Pete's 125g Basement Move and Restoration

[bioteacher]

Here is the base of my aquascaping. First try at this, and I was pretty happy. I have read a lot of stuff saying that you should use big pieces on the bottom, but the guy I bought from said to use small pieces as "legs" underneath large flat pieces. That way you can get water flow underneath your rocks and avoid dead spots.

I also put rocks down first and then sand, so if I add diggers I wont have a collapse.

 

[spoonman]

That is gonna look awesome! Tagging along....

 

[bioteacher]

Woohoo, full of water and all the guts hooked up. This was about 10pm. Sooooooo exhausted, but I kept going.

 

[bioteacher]

chaos everywhere!!

 

[bioteacher]

here's the quarantine tank that I did not anticipate making. I had to clean up an old freshwater aquarium to put it together. I hope it does the job. I know it is not cycled. I hope that the LR chunk will serve as the bio filter.

Q: Can I use copper in this tank with the LR in there? Will copper kill the goodies in the LR?

 

[bioteacher]

So, finally on Sunday afternoon, I hooked up the lighting. It is a combo MH with 2 T5 actinic. It is amazing what a difference lighting makes…

Q: From the back, you can see the 2 ballast units for the MH lights. Can I store these under the tank with the sump? Right now, I am guessing no and I just have them on the floor outside the door. I need to find a long term place to store those bad boys.

 

[bioteacher]

And now the battle against the Aiptasia begins!!

 

[jjamontan]

Fun to see all the progress in one hour worth of posts. Thanks.

 

[jose7878]

Looks real good...much success...

 

[cerulean_blue]

Looks great tagging along...so I might have missed the time stamps, but how long did you have to cycle it? did you need too? Also I 100% agree with keeping smaller rocks on the bottom, the goal of aquascaping IMO is to minimize the amount of dead spots...

And for your CU question, I think it only kills inverts not BB on LR. From reading this forum I hear most people don't put LR in their QT because it can never be put in a display tank again. It'll absorb the copper.

 

[BallinCrew10]

I believe copper will kill the BB and your rock will absorb the copper. If it is ich and you treat with copper I wouldn't use that piece in your DT.

 

[bioteacher]

Here's a question for a newbie to reefs:

I have a maxi-mini, zoas, tree coral, and other anemones, buttons. i don't know much about them.

1) What water quality parameters should I be monitoring other than the normal nitrogen tests (ammonia, nitrite, nitrate)?

2) What supplements should I be dosing? Calcium? Iodine? Strontium?

 

[Sniperhank]

If you are using a reef salt and doing weekly water changes, you should never have to use additives. And you should be monitoring all that you said plus hardness.

 

[bioteacher]

If you are using a reef salt and doing weekly water changes, you should never have to use additives. And you should be monitoring all that you said plus hardness.

Just out of curiousity, what % of your water do you change weekly?

 

[Mpfaff77]

I do 15% changes every 10 days or so.

If you dose with copper in that quar tank you shouldn't put that rock back in display tank. Pretty sure coper will leach into rock. Could kill inverts and coral.

 

[bioteacher]

Looks great tagging along...so I might have missed the time stamps, but how long did you have to cycle it? did you need too? Also I 100% agree with keeping smaller rocks on the bottom, the goal of aquascaping IMO is to minimize the amount of dead spots...

And for your CU question, I think it only kills inverts not BB on LR. From reading this forum I hear most people don't put LR in their QT because it can never be put in a display tank again. It'll absorb the copper.

Sorry I missed this post. I was just looking back. How rude of me not to address your questions

To answer them, no I did not cycle the tank at all. I took as much of the sellers water as I possibly could. In total I probably got 60 gallons or so. I also had 40 gallons of fresh saltwater mixed up and waiting for me when we got everything set up. I think it ended up being a good mix. Enough old water to not shock everything with enough new water to dilute out some of the stirred up nitrates/phosphates from the sand bed and such. I did not have much of a bloom of anything afterwards. A little brown stuff on the surface of the sand beds ( diatoms I would guess...) since I added 40 lbs of new argonite.

 

[bioteacher]

Ok, so I need the help of those with experience. My first additions to my new tank are going to be clean up crew. The sand bed needs help, and I have an Aiptasia problem that needs biological control. Heres a list of what is currently in the tank followed by a list of potential new additions. I would like your thoughts on compatibility, effectiveness, and any things I might be missing or over killing on.

Current inhabitants:

1 maroon clown
1 blonde naso tang
1 fox face lo
2 percula clowns
1 maxi mini
1 tree coral
2 Zoa colonies
1 green bubble anemone
Several mushrooms
1 red hairy lobster
2 brittle stars
1 small crab ( I think a gorilla, and I know I need to get rid of him, can't catch the bugger)
Several Turbo snails (don't know how many, but probably 10 ish)
Several small hermits (again, don't have a count)
7.4 billion Aiptasia (estimated population size)

Hopeful additions:

All from aquatic connection special deals page. Check it out. Some really good deals

http://www.aquacon.com/saltwater_sp...water_specials.html&__utmv=-&__utmk=210705557

30 nerite snails
5 peppermint shrimp
21 nassarius snails
5 tiger conch
20 blue leg hermits
20 scarlet hermits
1 arrow crab
10 cerith snails
25 Astraea snails
5 emerald crab
2 purple pin cushion urchin

So, what do you think? Any and all insightful opinions are appreciated. Is this website reputable? I'm getting all this for around $160 plus $50 for overnight shipping.

 

[Reef79]

Never ordered from them before sounds like a good deal
I found Joe's juice works for the aptasia u will have to dose the larger ones a quit a few times butt it does work well with no ill effects to coral or fish in my expirience