Carey's Final Reef Upgrade- 180g

[carey]

Blonde naso is leading the vote so far. lol I figure i will have to buy the tang in the next week or two in order to move ahead with my plans. So let me know what you all think.
And yep, would love a purple or a chevron but just cant do it.

Made a video, only about 2.5 min, check it out. Tank still looks kinda bare but everything should start looking more full as time goes on and after I get the corals all in place. The glue comes tomorrow so I will be able to go ahead and start gluing away. The biopellet reactor and a ton of other goodies are due for delivery tomorrow too as well as the leds!!!! woot!!!

180g reef - YouTube

[TheTodd]

Blonde Naso (male) gets my vote. Always been one of my faves.

[carey]

Well good and bad news. I fed the tank last night and this morning and everyone ate pretty well all except the copperband. I took the 2 hour ride to go get live brine and just put in some and still nothing. he looked a couple times like he was interested but didnt eat any.
I have another bag of live brine which I will keep trying but it's not looking good for the butterfly.
That of course is the bad news. the good news is that all the other fish are eating. The midas blenny is doing much better, he's a nice yellow color now instead of the brown and yellow he has been. Both filefish ate this morning, I was getting worried about the one but they seem to be ok. The rabbit still doesnt have a very bright color but he is eating and swimming around so I bet he does fine.

ANy other tips for feeding this copperband? I've tried live brine, frozen brine, mysis, bloodworms, flake and NLS pellets.

[Fishman007]

Originally Posted by carey

Well good and bad news. I fed the tank last night and this morning and everyone ate pretty well all except the copperband. I took the 2 hour ride to go get live brine and just put in some and still nothing. he looked a couple times like he was interested but didnt eat any.
I have another bag of live brine which I will keep trying but it's not looking good for the butterfly.
That of course is the bad news. the good news is that all the other fish are eating. The midas blenny is doing much better, he's a nice yellow color now instead of the brown and yellow he has been. Both filefish ate this morning, I was getting worried about the one but they seem to be ok. The rabbit still doesnt have a very bright color but he is eating and swimming around so I bet he does fine.

ANy other tips for feeding this copperband? I've tried live brine, frozen brine, mysis, bloodworms, flake and NLS pellets.

Sorry about the copperband hope he will make it, good that everyone else is doing fine though!

[redsea]

Originally Posted by carey

Blonde naso is leading the vote so far. lol I figure i will have to buy the tang in the next week or two in order to move ahead with my plans. So let me know what you all think.
And yep, would love a purple or a chevron but just cant do it.

Made a video, only about 2.5 min, check it out. Tank still looks kinda bare but everything should start looking more full as time goes on and after I get the corals all in place. The glue comes tomorrow so I will be able to go ahead and start gluing away. The biopellet reactor and a ton of other goodies are due for delivery tomorrow too as well as the leds!!!! woot!!!

180g reef - YouTube

Love the fishes! The Rabbitfish was saying "behold, my spines," as he flicked them up and down .

I love the Blond Nasos too, very nice fish.

Congrats on all the new goodies coming tomorrow!

[carey]

Had a big fish news day today! The copperband is finally eating! I kept feeding the live brine throughput the night and mixed it with frozen. He intitally was picking out the live food but started eating more and more of the frozen. Today I fed just frozen and he ate it pretty well. I am feeling pretty good about him making it.
Also got the 3 led panels which we are working on adding tot he canopy right now. Got a huge box of free stuff from marine depot! Will be donating some to my reef club for their raffles since I have so much of it.
The stuff I bought from marine depot also came including the biopellet reactor. It is much taller than I thought it would be. Still unpacking the stuff so I will install it in a bit.

I have a question though. I bought about 500ml of pellets and the reactor holds up to 1200ml which is about what my tank will require. So, should I just add the 500ml for now and add more as the bacteria grows? Thats what I am thinking. I have another bag of pellets from another purchase so I figure I can use those. You can ,ix and match pellets right?

Thanks guys! Very excited, had a good day. ALl the fish are eating like pigs so all is good. For now. lol

[Oscarr19]

Happy to hear the copperband is finally eating!

[Grizz]

Glad the CB is eating Start with about 250 ml of pellets soak them in RO for about 24 hrs or they will float It will take about 4-6 weeks before you see any results from them once the nitrates drop you can adjust the amount from there Im using 2 cups of pellets on my 180 phos is 0 trAtes are 0 All the pellets are made of the same stuff so mix n match wont hurt

Dont forget to plumb the discharge into the skimmer intake i used a T to hook mine up

[carey]

Yep, gonna run the reactor output right up to the skimmer intake. I am soaking 500ml of pellets already, I figured half the required pellets? Or is that way too many? I also thought since this is a new tank that the earlier I got one installed the better it would be as I shouldn't really see any nitrates since it should take a few weeks for nitrates to build up which is the time it should take for the pellets to actually start working.
Another question is should I do a water change while they are getting to working?
I also have half a bottle of bacteria starter, it is recommended to be used when starting up a reactor. microbact 7 or something like that.

Let me know!

Thanks for the help btw.

[Pschmitt]

About the bio pellets - just started mine 3 weeks ago on my new build (I know I need to start a new build thread - soon) I put in 1/2 cup and started reading on different forums to go a head and add the full amount for your system which is in my case 1 cup. So far so good - no diatoms or film yet. We'll see how it goes. Nitrates still around 0.25. This weekend going to transfer some corals and fish to new tank. I have been feeding the pellets with microbacter 7 for 1 week straight to seed the system.

[Evansimp]

Can't wait to see the tank with the LEDs!!

[carey]

Thanks Evan, me either! LOL we took apart all the previous lighting in the canopy but still need a few things from the hardware store, so hopefully soon.

[Grizz]

Keep doing your PWC's (think cal. mag. ect.) add the M7 it wont hurt Just keep on eye on your coral i shocked mine when i put the reactor on my tank It made the water to clean. Thats why i suggest using half of the recommended amount of pellets to start

[mr_X]

Look...even your boys over at Odessea are getting on the bandwagon....
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[redsea]

I'm so glad the Copperband came around! Congratulations!

[carey]

LOL, guess you cant beat what works. Not to mention they were losing some of the market for lighting so they are getting in on the action. Mayeb i was lucky but I never had any issue with their t5's, I still have a couple in service.

Thanks Red, i am soo relieved he started eating. Was starting to really worry me.

Just did some water tests and they are still 0 across the board, even pH is looking good. I figured I might have a slight spike with the 11 fish going in on tuesday but it seems to be holding strong. woot!

Gonna head to lowes in a little bit and see what the price would be to hang the leds on a closet pole, you know, the thing that you hang your hangers on. They are like 6 feet and wont require any drilling really, just the end caps and a center support piece.

Mr.X, if youre still on, does that idea seem to be workable do you think? Instead of drilling a hook for each harness to attach to?

Thanks!

[mr_X]

I suppose that would work ok, as long as you find studs. Does the closet pole bracket stick out far enough though? You know what I put in my closet, that I'm looking at now and think would work well? Go in the closet isle and they have those modular shelving kits....You would end up with a shelf above your tank, but i don't see how that could be a bad thing...
Something like this...(just the shelf with hangar, not the rest of the junk...)

[mr_X]

Closet Organizers - Closet Storage - Storage & Organization*at The Home Depot

[carey]

I will be installing it under the canopy so a shelf while nice, would be lost on me. lol

I was thinking those old school wood ones, kinda like a 6 foot dowel.

[mr_X]

A pole under the canopy? Are you going to shorten the hanging hardware?