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Question of the day: GFO/AC reactors

Something like this BRS GRO and Carbon Reactor or a DIY one I have been playing with on a canister filter.

Just looking for opinions of this. I didn't really think I would run GFO until I started considering the a water source that may not pull out phosphate and silicates. I am thinking about having a lot of macro algea in my display as well as fuge that may help ward off pest algea.

I ran AC on my FW tanks while they were setting up, but now I just run it when I have medicated with something. So, I am unsure of that either.

Civil detailed discussion/back and forth are fine with me.

Thanks, Dennis

My friend had macro algae, then he got a GFO. The algae used to grow like crazy and he'd trade or sell it. After the GFO, his macro algae growth kind of petered out. He wanted to give me a sprig of Halimeda, but it hasn't grown at all in a couple months, and all he has is a tiny stick of it left! I'm guessing thats proof that GFO reactors beat macro algae. I'm going to start with the macro (hope my tangs and lawnmower blenny don't eat halimeda algae) and then I'm going to get a GFO reactor when I can afford one.

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Subsea, I just noticed that I didn't say that those pictures are great. Thanks for that. I'm still a bit concerned about me and "advanced" anything, though. But I like the idea. I am thinking about starting with a skimmer (after a cycling period) and as I get more advanced adding some of the more advanced filters to wean off the skimmer. Adding an airstone or something to replace the lost bubbles. of course, my "thinking" is swinging daily, so who knows.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but flow is important too, and can also aerate the water. Do you have a sump? My return valve kicks up bubbles like crazy, and so does my AC110 hang-on-back filter. Also, you'll definitely want some powerheads if you don't already have some, or you'll probably see algae, and detritus collecting at the bottom. Add up the flow/circulation of your tank.

Saltwater Reef tanks need the water to cycle 10-20+ times per hour. Multiply Gallonage x Desired Turnover

Source: http://www.aquariumguys.com/aquarium-circulation-article.html

My tank, for example: 100 gallons x 10 = 1000 gph min, 100 x 20 = 2000 gph max

2 powerheads is better than one. Break up the flow & don't put corals directly in the flow. They like to be just outside the line of it.
For example, my tank's total water cycling:
AquaClear 110 pumps 500 gph
Pond sump pump pumps 1200 gph
Two Koralia power heads, 400 gph each
Total: 500gph + 1200gph + 800gph= 2500gph

Some is filtration, some circulation, some aeration. But I figure they all contribute to turnover. I haven't seen any harm from having slightly over the 2000gph recommended, but I also have my sump return flow turned waaaay low or it would run dry before the overflow box could fill it up again.

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With respect to phosphate, you are correct about macro absorbing nitrate and phosphate. Macro consumes 100 molecules of nitrate to one molecule of phosphate. No matter what you do, phosphate will get into your aquarium. I would use a phosphate resin that changes color when used up. Also understand this about phosphate and phosphate resin removal, it will only remove inorganic phosphate dissolved in the water column. Organic phosphate will enter sand bed as detritus and it will accumulate without proper consumers. When organic phosphate accumulates in sandbed, cynobacteria mats are the best bioindicator of phosphate that can not be measured in the water column.

Can we have a link to this phosphate resin?

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The only problems I hear with Jawfish is their major jumpers. There are a couple people that have them in there tank and what they did was add barnacles around a PVC pipe or just glued sand or rocks to the pipe to give it a home. Sometimes it's hit or miss though if they'll use it. Check out Aaarrrggg's Build http://www.austinreefclub.com/topic/19737-aaarrrgggs-144g-half-circle/

As for Hermits I would highly recommend getting Peppermint shrimps. You can take a trip to the coast and pick a couple up yourself if your in that area or we have members that make trips all the time that post for a rehoming fee. Hermits will just kill a snail that's upside down for their shells.

I haven't had trouble with my hermits. I bought probably 2 pounds of shells from the dollar store. I pulled out all the good hermit crab shells, rinsed them, and dropped them into the water. Watch the shell-changing festival ensue.... They LOVED it. They switched shells all day for 3 days. They never bother my snails, and my snails are laying eggs like crazy. I still count all the adult snails I started with 6 months ago, and now I see baby snails everywhere (astrea, cerith, and stomatella).

Also, I imagine feeding your hermits algae wafers daily or every other day helps a lot. When I drop a few pellets in, You see a wave of hermits racing down the live rock trying to get to them first. The wafers are too hard for the fish the first few hours, so the crabs eat their fill. Its a blast to watch them jealously guard a wafer from fish, or drag one off into a crevice. With these methods, I haven't had any trouble with my hermits, but I only keep small ones like dwarf zebra hermit.

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Ms. Fyre,

I'm going to just do all these at once for simplicity. Thanks for the responses.

GFO: I've gotten the bulk reef supply BRS single chamber GFO/GAC reactor. I plan on just using it for GAC and not running any GFO at this time. Im going to see how things go with a mud fuge with chaeto and some pretty algae in the display. The reactor sells for about $30 without a pump and a bit more to include the pump. Some people run these reactors off their return pump. Saves money on the pump, reduces heat added, but complicates the plumbing. There are many threads that will help with plumbing it this way. If you are already running your pump at lowered flow, the reactor plumbed to it may be a good idea.

Skimmer/flow: I have decided to not run a skimmer. I forgot to ask about aeration at aquadome today, but I liked one of timfish's tanks that had a bubbler in the DT that was large bubbles as opposed to the ton of small bubbles from a typical air stone. I thought it looked nice and may minimize salt spray. While the tank is cycling I will check my PH to see if I'm getting enough aeration through the powerheads and overflow. Honestly, I'm not sure what I'm testing for, but, maybe it'll be obvious when I see it.

I do have two powerheads. Tunze nano something's or another. Rated from 400 gph to 1400 gph (or something). With a 40 gallon tank, so this will be plenty of flow by the 20x measure. I have a 20g sump as well. The return pump will give me an additional 300 to 600 gph, depending on which head loss calculation page I use. The system is used, so I've just been going on faith that the pump s correctly sized for flow through the sump.

Hermits: good tip on the shells and algae wafers for hermits. But, just between you and me (and anyone ese reading), I have given up listening to anyone about good and bad parts of the clean up crew inverts, with the exception to the species specific ones. So, I'm going to get what I like and learn from my own experience. Otherwise, all experts will disagree on who works, who kills all your fish, and who will eat all your coralline algae. If you listen to all of them, Brillo pads is all you'll be left with that's not ruled out for some reason or another.

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The only problems I hear with Jawfish is their major jumpers. There are a couple people that have them in there tank and what they did was add barnacles around a PVC pipe or just glued sand or rocks to the pipe to give it a home. Sometimes it's hit or miss though if they'll use it. Check out Aaarrrggg's Build http://www.austinreefclub.com/topic/19737-aaarrrgggs-144g-half-circle/

As for Hermits I would highly recommend getting Peppermint shrimps. You can take a trip to the coast and pick a couple up yourself if your in that area or we have members that make trips all the time that post for a rehoming fee. Hermits will just kill a snail that's upside down for their shells.

I haven't had trouble with my hermits. I bought probably 2 pounds of shells from the dollar store. I pulled out all the good hermit crab shells, rinsed them, and dropped them into the water. Watch the shell-changing festival ensue.... They LOVED it. They switched shells all day for 3 days. They never bother my snails, and my snails are laying eggs like crazy. I still count all the adult snails I started with 6 months ago, and now I see baby snails everywhere (astrea, cerith, and

Also, I imagine feeding your hermits algae wafers daily or every other day helps a lot. When I drop a few pellets in, You see a wave of hermits racing down the live rock trying to get to them first. The wafers are too hard for the fish the first few hours, so the crabs eat their fill. Its a blast to watch them jealously guard a wafer from fish, or drag one off into a crevice. With these methods, I haven't had any trouble with my hermits, but I only keep small ones like dwarf zebra hermit.

Funny with the empty shells from dollar store. I bought 10 pounds of Puca shells from fresh water pet store and addd them with CaribSea Florida Crushed Coral. After one week into tank cycle, late in evening, I added 250 micro blue legged hermits. Even before the lights came on the next morning, I noticed immaculate white shells from top to bottom of tank. It was neat.

Enjoy the hobby.

Patrick

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The tank now has salty water. I tossed in a dead shrimp to start the cycling. I hope it works better than all it's brothers and sisters did in the Alfredo (I broke the sauce). Pictures will have to wait until tomorrow.

The display tank: since there was no phosphate coming from the rock I added the sand as well. In order to sculpt it the way I wanted, I didn't rinse it, so the water is really cloudy. I hope it still looks like it did before I added the water, but I think it'll look pretty good. I have my two powerheads running for circulation.

The sump: I filled two compartments with about 1" of mud and capped it with a little sand (per the instructions on the jug). The overflow chamber is empty because of the silencer thing that the water falls into. The return compartment has the pump and the outlet for the GAC reactor and a bunch of rubble rock to hold he outlet tube in place, hoping to avoid a flood. The reactor and the return pump will be off for three days to let the mud settle, or saturate, or whatever it is supposed to be doing.

KimP has offered me some established sand and I'm planning on getting some live rock from Bio this week to seed my otherwise dead sand and rock.

Thanks everyone for the assistance to date. It has been invaluable.

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ok, the water cleared up enough to get some pictures. i am thinking i need to get stronger lights. i am looking at getting an AI Sol to replace the nano.

before water went in:

post-3177-0-63270500-1369855904_thumb.jp post-3177-0-14418500-1369855919_thumb.jp post-3177-0-88093900-1369855941_thumb.jp

after water and settling overnight:

post-3177-0-20347200-1369856012_thumb.jp post-3177-0-49610000-1369856040_thumb.jp post-3177-0-90598100-1369856064_thumb.jp post-3177-0-87251800-1369856087_thumb.jp post-3177-0-39431200-1369856117_thumb.jp

the powerheads, and perhaps adding water, did more sculpting than i figured it would. but, since the return pump is not on yet i don't think i will play with it too much until i get the whole picture. there also seemed to be a lot of settling, so i will add some more behind the wall. I am trying to get at least 3" behind the wall. I think the little rock wall looks better in person than the camera shows. there are some loose pieces, so i will probably end up gluing some of it together as needed. I think that it will look pretty neat when it gets covered in coralline algae, or maybe add some coral to it.

I am also debating whether to try to get more sand under my rock pile on the left side (tank left), but I will probably just let nature take care of that for me.

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Thanks to KimP, I upgraded my AI Nano to one AI Super Blue SOL. Right now it is sitting on top of the tank (it has feet), but I will eventually hang it. I have been redoing my house, so I will probably hang a spare miniblind above the tank and bolt to light to it. That way I can raise and lower it as desired. Paint some sort of seascape on it and it'll look artsy.

She also was generous enough to share some grungy sand with me so my sand bed will be growing some critters. I think there were some snails in there, too.

So, thanks Kim. You're swell.

Tomorrow I plan on getting more grungy sand and some live rock from Bio^3. So tomorrow I will have some north Austin critters, too.

So, I'm not going to let you guys off without a question. My tank is effectively sterile. There is no detritus coming off my "never seen the sea" rocks. So, what do I feed my new critters? They may have some food from the sand they came in, but I want them to go forth and multiply. To boldly go where no worm has gone before. I have some frozen blood worms I can toss in that will litter the countryside with tiny detritus. I suppose I could also chop up my cycling shrimp and spread it around.

Any ideas?

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algae wafers work well, if you dont have it by now, buy some coral frenzy or reef chili or Rod's Original, and toss a bit in every few days. Dont overdo it though.

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More grungy sand and some live rock from bio^3 has been added to the tank now. Thanks a lot bio.

All indications are that I fixed the leak in the overflow box. So, the mud sat for 3 days, the silicone cured for two days, and now all pumps are on and working. The cycling has begun and now with the sand and live rock I expect for it to jump start a bit. I tested the other day and proved I did have ammonia. You know, because there was a chance my shrimp was ammonia free. What do you want from me...I had to do something. Am I really supposed to just sit and watch it run and not do anything? I didn't test anything else, though.

Sadly, it looks like it'll be Tuesday before I can get a fuge light. Shortly after I'll look for some chaeto. If I can't get a light next week I'll just toss the AI nano on it for a while. I figure I may as well starte pulling nitrates out as soon as they are getting made. I can just test nitrite for the cycle. When it starts dropping I'll know hat it is being transformed into chaeto.

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Sounds like things are coming along nicely. What are you thinking of for a fuge light?

You don't like the nano idea? Well, I haven't actually. I'm leaning towards a hardware store grow light. Perhaps a cheap aquarium plant light. I think the one I have on my 20g tank would be perfect, but I don't remember how much it was or where I got it.

But, you know my decisivness...everyone keeps talking about frag tanks and places to stash the little buggers (the coral ones, not the human ones everyone seems to be having right now). So, I had the idea of getting a decent light and putting frags in my extra sump chamber.

Subsea also suggested one, but we haven't had a chance to talk about it.

So clearly, I'm an impressionable (not so) youth and open to suggestions from anyone kind enough to chime in. I have just under 6" between the glass and the shelf and he water is perhaps 4" from the top and less than 12" deep.

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Ha, if you don't need to sell the ai nano, by all means use it! Especially if you plan on growing out frags down there. I was just thinking a simple grow light for cheato.

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I think it's a little early to think about fragging. I also think I'll use the nano on the qt tank so i can quarantine coral. The grow light sounds like the best idea.

I'm not sure about the wattage though. If left to my own devices I'd probably just pick up a 100w and how for the best.

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Dennis,

Keep it simple. Get 24W PC bulbs at lowes or Home Depot. Cost of $11 each. Spend $2 for waterproof pigtail sockets. Put a couple of those broad spectrum bulbs. You can grow anything with them. Grog found some LED at 4500 kelvin that does well. Just use water proof sockets, whichever light source that you go with.

Patrick

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A few updated pictures. This shows the new light (not hung yet) and the added grungy sand and live rock chunks. Most of the rock is rubble that may end up in the sump, but Bio also gave me a very nice looking rock that I will probably keep where it is. Some of the rubble may be incorporated into my levee.

post-3177-0-82888900-1370153054_thumb.jp post-3177-0-03464000-1370153069_thumb.jp

The purpose of this post is really to discuss my quarantine tank. I want to QT all livestock (after standard clean up crew) before it goes into my tank. I figure that for the first several months/year I will be regularly adding livestock, so at least for the short term I will have a permanent QT. Once the initial stocking is finished I will reevaluate that and break it down or not.

I decided the easiest way to get a QT was to just buy 10g starter kit. I figured it would have just about everything that I will need, minus a light that will let me QT corals. Petsmart was having a sale a couple of weeks ago and picked up this for $60.

post-3177-0-02114700-1370153551_thumb.jp

I came home and inspected it, no cracks, all parts there, and put it back in the box. It turns out I got duped. The "daylight" does not mean plants, it means white. So, i paid a little extra and still need a better light. But it does have a better filter than the cheaper kits.

My current plan is to hang the filter on my sump while the main tank cycles. Once the cycle is complete, or nearly complete, I will set this one up. I do not plan on using it for a medication tank (subject to change without notice), so I am not sure if i will add any sand. But I will probably include a piece of LR for filtration, hiding places for fish and places to add coral. rubble from my sump/bio will probably also be included since it will also be inoculated with bacteria other filtery type things.

This plan seems simpler than to set up and cycle two tanks at once. So, under this plan I would set up the QT and add a shrimp pellet or something else to check that it is all cycled, then start buying livestock.

The only downside to this that I see is that I will be very slowly stocking my tank. I will acquire a specimen, stick it in QT for several weeks (read anywhere between 2 - 8 weeks, i'm thinking 4 is the median), and then into my tank. But, I will not be able to buy new livestock while other things are in QT without restarting the quarantine clock. The benefit will be a significantly reduced chance of adding nastiness to the tank, though.

It may be ridiculous, but the AI Nano that I am not using on my main tank anymore will fit on this tank. Of course, this laziness is competing with the idea that I could sell the nano and buy a light for the QT with money left over. But the committee has already approved all purchases to date, so there could also be the "but we have this fancy light, we may as well get a new tank to go under it" converstation down the road.

Thanks for reading and any critiques.

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Dennis,

Keep it simple. Get 24W PC bulbs at lowes or Home Depot. Cost of $11 each. Spend $2 for waterproof pigtail sockets. Put a couple of those broad spectrum bulbs. You can grow anything with them. Grog found some LED at 4500 kelvin that does well. Just use water proof sockets, whichever light source that you go with.

Patrick

The lamp I'm using I moved outside because they released a new one at 5000k and double brightness. The old one was great but this new one is like 'Wow!'.

PAR 38 form factor and $35.00 I have one over a 10g tank.

I'd say for total coverage on a larger tank, one every 18" would be good.

If you consider these, look at the boxes, I went with the highest K (5000) and the highest lumens. This one is rated at 1400 lumens and color is what I would call a diamond white.

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I tried looking at par 38 bulbs online last night. I think I'll go the route of standing in the store looking at boxes, like you said. Or buy the one subsea posted in that other thread. I'm just a little worried about the clearance I would have on that one.

Either way, you guys have given me some great ideas.

Thanks guys. Your adise is truly appreciated.

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dont over complicate your QT. You dont need rock or anything in it. Instead, when you do water changes on your main tank, use that water to fill the QT. The only exception should be if you have detectable levels of phosphate/nitrate that are above safe limits (5ppm No3)

My current QT has a frag rack, a HOB filter, a pico twentyk from LEDTRiC (40 on sale) and a heater. When I take in new specimens, I just transfer some stable water from my frag tank into QT. If you hit an ammonia spike during the QT process, try dosing a bacterial additive, or running an ammonia absorbing pad.

What you want to achieve with QT is a place to take in new specimens, examine them, and then shuffle them off to the DT. So keeping the PH's/Temps/DKH between the two tanks similar is pretty important.

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