gibs

Very cool!

Well I have decided to eventually setup a mud bed in my refugium. I am running a 1.5 inch sand bed in my DT and have a plan to add a remote DSB refugium/dt at some point in the future. I am doing some more research myself in to the mud versus a fine sugar sand as Patrick mentioned. I am not seeing any reason not to at the moment so I don't see why it wouldn't work. This tank has taken up the past month and half of my life and destroyed my apartment so I am going to be trying to get it up and cycled for the next few weeks/months and spend a little more time with my kiddos than I have lol. I want to thank everyone for all the thoughts and advice, I have bookmarked almost every research link you guys have posted and read them and going back and rereading them LOL. Going to start off my CUC with 12 star astrea 1 turbo 1 nessarius and a few hermits still undecided on number.

Bah sorry guys, had to take my daughter to a eye appointment and that took longer than I thought, then my ex called and she had a emergency call in to work so I had to head back to pick up my little one seriously bummed wanted to meet all you guys! Anyways hope you guys had fun and sorry I didn't make it.

What kind of cables we need? vga? DVI? DVI to HDMI? Anyways I will through some in the truck that I can find real quick. All this rain this morning got me running behind so I am only going to be able to stop by for a few minutes Anyways see you guys there!

Yeah I have to figure out my camera some reason with my canopy lighting every picture I take is purple. While I do have a slight purple tint it is much closer to a white/blue look. But it's definitely green here LOL

So I got my canopy finished up last night and moved most of the apex over, and was playing with the ramp up profiles with the apex to get my lighting set. After about 30-40 minutes I looked over and something glowing caught my eye....

Now I saw these little fellas before but I honestly thought with me taking my time getting the rock home then just setting it in a bucket with saltwater and bubbler with no light, and playing with it for a hour on the floor today trying to figure out my aquascaping, that they wouldn't have made it. So I started looking for more. (by the way anyone know what those are? Ding dangs?)

Looks like a ricordea shroom to me but what do I know. First time I ever saw him had no clue he was there.

This guy I saw but was limp with no bumps and had zero life on him. Now he has what looks like to me feeders sticking out???? What is it? Looks like a leather of some sort to me?

Can anyone tell me what all that black stuff is? Looks kind of dark purplish.....

Any way I am half tempted to start cutting them off and putting them on frag plugs and putting in my nano to save them....The other half is curious to see if they will survive the cycle..That may be mean of me LOL. Anyway just thought I would share!

While I use dsb methods with much less live rock, I like the open look it provides. You need a rock tower to give you that focal point of height. I collected some dense limestone on my property and made my lagoon look like Stonehedge. I like your thought about tall on one side and ending on the sand bed. Instead of a tapered look, consider a ledge with a steep dropoff. This would allow more open space and use less rock. With the picture I saw, the tanked looked crammed with rock. I like simplicity with an open look to my aquascapes.

Patrick

First off Patrick I love your aquascaping in all 3 tanks! Looks really awesome I really like that high to low sandbed I swear I have seen that same look out at the coast while fishing

Next yeah I agree it looks exactly like some one just piled up a bunch of rock in the tank LOL. And to think I spent 2 hours playing with it on the floor then another hour trying to put it in the tank and it still looks like that! I really want a high tower/column on one side of the tank and then a big open space for the fish to swim around in and give me lots of sand to set stuff in! Now I do have some smaller pieces to kind of arrange in that open area just to set frags up on or whatever so it won't be all sand. The sad part is while I can take your car apart and put it back together and probably have it running better, or run 3000 phone/data lines in a high rise and not only have it work but have it look neat! I cannot for the life of me do anything when it comes to aesthetics I spent the above mentioned 3 hours playing with it and got now where. I am going to keep playing with it and Derrick is going to come over Sunday and give me a hand. He was the one to originally give me the idea of doing a tower structure and his aquascaping looks awesome! So cross your fingers and wish me some luck! LOL

Ok so it took about 34 hours to fill with RO water. I got some rock from vu and juiceman who were both taking down tanks. Looks awesome. Here is a shot at my first attempt at aquascaping.

I am almost thinking it looks cramped but what do you guys think? I was originally trying to go for the concept of a tall tower on the right and slowly bring it down and leave a good foot or so at the left to for some sandbed critters and a big open swimming area...Don't think I quite got what I wanted. Anyway give me your guys thoughts if you have any

Well done. Great build. You really simplified the ro unit. I'm gonna steal your hose bib spliter idea. I was trying to make it too custom. Looks great.

Thanks Bige hope it works as well for you as it does for me!

nice looking system, love all the pics

Thanks Mr Cob

Well not going down this weekend and don't have plans yet for next week...However I do routinely make trips to Dallas for work. I will post next time I am going.

Very cool! ...is he part of the stonefish family?

You would certainly have to evaluate each piece of furniture on its own. But a large part of them no. all that is on the back of say 90% of dressers or armoires, bookshelves is just a piece of 1/8 inch plywood/laminate and gives no structural support at all. Now if it is a particularly large piece it may have a bracing in the middle and that would have to stay to distribute weight, but you should be able to slide a sump in between it and the front. If you go the used route be very very careful to pick solid pieces that use real wood and not something that has say laminate over particle board that wouldn't work at all I don't think. Now a easy way to get around painting if its wood. If you can sand it down to bare wood (this may be more trouble than it's worth), then you can use a rubbing oil to seal it, and give it a stained look. Oil doesn't have much fumes but it takes multiple and I mean a lot multiple like 10 or more, coats of it to sink far enough in to the wood to seal it. It's a lot more time and requires a little bit of going over quickly to keep up the clean appearance but it is another route without painting and a bunch of fumes. (or just look on craigslist and find a painter to come do it for you, probably won't cost more than a 100$).

Ok looking around for some orange hammers and found this site. Watch the video! Now I don't have a saw like that and it said only 70% of cut offs work but it is possible!

how would you frag a wall hammer? saw chunks off and cut the skin carefully? typical hammers grow quick in my tank.

they are real pricey, i saw an orange tipped frogspawn today listed about the same price as an orange hammer, about $120+ shipping. wonder if a few of us could chip in, buy a good sized piece, cut some frags, let them heal, and share it that way?

Kind of new to the hobby but if this were possible I would be willing to chip in! I love the orange on these, saw one online somewhere but was a little shocked at the price lol

I like the idea of finding a old piece of furniture to use. If you found a old dresser that wasn't to long and made very sturdy you can easily knock out the back (usually thin wood if any) and knock out the supports for the drawers and put a door over them. Little sanding and painting and your good to go. Of course I like doing little DIY projects so this may not be up your alley.

Very cool Patrick! Is that sponges? OMG another reason to have a separate lagoon tank!

Thanks again Patrick for all the advice! Even if I decide to ditch the DSB in my main DT all of your advice didn't go wasted or unappreciated I promise! Now that I am thinking of the idea I know I can't drill my main DT cause I have already been told that the back and bottom are tempered. What would be a good way of having the remote DSB/lagoon drain back to the main DT? I can see maybe setting up a siphon then have a overflow so that if siphon breaks it goes back to my refugium....just thinking out loud I guess. Probably have to recover from getting the main up but I got the idea in my head now......

NICE!

I also don't really love the look of a DSB but I got interested in it because of the bio diversity and the benefits it brings to the tank. I am still really liking the idea but I think Patrick is right if you go with one you really need to let it populate and grow before adding anything that could possibly eat or destroy the sand fauna in the tank. Just my thoughts but there it is. I have been giving major thought though to doing a separate tank with a DSB plumbed into the same system. I have visions of a tank sitting beside my DT full of different macro algae LOL.

No I understand Patrick and I wasn't planning on putting fish in for a couple of months, 6 months does sound like a long time though. We will see not totally ruling it out but may just plan on doing a refugium with a DSB like everyone else. I also like the idea of doing a remote DSB with a lot of planted macro algae, as a secondary display. I really like the look of some the macro algae I think it is absolutely beautiful. Any downsides to doing that? What would be considered a good size tank? Maybe a separate 20-30 gallon tank? Kind of sitting here going back and forth as I sit here and think about it. I like the idea of a DSB in my DT but the idea of a remote planted DSB really appeals to me also. With the benefit that I could start stocking my main DT in a few months...Guess more to think about

Yeah I saw that set up part....I am still grappling with the 6 months thing in my mind...patience I understand but....6 months? Sigh...

I am thinking of adding my yellowtail damsel to it. I also have a ctrinus clown goby and a firefin. Thinking of maybe putting both gobys in and leaving the damsel in my nano, cause he is supposed to be a bit aggressive, even thought I haven't seen any signs of that.

Gibs,

What size is your tank? Are you setting up a new one or running the 16g you have listed on your profile?

If 16g, personally I wouldn't do a DSB because at least for me, I would hate how much real estate it takes in such a small tank. 5" of sand in a 16g, you'd end up with like 1/3rd of your viewable tank as just sand. Probably not that bad in your case but the nanocube I'm picturing looks like that in my head.

Again, just IMO, but I hate hermit crabs and feel no need to keep a single one in my 125-gallon tank. I think it's just an industry standard to throw them in there and it's been the status quo for so long that nobody looks back and says... why are these in my tank again? If I had kids that loved looking at the little guys run around, then I would get some just for display purposes.

Not a big fan of urchins either. They knock things over, eat your nice purple coralline algae, and are voracious eaters. I have fears of them clearing out all edible algae in your tank in 1-2months time and would either starve to death or you would have to supplement their feeding. If you don't mind that and you enjoy watching them, much like the hermit crab scenario above, then pick one up for display purposes but be prepared to reglue frags that it knocked over, lose most of your coraline, and possibly have to supplement its food when all the algae is gone. If you are setting up a larger tank than the 16g, you probably would not have to supplement the feeding at least.

I enjoy my nassarius and despite what anybody says, I think they are beneficial and not as much of a pain in the rear as I think hermit crabs are. Both will eat the extra food that doesn't get eaten or anything rotting/dying. Don't believe most of the hype about hermit crabs or nassarius snails eating anything else than that. Cyano? Diatoms? GHA? I'll believe it when I see it. I'm sure there are exceptions but in my experience, they are rare.

Hope some of the info helps. Just my 2 cents... I am by no means the final word on anything.

-Ty

Thanks Jeeper! I am setting up a 85 oceanic right now. So it is quite a bit bigger. Yes I have heard about the urchins knocking stuff over and eating coralline, but I think they are really cool and I want one just to look at it. I thought about knixing it off the list but at the end of the day almost every fish/snail has some downside even if it's just feeding it and we build these things to bring a cool little part of the ocean into our home, so unless someone can give me a better reason than he will knock stuff over and eat the purple stuff I think I am going to go with one. Again though I appreciate any advice there is a ton of misleading stuff on the web, some of it just people saying I been doing this 20 years and this is how it should be done, some of it people trying to sell you stuff, and occasionally a good piece research that brings some thoughtful insight into some part of this hobby. Honestly this is quickly becoming a favorite part of this hobby LOL.

Thanks guys!

Other thoughts on the cuc link you provided he suggest staying away from hermits but it's pretty much everywhere that people think these guys are good? What are your thoughts? Is it a DBS thing? I was never thinking of going with the 50 or so that some sites recommend for my size tank but my 5 or 10? Also the nessarius snail http://www.bluezooaquatics.com/productDetail.asp?did=2&pid=1140&cid=82 I have one of these in my nano and the guy is awesome and eating left over food from feeding is one really that bad? My youngest daughter is fascinated with this and call him snowy because it looks like snow when he plows out from the sand at feeding time LOL. Last one ummm I really want a urchin what are your thoughts on this?

Again thanks for all the advice and tips and links to good research!

Miracle Mud and Snake Oil.

I have a 75G display tank with a 30G mud filter/vegatable filter refugium. I bought it with the miracle mud five years ago. Since then a spongy mat of deitrus has added slightly to the depth of miracle mud. Olite "sugar sand" would work imo.

I have a Jaubert Plenumn with a 5" dsb. Using this method, the arrogonite used is Caribsea "Florida Crushed Coral" with a grain size 2mm-5mm. This grain size favors pods and bacteria. Nitrification chemistry happens in the oxygen rich upper third of the substrate. As the water migrates deeper into sandbed the oxygen nears anerobic in the "faculative zone" and de-nitrification chemistry reduces nitrate into nitrogen gas.

My refugium is a mud filter. This is where biodiversity of micro fauna is most abundant. With respect to detrivore kits, I recommend that you look at IndoPacific SeaFarm.

http://www.ipsf.com/

This is a good site to learn about dsb methods and CUC.

http://www.chucksadd...leanupcrew.html

Enjoy the reading. We will talk more later.

Patrick

Patrick you are the bomb! Thanks man

Ok now I am still taking this in and need to probably reread the chucks link you put in there but man that was good stuff. Ok now I have a few questions.

One ok yeah I dislike the the name miracle mud and anything that has miracle in it immediately brings up the idea of snake oil in my mind. But you did say you are using a mud filter in your refugium? I am looking at all sorts of stuff on this mud substrate for a refugium but still not sure how to set up it up. Will I need another chamber in my sump for this? Or is it just simply replacing the sand substrate with the mud? I wanted some extra live rock and some macro algae on top of it, is this still ok? Any good articles you can point me to on that? Is this CaribSea Aragamax Sugar-Sized Sand what you are referring to that you use for your "mud"?

2. Ok on my deep sand bed what I have researched is to use a finer sand with a max size of 2.0mm and most in the 0.5mm size like the CaribSea Dry Aragonite Fiji Pink Reef Sand. Now this is what I am using in my nano right and I really like it but you are using a much bigger grain? Does it matter? Again this is what I have researched but why I am asking for advice.

3. Ok I looked at IPSF and they seem to have everything I need. I am thinking of getting these items.

1. Baby bristle worms and ma ma mia worms

2. Mini stars

3. Sandbed clams

4. Amphipods

What do you think? What am I missing?

Thanks man I think I owe you a drink some time