greech's Simple 40 Breeder

[steelerfan67]

going to be starting to justin so i was curious, do you use ro/di water?

that is 1 of the main things i have been hearing as well as water movement.

sorry as i am not meaning to hijack your thread greech.

I love ur setup greech, glad to see ur tank has been such a success. I have to say the learning curve on saltwater is steep. I have 5 freshwater tanks and those are on autopilot. The salt tank is constant stuff for me, lol... I have had mine running since may, started with a 28g bowfront and upgraded to a 40breeder after 3 months... I have a sump, extra live rock, chaeto, water changes every week or 2 and my nitrates have climbed upwards to 60-80. I have done a series of 50 percent changes to get it back down, but, man oh man, what a pain... I have a skimmer that is like 15 years old and barely pulls anything. For quite a while, I had the sump, and no skimmer...This is when the nitrates started to climb. I have come to the conclusion that u need a skimmer OR a nice HOB filter for mechanical filtration, or u will get nitrates climbing fast. I only had 2 fish and my nitrates were high... I have actually added a penguin 150 with polyfill to help keep mechanical filtration up there... chaeto has been no help, but i am trying other stuff to get it growing. I think a skimmer is very important if u are not running a HOB...Both do the same thing, but the skimmer is WAY more efficient doing it...Ur skimmer is stopping the detritus from even breaking down into nitrates.

Anyway, I love the updates, ur doing a great job man!

 

[justinf67]

Steelersfan, yes, its a necessity in salt... rodi is free from phosphates and trace minerals, which if added to ur tank will stay in ur tank fueling cyano, or other nuisances... Water movement ie good powerheads and a way to do mechanical filtration, either a skimmer or a HOB...If its a HOB, u need to clean the filter often or it will fuel nitrates... feel free to pm me with any questions and ill try to help

 

[greech]

sorry as i am not meaning to hijack your thread greech.

No worries, hopefully the discussion helps everyone.

Justin - Don't want anyone to think I feel it was a waste to add a skimmer. I don't regret it, just saying I think the way my tank is stocked and fed, I could have continued on without one. So many reasons why nitrates increase. Can't recall if you are using RO/DI or not but if you are just keep on the WCs and you should get them down. Be careful about using too much mechanical media and any that you do use should be cleaned/replaced often. I had to replace the floss in my HOB filter at least twice a week to keep nitrates from getting above 10ppm. How the tank doing? Any new stock?

steelerfan - no plans for more fish for now. I would like to add one or two more but not sure if I will. The clowns seem happy with the tank to themselves!

 

[justinf67]

Greech, the issues I have been having I am convinced came from lack of proper mechanical filtration... When I had the 28g going, before the sump, I had lower nitrates. I attribute that to running a HOB filter with polyfill. Like u said, they have to be cleaned every couple days or nitrates will build up. This is based on lower nitrates when i ran a mechanical filter than when I didnt.

Also, I setup a 36g bowfront for my folks, getting them into the hobby. I gave them 6-7 pounds of live rock to seed the 25 lbs of marco dry rock i found for them...The filtration on his is 2 HOB's that I had laying around, and I had him order a korailia evo 750... His tank cycled very quickly, but we took it slow. All levels were good. His tank is now 3-4 months old, with MUCH lower nitrates than my tank, coraline growing, etc. For reference, my tank has more powerheads, chaeto, fuge, extra live rock, but no real means of mech filtration. I added a crappy skimmer, but, the damage was done from not having the mech filtration and the water changes are the only recourse at this point...I added the hob and it was caked solid in 3 days. I am lightly stocked, so, I am hoping to turn it around... I cant afford a good skimmer right now, otherwise, I would add one, because its better to have on there than the HOB....

My tank is doing better, but I have been doing a lot of water changes to combat the nitrates that jumped way to high. They are now at 20-30ppm and I am doing a 15 gallon water change tonight, with another coming pretty soon... My stock is a yellow watchman goby and 2 small ocellaris clowns. The clowns are somewhat recent additions, I had just the YWG and thats when the trates shot up, lol...One fish....I would like to add more coral once my water is stable again, but prob only gonna add 1-2 fish spaced out a bit...still deciding what I should add... One day Ill have to check out ur tank since ur local

Greech, did u pull your HOB off when u added the skimmer? just curious

 

[Cheech]

Great looking tank!

 

[greech]

Thanks Cheech!

Justin - If the mechanical media is working then by all means use it. Do you have a thread for your tank or any pics of your tank/system? We should definitey meet up. PM me or leave me a post here.

 

[steelerfan67]

steelerfan - no plans for more fish for now. I would like to add one or two more but not sure if I will. The clowns seem happy with the tank to themselves!

i have read that a pair of clowns make the tank their own anyway so you may be right.

BTW-will be filling the tank in the garage tonight to test for leaks.

1 step closer...

 

[justinf67]

Greech, I have a tank thread on RC, but havnt updated it in quite a long time. I have changed rock and aquascapes so often its hard to keep track, lol... After running a tank for about 9 months, I realize I have way too much rock and the pieces are way too big for what I want. I am prob gonna start breaking them up into smaller pieces in the next few days. I will prob do one piece every few days so I dont get a spike. Ill have to add a recent pic to my RC build thread

 

[greech]

The LED bug finally bit me. Added a single 453nm Panorama Module to my existing T5's expecting to get some more pop and maybe some shimmer. Pretty (and happily) surprised that I got quite a bit of shimmer out of the deal. In fact I even shimmer on the sandbed with all 4 T5s on. Color is a rich blue with a bit more purple/red than I have seen in some LEDs.

LEDs with all 4 T5s running (ATI ABS and 3 x ATI Blue+)

LED and 2 x Blue+

LEDs only

Had to figure a way to mount it over an open top so I rigged this up. About $4 in PVC later came up with this. Used PVC "snap T's" for the feet which I had never seen before. Very happy with how it came out and it is very safe and sturdy. The other option I was considering was screwing it right into the front of my fixture but I'm gladd I didn't.

Few other random pics. I'm sure the color is way off in the pics as my camera is crappy.

 

[snupa]

:lol2erfect! I'm very excited for LED lights I'm obsessed with the ones you can buy for homes as well