My little Reef

[Patrice]

At 12 months, we had to move so I thought this was the time to get a bigger tank.

So the only freshwater tank I had left went from this:


To this:

(the light on this picture is actually not my 150W MH)

While I am at talking about my new setup, let me show you my filter. As I said above, it's quite weird. I had some good results with it for the first year so why not keeping it.

So first of all, I need a canister filter. There is some special canister made for that but I am too cheap to get them so I use a Fluval filter. Its not as good but it do the job.
In the filter, I use whats call Tri Base pelletized Carbon and pH rocks. See pictures bellow:

The carbon


The rocks


All that in a bag in the canister


It's a little long to explain how this work. Maybe we could talk about that later but for now, here is the only non-commercial link I found about this filter: U.S. Patent Number 6,025,152

Because the Carbon "eat" all trace element in my water, I am using some Sea Lab Trace Element block. They automatically add trace element to the water. Here they are:



It's now time for me to drive my wife to work. I'll finish this a little later tonight.

[Patrice]

I am back!

Here is a picture of the tank just after setup in it's new 25 gallons (the tank is now 1 year old):



A guy in town had a lamp problem so I had lend him my 150W MH. The lamp on that picture is a coralife 120W

I did my best to do everything right but I have lost a clam and my 2 yellow cucumber during that move.

[LeeR]

thats a wicked lookin tank man!

[karazy]

i like it. it looks kinda tidepooley

[Patrice]

Thanks!
The tank is now a year older! I don't have much pictures from that last year but I will take some to show you where I am now.
The problem is that I have a huge hair algae problem right now so you won't see it at it's best. I got stuck with some fish and I think it's why I can't control that algae now. I really need to get rid of some fish.

I'll try to get the pics tomorrow.

[Patrice]

As said above, I have an algae problem. The tank looks close to what it is on the last picture above but it's more green.

I know where that problem came from, all I have to do is to fix it. My filter was a little too strong so I remove some of the media in it. Right after, I got 3 new fish. It also took too much time before I changed the bulb. It was over 15 months old when I changed it the last month.

So I finally got a new bulb and I will donate 2 fish to a school. I found some macro algae last month but I am not sure what it is exactly. I hope this will help.
I keep doing 25% water changes once a week and I am using some Metal Gone in my filter. That product is a non-chemical algae remover I am trying. I started using it a week ago and it should take a month before it remove all the algae (according to the instruction). They say all I have is to syphon the algae when I do a water change. For now, noticed that the algae is easier to remove from the rock. They look weaker than usual and I can remove big patches of green algae with no effort. So I removed as much as I could while doing the water change.
There is still lots of algae left in the tank. I'll keep doing this for the next 3 weeks to see how good (or not) this product is. Anyway, even if it does not remove all the algae, I am glad I found a non-chemical product to assist me with that fight.

While doing the water change, I got burned by the frogspawn coral. I know I should use gloves but I always forget.

[fencer]

A biologically active cycling tank will run through its algae cycle
Did you account for the amount of phosphates in the tank as well as nitrates
Filters too strong...never heard of that. the more flow the better
Water quality is everything carbon and phosphate removers help along with water changes
When your tank is stable consider adding snails and crabs