Nano_Steve's 16g Bowfront Blog

[Nano_Steve]

Hey all,

I finally took some photos and did a fill test of my 16gallon bowfront. I've had this tank for over 3 years and never once filled it!!! No leaks and the lighting and CPR AquaFuge PS all works!

Enjoy these preliminary pics and I will have many more to come!

-Steve

[blindside]

I like it! A lot!

[Laura]

I love bow fronts!!! I have a 46 and 36 myself....this is going to look so cool when it's done.

[innate1]

I know I'm a huge dork but I get all twitterpatted seeing a tank with just water in it! Think of all the possibilities! Post pics when you start filling it.

[Nano_Steve]

New pics showcasing the rocks and the rockwork once in the tank. Thanks Jason for these awesome rocks! Over the next few months the top piece will slowly be filled with acros and I'm waiting on a concrete statue for the center piece.

-Steve

[Dena]

Love the cave!!! I got a few nice rocks from Jason last night also...for my 12 gallon nano. Excellent deal!!!

[manhorsedog]

i got some rocks from him also and there was a few apitasia. Nice rocks just be sure to have some skrimps handy

[Nano_Steve]

I noticed that as well but he warned me about it beforehand. I went to Aquatek and bought some Aiptasia-X for 14.99 and thought it was a bit of a rip-off but when i went home and used it, the Aiptasia INSTANTLY melted and they are gone this morning! Well worth the price!!!

-Steve

[caferacermike]

I noticed that as well but he warned me about it beforehand. I went to Aquatek and bought some Aiptasia-X for 14.99 and thought it was a bit of a rip-off but when i went home and used it, the Aiptasia INSTANTLY melted and they are gone this morning! Well worth the price!!!

-Steve

Actually a rip off. You'd have been better off buying Kalk. you can continue to use Kalk in your top-off water to increase your CA and raise PH. You just mix some clean RO water with the Kalk powder to make a thick paste. Suck this up in a turkey baster or, better yet, a syringe without a needle on the end. Same as the commercial remedies, push some out right over the mouth of the anemone. Next morning, no aptasia. Then watch the tank for about 2 months and continue nuking any small offspring that were to small to see during the first dosing.

Generally Joe's Juice and Aptasia X tend to be nothing more than Kalk paste made ready to use or some sort of light acid such as lime juice.

[manhorsedog]

yeah be careful thats stuff will come back, few shrimps and you should be ok. Plus i love my shrimp they always come up into my hand.

[Nano_Steve]

Well, I've tried Peppermint Shrimp in the past and I've never once had one that I ever noticed a reduction in aiptasia. I've had both species.

I've used Kalk before also and I never got the instant results like I had with this stuff. They are GONE! Completely gone today after just one application.

-Steve

[medi]

I've used Joe's juice several times in the past. I noticed it always seemed to work great at first, and the aptasia would be gone for three or four days but sure enough about the time I get all excited the aptasia would return. I now take kalk put it in a bowl of fresh RO water place it in the microwave for about 30 seconds or until it starts boiling, draw it up into a syringe, and then use a 25 gauge needle and inject it right into the aptasia. I don't know if it is the kalk or the boiling water but I promise it will get em' everytime. I have to give credit where credit is due this is a little trick I learned from mikedelgado

[Nano_Steve]

I chiseled the top shelf rock last night so now the sides are away from the glass and I rearranged some of the supporting rocks to get better surface area for some zoos and rics later on.

I also had the water tested yesterday at River City Aquatics and the results after a little over a week of being setup are as follows:

Ammonia - 0

Nitrite - 0

Nitrate - 20ppm

pH - 8.1

KH - 10dkH

Calcium - 400ppm

Specific Gravity - 1.026

I also purchased a <i>Dascyllus aruanus</i>, or Threestriped Damsel, and my girlfriend named him Shirokuro (Whiteblack in Japanese). He seems to be doing well and he is eating the Marine -S- pellets that we bought for him just fine. Everything seems to be going quite nicely for the first few days of the tank. I have used Aiptasia X on about 6 large Aiptasia and each of them has not returned and has shown no signs of life after treatment.

A small diatom bloom has begun on some of the rocks and I will begin dosing Ca, Kalk, and Mg tomorrow morning to begin my dosing regiment.

-Steve

[Nano_Steve]

Added 7mL each of DT's Calcium, Alkalinity, and Magnesium liquid solutions this morning to begin the dosing regimen. The cyanobacteria is beginning to get a bit out of control and if it continues for another 2 days then I will decrease the photo period from 12 hours to 10 hours and monitor any change. I think a good idea at this point will be to get a few snails in there and see about getting a blenny. Snails for sure, blenny a big maybe since I already have a fish and it's assuredly aggressive when mature.

-Steve

[Hamp]

Hey Steve, I am sort of new at this so let somebody else back it up...but in my experience, I wouldnt dose anything without testing first; and I dont think you are going to be losing much calcium without livestock in there. Most of your saltmixes have adequate supplementation in them. When I started dosing, I had to figure out how much my corals were using daily, then add that to the water. If you are just starting out, then I would take a water sample to aquatek before you add any corals and get them to check everything that they will for you, then do it again a few months after you add you corals. I dont think that you will need to dose until then. Also, I had an outbreak of aptasia after a few months of getting my tank going, bought 3 pep shrimp, and within 10 days they were all gone. Bought a fish that ate them a while ago, and within a month or 2, aptasia came back. I bought 3 more peps and again within a week the aptasia, all of them, were gone. Plus they are good for the tank. the lay eggs that feed your corals, and keep the tank clean. Mine come eat out of my hand, and are really cool. The only thing is, when I feed my anemones, I have to feed the shrimp first so they dont start stealing food. Cool additions for cheap in any case. Just my $.02.

[Hamp]

Sorry, I just read where RCA tested your water already. But I am still not sure that I would dose without needing it.

[Nano_Steve]

Well at 400ppm my Calcium level is rather low for the amount of SPS I plan on having in this tank. I would like to get it up to 600-700ppm before I even put my first coral in, that way there is no shock after the initial acclimation of the corals into the tank. I've had TERRIBLE experiences in the past trying to raise my Calcium AFTER I added sps and this time I am going to do it right and get my water levels to where I want them BEFORE I add anything.

Thanks for the suggestions though! Every piece of information is helpful, it's just in this case I am going off of my own experience and trying something different so as not to end up with the devastating results of before.

-Steve

[GKarshens]

600-700??? That is near impossible and not necessary. In the 400s is perfectly acceptable.

[Nano_Steve]

Hmm, helpful. But since this is my tank and I'm going off of my own experience of keeping nanos for over 7 years I think I will try to get my levels to where I have stated them. Nanos work completely differently than larger systems and vice-versa, I'm sure 400 is fine for a larger system but due to HUGE fluctuations in short periods of time in such a small water volume, I need some room for error, hence the higher numbers. Besides, the worst that happens with higher Calcium levels is white growth without color for a short period of time.

My kH on the other hand needs to be dealt with before anything else happens. Having 10 kH is not acceptable for such a small water volume and my pH is a bit low as well, but it should be fine when I get my kH to the levels I'd like them (around 50).

-Steve

Edited December 30, 2008 by Nano_Steve

[+ACampbell]

You're not going to pack it wall to wall full of sps right away. You should add corals (frags) gradually, and slowly increase the demand for calcium. Adding a couple corals will not deplete 200ppm of calcium overnight.

I would worry more about the salinity fluctuations with that size tank. An ATO is a good investment in any size aquarium.

[GKarshens]

Steve where in the world are you getting these numbers? I really don't think it is even possible to get 50 kh or 700 Ca. I think you need to do some more reading.

[caferacermike]

Well Gabe I'll tell you how this fellow had 700ppm of calcium in his tank.

We all know that you can only saturate a solution so far until things begin to change or drop out. Salt water is no different. Most of us are now realizing that keeping an eye on our magnesium levels can be very important. It wasn't really as well known or talked about a couple of years back. When your CA is sky high like that it is generally 1 of 2 things. The first is that you've caused lesser binding minerals to drop out of the solution. Think of calcium as being the bully and squeezes the magnesium out of solution, kind of like how aptasia start to multiply and kill of all surrounding corals. Of course we all know this is not good for the tank. The other CA problem is that you can change the chemical properties of the calcium itself. It becomes chelated with other ions in the water and becomes totally unusable. This morning I cannot remember the exact name but it changes from something like calcium hydroxide to calcium hydroxate (FYI, don't hold me to those exact names, for reference I made it up). This solution can actually become toxic in the water both due to the fact that other important ions are missing and that this new formula can begin to suffocate creatures in the tank. When I first started dosing B-Ionic I was having good luck with it so I started using more and more. Sure enough I went into several shops with my "sample" water and showed 760ppm. I thought I was the best reef keeper in the world. It wasn't until about 4 months later that I went to a Seachem rep demonstration and he began to explain the way that the minerals and ions bind in solution that the light went off in my head. I bought more sophisticated test kits and sure enough my mag and strontium levels were very low. I contacted some very respectable reef keepers to explain what I found. I was told that I would not be able to "add" mag or anything else to the water as it was already super saturated with "stuff". I was told to begin doing 50% water changes every other day for about 2 weeks until my levels all came back to "normal sea levels". Once I did that I got my CA back to 420, my KH at 12, and the rest of my levels began to normalize as well. From that point on I slowed the pace of my B-Ionic to what I compared to with my weekly testing (just as Hamp pointed out).

But Gabe it doesn't matter. As was pointed out we are not experts with the nano's. This guy is an expert so there isn't much we could ever tell him that would matter. So I always say, let it slide and create it's own problems. My only question is why on Earth would anyone want an SPS dominated tiny nano with fast growing corals? It won't be long at all until all the expensive SPS grow into each other and begin killing themselves off. Seems kind of defeatist to me. I'd want them to grow as slowly as possible and keep them trimmed to a discipline of that of a Japanese Bonsai keeper.

[Nano_Steve]

Yep, I will have pictures soon of my Auto Top Off system. I'm using an old square aquarium of mine that will hold about 3 gallons to use as my reservoir and a float switch I made for my 2.5 that I'm no longer using.

Just a question, is there a place on this website where I can set up a blog? I sort of wanted this thread to be a blog and not so much a discussion.

Thanks, Steve

[fishypets]

I don't think the KH of effluent from a CA reactor is near 50! How on earth will you get the KH that high? Or with those numbers you might be a little high.

[Nano_Steve]

Oh, I didn't see the second page of this discussion...

Wow, you guys make a newcomer feel really really welcome with your snide remarks and condescending attitudes. I'd expect this sort of thing from trolls on lesser boards, but from moderators and dues paying members? This is quite sad. This thread is supposed to be a blog, I would have imagined anyone who read the title would have understood that immediately, but if you guys think it is a better idea to alienate and condescend then I think each of you sorely misunderstands the importance of an online community for saltwater aquariums.

Letting folks know of a concern in a proper and understanding way is one thing, but when you begin to question the intelligence and experience of others is just outright upsetting. I had heard things about people in this club being a bit prickish but I really wanted to give everyone the benefit of the doubt. GKarshen and caferacermike, you guys have sabotaged my blog and, frankly, have ticked me off a bit. Again, things I would expect from trolls, not folks of higher standing in a forum, let alone an online community that has irl meetings every so often.

If you don't like my methodologies that I use for my tank then get over it and go be a'holes somewhere else. I would rather not be bothered by folks who only wish to bash the way I do things and ideas that I am trying out for myself. Nowhere in this post before you started to chime in did I ONCE condescend anyone.

Again, this was meant to be a blog for my tank and to share the growth with the community, but you two have made my decision for me and I guess I will keep the progress to myself and hand-write these things down for my own records. You have stripped this community of one more good hearted reef keeper excited about being a part of the new community and as higher members of the forum you both should be ashamed.

-Steve