Greg's 44 gallon shallow

[gaker]

I started in the hobby two years ago with a JBJ nanocube 28. A bit over a month ago, I started on an upgrade.

Equipment:

* 48" x 18" x 12" tall tank (~44 gallons)
* 40 breeder sump
* 35-40 pounds of dryish rock
* ~1/2" to 1" sand bed
* Two (2) RapidLED Onyx Fixtures (non-dimmable)
* BRS two stage reactor with GFO/Carbon
* Reef Octopus Skimmer

Current stock list:

Fish:
* Two (2) Lyretail anthias - feed them twice a day (I work from home), and they seem happy.
* Two (2) Blue Chromis
* One (1) Benggai Cardinal
* Two (2) Ocellaris Clownfish
* One (1) Royal Gramma
* One (1) Yellow Watchman Goby (with a pistol)

Corals/Inverts:
* Large clean up crew
* About Eighteen (18) SPS (acros, birdsnest, montis, etc)
* One (1) Ausy Scoly
* Two (2) Trachy Brains
* One (1) small Duncan colony
* One (1) Leather Toadstool
* One (1) Wall Hammer
* One (1) Bubble Coral
* One (1) Green BTA
* One (1) Squamosa Clam

More to follow.

 

[gaker]

For the cycle, I decided to try something. I started with dry rock.

Around August 12-15, I dropped the rock in a new clean 35 gallon Rubber Maid trashcan in my garage with about 20 gallons of new saltwater & I added a mag 5 power head for circulation.

I added some flake fish food for the first couple of days, and started adding Seachem Stability every day. Within two days, I was measuring ammonia off the charts. Nitrites stared a couple days after that, and nitrates got around 40 at about a week or so. All the while, I continued to add Stability. I didn't do a water change, and the water smelled like hell.

Ammonia & Nitrites dropped to 0 as the nitrates started to climb.

At this point, I considered my rock cycled and ready to go.

More later.

 

[gaker]

Sept 2

I moved the new stand and tank into the house, arranged the rocks, dumped in the sand and let the clouds go away.

I did find that a filter sock over a power head in the display as well as the sump really made the clouds go away quickly. I'd rinse them out every few hours.

I kept going with Seachem Stability daily.

Sept 5

I was testing no ammonia, nitrites or nitrates, but phosphates were around 4. I decided to add a small cleanup crew. I also added some chaeto to the sump from one of my other tanks.

Sept 6

The "big 3" were still at 0, and phosphates were still quite high. I drove over to Kansas City (we no longer have a LFS) and picked up a couple blue chromis and two Lyretail Anthias fish. I also started running carbon & GFO and did a 15 gallon water change. By the next morning, Phosphates were testing at .2 and later on the 7th, they were at 0.

Sept 8

The anthias and chromis continued to be in good spirits and are eating well, so I decided it is time to start moving corals & fish from my nano cube!

At this point, I'm not quite a month from when I started cooking the rocks. Still using stability daily.

I had to tear down the bulk of my other tank, and ended up keeping the rocks in a couple 5 gallon buckets with power heads to give me room to move the fish.

The biggest bugger was moving the blasted anemone. First, my clowns are crazy jerks, and even more so when I'm trying to coax their anemone from being wedged between two rocks. I pointed powerheads at it, tickled its foot, used some ice, etc. I finally got it. Only problem, I did get a small (1cm) tear on the edge of his foot. I'm keeping an eye on him as they adjust to the new tank. I think it will be okay.

That brings me to today. I have everything moved over, the fish are starting to become more comfortable in their new glass box, and my corals are looking pretty good (except for the leather, which I had to do a small hack job on to get off of a rock. He'll come around.

So here are some photos.

Some of you are probably shaking your heads at me for how quickly I did all of this. Well, if it all goes to hell you can say "I told you so", and I'll deserve it. Until then, let's reserve judgement.

SPS polyp extension is fantastic at night, and I do feed some of the Red Sea Coral Energy nightly about 2-3 hours after the lights go off.

I did lose one acro frag though. It was a lokani that I got from DFS about a year and a half ago. It had done __nothing__ since I got it. While other frags were thriving, it was doing nothing. I'll probably try one again at some point. we'll see.

I assume due to the amounts of carbon/GFO I'm running, Alk is a wee bit lower than I want at around 8.5. So I'm slowly working that up to around 10-11.

More later.

 

[navaljonf]

Looks great!!! Any full tank shots?


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[TheTodd]

Following along. I love shallow reefs. Looks good so far!


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[gaker]

Here's a current FTS.

I love how the chromis & anthias are so active in the water column. That is one thing about a larger tank I'm really happy with.

Due to the fact that the tank is so young and nutrients in the water are so low, Alk has been a bit high (around 9 or so) which makes for irritated acros. I'm looking to keep calcium around 450-475, but want Alk around 7.5-8. I'm feeding the the tank small bits of frozen brine shrimp 1x/day and then get everyone again with marine cuisine 1x/day.

I'm still using Red Sea Coral Energy at night, and I'm adding Reef Chili from BRS to the food, so corals have something to snack on as well. I'm thinking I'll keep on this pretty heavily until I can get detectible nitrates or phosphates. Until then, I don't want starving SPS corals.

Also, since I started with dry rock, I ordered some copepods from algae barn and dropped those in earlier this week. I was impressed with this order, as most "pods in bags" I've seen don't seem to have much life in them. There were thousands on the walls of the bag/suspended in the water.

I need to try to pluck out some amphipods from my other tank to get some in this one.

 

[navaljonf]

Very nice!!!


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[Macscale]

That's a super cool tank..
Shallow reefs always turn out amazing.. What Anthias did you stock with?

 

[gaker]

They are Lyretails.

Since the Anthias are planktivores, I've been feeding the tank 2X a day (sometimes three). Even though it is a complete PIA, I've been running filter socks to help keep the leftovers from rotting out in the sump.

The other fish seem to appreciate it as well. They are getting FAT!

 

[Oscarr19]

Wow, gorgeous tank! I too love the look of a shallow tank, and you sir have nailed it.

 

[gaker]

I got a couple large acro frags from a friend in town today.

They have been growing like mad under T5s in his tank for several years, so I'm starting them on the sand to get used to the LEDs.

I also drained my sump today to re-silicone a couple baffles. I didn't get a couple of the ones that don't touch the bottom of the tank high enough, so it basically drained from the overflow pipe straight to the return. Pretty annoying.

One plus though, is I'm able to move a few things around. I made a mistake and put the skimmer in the overflow chamber. So I moved it to the center chamber, chaeto and rocks into the overflow chamber. It should be a better setup.

I'll get 'er filled back up and running tomorrow early afternoon though.

 

[gaker]

This is in my 12 gallon office tank, but I like the photo too much to not share.

The RBTA split back in Feb and they are both on the same rock. At night, each clown takes residence in one of the nems. When they are all puffed up during the day, they will touch. The female clown will hang out between them. It is crazy to me how long they can go without moving when they are cuddling the anemone...sometimes they almost look dead in their anemones.

 

[Oscarr19]

Gorgeous shot Greg!

 

[Cichlid-dude]

That is an awesome pic!


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[gaker]

The tank is just over a month old at this point, and here are some general observations.

* Diatoms - I had a *very* small bloom a couple of weeks ago. Just a bit on the powerhead and overflow/return pipes.

* Phosphates are a bit of a pain. I've been running pretty consistently at 0.08. I suppose this is okay, but it would be way cooler if I could be down closer to 0.03. GFO/Carbon are doing their job though. The chaeto in the sump has grown like mad, and has a ton of pods in it. So I suppose it is doing its job.

* Water changes are a bigger pain in the rear when you have ~70 total gallons than when I was at ~22-25. I've been doing 10 gallons weekly. I had a case of cloudy water a couple weeks ago, so did about 15 and changed the carbon. Things cleared up pretty nicely.

* I didn't anticipate the lighting change in going from a single RapidLED Onyx fixture over my old tank to two on this one. I ended up raising the lights to about 15" over the tank, and dropped the lighting cycle by about an hour. Even though their depth in the water was roughly the same, an acro and my birdsnest colony "lightened up" a bit. I'm not going to say they totally bleached...they are just a bit lighter. I need to borrow a PAR meter to see how things look. Other acros look nice, and their color changes have been quite interesting. Some for the better, some not. Generally speaking, I am quite happy.

* Most of the acros that were on a frag rack in my old tank, and I couple I got from Jason Fox early last month are now encrusted off the frag plug and onto the rocks by 0.5-1cm. That is pretty decent growth for a new tank, eh?

* I haven't quite broken my old tank down yet. In the last week or two it has become pods galore. There are tens of thousands on the glass, rocks, etc. I tossed some chaeto in that tank and am trying to catch them in it and toss them in the other tank by shaking the chaeto out. I think I'm going to try to siphon a bunch out.

Last thing. I love this tank, but already wish it was bigger. If only I had the space!

 

[Macscale]

You forgot the pictures

 

[gaker]

3 months at this point, and the tank is doing great!

I feed 2/3 times a day, have pods galore and I'm changing 15 gallons of water weekly. Phosphates are at a stable .08 as per a Hanna. I have used filter socks from day one, as I knew I would be overfeeding due to the fish I wanted. This has kept my sump pretty darned clean so far.

I've been on an acro frag collecting spree lately. At this point, I'm up to 26 SPS, 7 LPS, 1 "softie" and 2 clams. I can't wait to see what it will look like in a year.

I dose just a bit during the week in between water changes. One thing I've noticed is that my Alk stays quite low compared to Calcium. Calcium is pretty consistent at 420-460 and Alk sits around 7.0 -> 7.8. Magnesium is in the 1320 - 1400 range. I'm getting excellent growth on the acroporas, so I'm not really worried about it.

I feed corals 2 part Coral See Reef Energy 1-2 times a week.

Here are a couple photos:

-- A bit saturated, sorry.

I'm still working on colors, but with the tank being as shallow as it is, getting them used to the LEDs has been tricky. I need a PAR meter.

I have been supplementing some copepods from a pod farm I setup, and given I had been seeing them on the glass during the day, I picked up a mandarin. It took about a week or so to get him on a mixture of brine & mysis shrimp. But he does eat for me 2/3 times a day in addition to whatever he hunts.

 

[Macscale]

The tank looks awesome! I'm loving the Anthias still, they look awesome.

 

[Cichlid-dude]

Tank is beautiful!


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