Aaarrrggg's 144g Half Circle

[RobR]

Wow this tank is looking awesome!!! Can't wait to see how this progresses!

[Benny]

That rock work looks amazing! Makes me wish I had taken more time on mine...

[Teresa]

Love the step by step pictures!!

I'm trying a similar set up in a 29 gallon biocube. I've got two black percs and I'm just waiting for the tank to be ready for some bta's (starting with green, but the center piece will be a rbta). I'm curious to know how the LEDS highlight the colors in the btas. I've got a 150 metal halide but I know I'm going to need to add some blue leds. I'm also thinking of making a maxi mini garden on the base rock in my tank.

I'll definitely be following your thread to get ideas. I'm especially interested in feeding - are you planning to target feed the nems or just add a bunch of food to cycle through the tank? Got any idea of what you'll be feeding the tank?

[Aaarrrggg]

Thanks everyone!

I'm curious to know how the LEDS highlight the colors in the btas. I've got a 150 metal halide but I know I'm going to need to add some blue leds. I'm also thinking of making a maxi mini garden on the base rock in my tank.

Sounds very cool! I love nems!

I haven't had a chance to see any nems under LEDs, but I know the red yuma ricordea in my nano lights up like crazy under my AI Sol Blue LEDs. The only complaint I hear about the AI Sols is that the reds don't pop quite as well as under MHs. I can't speak to it myself because I've never had MHs (just T5s and LEDs) but I'm hoping the Radions red LEDs will make the reds look even better.

I'll definitely be following your thread to get ideas. I'm especially interested in feeding - are you planning to target feed the nems or just add a bunch of food to cycle through the tank? Got any idea of what you'll be feeding the tank?

I'm working on setting up a constant waterchange system (more on that later!) so I'm hoping I can just heavily feed frozen food and the BTAs will be able to grab what they need. I'll probably have a go at mixing up my own frozen food using some recipes I've found online. I used to enjoy feeding silversides to the BTAs in my first tank, so I'll probably do some of that too if I can get skilled enough with the grabber-stick.

[Aaarrrggg]

Well it's full, so time for the first official FTS!

I have the sump going too... (excuse the mess; new power-strips arrive tomorrow so I can get it organized/less fire-hazardy under there.)

I've left the skimmer out for the time being while the tank cycles, but tbh the sump seems to be doing a pretty good job skimming by itself! ARGH so many bubbles!

It's also SUPER loud; sort of washing machine in your front room loud.

I did some googling on noisy overflows / sump bubbles and it seems I already have "durso overflows"...which makes sense because the overflows themselves are relatively quiet.

it's the grey corrugated pipes from the overflow > sump that appear to be causing the bubbles/noise. I'm hoping if I cut the pipes down the water will have a more direct course and stop acting as a bubble machine... I just haven't braved it yet. Any ideas/suggestions welcome!

[Aaarrrggg]

I've been having a lot of fun playing with the Radion lights!

I discovered that the software can actually do what I want it to already, I just hadn't been pressing the right buttons. The lights each have a mini USB port, so you just hook one up to a computer to configure them all.

Here's the main settings page with my current settings:

You set your day start and end times and then double click on the graph to add points and adjust the settings. I made it a parabolic curve to mimic the suns movement throughout the day.

Starting at the peak of the day... everything on max:

A touch bluer...

And a little more...

A hint of purple in there now as the "sun" begins to set

BAM! Sunset! The lights flare up a warm orange for ~15mins

Then a really rich purple! (You might have guessed, I'm not going for complete realism here!)

Finally a burst of royal blue as the "sun" disappears. (Any excuse to blast the corals/nems with royal blue!)

Moonlights

There's no lunar mode yet, (or at least I couldn't find it,) but you can set a chance for storms and clouds. I left the clouds off for now, but I added storms. I don't really like the idea of the lights suddenly flashing at nighttime and spooking the fish, so I restricted storms to the daytime hours. According to EcoTech we'll eventually be able to get the Radions to tell to the Vortech pumps to fire up during a storm. As well as this being totally awesome, I can also see it being kind of beneficial to the tank; occasionally loosening any detritus that might be lodged in the rocks. Well, at least more beneficial than randomly flashing the lights!

[Aaarrrggg]

I'm afraid I also become rather impatient...

I'm following Dr Tims Fishless Cycling instructions and dosing Ammonium Chloride up to 3ppm. I added 12oz (180g worth) of One and Only Nitrifying Bacteria on Mon (11/7) and cranked the heaters up to 87 degrees, so here's hoping things will get going quickly. Apparently using Dr Tims bacteria it can cycle in a week, but I'm aiming for a more realistic two... we shall see. I've been gazing through my nano and pretending that the clowns are in there already...

[JasonJones]

As with the other build, I am continuously impressed. The final rockwork looks amazing. Just enough of a minimalist look but enough rock and caves to make it interesting. Looking forward to watching it progress.

[Tommy]

I'm afraid I also become rather impatient...

I'm following Dr Tims Fishless Cycling instructions and dosing Ammonium Chloride up to 3ppm. I added 12oz (180g worth) of One and Only Nitrifying Bacteria on Mon (11/7) and cranked the heaters up to 87 degrees, so here's hoping things will get going quickly. Apparently using Dr Tims bacteria it can cycle in a week, but I'm aiming for a more realistic two... we shall see. I've been gazing through my nano and pretending that the clowns are in there already...

This is one great build i love the aquascape. I can see one amazing SPS setup coming. Love everything oh and you gonna love the Reef Octopus skimmer sweet looking little thing but extremely powerful LOL wow i can really advertise for Reef octopus hehehe, but nah iam using one myself so i know.

[Stemple ATX]

I Love, Love, Love this tank! Wow! can't wait to see the finished product! The LED's/software are amazing! I'm gonna have to look into some of those

[Tommy]

very nice rock work and sweet build.

[scubasteve92]

Great set up. Cant wait to see the new additions!

[Long]

This is one amazing build so far. Love rock work, min look w/ lots of ledges. Love the new LED system.

Try some Carib Sea bio magnet clarifier (petsmart) if you can't get your tank to clear up. I used that on

my new tank a while back after waiting over a week for it to clear and it cleared it up in two days.

Great work guys!

[Aaarrrggg]

Thanks everyone!

Thanks for the bio magnet suggestion too Long. The sand came with some packets which we chucked in there, but I'm sure one was buried when we poured the sand in. Maybe one day it will surface!

The sand has settled nicely now but I started getting some diatoms a couple of days after adding the Ammonia, so I decided to turn the lights off for the time being... which sucks as I'd just perfected my "sunset."

It's been a week since adding the bacteria and Ammonium Chloride. Through trial and error I managed to get the Ammonia spot on at 3ppm. Since then it's been declining (a hair above 0 today) and the Nitrite has gone CRAZY. The test says to leave it for 5mins for the color to develop, but it goes deep purple as soon as the drops hit the water!

Cycle....cycle.... cycle... dull... dull....dull!

[Aaarrrggg]

Well after what seemed like endless days of the Nitrite test turning the water purple on contact, it stayed blue today! Hurrah!

It's possible it was actually 0 yesterday, but it had been stubbornly purple for so long that I gave testing a day off. I guess that means the cycle is technically complete (12 days,) however Dr Tim's site says to add more Ammonium Chloride at this point.

I'm all for having even more bacteria, so I dropped in 10ml of Ammonium Chloride. I'll test again later and see if I can hit the magic number of 3ppm Amm. Apparently the cycle should happen faster this time around. Then I top up the Amm again, cycle again and finally one more time... which should reach Amm 0, Ni 0 in 24hrs. THEN... I'm done! I'm pretty nervous about adding Marly and Guybrush to their new home, so I'm happy to wait it out and make sure everything is perfect for them.

The brown dusting in the center of the tank is still there, despite the lights being out all this time. So I guess it's not diatoms. Perhaps its random "stuff" from the rocks? The way the mp40s are positioned the current does end up in the center. Maybe it's picking stuff up off the rock as it swirls around the towers and then dumping it in the middle?

There hasn't been any signs of life in there, although I wasn't expecting anything from mostly dead rock. I added a handful of LR from my nano at the start of the cycle. I'll add some more when it's over and shake my chaeto out in the sump to get some pods started too. As a reward for completing the 1st cycle I've turned the lights back on. Want to get the horrible "Argh my tank looks so awful and brown!!" stage out of the way so I can add some CUC as soon as the 4th cycle is done. Looking forward to having something moving around in there. At the moment it just feels like an expensive rock sculpture we made!

Oh also, the frothing in the sump has stopped, (must have been because of the sand settling,) but the pipes still do make quite a racket. We're actually getting used to it though! I'll see how it sounds after I get the doors on there, but I might just leave the plumbing as it is. One good thing is it acts as a bit of a white noise machine and stops the dogs from hearing all the neighbor dogs barking! It's actually been rather peaceful.

[Aaarrrggg]

Amm and Ni 0 again today! MUCH quicker that time around (3 days!)

Just added 30ml of Ammonium Chloride; lets see what those little bacteria are made of!

[Aaarrrggg]

3 more days and it's down to 0 Amm and Ni again. I ended up adding a little more Ammonium Chloride than the time before (40ml total,) so I guess that's why it wasn't quicker this time.

Dosed another 40ml this morning. According to Dr Tims website Amm and Ni should now be able to hit 0 in 24hrs; although with the last cycle taking 3days, I can't really see that happening. We shall see tomorrow...

[bige]

Awesome build!! Where did you get the lights? I want those too.

[Aaarrrggg]

Awesome build!! Where did you get the lights? I want those too.

Thanks! AquaTek ordered the Radion lights in for me (yay club discount!)

[Aaarrrggg]

Well as you might have guessed by now, the Amm & Ni weren't 0 the next day.... nor the day after. In fact it ended up taking 3 days. I dutifully added more Ammonium Chloride... and again it took 3 days. Blurgh.

I emailed Dr Tims customer service and they suggested the pH might be too low and to do a WC. I tested the pH and it was at 7.8 ...so I don't think that's the problem. Bah, I've waited over a month and cycled it 5 times, (which is 4 times more than people usually do!) ...I think it's time to say it's ready already!

I did a WC to help with nitrates (40 before change) and picked up 12 black foot trochus snails from AquaTek (apparently they're self-righting ones, yay!) I was about to pop them in when I suddenly remembered I still had the temp set to 85°F! Oops... that was a close one! Thankfully I have my little nano; so they all spent the night at a more barmy climate while the big tank cooled down.

I was busy most of today so I didn't get to add my little "canary" critters until this evening. I figured I'd add a small selection of CUC from my nano and see how they do. I grabbed 5 trochus snails, 3 nassarius, 1 nerite and 1 red leg hermit (named Robocop.) It's been a few hours and so far so good! I love how you can completely uproot a CUC member and they just get straight back to it in their new home.

I have an order coming on Thurs from Indo-Pacific Sea Farms for a bunch of reef detritivores which I'm unreasonably excited about. I mean, they're probably going to be so tiny that I can't even see what I've ordered, but I still can't wait! One problem with using mostly dry rock is you really do miss finding random critters. With this order I should be able to beef up my smaller CUC members; bristleworms, spaghetti worms and brittle-stars to name a few. I'll post more info about them when I can take some piccies of the delivery.

I'm also working with Grim to set up a remote ATO and automatic water-changer. More on that as it develops...!

[Aaarrrggg]

Well it's been 4 days and everyone is still alive! Woohoo!

First a confession... since my last post I've discovered that a pH of 7.8 is actually quite low... so my bad! I've never checked pH before and the brief investigation I did before yielded the wrong answers. Oh well, the tank seems no worse for it, but if anyone is reading this and thinking of trying Dr Tims One & Only Bacteria, I definitely recommend keeping an eye on pH, as it really can drop when you do multiple cycles! It's not bad per se... it just stalls the bacteria and can make the cycle(s) take a LOT longer! (As I found!)

Anyway, you've all been very patient with all my dull cycling posts... so hold on to your modems; time for an image intense update!

It took a bit of work but we finally got the doors on the stand!

The base of the stand had warped slightly from water damage (3rd hand tank) which was preventing the doors from closing properly. We took a belt sander to it (scary!) to remove the lumps and then applied watered down wood glue and black paint. It took a few sandings/applications because every time we added the wood glue it puffed the stand back up again! Very frustrating, but we got there in the end. The finish isn't perfect, but who's going to be looking at the stand when the tank is teaming with clowns?

I'm pleased to report that the doors definitely help with the sump noise.... or maybe we just got used to it? Either way, I'm probably going to leave the plumbing as it is. I might change the grey corrugated tubes to solid ones that converge, but that's more because they keep getting in the way and I'd like to be able to put a filter sock over the end.

After the cycle ended, I fired up the Super Reef Octopus Skimmer. Wow it's good! It's already pulling out some pretty smelly gunk.

I've been having a bit of trouble getting the nitrates down post cycle. I've done a couple of 20g WCs but they keep hovering around 30ppm. I know I should be doing more than 20g, but until I have my water changer setup I'm a little restricted by the amount of SW I can store. I only have a 20g bin, which seemed like loads for my nano, but it's so tiny now! I added some carbon and purigen to help out. Here's hoping I can get the water charger running before any algae notices!

The doors on the stand are made of black glass which looks really cool, but unfortunately becomes very obviously transparent when you stick a light on the other side of it. This puts a bit of a dampener on the notion of having a lit sump. TBH though, this isn't the end of the world for me, as I've been getting really tired of constantly pulling out chaeto from my nano's return pump. I figured the glass would give me the perfect excuse to try an unlit fuge instead.

My primary goal here is to produce pods for the mandarin I'd like to get one day, (now I finally have a big enough tank!!! ) Apparently pods actually prefer the dark, so I have that working in my favor. I read in another thread about using dark colored "shower poufs" in pod farms. I was so proud of myself when I managed to score some "chaeto" green ones! (They're actually called "Forest Green" if anyone is looking for them.)

It was usefully time to trim the chaeto in my nano, so I pulled a bunch out and ripped it up in a bowl of tank water. I removed all the loose chaeto bits I could and poured the water onto the shower poufs. That was a week or 2 ago and the tank is now EXPLODING with pods!

[Aaarrrggg]

More excitement today... My critter package arrived from Indo-Pacific Sea Farms! Yay!

I ordered their Mix & Match Special:

• 6 Bristle Worms
  
• 6 Sandbed Clams
  
• 6 Nerite Snails
  
• 6 Strombus Grazers
  
• 6 Micro-Hermits
  
• Reef Amphipods
  
• Podflakes
  
• Live Sand Activator
  
• Hermit Homes
  

...and the Super Mix & Match Special:

• 6 Spaghetti Worms
  
• 6 Comet Stars
  
• 1 Pinky Cuke
  
• 6 FREE Mini Brittle Stars
  

The first thing I noticed when I opened the box was the inside bag was quite wet and the heat-pack was exhausted (2 day shipping from Hawaii.) I took all the bags out and braced myself for the dead things...

Everything looked a bit cold and yucky... especially the "Live Sand Activator" (LSA) which had gross brown water in.

The instructions say the LSA is supposed to be emptied straight into the tank, water and all. I was thinking ...no...freaking...way... is that bag of death going in my lovely new tank!

I decided that if the other bags turned out to be alive then I would trust the LSA. I floated all the bags in the tank and low and behold some critters started wiggling!

Micro Hermits

Some of the wiggliest arrivals were the mirco-hermits... which I was overjoyed to discover were actually Zebra Hermits! I've been after some of these little guys for a while, so this was a great start to the unwrapping. They came in a bag with some damp newspaper and there was actually 7.5 of them rather than 6, which was awesome... well except for the 0.5 of a crab who was unfortunately quite dead(!)

Pinky Cuke Brittle-Star

A large Brittle-Star was substituted for the Pinky Cuke. I was a bit annoyed that I wasn't consulted about the substitute order, but it all worked out because this guy is way cooler than a cuke!

Hermit Homes

A nice selection of empty hermit shells in various sizes. (This tupperware is smaller than the others)

Reef Worms

After floating in the tank for a few mins the bristleworms started squirming around. It was harder to tell if the smaller spaghetti worms were alive, but I *think* I saw them move.

Mini Stars

There were a whole bunch of both Asterina and Brittle Stars. Plus a free bristleworm... which is funny because there was a free star in with the worms!

Strombus Grazers, Sand Clams & Nerite Snails

These guys were in some pretty mucky water and I really thought they were dead; but just like the worms, after warming up they started to stir. The clams disappeared into the sand pretty quickly once they were added to the tank, which was fun to watch! (You can see some reaching out with their white feet in the pics below.) The nerite snails continued to play dead all day until the nightlights came on.

Amphipods

I was fully expecting these to be the same as the tiny white pods I see on the glass... but they're HUGE! I never knew pods could get so large!!

I turned off the return pump and tipped them all onto my "faux chaeto."

Then I added a pinch of Pod Flakes...

I left the return off for ~10mins to let the pods get settled. When I turned it back on I didn't see any pods (or bits of pods!) being blasted through the return, so I guess the shower poufs work!

The "Live Sand Activator" bag had been floating in the tank all this time and to my surprise I found a bunch of Zebra Hermits scrambling around on the surface of the gravel! It was time to take the plunge and I tried (unsuccessfully) to pour the LSA onto the more hidden parts of the sand...

Noooooo! My beautiful sand! Hopefully I can mix it in a bit later on.

I sat down to admire my new critters, feeling pretty pleased with order. My gaze was drawn to a tiny piece of algae floating by ...with what looked like a tiny aiptasia anemone!!! ARGH!!

By the time I managed to grab the net and a ladder (its a tall tank!) it had drifted away. Thank goodness for Vortechs! I cranked them up to dislodge it from wherever it was hiding. After about 5mins got lucky and managed to net it. Now I can't say 100% if it is an aiptasia, but it looks highly suspicious.

Extreme closeup (it's reeeeally tiny! I only really saw it thanks to the magnifying effect of the bowed glass!)

Whatever it is, I didn't trust it, so I'm afraid it went down the sink. I hope it wasn't an aiptasia, and if it was that there aren't any more. I think it came from the LSA bag which had some bits of algae in it. Bit of a downer to the end of an otherwise satisfying order. The whole point of paying a premium for these critters is to avoid pests like this. Only time will tell I guess...

In other news... I think I might have been paying too much attention to my tank. My husband came home with this today...

[+Mcjudge]

Nice critters! I ordered a mix&match special from indo pacific farms and was very happy with the results. My refugium has 4-5 different macros living in it now. I have pods the size of pencil erasers running around. Thanks for the picture of the clams I really wanted to order some I just wasn't sure how they would fair. I really like the brittle star! Great documentation! Your tank is looking great!

[bige]

Very cool! I didn't know you could buy some of those critters. Why not use real chaeto?

[Aaarrrggg]

Nice critters! I ordered a mix&match special from indo pacific farms and was very happy with the results. My refugium has 4-5 different macros living in it now. I have pods the size of pencil erasers running around. Thanks for the picture of the clams I really wanted to order some I just wasn't sure how they would fair. I really like the brittle star! Great documentation! Your tank is looking great!

Those pods are crazy aren't they?! I still can't quite believe the size!

The sand clams are fun!

The site says the recommended stocking number is 6 per 20g... so the 7 (yay 1 free!) I received probably won't do that much, but they were too intriguing to pass up. I hope at some point IPSF will offer larger quantities for a discount, as the clams seem to be one of the few critters they sell that don't reproduce in the tank -at least they don't mention it, although they are captive bred, so maybe they do?

Very cool! I didn't know you could buy some of those critters. Why not use real chaeto?

The glass doors are a the main issue. I saw another 144g half circle thread where they had a lit fuge under there and it looked so messy having all the equipment glowing at the bottom. I also keep reading about how you need a really big fuge to have enough macroalgae to make a proper dent in nutrients, so I wonder how much my little (compared to my tank) fuge could actually accomplish...? I guess I like the idea of experimenting with something a little different as well.

I may turn to real chaeto if it turns out the pods actually require it for food as well as housing. But for now I'm going to see how my faux chaeto does for pod reproduction and get a bio-pellet reactor to handle the nutrients side of things.