YATJT - 30 Gallon TBS - Page 10

ZoeReef · #**226** 07/14/2006, 10:02 AM

Here's the other one

http://www.marinedepot.com/md_viewIt...product=TL3151

ZoeReef · #**227** 07/14/2006, 10:08 AM

Josh, sorry to hear about the loss of your clown. Obviously the QT tank is an urgent need. I don't have a solution regarding the ich and where it came from. I guess this is why people who have made it through the hard times in the beginning find great satisfaction in their successful tank.

Character is revealed in hard times. I'm sure there will be success in your future. Your tank size is just at the edge of nano and as you move to a larger tank you will have far more stability. My 160g system is an entirely different world from my nano. It's far more stable in every way.

jharler · #**228** 07/14/2006, 01:07 PM

Surprisingly, the other clown is still alive. He's still looking awful and does nothing but swim in the powerhead stream, so I think it's only a matter of time.

I've certainly learned a lot from this experience and although it's discouraging, I'm not about to give up. I'm mostly just really irritated and angry at myself for allowing the clown fish to be taken by this when they didn't need to be.

From this point on I will be using my QT for all new fish in my tank and I seriously doubt I will ever purchase from that LFS again. Hopefully I can avoid these kind of problems in the future.

In other news, I've been battling a bad case of red hair and slime algae. It all seems accumulated in the very front of my tank, so I believe it's mostly a flow issue. I've lowered one of the powerheads so it blows directly across the front of the tank. I've not feed the tank in over a week. I've also decreased the length of time the lights are on and have them shut off for an hour in the middle of the day. I read that doing that will make things difficult for the algae.

That algae seems to be the only problem in my display. My pulsating xenia is doing well, and actually looks like it's in the process of splitting. I've epoxied the small rock it was on to a larger one that will be my xenia rock. The back of the tank has a variety of green algae and pink coraline growing on it and it looks quite nice actually.

I received a shipment of plumbing parts. Turns out I ordered the wrong sized 90 degree elbows, so I have a bunch of 3/4" elbows when I need 1" elbows. The right ones are on their way. I've decided that I want to eliminate the unsightly powerheads from my tank, so I'm going to be adding an external closed loop system. I'm hoping to have the sump plumbed and operational by the middle of next week and the closed loop finished shortly after.

jharler · #**229** 07/15/2006, 11:31 AM

The remaining clown fish has died as well. He was trying to hold on, but it was just too much for him.

ZoeReef · #**230** 07/15/2006, 01:51 PM

Sorry about the other fish. That's a bummer.

Why don't you just get your elbows at home depot?

A refugium would really help. What are your phosphate readings?

jharler · #**231** 07/15/2006, 02:04 PM

I ordered gray PVC so the closed loop piping won't be so noticeable and my local Home Depots don't supply the gray kind. They'll be here Monday, so that gives the silicon in the sump plenty of time to cure before filling it with water.

I'm hoping to add some macro algae (cheato) to my sump when I finish it. I don't have a phosphate test. The LFS didn't have any so I'm going to have to order one. I haven't fed the tank in a week and a half and it might be my imagination but the amount of algae seems to be reducing with the increased flow. I'll give it another week to see if there's any changes before I do anything drastic.

ZoeReef · #**232** 07/15/2006, 02:07 PM

I wondered that. FWIW, you can paint PVC black. You can get plastic paint at ace hardware. I bought a flat black, spray painted some equipment and gave it a day to dry, put it in the tank and everything is happy happy.

I'd recommend salifert for phosphate testing. not cheap, but worth it to find out whats going on.

jharler · #**233** 07/15/2006, 02:55 PM

I know you can paint the PVC, but I didn't want to take a chance of having the paint leak something into the water. The gray PVC cost the same as the white, so I just went with the gray.

I will be ordering the Salifert phosphate test. All my other tests are Salifert.

ZoeReef · #**234** 07/15/2006, 03:07 PM

kewl. Color was just an FYI. I too was concerned about chemical bleed-through but I searched around and found that many people have done it successfully. I too don't want to poison my survivors

I will say that I use those cheap test strips that you find at PetCo (six tests on one strip). I have found that they do just fine in telling me in 15 seconds how Nitrate, Nitrite and Alk are doing. If something catches my attention then I check with salifert. Of course they are no where near the accuracy, but the do tell me 'everythings fine' or 'its not' in 15 sec.

ZoeReef · #**235** 09/01/2006, 10:26 AM

Hey.. ru still here? How about an update

jharler · #**236** 09/05/2006, 12:10 PM

I've been rather discouraged about the tank the past few months. I tried to add a sump, but that didn't work. It was too loud. I was being overrun with cyano and nothing I did was helping, so I bought some chemi-clean. That took care of the cyano. Now I'm being overrun by red hair algae.

Other than that, there's been no changes. My pulsating xenia is growing pretty well, but everything else is the same. I think I lost my small red serpent star. A week or two ago I saw him and he was missing a few arms. I haven't seen him since.

There have been times when I've thought of putting everything up for sale. I've been neglecting it recently, but I'm going to do a few water changes this week and alter my lighting schedule to see if I can reduce the amount of red hair algae in the tank. If it doesn't help, I'm not sure what I'll end up doing.

ZoeReef · #**237** 09/05/2006, 04:38 PM

Sorry to hear of the problems, but other people have the kind of tank you desire and it's not just luck, it is learned. You have learned many things and I sure hope you don't quit yet. In hindsight, were you disappointed with the TBS rock? I'm sure you can more appreciate the challenges of a small tank. It really is quite tricky and things change so quickly. Pehaps buy a cheap algae eating tang. Hey I have a yellow tang a foxface and a clown in my 24g. Regardless of what the experts say, they are all happy. I got them to eat a weird leaf algae and they have done a great job. I had a red algae problem for awhile.

Hey, compared to many, you're a

To quit now would be a

I'm sure at times you feel like

or

But it's time to

Because I think most of the

are behind you.

What are your phosphates and nitrates reading these days?

andy

jharler · #**238** 10/18/2006, 04:12 PM

Another update.

The red algae and cyano seem to be gone. The fan in my lighting fixture has died, so I've only been running the light for a few hours every day (to prevent overheating) and actually went 3-4 days a few weeks ago with the lights off completely. That seems to have killed the red algae. I have tiny patches of green hair algae, but it's nothing bad. Unfortunately, I think I may have also damaged my pulsating xenia. It's no longer pulsating and isn't looking very healthy.

I'm in the process of purchasing a house, so the tank will be moving sometime next month. I'm sure that will be an adventure. I actually think over the coming months that I'm going to upgrade to a larger tank and try to plumb it in such a way that water changes and other maintenance is a breeze. That will also allow me to have more fish, which at the moment are more interesting to me than corals. I haven't decided if I'll get another batch of TBS rock for the bigger tank or not. I have time to think about it, I suppose.

jharler · #**239** 12/19/2006, 09:17 PM

Time for my semi-annual update...

I moved my tank in early November. It seemed to hold up pretty well. It actually wasn't as difficult as I had imagined. I think I lost my peppermint shrimp though, as I haven't seen him lately. My snail and hermit crab population is down too, but I'm holding off on restocking those. The pulsating xenia is still alive, but still not pulsating. I'm not sure what to do about that.

Since I have a nice new house and my software business is still going strong, I figured I'd go ahead and upgrade my tank. Last week I placed an order for a nice 75g setup. It comes with a stand, a canopy, lights and is reef ready. I'm hoping to get it before the end of the year.

I'm going to be doing things a little bit different this time. I absolutely need to make things as self-sufficient and easy to maintain as possible. I've been slacking on water changes because they are time consuming and a major effort. I'm going to make water changes extremely simple.

My plan is this: I'm going to be running three water lines from the back of the tank, down through my walls and into the basement. One line will be a drain line, for disposing the waste water during a water change. One line will be a saltwater line that will bring fresh saltwater that will have been mixing in a 35g brute garbage can up from the basement and one line will be bringing up fresh RO/DI filtered water up from the basement. I will have float switches and valves going to make sure my topoff water is always ready and completely maintenance free, and water changes should be a simple matter of flipping a few switches and mixing fresh saltwater.

I've been incredibly busy with life the past 6 months or so, and I'm really looking forward to working with my new tank. I miss having fish, so it will be nice having a tank large enough to hold more than a few fish. Since I haven't had much interest in this thread, I likely won't document the process of my new tank like I did for this one.

SaltyDr · #**240** 12/20/2006, 08:52 PM

Too bad. I really enjoyed reading this thread. I'm pretty new here and you can learn a lot from the experiences of others. You don't have to give us great detail, but pics and a things learned are a great help. Look forward to future posts.

jharler · #**241** 12/26/2006, 11:27 AM

I'll add the occasional picture and status update, like this one. My new tank arrived late last week. Here's a picture of the tank in my living room:

If you can't tell by the picture, the tank is 48" wide, 18" deep and 20" tall. Sitting there in the recliner pictured at the bottom is the best spot to see the tank.

I plan on painting the back of the tank black and putting a sump in my basement. That will keep the noise out of my living room and make maintenance even easier. I'm running the drain and return lines today and hope to have the sump set up by the end of the week. I have to paint my living room prior to adding water, but I'm hoping to have water in it by the end of next week.

I'll probably make another update when that happens.

BrianPlankis · #**242** 12/26/2006, 01:20 PM

Josh,

Great looking new tank! If you start another thread about building that one up, please post a link here.

You would be suprised at the number of lurkers of threads that never post, but do appreciate having things to read.

Brian

jharler · #**243** 12/26/2006, 08:29 PM

Thanks. Doing a detailed, illustrated build up takes more time than I would have available now. It's also frustrating to interrupt progress to take pictures. I'll likely stick to just posting occasional updates here.

dwculp · #**244** 12/26/2006, 08:45 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by jharler
My first reply, awesome!

One of the main reasons I decided to go with TBS is this thread:

http://archive.reefcentral.com/forum...hreadid=456077

The tank that dwculp setup was amazing. If my tank looks even the slightest bit as good as his I will be extremely happy.

Wow, thanks for the props! I am iemarrased to admit it, but this is the fist time I have seen your thread!

Your tank looks great! TBS is the best!

I may actually have to go and update my thread! I am going tomorrow to buy a clam and a few new corals - Christmas presents to myself!

dwculp · #**245** 12/27/2006, 11:25 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by liverock
Congrats, you caught a stone crab, and unlike a gorilla crab, they do pinch!

TBS

I had a gorilla crab pinch the daylights out of me not long ago!

Some students and I were working late on some robots and we went into my classroom and started looking at the tank. There right up front was a really big gorilla crab hanging out in a hole in a rock.

The kids were excited because we have never seen this particular crab before. I decided to just reach in and grab it. I was able to actually grab it and the thing latched on to one finger and started pinching and pulling my hand into the rock! Ok, maybe Im a wuss, but it actually hurt. Not crying or screaming hurt, but it was uncomfortable.

The crab ended up getting away.

jharler · #**246** 01/21/2007, 08:32 PM

dwculp, thanks for posting and for your inspirational thread.

Here's an update on my tank. Things are taking longer than I expected, as they usually do. I've got the plumbing complete so far as the sump goes. I've just completed a one week long leak test with tap water through the system (about 150 gallons total) with no problems. At this very moment, the tap water is being drained and my rubbermade garbage can is being filled with RO/DI water. Tomorrow I plan on painting my living room and then I will be filling the system with saltwater. I'll let it run saltwater for a week, then I'll probably end up buying some cured liverock from the LFS, letting it re-cure a bit, then transfer my livestock over. I don't have any pictures yet, but once I get salt running through the system, I will take some.