Josh's 10 gallon Build

[bauder1986]

And another FTS of the pretty stuff Dont mind the ****y looking corals, they had no light for most of the day.


But yah, I'm pretty proud of what I managed to pull off here. I spent $775.00 on this tank already with the intention of spending another 100 on another Nano fan, some hammerhead frogspawn and an actinic PC fixture to combo with the MH. Oh yah and a canopy cooling fan sometime soonish. The cooling fan isnt really a big worry, my temp only goes up 2 degrees in a full light cycle, but it doesnt hurt to be safe, right?

So final run down on what I have:

Coral:
Digitata
Frogspawn / Octospawn
Blue Pom Pom Xenia
Gorilla's Nipples
Fire and Ice Zoos
6 other types of Zoos

Hardware:
1 Korelia Nano
150 watt heater
150 watt MH K2 Viper / Corallife
Cleaning Magnet

Dosing:
Weekly:
Iodine
Strontium/Molybdenum
Calcium

Every two days:
Phytoplankton

Every three days:
Coral Vit
Phols
Amino Acid LPS

Feed the Frogspawn Mysis shrimp every night, or try to keep up on that habit haha.

Building supplies came from Home Depot, 80 bucks worth of trim, 4 bucks worth of hardboard, 12 bucks in stain and brushes and 8 bucks in glue.

So yah thats what I can build I guess, honestly I'm surprised that it turned out this good, Im not the best at cabinet making.

[Boomboy]

I dont think you should be dosing anything, it can easily throw that tank out of whack if you do weekly to by weekly water changes that should be enough. i think you should raise you salinity slowly to 1.024-1.026 around that range. in your pictures your zoas were really scretched out. and your xenia still isnt happy from your recent ones same with your frogspawn. they are not expanding like they should. everything is going good. just keep it simple with tanks this size. also i dont think you need to feed phyto in the tank either or any of those other ones. changing 2 to 3 gallons a week will be plenty to keep the parameters in check. you wanted to keep it simple anyways though right.

keep up the good work man.

[bauder1986]

Originally Posted by Boomboy

I dont think you should be dosing anything, it can easily throw that tank out of whack if you do weekly to by weekly water changes that should be enough. i think you should raise you salinity slowly to 1.024-1.026 around that range. in your pictures your zoas were really scretched out. and your xenia still isnt happy from your recent ones same with your frogspawn. they are not expanding like they should. everything is going good. just keep it simple with tanks this size. also i dont think you need to feed phyto in the tank either or any of those other ones. changing 2 to 3 gallons a week will be plenty to keep the parameters in check. you wanted to keep it simple anyways though right.

keep up the good work man.

ok Ill give it a shot, ill do a water change tomorrow to raise the salinity up a point. I do however want to keep dosing my coral vit, phols, and amino acid LPS, but maybe a little less often. the frogspawn is all the way out now, ill get a photo of it. But the xenia is still not that happy but i think that it is because of the higher light intensity. Xenia is usually a low light coral.

I found that the gorilla nipples reached out ever since i introduced them into the tank, they do that in my buddies tanks as well, we have more than sufficient lighting, i think it be more of a characteristic of them. the other zoo colonies have a really short reach but fully spread heads. My digi's polips are always out, not all the way out but none the less they're out.

But yah, ill start relying on the water changes for calc, iodine, strontium, molybdenum. Ill maybe stop the phyto but i seem to have great results with the zoos on that, and i dose really small amounts of everything as well. I am very careful with my dosing because i know how easy it is to throw a tank out of whack.

Thanks
Josh

[bauder1986]

[simplycoral]

Looking Good Josh ..

Those Gorillas Nipples are definitely reaching for the light. They don't have that characteristic in my tank. Maybe try moving them a little closer to the top to see if they relax.

If the Xenia is retracted this is normally a good indication that something is out of whack. Xenia is very sensitive to PH swings so maybe a good idea to test the PH at different times during the day.

S.

[bauder1986]

alright, ill move the gorillas actually i might move everything around to accomadate everything better. Ill test the ph through out the day.The strangest thing is that everything has great growth, color and good polyp extension. hmm.

[bauder1986]

Ok, so I aquascaped my tank to better suit the needs of my corals, and I took the bulb out of the K2 viper MH and put it in my CoralLife fixture, which has much superior reflectors and heat dispation. Im getting better lighting, appears that the zoos have settled down quite abit since then. I guess I have to somehow match Simons lighting with his breeder tanks but that will take time

So Im took advise from all those that gave it, Im slowly raiseing my salinity to 1.024 from 1.021. One day and im up one point. I double checked my ph and guess what Simon, you nailed it on the head, 8.0, so Im slowly raising that as well, got it up .1 and the xenia is starting to smarten up!

other than that, ammonia is at .40 ppm, and nitrates are at 15 ppm, but i suspect that came from stirring up everything in the tank in the aquascape so im gonna let that settle down. If I do have any algea beakout my two snails got it covered like with every other piece of algea that tries to spring up.

Now heres a question for you folks, I'm sitting at 460 ppm calcium and 12.88 alkalinity which is pretty close to my prefered 440 ppm 10.80 alk. I was wondering if you guys see nothing wrong with that range. I see good growth, color in almost all corals, with xenia being the exception, so I think Im in the right, but let me know if im not.

Im going to let my water changes do the work for Iodine, strontium, molybdenum and most of the calcium but im still going to does the coral vit, amino acid LPS and Phols stuff carefully. I already see good results with the zoos and the digi on that.

anyways just thought Id let you all know, give me thoughts, opinions, and maybe a few good jokes.

Oh yah, I eventually want to retrofit a actiinic fixture into this deal thats under 20" in total length. Help me out by finding ideas/merchants. Thanks folks.