14 gallon reef tank making progress

[Sand dollar]

Thanks everyone. I still have my hands in the tank moving thing around almost daily trying to get the gorgonians in a happy spot, so I'm not all that happy with my FTS right now because some things are just hanging out in the sand bed. All the moving around and change of flow made my RFA MOVE AGAIN, grrr! And now she is sitting right up top stinging my red acan. I was able to move the other acan but this one is set in with putty and I can break it free without risk of crashing all the rocks. I'll try to get a good FTS in the next day or two while lights are on. I have another project in mind, not a bigger tank yet but something to occupy my time while this tank really grows in....stay tuned!!


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[Sand dollar]

Originally Posted by nanoreefz

Sand Dollar let's see a FTS!!


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Good to see you on here! I haven't seen an update to your thread in a while, how's it going??


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[nanoreefz]

Originally Posted by Sand dollar

Good to see you on here! I haven't seen an update to your thread in a while, how's it going??


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Yea I've been a little busy with work, we know how that goes. I'll have to update it tomorrow on my day off!


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[Sand dollar]

Been a while since a FTS. I keep waiting to post one until I'm happy and think it's perfect, but that's probably not happening soon since I'm always tinkering in there. So anyway, here's the current state of things.



My new dendro and sun coral were out in the Tupperware with food trying to get them to open and eat. It's been over two weeks since they arrived and I can't get them to completely open. They puff up but never extend their tentacles. I'm going to keep at it buts it's frustrating. This is about as much as they open, occasionally a tiny bit more.



Also I took out my new yellow gorgonian and moved it to my pod tank because it's polyps weren't extending. I'm not sure if it's flow or what but it loves this pod tank. I've been spot feeding daily and hope to transition back to display soon because it's one of my favorites. The other gorgonians seem to extend their polyps regularly in the display so maybe I just haven't found the right spot for this one, it is larger than the others so I don't have as many options for placement unfortunately.






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[paul87]

Looks good

[Sand dollar]

I got my yellow gorgonian back in the display this weekend, it's looking pretty good today. My dendro and sun corals also opens the most they have so far and I think even are a little. I was beginning to lose hope for them, but maybe they will come around yet! Can't wait to be able to get photos of them open and happy.







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[Toffee]

I am sold on reef2go. I got some nice nice coral frags from them during the 40% sale. All bigger pieces then I expected. Except for the sun coral, everything open up within couple of days.

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[Sand dollar]

My sun coral has been in three or four weeks now and hasn't fully opened yet either. Be persistent and patient. I was putting it in a container of tank water with lots and lots of food, turkey basting every so often to stir the food up for 30mins to an hour almost daily to get it to start opening. Do it around the same time everyday and then it should start opening around that time. This is it today and my dendro, I think a couple more days and they may open fully.

I agree that I have had a great experience with my reefs2go order, my only complaint is a lot of things are sold out. Although the red gorg said sold out when I placed my order and I emailed her to ask that it be added if they got them in stock before my order shipped and they did!






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[Toffee]

Agreed with everything sold out, LOL. I was waiting for the blue gorg...

I am placing it under a plastic bottle cutoff that I made. I am feeding it once a day now.

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[Sand dollar]

Originally Posted by Toffee

Agreed with everything sold out, LOL. I was waiting for the blue gorg...

I am placing it under a plastic bottle cutoff that I made. I am feeding it once a day now.

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Yep, heard that's another good way to do it. Good luck! Do you have a tank thread? Would love to see pictures of what you got from them.


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[Toffee]

Sorry I don't have a tank tread, I am tech challenged to post any pics lol

One day, I will start one. Just installed an UV sterlizer couple weeks ago and working on a doser and getting an used AI nano led to add more lights to my tank.

[Sand dollar]

Just got back today from a week vacation. My sister dog sat and attempted to follow my 2 pages of instructions for the tank, lol! All seemed to survive but I do have quite a bit of algae on the sand bed and a few small places on the rocks. Doing a big water change tomorrow.

Also thinking of siphoning out the top layer of sand and replacing with black, how bad will this mess up my water chemistry? This seems like a good time to do it so I can get the algae on the sand out of the tank. I have 10lbs of Hawaiian black that is ready to go in.

Other news, I set up my pod tank for RFA breeding before I left and hope to go get a few of my first nems for it this week!! Pictures will follow once they are in!!


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[54seaweed]

what ever you do don't put new sand over old

[Sand dollar]

Originally Posted by 54seaweed

what ever you do don't put new sand over old

So I would need to pull all of it out first? Or can I pull half of it off the top then add?


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[54seaweed]

I had to replace my sand bed a few weeks back I wound up sucking out the old sand
I used my wet dry vac to remove sand not letting any of the gases trapped in sand get into water column,
than slowly add the new , I filled a 5g bucket with mixed salt water dumped the new sand into it to remove any heavy dust sediment and added it cup by cup to keep any dust cloud from forming ,
covering old sand with new only traps in the nasty s over time it will become a ticking time bomb

why you want to change your sand bed isn't your tank fairly new , I do know it's coming along nicely
the reason I had to change out mine was I had a infestation of vermid snails
I'm still at war with the ones that made it to my rock work but I'm winning the battle
one of the most annoying pests in saltwater at-least I think so

[keegster803]

If you replace the sand bed, it's all or nothing. Cuz when you stir up that sand bed it gets bad. Cuz every inch you go down in it, the more toxic stuff that can be found. There are some bacteria that use fermentation that can be found in some of the deeper sand beds.


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[Sand dollar]

Well that's a bummer but good to know ahead of time.

Seaweed, I was going to do it just because I like the look of the black sand and had some algae I wanted to clear off the sand bed so thought it would be a good time. I'll hold off for now, things are pretty stable so I don't want to mess with the balance.


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[paul87]

You can add the black on top of the old sand. I've added dry sand with no noticeable problems before. The sand week however eventually mix and you will have white and black mixed. You can SLOWLY take the old sand out bit by bit. If you just really want it black then do it all IMO. Slowly remove one side of the old sand adding black to replace it, then in to the other side until its eventually all black with plenty of water changes along the way. It's a task!

[Sand dollar]

Originally Posted by paul87

You can add the black on top of the old sand. I've added dry sand with no noticeable problems before. The sand week however eventually mix and you will have white and black mixed. You can SLOWLY take the old sand out bit by bit. If you just really want it black then do it all IMO. Slowly remove one side of the old sand adding black to replace it, then in to the other side until its eventually all black with plenty of water changes along the way. It's a task!

My current sand is a black and white mix, more white than black though. So this would just tip it more towards black I guess if it mixed.


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[Sniperhank]

If the new sand is a different grain than what is in there, the heavier stuff will settle to the bottom.