120 in the Wall - Page 3

Wildechild_01 · #21 10-28-2014, 12:15 AM

So yesterday the rock found its way into a bucket of salt water with a heater and some power heads for flow lets get in cycled and in the tank was the plan.... Got home from work today and could smell the rock cooking as soon as I walked in the house haha. Ammonia levels are off the chart in the tub and water looks pretty nasty. Going to leave it for a few days and then do a water change in the bucket just to remove some of the solids floating around but I guess for now I just let the rock cook

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Ginu · #22 10-29-2014, 12:09 AM

If you're not far in the soaking process, I'd recommend taking your time with the rock... Its beautiful, light super porous but full of stuff which will leach for some time to come
Acid bath then cure for a month is even better.

My rock from eli is in a bucket and it's been there for at least three month . I still expect a nice hair algae circle once it makes its way in the displa .

Wildechild_01 · #23 10-29-2014, 02:30 AM

Yeah, the tank is doing well how it sits right now, the real trick for me at this point is patience, just keep telling myself "nothing good happens quick when it comes to reef keeping". The time will give me a chance to keep researching lights and what corals I hope to keep, and where to put it.

Wildechild_01 · #24 11-04-2014, 12:45 AM

Okay, so while I now wait for my rock to be ready to add to tank I have been doing a lot of reading, these are some of my current thoughts, curious if anyone has any feedback

Lighting:

To have the tank I want I will eventually need to upgrade lighting, I am impressed with the Evergrow IT2080's and the price point is a little gentler than some of the other options. Reading on the Hybrid light fixtures though got me second guessing, then i realized I have a few T5 fixtures kicking around. Sure they don't dim, but no reason The can not run off a regular on/of timer if i decide i want them for colour on the corals.

Dosing:

Well if current results on my Calcium levels are to be believed, I should get on this sooner rather than later. I started my first tank with man made rock the seller claimed would slowly leach calcium into the water and for quite a while it seemed to be the case. With changes and a move there is very little of that original rock still in the tank. This along with my admittedly lax tank maintenance for the last year well, lets just say I think i may be lucky my corals are as healthy as they are, also might explain the random loss of a few corals this last year.
POint of all that... wondering if anyone has any experience with the Red Sea reef care line, it looks to be slick package of tests and supliments designed to make the process easy. I worry that cost could get a little crazy as reef grows but thinking it may be a good easy place to start with entering the world of needing to dose my tank to keep the reef happy moving to bulk products down the road for cost effectiveness down the road, likely staying with a two part product to keep Ca and alk in line.

Living in a world of automation would also need to look into the world of dosing pumps, have not looked into this much at this point, but probably have some time to do some reading, the automation can come after getting things back in line manually if needed.

Coral:
Okay im thinking when i am ready most of my initial sps coral is going to come from Coral Master here in Calgary, stuff looks amazing and peoples reviews are great.

Will always be on the look for great stuff everywhere though.

Need to set up a frag tank.... not sure where that is going to go at this point, may need to re arrange my pretty small fish room or get permission from my other half to set it up somewhere else... then i need to frag a few things and find homes for them. I have a lot of zoa's that i just don't need or want at this point, well... really would like fewer of the ones i have and add some more variety.

anyway, thats where my head is at as far as my tank goes lately so thought i would share

comments thoughts and ideas always welcome

Ginu · #25 11-04-2014, 01:11 AM

I think the most cost effective would be to use some sort of a two part system controlled by dosers. I tried looking around but didn't see anything in regards to an aquarium comp, are you using any?

For example I'm using apex which does the monitoring and in that I have two dosing pumps from BRS and they dose alk and ca. I dose mg manually as it takes quite a bit to dent magnesium.
In my new system I'm going to dose zeo products which will be done manually.
I've also preordered a apex dos which will take care of water changes so I recommend looking into that as well.

Also dosing systems are good although I've never used one, but a bubble magus or vertex or any other reputable brand will do the trick.

In regards to lights, that's a huge topic and it all depends on budget and preference so its tough to pick one.
The new trend I see is LEDs and t5 although some reefers love their halides so its very debatable.. On my 34g cube I had a 150mh producing a ton of heat, on my 75gal I went with two radions which I liked but hated taking pictures under and on my 120 I'm going to try a ati 6 bulb fixture, would like a ati6 bulb hybrid with LEDs, but that ain't cheap...

Wildechild_01 · #26 11-08-2014, 01:40 AM

The waiting is driving me absolutely insane... I'm still trying to find the best way to Frag my one rock of zoa's it is a large man made rock so... solid concrete in the past breaking them up has involved a hammer and a cold chisel... not sure how the zoa's will feel about that. The more i look at them though the more i want to frag them up place a few of my favorites around the tank and find new homes for the rest. This weekend I will be seeing what i can do with the small storage/fish room about fitting in a frag tank. I'm thinking best option might be under the stand, just not super nice for working in. and if i have time look at a suspension system to lift the lights a bit and see how tank does with existing fixtures lifted.

I am wary of running open top tank being paranoid about things jumping, and i will also need to keep an eye on humidity levels as realistically there is going to be significantly more evaporation.

Anyway this update is more just to track the thought process as I work on the tank.

Happy Weekend

Wildechild_01 · #27 11-08-2014, 11:43 PM

Okay question.... Yesterday after work did a 100% water change in rock bin to remove all the floating crap that had come off the rocks, physically removed some of the larger bits of old death from the rocks. Now 24 hours later the ammonia reading in the tub is still 0. I'm thinking that this means the rock has enough bacteria to deal with any remaining stuff that may still be on the rock and so I should be able to add it to the established tank without too much concern for negative impact on water quality. I am off work Monday so may do it then... Or tomorrow what with winter arriving tonight and all.

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Wildechild_01 · #28 11-09-2014, 02:56 AM

Okay so maybe not offending, but my first few types of Zoos I bought back in the day have definitely grown in and well... while they all have attributes that i like, I want to thin things out for sure to make room for some fancier stuff.

Other than the ones i am certain i have seen called Watermelon I have no idea what any of them are. Still wondering about the best way to frag...

Do i take a razor knife and cut them off the rock and glue to disks? Do I take a chisel and just break the rock up as much as I can? And then once that is sorted out whats the best way to find new homes for them??????

Anyway here are a few pics under various lighting

Doesn't quite do them justice, the centers of the above are actually a brighter orange/redish colour but can not seem to the the White Balance right to show it.

DSlater · #29 11-09-2014, 03:44 AM

My 2c on the lighting...

I picked up one of the Evergrow D120 full spectrum LED fixtures a while back and it does a decent job on a small tank but I wasn't overly impressed. You would probably be happier with a DIY if you go LED. If you have a controller you can also pick up some dimmable(0-10V) T5 ballasts. I had a supplier mess up an order of office fixtures and they had to supply me dimmable ballasts at cost, they were only 20 bucks each. Based on your work you might be able to leverage the same kind of deal...

Wildechild_01 · #30 11-09-2014, 04:10 AM

Yeah I have been considering going DIY with LED fixtures and funny you mention the dimmable T5's as just yesterday i fired an email off to a few of our wholesalers at work to see what they could do for me. Looking into home lighting automation stuff too... there is some amazingly affordable home automation stuff out there now for lighting, heating, and window coverings... haha but that is a whole different thread.

Back to functionality... what if i went custom sump build... took advantage of being under a 6 foot tank and had a chamber probably mid way through sump to house frags... kind of solves the where do i put it question, but then can't double as QT for new tank additions........