Smith's Reef - 24g Aquapod

HAMsmith · #1 06/30/2006, 10:30 AM

Smith's Reef was started on 6/29/06. This is the first marine aquarium for my wife and me.

The tank is a Current USA Aquapod 24 gallon with PC lighting. The stand was made custom to fit the AP by Ocean View Aquariums in Pascagoula, MS.

Modifications so far have been switching the stock pump to a Maxi-Jet 1200 and switching the stock fan to a Vantec Stealth 60mm. I am not using any of the supplied bio balls or ceramic rings. I did cut one of the sponges in half and I have that in the chamber temporarily.

We used 15# of a Fiji-ish live rock, 2.5# of a branch-type live rock, and 2.5# of manmade base rock all purchased from a LFS. The substrate is around 20# Aragamax and 5# live sand from the LFS. Saltwater was purchased from the LFS.

The aquascaping was fun. The live rock didn't go as far as I imagined. I think I'll return for a few more pieces, maybe 5 more pounds.

So far for hitchhikers we have a big snail (nassarius), a small snail (unknown), and a pea-sized aptasia.

This was the tank the morning after the set up after the dust had cleared.

We felt as if we had achieved a masterpiece of aquascaping and indeed I think we did. However, what I have realized is that it is hard to photograph the true look of the tank!

I did not test the water last night, this morning I had these readings using a Seachem marine test kit:

Total Ammonia 0.02
Free Ammonia 0
pH 8.1-8.2
Nitrite 0.1
Nitrate 1-2
Alkalinity 6 meq/L
Sp. Gravity 1.026
Temp is ranging from 77.8ish with no lights or heater to 78.5ish with lights and no heater. Not sure if I even need a heater?!

A couple more shots...

I had a hard time figuring out how to pour the water into the tank without causing a mess, this was the solution as suggested by a LFS...bucket on the ladder, siphon into bowl placed in tank...it is sturdier than it looks!

Testing the lights for the first time and my new perch

Bad Aptasia, Bad!

More to come, welcome to Smith's Reef!

fishes2889 · #2 06/30/2006, 10:58 AM

Nice start. What are your plans for this tank??

schristi69 · #3 06/30/2006, 12:42 PM

Bett kill that aptasia before it spreads all over the place

HAMsmith · #4 07/01/2006, 10:34 AM

The tank will have easy zoos and mushrooms, a goby/shrimp pair, and one centerpiece fish plus the standard clean up crew.

Day 3 FTS

Total Ammonia 0.1
Free Ammonia 0 - 0.02
pH 8.1
Nitrite 0 - 0.1
Nitrate 2
Alkalinity 5 meq/L
Sp. Gravity 1.026
Temp 78.2 after a night of no heater and no lights. Yesterday temp peaked at around 80 with several hours of lights and no heater.

Many of our rocks also have small feather dusters with tubes from mechanical pencil lead size to coffee stirrer size. Hard to photo these though! I have gained new insight into the "ID this please" type thread as I see things all over the tank clear as day, but when I photograph them they all turn into brown blobs.

Last night after lights out I searched the tank with a flashlight and found a bunch of surprises. Every rock was covered with critters, some kind of isopod I think. We also have a Digitate Hydroid, really cool to watch the "fishing" motion.

Unfortunately I discovered a touch of bubble algae on our most prominent piece of live rock

Took care of the Aptasia with Joe's Juice. A second sneaky hidden Aptasia was also discovered and eradicated. That Joe's Juice is freaky good!

This is where the first Aptasia used to be. Compare it to the last Aptasia pic and it is hard to tell anything was there at all!

Here is a side shot showing a piece of man made live rock that has a nice cave (1), our bridge (2) and the one rock in our aquascape that we aren't happy with its placement (3)

One of our live rock fragments has something growing out of it, looks like macro algae or a plant. The lighter colored part at the top looks like possible new growth

More photos to come as I work on my photo technique.

Hardwarewise one of the moonlight LEDs is out, going to go under the hood today and see what is going on. Other than that the Aquapod is doing great, could not be happier with it.

I cannot thank Marc Levenson enough, great information source!

So far so good, having a blast with the tank!!

HAMsmith · #5 07/03/2006, 08:44 PM

Day 5 and all is well.

FTS

Readings continue to be about the same

Total Ammonia 0.02
Free Ammonia 0
pH 8.1
Nitrite 0
Nitrate 2
Alkalinity 5-6 meq/L
Sp. Gravity 1.026
Temp 78.2 no lights, 80.5 end of light cycle

I still have not plugged in my heater. As our house stays between 72-73 I have no idea where the heat comes from! Surely a maxijet 1200 does not add 5 degrees to the tank?

As I used cured live rock from a LFS plus live sand from a LFS I guess my cycle will not have a big ammonia spike. Today I noticed the start of a brownish algae on the sand.

Critterwise we have bristleworms, tons of assorted pods, a peanut worm, a smooth shy brown worm that pokes out of its burrow at night but will not leave it, tiny snails, plus lots of tiny critters on the glass. We have so many pods now that they don't wait for lights out, they scurry around the tank all day long.

We noticed these on the glass starting around day 3, hydroids maybe?

We have featherdusters everywhere

Plus these really tiny things, featherdusters? Hydroids?

The small snails

The small worms

And our first hitch hiker "Gary"

He was kinda sluggish at first but turned the corner on the night of day 4. He fell off the glass from near the top of the tank where he had been perched almost 24 hours and as soon as he hit the bottom he started eating and behaving "normally". I have a feeling we will always have at least one snail named Gary.

The war against aiptasia rages on. We have killed a total of 8 of the buggers! Joe's Juice continues to do the trick. I think we will add Peppermint Shrimp after our cycle is complete.

The LED problem is fixed. Turns out it was not broken, it is just that one of the LEDs immediately fires up while the other takes a few minutes to spark up. Patience, who would have thought?!

My current concerns are:

When to start doing water changes since my cycle is rather flat

When to add snails/hermits as I'm starting to see algae

Continue watching the heat levels and possibly drill a hole into the clear plastic shroud under the fan

Seems like I either have micro bubbles or a lot of suspended stuff, trying to decide which one. I'm using the 1/2 of one piece of the supplied filter sponge, maybe I'll add some floss on top of that to catch the bubbles/junk.

Thanks in advance for any feedback.

Martin

Nathan4Wvu · #6 07/05/2006, 05:39 PM

Looking good

DRC69 · #7 07/05/2006, 06:00 PM

Nice setup. I can hardly wait until I get mind up and running.
Keep up with the info.

wav3form · #8 07/05/2006, 06:14 PM

LEDs shouldn't need time to "spark up". They're either on or they're off. Something else is causing that.

HAMsmith · #9 07/06/2006, 10:39 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by wav3form
LEDs shouldn't need time to "spark up". They're either on or they're off. Something else is causing that.

Thanks for the heads up. I'm not the most electrically inclined person.

When I had the hood apart I did check the voltage and it was the same for both LEDs, the one that "works" and the one that didn't. That initially led me to believe that the bulb was blown. Later once I realized both bulbs were working I didn't give it too much thought.

The problem is intermitant now with it mostly working properly. Maybe I have a self-repairing Aquapod?

bubblethumper · #10 07/08/2006, 01:24 PM

Sounds like bad electrical wiring. LEDs are virtually impossible to break and have such a long life-span that they (for all practical purposes) don't burn out.

KING OF THE REEF · #11 07/08/2006, 01:54 PM

welcome to the world of aquapoding. lol. i have a aquapod 24 with a halide over it. i am keeping zoos, leathers, lps, and sps. yes chemical warfare is raging, but i use carbon to keep that iin check. one thing you might want to do with your tank is upgrade the lights later in the lfie of the tank. it is so beautiful with the halides i have sworn never to go back to the traditioal power compacts. keep taking pictures and keep us updated.

HAMsmith · #12 07/09/2006, 09:04 AM

Thanks for the interest!

I'll do a big update this afternoon with pics and a funny story or two, the highlight being completely collapsing my aquascape!

KING OF THE REEF · #13 07/09/2006, 09:49 AM

ok ill be looking for it

HAMsmith · #14 07/09/2006, 05:54 PM

I tried to be patient, but I failed. My parameters were stabe, I never had ammonia or nitrites. So instead of waiting as everyone recommends, I started buying critters. It started out innocent enough, a couple hermits, a day later a snail. Then I got bold and bought a zooanthid. Then I went nuts and in one day bought 4 snails, 2 crabs, 2 shrimp, and 3 corals.

So on day 11 here is my stock list...

Critters:

2 Nassarius Snails
2 Trochus Snails
1 Turbo Snail
1 Cerith Snail (Hitch Hiker)

2 Red Leg Hermits
2 Blue Leg Hermits
2 Emerald Mithrax Crabs (male and female)

1 Peppermint Shrimp

Corals:

Green Star Polyp
Unidentified Mushroom
Mixed Zooanthid
Unidentified Leather

The leather was free as I helped move a heavy object at the LFS and when I got home my bag had one extra critter...

The above pic was right placing the leather in the rock and putting on the rubber band, the pic below is after a few hours

The zoos when I first put them in the tank

a couple hours later

I glued the frag to a small piece of LR to experiment with super glue gel

Zoos under PCs

Zoos under Actinics

Mushroom, anyone know what kind this is?

One of our larger bottom rocks will be covered in GSP

HAMsmith · #15 07/09/2006, 05:55 PM

Ack just discovered the image limit per post...

Our turbo machine

Our nassarius

This guy shows up on day 7

This makes me not want to touch live rock without gloves on

Unsure if this was going to be bubble algae or grape caulerpa, doesn't matter either way as the hermits ate it 1 hour after I noticed it

HAMsmith · #16 07/09/2006, 06:01 PM

Day 11 FTS

I had a major rock slide as I was placing a rubber band around a piece of LR to affix the leather. Next thing I know all my rocks are tumbling. Lesson learned, stablize those rocks!

I also messed up on my first water change by not having everything ready before I started pumping out water. I was so focused on the fact that I wanted to remove some detritus from my back chamber that I neglected to check my fresh saltwater. After pumping out 5 gallons from the tank I tested my fresh saltwater, specific gravity was 1.015 and I didn't have any salt. Oops. Lesson learned, have everything all lined up and tested before starting up a project.

So I think I've been very lucky so far. Broke a bunch of rules but haven't had many consequences. Slowing down now to think about the plan for the tank both in terms of coral and fish.

Any comments or criticism would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks for following along!

KING OF THE REEF · #17 07/09/2006, 08:29 PM

lol. ok lesson learned. i think the corals will be ok. just keep and eye on them. check your water everyday. make sure everything is good.

mr pink floyd · #18 07/09/2006, 08:54 PM

that shroom is a ricordea

lookin good

id put more snails in, in my 29 i haev 12 nassatious, and 12 cerinth, 5 astrea and 3 turbos

still get some algae on sand, but not alot

im thinking of adding 5 more nassarious and cerinth

good luck!

aquapod · #19 07/10/2006, 09:02 AM

that hitchhiker snail looks like a whelk to me. I 'm still trying to ID if those i have are whelks

Timothy01 · #20 07/11/2006, 12:29 AM

i cant tell from this the photo, but that starfish maybe a bad boy. if it is, its getting ready to split. cant remeber that name of them but if they multiply enough they will smother your corals. i have some in my 80 that i've been trying to get rid of for like a little over a year(pluck out 2 or 3 a week). i'd buy a harliquin shrimp to take care of them but I've got 3 banded brittles in there.

HAMsmith · #21 07/14/2006, 09:01 AM

I don't think it is a whelk as it does not have a hard plate on top of its foot. I think that starfish is reef-safe but I'll look into it further. My LFS has a tank that has several, I'll ask for their opinion or at least identificiation.

On the tank side I decided to get rid of the filter block entirely. I had been using 1/2 of 1 block in chamber one with some floss on top of it. I did this b/c my tank always had stuff floating in it. I continued to have floaters even with the filter block/floss so I decided to ditch it as the chance of it wasn't worth the risk of it increasing nitrates if it wasn't going to clear the water.

My rocks are turning green! Also the tank walls are getting some film green algae growth and some hairy algae. I think I will add a few more snails this weekend.

Water changes are becoming dangerous as when I go into the LFS to buy $5 of salt water I come out with $30 of corals. Oh yeah, and $5 of salt water. I feel like an addict. I'm going to have to ebay some other hobby stuff to support my habit!

Water parameters are still stable even with a 3 day business trip where the tank got no attention.

I'll post pics this afternoon.

KING OF THE REEF · #22 07/14/2006, 10:03 AM

ebay name please, i am lookignf rosoemt higns u might be selling them keep up the good work wit hthe tank

HAMsmith · #23 07/14/2006, 10:23 AM

The ebay stuff I'm talking about is model railroading and table top RPG type stuff, nothing aquarium related.

KING OF THE REEF · #24 07/14/2006, 10:29 AM

oh

HAMsmith · #25 07/14/2006, 08:44 PM

Timothy01 you may be right. I went to the LFS and saw a star just like mine munching on a zoo. Next time I see it I'm taking it out.

Here are the most recent pics. I added some macro algae, maybe it is hokey in a salt water display but I like it!

I put it in the back on both sides, right

left

In the chaeto I found 3 micro brittle stars and several bristleworms. I'm sure the stars will become one of my critters lunch though, they are just so tiny!

Here is a FTS taken today, day 16

I finally got a shot of one of my emerald crabs, I think this is the female

They are very shy. I still have not gotten my peppermint shrimp on film yet. I think in another week or so he will be more sociable. Each day he seems to come out of his hiding holes a bit more.

Thanks for following!