourescent 55W daylight bulb. The stand has a cool smoked glass front door and enough room for a small sump/refugium inside.

 

[ufotofu]

The beginning...

 

[ufotofu]

I bought a 20 gallon high tank for the sump/refugium. I originally wanted to have a refugium in there with it, but there just wasn't enough real estate after adding the baffles. There are 3 baffles roughly dividing the tank in two. The Top Fathom TA200 skimmer takes up a lot of room. I also didn't want to have to worry too much about evaporation in the return pump chamber so I decided against a refugium in the sump (more on that later).

The skimmer is being driven by a Mag Drive 7. The return pump is a Quiet One 3000. This is the first iteration of the pvc plumbing. I really had to work with the skimmer to get it situated at the right height while still keeping it low enought to remove the waste container. I initially had it sitting on a plastic bowl, but that lasted about 5 minutes.

The pic is of the first fitting of the sump which I had to fit in through the top of the stand. Yeah, that's right, I had to take the whole top off the stand (and tank, of course) so I could drop the sump into the compartment. There's about 1" of clearance all the way around.

 

[ufotofu]

The return.

 

[ufotofu]

Here's the sump being leak tested after fitting the CPR overflow, plumbing, heater, new skimmer stand and CPR Aquafuge. The Aquafuge is really nice (and tidy). The small powerhead also resides in the return pump compartment. It flows about 80 gph and creates no bubbles or mess returning water into the sump. I have a Finnex 13W pc lamp lighting the refugium. Nothing in there at this point.

The baffles are spaced 1.25" apart. They are 9.0" tall. The middle one sits 1.25" off the bottom of the sump.

For the skimmer stand I went to Ace Hardware and bought a drainage grating (about 5" square). It has a flange at the bottom that perfectly couples to a section of 4" ID pvc pipe.

 

[ufotofu]

Here comes the sand. I bought two bags initially:
20lbs of Caribsea Bahamian Oolitic Live sand (bacteria added, that's it)
15 lbs of Caribsea AragaMax sand

This gave me about 1.5" when spread semi-smooth. Only 1 thing to do at this point - GET MORE SAND

This was actually taken minutes before I added in 20 lbs of Live Sand from Premium Aquatics and 5 lbs of their tank Goop to jumpstart everything. That gave me 60 lbs of substrate. Enough for a start.

 

[ufotofu]

Ok. So the uncured Fiji rock and rubble came in from Premium Aquatics and I carefully rinsed it off and added it to the tank. The turbidity was so high that I just had to roughly position it all for the curing process and let it be. My mind was on water chemistry more than aesthetics at this point anyway.

I added about 10 lbs of rubble to the refugium which also has a live sand/goop bed.

 

[ufotofu]

Here it is with most of the current rock. Since the initial rock addition I've taken out most of the rubble, added 35 lbs more uncured Fiji rock from Premium Aquatics and added a few more lbs from the LFS. In all, I've got about 75 lbs of Fiji rock in the main tank. After the tank cleared up, I reposition the rock and embedded the foundation pieces more fully into the sand bed. Yes, there's a lot of rock in this tank, but I've scaped it such that there are tunnels, caves and openings from top to bottom so that there are no dead zones. The back wall has about 2" between it and the glass for water to move and critters to groove! The pic below was taken at about the 1.5 week stage.
Water parameters:
NH3/NH4+ -> ~0.25ppm
NO2- -> ~0.0ppm
NO3-- -> ~2.5ppm
pH -> 8.4
Alk -> 3.4 meq/L
salinity -> 1.021 s.g @ 79F
I reduced my lighting to 2hrs/day to keep to aid in keeping unicellular algae from popping up. At this time, I only had the above test kits so PO4 and silicates were unknown to me, and the LFS doesn't test them to who knows?
Starting to see some life in/on this rock! No crabs, no snails (plenty of shells, though), no shrimp. Plenty of planktonic life, though. Plenty of forams, dusters.

 

[ufotofu]

Ok...fast forward to a couple of days ago.

The worst APPEARS to be over in the area of curing my live rock. Got a few more items to make sure: phosphate test kit, Phosguard, filter socks, Reef Carbon (Kent). Reefmaster oscillating powerhead to increase water flow on opposite side of return and give a tidal surging action w/o spending $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$. Maybe Santa will bring me a Tunze Stream and controller

PO4 initially tested at 0.75ppm at the time I got the test kit. I immediately a filter bag full of Phosguard (~400g).
Other params:
NH3/NH4+ -> 0.0ppm
NO2- -> 0.0ppm
NO3-- -> 5.0ppm
pH -> 8.3
Alk -> 3.2 meq/L
salinity -> I raised it gradually to 1.023 s.g. @ 80F
PO4--- -> 1.0ppm AFTER 24hrs with Phosguard

I also drilled holes in the pvc riser for my in-sump protein skimmer. Aim here was to decrease the dead water void in my skimmer compartment and increase total water volume AND promote a more tortuous path for escaping microbubbles exiting the skimmer. A 100 micron filter sock now filters ALL water entering the sump (overflow and skimmer output) before hitting the baffles. NO MORE BUBBLES!

I also began adding Kent Essential Elements @ 1 tsp initially.

 

[ufotofu]

Update:

1) Came home to find that my Oceanic glass top has cracked. Only the back portion under the light fixture cracked. It's really cracked bad, though. I've removed the light just in case it decides to split more. I'll go to the hardware store tomorrow and get a replacement piece for it.

2) Went back to the LFS and purchased 2 more tiny hermits - the small blue-legged variety. They are only about 1/4-1/2" including the shells! I got one FREE, too!

3) Am gonna try the Kent TechA and B Calcium additions before going to Kalkwasser supplements. My LFS had them in stock so I picked up two quarts.

4) I bought my lights (FINALLY) tonight. I went ahead and got the 24" Outer Orbit fixture with 250W 10,000K HQI, 4x24W T5 Ocean Blue and 12 LED moonlights. After seeing how my current single compact fluorescent tube lit my tank (the bulb is only 20" but in a 30" strip), I figure this fixture should enable me to keep just about anything even sitting on the bottom.

5) Macroalgae is sprouting up everywhere. Looks like red caulerpa or kelp, but unsure at this point. Also seeing a couple tufts of green macro at the top. Gonna have to eliminate some of this stuff soon.

6) Got my SpectraPure 4 stage RO/DI kit today as well. Looks like a high quality unit, but they didn't send any instruction manual and sent the wrong fittings for my application. PLUS, they didn't even add the fitting for the water inlet! Kind of dissapointed after spending serious $$$ on this thing, waiting over a week to get it and now having to invest more time and $$ to get any water out of it!

More pics to come!

 

[mr_X]

the tank looks great. thanks for the build pics! do you think you need to add those suppliments just yet? there's nothing but algae using them.

 

[ufotofu]

Thanks X! Your birth thread has given me some good ideas - great pics, too.

Oh! About the supplements - I'm not adding the TechA,B until I get a pretty good water change done with RO/DI water and then assess the Ca situ with a quality test kit (Salifert is on order). I may then begin dosing if the Ca is low (I don't expect it to be). My reason for even considering dosing this early is to hasten the growth (and regrowth) of coralline algae and get the tank ready for a couple of stony corals. That's a ways down the road, though, and my mind isn't made up one the matter either way.

Regarding the Kent Essential Elements - I added them the other day. The following morning the skimmer was full of green skimmate. The bottle says the elements are mostly chloride salts so I figure the skimmer is pulling them out of the water almost as soon as I add them. I don't know if it was just me wanting the tank to look better after adding them :lol: or if they really helped, but my tank just seemed to look better the following day...again, my eyes may be playing tricks on me.

 

[mr_X]

time will make everything grow. your sea salt mix should be quite enough for your tank for a while. i don't add anything to my tank. i used to add "purple up" but i don't think it made a difference.
i would just keep the skimmer running and cycle out the tank for now.... :wink:

 

[ufotofu]

Well, I finally broke down and got a couple of inhabitants:

1 smallish rock with about 12 Discosoma sp. polyps of various size and color. The polyps were brown in the 250W 10,000K halide-lit LFS tank, but I am almost positive they had them under waay too much light. I put them in my tank which currently has a single 55W compact fluorescent tube and they are Hulk green and purple, but they aren't opening fully like they did at the store. I get my new light tomorrow so they'll probably do something totally different then.

The other thing I picked up was a small Xenia. It has acclimated well so far - opening up and pulsing after being in the tank only 15-20 minutes. It's very sensitive to my hands being in the tank, though. It shrinks up if I come close to it. It currently has two stalks with about 20 polyps each.

The tanks seems to be responding nicely to the water change done with RO/DI water and the switch to RO/DI top-offs. Here's a couple of pic showing my new specimens.

 

[ufotofu]

The Good: Got the new lights installed last night.

The Bad: ZooMed Powersweep 228 powerhead quit oscillating a couple of days ago. Most folks said they at least got a month out of 'em before they quit working, but I count 2 weeks in my case. Oh well. It still works as a powerhead.

The Ugly: I had to rig up a way to hang my light fixture over my tank. After toying with a few ideas I decided to put a bookshelf on either side and bridge the gap with a board while using the included mounting hardware to suspend the fixture. MDF was what was available, but it isn't rigid enough to hold the fixture without sagging in the middle (just a tad). I have a solution though...

Here's a few pics to show the tank with the new lights. I had to ditch the glass top b/c temps were climbing 1-2 degrees with the new lights. I'll probably have to get a mini-fan to blow over the surface.

Water chemistry is looking good. I got a calcium test kit (Seachem). The calcium is 300ppm according to the test. That's w/o dosing any calcium supplements. We'll see if the TechA/B drives it up any.

 

[mr_X]

nice!
you didn't want to use the hanging hardware supplied with the orbit?
maybe you should order the legs.

 

[ufotofu]

It came with both legs AND hanging hardware. I used the hanging hardware, but instead of mounting on the ceiling I mounted in a false ceiling (of sorts). I'll upload a pic soon.

The legs are only usable if you have a 24" long tank. Mine is 30" so I have to hang it.

 

[mr_X]

what brand salt do you use to get a 300ppm calcium reading? i use IO and get a 450 8O

 

[ufotofu]

I also use IO, but I don't know what conc they add Ca into their mix. I've heard it's a levels many times higher than average seawater (or maybe that was Reef Crystals?)...Anyway, what kit are you testing with? I should probably test it a few more times. The Seachem test kit has waaay too much room for operator error in the method for getting a result with much confidence. I thought it would be a good test b/c it's a titration. I don't get a clear indication of the endpoint like it should so who knows? I should note, however, that I didn't use DI water for the dilution so that probably threw the results off. Add to that the fact that I was dead-tired from work and we probably shouldn't even count that value. :wink: All kits have a definite shelf-life, and my kit may have already exceeded its life.

Also, do you use RO/DI or tap water for your top-off and make-up?

I don't have any stoney corals, clams, etc so my Ca requirements aren't too high right now. I would like to kick the coralline up a notch or two, though. I wish LaMotte still made a Ca kit. Ever hear anything about Tunze kits?

I'm testing everything tomorrow so I'll report any findings and try to nail the Ca reading down a little better. 450, huh? That is a huge difference if it's real. That is, if yours if really 450 and mine is really 300. I'm a chemist, and to tell you the truth, I don't put a whole lot of stock in some of the results from these kits. I've already revealed a couple of my Red Sea tests to be almost worthless. I worked with the local aquarium here, and they use ion chromatography to test their tanks for Ca and other elements. You really have to have high caliber analytical equipment if you're gonna put a lot of confidence in your readings. Otherwise, that 450 of yours or my 300 could easily be 50-100 ppm either way. By the way, do you have trouble with pH flux or precipitation? How does your Alk run? You said you didn't dose anything, right? If you're using tap water I'm sure that will influence the amount of Ca based on the alk of your tap. Could impact it even more if you have to utilize tap water to complete your Ca test like with the Seachem.

But that's just AWESOME if you get 450ppm Ca using nothing but IO and tap water. 8O

 

[mr_X]

i use "aquarium pharm" testing kits.
i use tap water right now. i don't know why i haven't stepped up for a RO/DI unit yet. i'll be doing so very soon. i have had far too many issues not to. (algae blooms)
tunze test kits? i have heard nothing.
all i hear is that salifert kits are the way to go. unfortunately, they are generally 3 times as much as the aquarium pharm, and i don't see anything happening in my tank to warrant going for the salifert.
all the other tests are read "normal" levels. i can tell you that i have added a couple cap-fulls of purple up from time to time in the beginning, and the aquarium pharm test picked up the calcium elevation.

i would really love it if you could use your chemistry know-how to find out exactly what kind of accuracy these aquarium pharm tests are putting out. meanwhile, yes, i add nothing to my tank, and i have a few stony corals that are showing growth(i'm not really sure how much growth i am supposed to be seeing).

i'm going to test my tap water for calcium. i wonder if they add some before it comes to me :?