Bpb's 55

[Bpb]

Been on here about a year now and realized I've never posted in the tank journal section. So here's a ton of pics of my tank. Some of you will recognize many of these corals as this forum has been big in helping me stock my tank.

A little history. Kept planted freshwater tanks for years. Got a score on a 55 gallon FOWLR tank a year ago. Came with tank, rocks, sump, skimmer, lights, and fish for $200. Over time I've collected corals, cleaned up the water, learned about testing and chemistry. Now here is where I am today.

55 gallon display

15 gallon sump

Eshopps psk75 skimmer

Mag 5 return

Koralia 750 and 1050 powerheads

Mj1200 powerhead

Aquatic life 4x54watt t5ho

Ati blue+

Ati coral +

Ati blue+

Ati purple+

Brs dual reactor with brs gfo and rox0.8 carbon

Kalkwasser administered through jbj ato

Red Sea coral pro tests

VeeGee refractometer

Temperature 80 degrees

Salinity 1.025

Calcium 420 ppm (red sea pro)

Alk 8.7 dkh (red sea pro)

Mg 1350 ppm (red sea pro)

Nitrate 0ppm (API)

Phosphate never tested

Clarkii clownfish

Pajama cardinal fish

Royal gramma basslet

Azure damsel

Tons and tons of cuc

Wanting to add one or two more fish. Maybe a Firefish or a banggai cardinal. Favorite small fish is a leopard wrasse but I don't have the right sand or skill level for those.

[+KimP]

Nice collection of corals and great shots of them and your fish. Looks like you're doing a great job! Do you have a shot of the entire tank?

[Bpb]

Thanks for the comments Kim. Here's a fts taken right now. Cell phone pic with only blues on but you get the idea. I'm running short on grow out room for my sps frags. I have about 30-40 pounds of liverock I have curing right now that I'm gonna add soon. There are some large pieces of holey rock in the tank that serve little purpose besides adding weight to the tank so they gotta go. One piece I'm adding is a shelf which I hope to go up high so these Acros may do well there. No complaints from any of my corals as is, but always room for improvement. It's tough to get a decent scape on a 55 gallon because of how narrow they are. I'd swap the contents of my planted tank (75 gallon) and my reef in a heartbeat, but my fw tank has fish that are too large for a 55.

My extra liverock I want to add is done curing and is processing a whole shrimp from frozen to gone and just nitrate within a weeks time but I just don't have the time to pull everything, rescape, and re mount all the corals. Part of it is I haven't found a job yet so it's hard to justify spending the entire day that would take instead of job hunting. The second I find one though its happening lol. Till then I'll just keep feedi g the curing tank so the rock doesn't die.

[+KimP]

Sounds like a good plan. I want to add some rock and re-aquascape mine as well. Those reds sure pop in the fts!

[ChaosFyre]

Brs dual reactor with brs gfo and rox0.8 carbon
Kalkwasser administered through jbj ato

^I am wanting these. Wanna come test my calcium levels? lol No seriously.

I'm planning on buying a phosphate test kit today if you want to test yours in turn, just out of curiosity. I'm getting one because I'm afraid my rocks are leeching phostphates...

Do you dose epsom salts for magnesium? Your setup looks great so far. Also, didn't see RODi filter on the list. I'm wavering back and forth on whether I want one or not. You said you had one, right?

[ChaosFyre]

Thanks for the comments Kim. Here's a fts taken right now. Cell phone pic with only blues on but you get the idea. I'm running short on grow out room for my sps frags. I have about 30-40 pounds of liverock I have curing right now that I'm gonna add soon. There are some large pieces of holey rock in the tank that serve little purpose besides adding weight to the tank so they gotta go. One piece I'm adding is a shelf which I hope to go up high so these Acros may do well there. No complaints from any of my corals as is, but always room for improvement. It's tough to get a decent scape on a 55 gallon because of how narrow they are. I'd swap the contents of my planted tank (75 gallon) and my reef in a heartbeat, but my fw tank has fish that are too large for a 55.

My extra liverock I want to add is done curing and is processing a whole shrimp from frozen to gone and just nitrate within a weeks time but I just don't have the time to pull everything, rescape, and re mount all the corals. Part of it is I haven't found a job yet so it's hard to justify spending the entire day that would take instead of job hunting. The second I find one though its happening lol. Till then I'll just keep feedi g the curing tank so the rock doesn't die.

Hey, I'm there with the job search problem. Maybe its BCS... jeeze. But Dustin says he needs 2 drivers at Domino's. Not the best job, definitely not my major lol, but he says you can make up to $19 per hour and the hours are very flexible, so I'm going to apply. He's the manager so I think he means I have one of the jobs.

The rock you want to get rid of, is it oceanic rock or the same landscaping rock stuff I have? I can always use more live rock. I want to get rid of some of my landscaping rock over time.

[Bpb]

The rock I'm ditching is Texas holey rock. It's usually a decorative yard rock and is dirt cheap here in the southern states, but super expensive up north from what I understand. It's just limestone with large holes in it. Almost zero porosity, super dense and heavy, and offers virtually no biological filtration value. It came with the tank and I was none the wiser. The rock I'm replacing it with is actually some pieces I picked out from Dustin's tank, BEFORE it was Dustin's tank. I went and saw the guy that was selling it and bought a few large pieces. Theyre insanely porous and oddly shaped. Good stuff. I did a 1:10 dip of muriatic acid:water to dissolve any phosphate on the rock and that made it even more porous. Like a sponge. I'll get around to re-scaping with it one day. You're welcome to the holey rock, but I'm telling you it's worthless. Best kept in the flower bed or in an african cichlid tank to help buffer the water.

I got my BRS reactor for christmas last year. I had been wanting to buy one, but like you I was on a strict budget, and when you've got a family, and the hobby isn't everyone's, just yours, its tough to justify large purchases just for fun. Score on christmas gift.

I can test your calcium for you, but honestly, with your water change regiment, and lack of heavy stony coral load, I wouldn't even worry about calcium. Your soft corals use virtually zero calcium and will do fine with lowered levels. I didn't start testing calcium until like the 8 month mark when I decided to transition to SPS.

For magnesium I use BRS magnesium mix. It's a bag that makes a gallon of magnesium solution. It's like $10. It's a mix of magnesium chloride and magnesium sulfate. It makes a fairly weak mixture compared to the Kent stuff, but it does its purpose. You can use epsom salt to elevate your magnesium but may want to continue with large water changes so you don't have a big rise in sulfates in your water (which may or may not be an issue, i've read both).

As far as dosing in general, since I like to keep SPS, I like to maintain good levels of calcium and alkalinity, clean water, and seldom water changes. I don't have a calcium reactor, controller, or dosing pumps. I'm sure one day down the road I'll get there but just not really in the budget.

I dose calcium and alkalinity with kalkwasser (mrs wages pickling lime, $3/lb, lasts forever). I dose that via a tom's aqualifter pump ($12) through my auto topoff. I'm only running 1/3 strength kalkwasser right now to meet my needs so that's good. Lots of room to increase before I need to move to something stronger. years down the road likely. For my tank size kalkwasser is perfect. I dose magnesium because kalkwasser tends to deplete it more rapidly than other methods, and low magnesium tends to result in algae growth and calcium precipitation. Super easy. Takes me a total of about 20 minutes a week, to test the water and mix my kalkwasser.

Best of luck with the job hunt. I'm working and get plenty of hours, but since it's not in my degree field it "feels" like unemployment. I'm still holding out for my real job which will like quadruple my income and bring benefits. Fingers crossed.

I only posted recent pictures of the tank. I'll hunt around and see if I can find some setup pictures. It was an ugly 6-8 months of horrible algae, dinoflagellates, and cyanobacteria blooms before the water cleared up and the colors started popping. I didn't take many pictures back then because I was fairly ashamed of my tank lol.

[Planeden]

Hey, I like your aquascaping. Just out of curiousity, if your ammonia and nitrites are 0, which I assume they are, why are you worried about getting more filtration? What are you hoping better rock will filter out?

[Bpb]

Thanks for the comment. My purpose for the rock swap out isnt necessarily for bio filtration reasons, though if I end up adding another fish soon that wouldn't hurt. I just dislike the look of the holey rock. The liverock I'm adding is just gonna improve my scape. I've got alot of space on the holey rock I don't want to put corals on since I'm getting rid of it. Swapping this rock out will enable me to get my zoas, frogspawn, blastos, and Duncan up off the sandbed and onto the rockwork. Plus adding a large shelf piece to kind of finish off the rock wall will give me space for probably 4-5 new species of sps

[Bpb]

So I came in from the store and its a very bright and sunny day here in good ole college station. As I walk in I keep on my sunglasses. I notice my tank actually looks way better with my sunglasses on. The corals all still pop and fluoresce real well, but the bright blue glare is gone. Decided to take a couple pics. Here's an iPhone pic with nothing done. Just a straight picture. Then I put the sunglasses over the camera lens. The difference is pretty neat.

[+KimP]

Cool, now I want to go get my sunglasses!

[Dustin Pedretti]

You could always tent your rank glass lol

Sent from my Nexus S 4G using Tapatalk 2

[Dustin Pedretti]

Tint...stupid smart phone

Sent from my Nexus S 4G using Tapatalk 2

[Bpb]

Lol I'm sure that would be a first for an auto shop

[Dustin Pedretti]

lol...probably

you could use the spray on stuff i used on my tail lights haha

[Bpb]

Lol that's ok. I'm not that gangster

[ChaosFyre]

So I came in from the store and its a very bright and sunny day here in good ole college station. As I walk in I keep on my sunglasses. I notice my tank actually looks way better with my sunglasses on. The corals all still pop and fluoresce real well, but the bright blue glare is gone. Decided to take a couple pics. Here's an iPhone pic with nothing done. Just a straight picture. Then I put the sunglasses over the camera lens. The difference is pretty neat.

Holy cow this is awesome. It looks great! You must have polarized sunglasses, filtering out all the UV light that the camera has trouble reading. I might try this if I can ever find my sunglasses.

[ChaosFyre]

The rock I'm ditching is Texas holey rock. It's usually a decorative yard rock and is dirt cheap here in the southern states, but super expensive up north from what I understand. It's just limestone with large holes in it. Almost zero porosity, super dense and heavy, and offers virtually no biological filtration value. It came with the tank and I was none the wiser. The rock I'm replacing it with is actually some pieces I picked out from Dustin's tank, BEFORE it was Dustin's tank. I went and saw the guy that was selling it and bought a few large pieces. Theyre insanely porous and oddly shaped. Good stuff. I did a 1:10 dip of muriatic acid:water to dissolve any phosphate on the rock and that made it even more porous. Like a sponge. I'll get around to re-scaping with it one day. You're welcome to the holey rock, but I'm telling you it's worthless. Best kept in the flower bed or in an african cichlid tank to help buffer the water.

I got my BRS reactor for christmas last year. I had been wanting to buy one, but like you I was on a strict budget, and when you've got a family, and the hobby isn't everyone's, just yours, its tough to justify large purchases just for fun. Score on christmas gift.

I can test your calcium for you, but honestly, with your water change regiment, and lack of heavy stony coral load, I wouldn't even worry about calcium. Your soft corals use virtually zero calcium and will do fine with lowered levels. I didn't start testing calcium until like the 8 month mark when I decided to transition to SPS.

For magnesium I use BRS magnesium mix. It's a bag that makes a gallon of magnesium solution. It's like $10. It's a mix of magnesium chloride and magnesium sulfate. It makes a fairly weak mixture compared to the Kent stuff, but it does its purpose. You can use epsom salt to elevate your magnesium but may want to continue with large water changes so you don't have a big rise in sulfates in your water (which may or may not be an issue, i've read both).

As far as dosing in general, since I like to keep SPS, I like to maintain good levels of calcium and alkalinity, clean water, and seldom water changes. I don't have a calcium reactor, controller, or dosing pumps. I'm sure one day down the road I'll get there but just not really in the budget.

I dose calcium and alkalinity with kalkwasser (mrs wages pickling lime, $3/lb, lasts forever). I dose that via a tom's aqualifter pump ($12) through my auto topoff. I'm only running 1/3 strength kalkwasser right now to meet my needs so that's good. Lots of room to increase before I need to move to something stronger. years down the road likely. For my tank size kalkwasser is perfect. I dose magnesium because kalkwasser tends to deplete it more rapidly than other methods, and low magnesium tends to result in algae growth and calcium precipitation. Super easy. Takes me a total of about 20 minutes a week, to test the water and mix my kalkwasser.

Best of luck with the job hunt. I'm working and get plenty of hours, but since it's not in my degree field it "feels" like unemployment. I'm still holding out for my real job which will like quadruple my income and bring benefits. Fingers crossed.

I only posted recent pictures of the tank. I'll hunt around and see if I can find some setup pictures. It was an ugly 6-8 months of horrible algae, dinoflagellates, and cyanobacteria blooms before the water cleared up and the colors started popping. I didn't take many pictures back then because I was fairly ashamed of my tank lol.

Lol about the algae. My god, I'm still not sure what is up with my tank and its resistance to algae. Finally, FINALLY, there is a little bit of green on the glass near the substrate bed.

The job thing is great, just need to complete my paperwork and I start sometime this week I think. I know what you mean about jobs out of your major. Delivering pizza is quite different than researching Alzheimer's (which I used to do).

The rock I picked up from the landscaping store is pretty useful for building neat structures, if you can hide the landscaping rock behind some nice live-rock. I'm pretty attached to the shelves I made and how easy it is to catch critters from my tank. Plus the fish love the narrow crevices between pillars. Oh yeah, and I tested the phosphates in my tank and I shouldn't have been worried (of course, because I never have any algae). Phosphates are exactly the same as nitrates 0-5 ppm. I still have your tank water in that cup I can test if I remember, and I'll tell you what it is. It may have changed over time after sitting in that paper cup for so long, though.

The rock I'm getting for my new breeder tank is fiji purple live rock. It'll definitely look a lot different than my DT, and I'm excited about it.

It seems like you've found a great cheap way to dose your tank. When its time for me to start, I may ask you more about it because I didn't understand half of what you said lol.

[ChaosFyre]

Been on here about a year now and realized I've never posted in the tank journal section. So here's a ton of pics of my tank. Some of you will recognize many of these corals as this forum has been big in helping me stock my tank.

A little history. Kept planted freshwater tanks for years. Got a score on a 55 gallon FOWLR tank a year ago. Came with tank, rocks, sump, skimmer, lights, and fish for $200. Over time I've collected corals, cleaned up the water, learned about testing and chemistry. Now here is where I am today.

55 gallon display

15 gallon sump

Eshopps psk75 skimmer

Mag 5 return

Koralia 750 and 1050 powerheads

Mj1200 powerhead

Aquatic life 4x54watt t5ho

Ati blue+

Ati coral +

Ati blue+

Ati purple+

Brs dual reactor with brs gfo and rox0.8 carbon

Kalkwasser administered through jbj ato

Red Sea coral pro tests

VeeGee refractometer

Temperature 80 degrees

Salinity 1.025

Calcium 420 ppm (red sea pro)

Alk 8.7 dkh (red sea pro)

Mg 1350 ppm (red sea pro)

Nitrate 0ppm (API)

Phosphate never tested

Clarkii clownfish

Pajama cardinal fish

Royal gramma basslet

Azure damsel

Tons and tons of cuc

Wanting to add one or two more fish. Maybe a Firefish or a banggai cardinal. Favorite small fish is a leopard wrasse but I don't have the right sand or skill level for those.

What are your red zoas with the purple eye and skirt? If you ever have frags of that I'd love one. Did you ever get a frag of that eye of rah from me? Do you have a pic of that up there? I can't remember who it was, but I gave someone a ton of it off my decorator crab, and that they showed me a picture of what it looks like under good lights. I remember it looked way better than in my tank.

[Bpb]

I bet the algae resistance was due to the really low light levels during your tank maturation. You may see a bit now that you've upped your light, (you're at probably quadruple the PAR you were at previously) but probably not alot. If something does decide to take over it won't be a cyclical algae like cyano or diatoms. Probably hair or bubble algae if at all. Some people just luck out and don't get algae. Some people have perfect water parameters and have some stubborn nuisance algae.

I wouldn't sweat a phosphate test on that tank water that was left in the cup. There were enough bits of living organic matter in there and such that have likely decomposed pretty quickly which will cause a grossly high phosphate reading which wont be real indicative of the tank's reading. Judging by my GFO use and changing schedule, tank husbandry, sps coloration, and algae growth...I'd guess the actual tank phosphate is in the neighborhood of 0.03-0.08 ish ppm. I'll test it with a high res test eventually but since I'm not showing any of the symptoms of high phosphates I just haven't been concerned with testing that particular parameter. It's never gonna be zero in any tank, especially mine with how heavily I feed, and I do alot to keep it in check.

Kalkwasser is an awesome way to maintain calcium and alk for medium sized tanks with medium demand. I decided on that after alot of research and budget observation. Two part is alot more accurate, but a bit more expensive to do properly, and my tank doesnt have anywhere close to the demand for a calcium reactor, so it was a no brainer. My only complaint so far with kalkwasser is how messy it is. This stuff gunks up lines and pumps. Already killed one aqualifter pump. On my second one now. I'm at a crossroads...I'll either

A) buy several aqualifter diaphram replacements and just fix them as they go kaput, which will cost not much, but i'll constantly be dealing with broken pumps

B) use an air pump line going into a sealed kalk container and use air to displace the fluid in the container. Air pump attached to the ATO. Got the idea from dustin. Sounds interesting, but not sure how well it'll work. I'd obviously do an experimental run first. Probably won't settle on this...

C) pony up the money and actually buy a real peristaltic dosing pump that won't fail on me nearly as often. This is the method I'll most likely go with in the near future when this next aqualifter fails

The red mouth zoas with the purple skirts are Kedd Reds. I got them from Ron a while ago. There were 5-6 polyps to begin with that didnt do much for a while but have since grown to 30-40 or so. I've never been very good at fragging zoas and always end up butchering and killing them. I know all of the different methods people use to do it, just don't have the physical touch for it. I can never get the mat pried up and and end up just chopping it up in the process, and cutting individual polyps has resulted in 100% mortality every single time. The rock they're on is way too big and dense to bust up so I'm just gonna let them grow real dense and likely frag them when I need to. That's one of the things I like most about SPS corals. Fragging is so easy. Break then glue. Done. Nothing to it. Fragging soft corals and LPS always ends up in a stinky slimy mess. When my purple Montipora cap starts encroaching in an area I dont like it I just reach in and break it off like a potato chip.

You had given me some eye of rah zoas a while back. I dipped them and didnt see anything on them, but you then told me you found another nudibranch, and upon close inspection I found an egg clutch on one of the polyps so I just pulled the frag from the tank and let it go. I don't have a quarantine to do a several week series of dips so I just didnt want to risk it. I do have some eye of rah I got from Ron a while back that are starting to grow. It sat there as two polyps on a frag plug for 6 months doing nothing more than looking pretty, then over the last couple weeks its sprouted 8 new polyps so it's taking off. The Whammin Watermelons dustin gave me are probably growing the fastest of all my zoas right now. The pic I got of mine are up there in the first post in between the purple Montipora cap and the green rock flower anemone.

Speaking of anemone. I'm pretty interested in one of those rose bubble tips that your friend has coming in at some point. I really want to see one first though. To the point to where if they all get reserved and I'm not able, it was worth the risk of waiting. $40 is a good price for a rose bubble tip, but only if it's a great looking healthy 'nem. I've seen some fugly "rose" bubble tips before that I wouldn't take for free. Anemone can be enough of a PITA that if I'm gonna get one it's gotta look killer. If he gets them in and they're not all spoken for, and they look great, then I'll likely get one. Been kind of coveting a RBTA for a while.

[Planeden]

Judging by my GFO use and changing schedule, tank husbandry, sps coloration, and algae growth...I'd guess the actual tank phosphate is in the neighborhood of 0.03-0.08 ish ppm.

Can I send you a picture so you can measure my calcium for me?

[Bpb]

Har har har.

[Bpb]

At the risk of sounding like a total dope my phosphate estimation is an educated guess of a parameter I don't particularly need to test. When i first got the tank it tested at 0.2 ppm. Very high. Had an old deep sandbed that got stirred up in the move, cyano and hair algae covering every surface and no phosphate removal husbandry.

I have cleaned the sandbed and reduced it down to 1". Removed alot of the deep stuck detritus from the rocks over time. Been aggressively using gfo in a reactor and done many many water changes with ROdi water and salt mix (as opposed to the previous owner using tap water for topoffs and premixed saltwater from petco).

The majority of algae is long gone and I keep things pretty clean which enables me to feed heavier. Seems a logical assumption that going from zero phosphate control, to aggressive phosphate control over the course of a year would reduce it from 0.2 ppm to the range I'm estimating. I fully admit I could be wrong. Do I care if I'm wrong?

[Planeden]

At the risk of sounding like a total dope my phosphate estimation is an educated guess of a parameter I don't particularly need to test. When i first got the tank it tested at 0.2 ppm. Very high. Had an old deep sandbed that got stirred up in the move, cyano and hair algae covering every surface and no phosphate removal husbandry.

I have cleaned the sandbed and reduced it down to 1". Removed alot of the deep stuck detritus from the rocks over time. Been aggressively using gfo in a reactor and done many many water changes with ROdi water and salt mix (as opposed to the previous owner using tap water for topoffs and premixed saltwater from petco).

The majority of algae is long gone and I keep things pretty clean which enables me to feed heavier. Seems a logical assumption that going from zero phosphate control, to aggressive phosphate control over the course of a year would reduce it from 0.2 ppm to the range I'm estimating. I fully admit I could be wrong. Do I care if I'm wrong?

sorry, i was just going for the gag, not doubting your phosphate situation. You did line out the reasons why you thought they were low. it just struck me as funny that you actually gave a range, rather than just saying "for these reasons i think my phosphates are fine".

so, again, sorry. no offense was meant.

[Bpb]

Lol none taken. Your comment was actually very funny. That same sort of dry sense of humor I tend to employ myself. I did give a strangely specific range. I guess I'm hoping its in that range. But as we all know. Hope in one hand and ... In the other and see what gets full first.