90 Gallon Saltwater Build

[needmorecowbell]

It's pretty hard to catch them, I think there are a few good threads on here for how to catch them. I would just keep looking first. Your sure the clicking sounds came from the tank though, right?

 

[Heera]

Played around with the skimmer but more. Seemed to be doing a bit better. But pump Is making more noise now.

Want to get cleaner shrimp will my mystery ticking shrimp cause any problems? I read that pistol shrimps kill cleaner shrimps.

 

[mr_X]

I know many people that buy pistol shrimp for their tanks and don't see them killing the cleaners, but I too have heard and seen vids of them killing other shrimp. I guess it's up to the shrimp.

 

[Heera]

I am looking every night as I hear the tick tick. No sighting yet.

Just picked up a 40 gallon breeder tank for$40 to build my sump refugeium. Going to build it over the weekend.

Any tips? Plz share.....

Want to reduce pump noise and don't want algae in skimmer and pump section from refuge light.

Any other thoughts feel free to share.

 

[needmorecowbell]

You shouldn't be too worried about algae in the sump. I have light going into my sump but I get very little algae in it.

Have you glued the baffles in yet? If you haven't, use CDs to make right angles and lift the glass up however high you want it. It works nicely, I watched someone on YouTube who gave the tip.

 

[Flreefer]

I used black opaque acrylic to isolate the light in my refugium, and keep it out of my intake and return sections. I also made them slightly taller than the refuge sides to support my lighting hood. I felt this would help keep the refuge a little cleaner and lengthen the time between cleanings of the return pump
Here's a pic of what I did.

View attachment 95578

Refuge light blockers

 

[Heera]

both tips are very useful.
Thanks needmorecowbell and flreefer

 

[needmorecowbell]

No problem! Hope everything works well for you.

 

[Flreefer]

Good luck with your build!

 

[Heera]

I bleached and cleaned the tank today. I am going to seal it tomorrow.

Refugeium - 2 objectives.
1. Process phosphates and nitrates
2. Tons of pods enough for having a mandarin
- I will also add another macro algae tank later for live tang food.

So what should I have in my refuge? DSB, coral rubble or anything else???

 

[Flreefer]

I don't see why you wouldn't just grow your tang food in the refugium? That's designed to grow Macroalgea. Tangs usually love small grape Caulerpa!! Mine do.
As far as substrate, I used 30 lbs. of aragonite sand, but there are different opinions about this. Some people like the mud, wanted to go with this but is expensive. Some go bare bottom for less nutrient build- up and more space for Macroalgea, with maybe a little rubble. Some pack it with rubble, maybe there isn't enough rock in their DT, don't know about this one.
I went with an approximate 2" sand bottom. My DT is crushed coral and I felt having some aragonite sand in the system would be beneficial.
Some say, if it's not a deep sand bed (5-6"), then it's not doing much of anything, but with that deep of a bed in a refuge, there wouldn't be much room for Macro.

 

[mr_X]

I wouldn't go with the mud. I saw a study done on a popular brand of reef mud a few years ago. The result was that there was nothing in it that would prove it came from the ocean. Mine had pieces of brick in it and shiny man-made plastic shards in it. It's from someone's back yard.

 

[Flreefer]

Ahh...so thats the miracle... A miracle money-maker!!

 

[needmorecowbell]

I wouldn't go with the mud. I saw a study done on a popular brand of reef mud a few years ago. The result was that there was nothing in it that would prove it came from the ocean. Mine had pieces of brick in it and shiny man-made plastic shards in it. It's from someone's back yard.

I talked to Anthony Calfo about it a few days ago, he said the same thing.. The reason people think its good is because it has sugars in it which makes corals open up more, it's actually bad long term because the corals use the energy of opening for nothing.

 

[mr_X]

That's odd. If it's sugar that makes corals open up more, why can't we just toss in some sugar?

 

[needmorecowbell]

Polyp extension isn't always a good thing. There is a thread Anthony was On That talked about it, I'll try to find it.

 

[needmorecowbell]

I was talking to him about how my kryptonite candy cane wasn't opening as much as it should. He told me basically this..

http://www.reef2reef.com/forums/general-sps-discussion/57132-polyp-extention.html

And you can add sugar, just don't do it regularly, he told me I could add 1 teaspoon of apple juice to see how much the maximum polyp extension is on it. He said some lfs do that when taking pics of their corals to make them look good.

 

[mr_X]

Interesting. Back to the Heera's question- I like a small sand bed (an inch or so) and some live rock, rubble or otherwise. If your refugium is small, you may not want to, or be able to fit that stuff, but the rock is as good as the algae as far as the pod production is concerned, IMO.

 

[Heera]

A big thanks to all of you for responding with great info.

My refuge is going to be 15X18x 12" (LxWxH).


So NO mud.
1-2 inch fine sand. 4-5 small live rock rocks with coral skeletons ( rubble) and cheto with regular light on top.

That should do it?

 

[needmorecowbell]

What do you mean by regular light? Everything else sounds great!