Josh's 10 gallon Build

[simplycoral]

Originally Posted by bauder1986

Alright people, update time. Sorry but no FTS right now due to cranky Octospawn due to salinity raise. So I spent the last couple of weeks raising my Salinity and getting my coral used to the idea that there well not be as much dosing from now on. To say the least, the zoos are starting to accept the changes but the ones that everyone expressed concern for are not settling down, the gorilla nipples are still reaching for the stars even though i reaquascaped and brought them higher. I switched the bulb from the K2 viper back to my Corallife fixture due to superior reflectors and still, the gorilla nipples want to reach high.

K so i say WTF do they want??? they are still healthy looking, color is good, they open all the way up every day but they still reach.

Other than that, I am waiting for the Octospawn to relax and then ill have pics up. Oh and Simon, you should see that Frogspawn, wow does it ever reach

If everything looks healthy & happy; keep up the good work. No point trying to fix something thats not broken..

S.

[Funky_Fish14]

Great job! It looks good and definitely simple! Keep up the good work!

Chris

[bauder1986]

Alright, I have gotten lazy lately in keeping this thread updated, so here goes it. Grab a coffee and a quick smoke because this is gonna be abit of a read.

It has been some couple of weeks since I started to raise my salinity, lower my dosing, and find some freaking way to make the gorilla nipples and the octospawn happy. Well, I did it. The damn things are happy now.

So I ended up raising the salinity up to 1.024 which seemed to make everything happier. But I still hade problems with the octospawn being so damn sensitive to everything. And to boot I had some heat issues from the light and canopy mix.

So first thing first, I had to fix the heat issues right away because Terry had the intention of storing his coral in my tank will he did a tank transfer from his 90 gallon tear down to his 30 gallon starfire cube(some of you have seen his tank) So what I did is added a fan bolted to the canopy facing outward and made sure that there was about 8 feet of power cord for it for whenever i want to get my grubby fingers into the tank. Well that solved the heat issue for the day time



And then I aquascaped the tank to better suit the light demands of some corals. and that seemed to work in making the gorrila nipples happier. They dont reach that much anymore.

And then I did something that I promised myself that I would not do on this 'Simple' Tank setup......I added a protein skimmer.

Good thing to because my nutrients were starting to go through the roof which was increasing the phosphates which in turn was increasing that annoying green crap everywhere. Well with the protein skimmer on there I now have clearer water, lower algea growth and a very happy octospawn.

But with the extra piece of equipment I have extra noise for the night time and as some of you know, that tank is in my room so I had to unplug the protein skimmer and the fan at night. That got old after a few days so I set up the protein skimmer and the fan on a timer with the lights so I only have that noise during the day time which isnt that bad. And dont worry, surprisingly the protein skimmer fires up succesfully every morning.

Now enough chatter and more pictures like you guys want.

[bauder1986]

Oh yah and for a little experiment I put a bit of carbon into the large particle filter on the protein skimmer just to increase the water clarity. K I think thats it for the updates.

[bauder1986]

well I did it finally, I made my first frags ever! I made four 10 - 20 head frags of my fire and ice zoos. Now what Im going to do is watch these buggers heal and attach to the frags rocks. In probably a month or so I may be interested in trades for zoos and such.

[the marine apprentice]

and a freebie goes into my cube... sweet

[bauder1986]

Originally Posted by the marine apprentice

and a freebie goes into my cube... sweet

That's right dude. In a month or so though. I want to maximize their chances of survival and growth.

[bauder1986]

Well it looks like my first set of DIY frags of my fire and ice zoos are doing good. Who would of thought that fragging zoos would be so easy.

[fishytime]

makin that first cut is always the hardest.....zoanthids are actually pretty dang tough

[bauder1986]

Originally Posted by fishytime

makin that first cut is always the hardest.....zoanthids are actually pretty dang tough

yah but I found them no tougher than GSP actually. Its actually kinda cool how the zoos are interconnected, made it easy once i got an edge off of the rock.