The Tank Turns 3!! Time for a Synopsis

The tank turns 3 this month so I thought I would do a quick Synopsis on the system, goals and achievements.

Reason Tank Was Set-Up: I decided to go into reefing after viewing my Uncles beautiful reef. I wanted to start with a reasonable tank setup so if I wanted to bail out I could with minimal loses. I set up this tank as a first jump into the world of reefing. I would use this tank to learn what I needed about reefs and then upgrade at a later date.

Goals:

1. To learn how to keep a reef (ie EVERYTHING)
2. Demonstrate that I can handle and succeed and keeping reefs
3. Prepare and learn as much as I can for a future larger tank

Initial Setup: Tank: 55 gallon all glass
Lighting: Nova T5 Extreme Pro (2 x 10k daylight, 2 x actinic)
Skimmer: CPR backpack skimmer
Fuge: CPR Aquafuge
Flow: 2 x Tunze Nano Stream 1 x Krollia 4

Major Upgrades: The only major upgrade I made was on lighting, I wanted to try to keep SPS (which I have been successful with)

Nova T5 Extreme Pro ------------> Current Sun pod 2 x 150w MH (I run 14K bulbs)

Corals Kept Successfully:

• Long Tentacle Plate Coral*** Heliofungia actiniformis
• Xenia Xenia sp.
• Purple Mushrooms Discosoma sp.
• Purple-white Mushrooms Discosoma sp.
• Leaf Coral Montipora Capricornis
• ----- (no common name) Montipora Setosa
• Torch Coral Euphyllia sp.
• Trumpet Coral Caulastera sp.
• ----- (no common name) Montipora Spogodas
• Blue Tort Acropora Tortuosa
• Green Milli Acropora millepora
• Pink Birdsnest Seriatopora hystrix
• Yellow Polyps Parazoanthus sp.
• Green Slimmer Acropora Yongei
• Green Zoas Zoanthus sp.
• Fire and Ice Zoas Zoanthus sp.
• Actinic glow Zoas (I call then that :) Zoanthus sp.
• Green Star Polyps*** Pachyclavularia sp.
• Sun Coral^^^ Tubastraea faulkneri

Fish Kept Successfully:

• Royal Gramma ``` Gramma loreto
• Tomato Clown ``` Amphiprion frenatus
• Tomini Tang Ctenochaetus tominiensis
• Devil Damsel Chromis xanthurus

Inverts Kept Successfully:

• Bubble Tip Anemones Entacmaea quadricolor
• Peppermint Shrimp Lysmata wurdemanni
• Bule Tuxedo Urchin Mespilia globulus
• Serpent Star Heterodon sp.
• Various Snails and crabs ------------

*** = lost in the big tank catastrophe
^^^ = killed by a stupid mistake, easily avoidable
``` = killed by ich

Things Kept Un-successfully:

• Sebae Anemone, got it bleached, did not know better.
• Pearly Headed Jawfish, was bullied and jumped
• Bangai Cardinal, came in sick, eaten by brittlestar

Disasters:

1. When the Sebae anemone died, it spiked the ammonia killing several corals.

Growth Shots: I try to take a shot of the tank once a month so I can really see the growth overtime. I did not really start this until 2009 so I don't have monthly shots before them. These are all of my FTS in chronological order.

August 2007 (after initial setup)
May 2008
June 2008
July 2008August 2008 September 2008October 2008
November 2008December 2008January 2009March 2009April 2009May 2009June 2009July 2009


Final Thoughts on System: This tank was practice, and when I started I didn't know what equipment I really should get, or where I should spend my money. The CPR aquafuge is really crummy and doesn't provide enough filtration to sustain much bioload. The Fuge is to small and the skimmer doesn't work. So I am essentially running a tank with no skimmer. I have to keep the bio-load low and the feedings small. The Current Sunpod is a really great fixture and I have been very happy with it! The Tunze nano streem pumps are o.k. I think next time I will just spend the extra money and get a vortech. All-in-all this tank has been a great learning experience and I am ready to take it to the next level and get a bigger tank.

Monthly Update

I haven't been able to get any posts out lately, mainly due to a busy schedule. There is not much to report in terms of tank news, the tank continues to do well and thrive even though it is essentially running skimmer less and with little filtration other than live rock and a small fuge. The corals continue to grow and do well. Something major is in the making, but I can't make any promises. What I will say is either a new tank is on the way or a major overhaul is going to happen on the current one. I will talk more about this on another post due to come out later this week.

The reef podcast show Reefcast that I talked about back in January (see this post: http://henryreef55.blogspot.com/2009/01/reefcast-update-test-results.html) is back from several months of no new releases. The new show (episode 31) is now available for download! Click the latest show button on the home page to download it or go to http://reefcast.com/downloads.php. I love this show and have learned so much from it! I think it is a great entertaining and educational podcast (for more of my thoughts on reefcast check out my prior post, liked above). The latest show is 2hrs and 48minutes of reef craziness and a great show! I strongly think you should check this podcast out.

Since this is my first post in august I will re-post the July 2009 FTS to end the month.
I will have a major post disscussing the possible major overhauls and summarizing the journey, successes, failures, and faults of this tank. I will discuss the initial goals this tank was set up for and what I would like to accomplish going forward.

Big Update

The powdered sugar fish that decorated my birthday (July 18th) cake made by my sister.

Wow, this update has been long overdue! If you have been following my Twitter Updates (follow me if you have an account {my user name is henryreef} or read updates on this site or my twitter home page: http://www.twitter.com/henryreef) I have been trying to get a post out but have been delayed on numerous occasions. Here are 2 screenshots to help you out:

The Twitter Feed on my site (outlined in red)

My Twitter Homepage


The tank has been looking great the past several days! I am very happy with the way everything is growing and the general aura of the tank. The only major update is that the tang got into a fight with one of the Damsels and tore up its fin, I am giving it some extra TLC and making sure to feed it often. It should make a full and speedy recovery. Here are some various tank shots:



I performed a 27 gallon (about 50% water change) and the tank looked even better. That is all for now, but I will be releasing some big new posts coming out soon. Here are some of the topics:

• A New Domain Name
• The possible big upgrade
• Camera Upgrade
• Reef Central News
• Water Changes

Update and much, much more!

I apologize for not getting a post out sooner. I have been busy with vacations and other various stresses in my life. Any how, I tested water yesterday and here are the results:

Calcium: 400
kH: 6
Nitrates: 0

This looks fine, but I am still working on getting the kH up. I also am planning on doing a water change later today/tonight of at least 10%.

I already got a post out on the commercial brand Kalk mix versus pickling lime. I just wanted to get a direct ingredient list comparison.

Here are the ingredients in Mrs. Wages Pickling Lime

Here are the ingredients in Kent Kalkawasser Mix.
They both have the same ingredient: Calcium Hydroxide. This makes me feel very happy about substituting Mrs. Wages for Commercial Brands. It will save me money and has no catch.

This is a quick post, I will get another one out later today or tomorrow with general tank news and pictures.

The Return-Home Update

My suitcase full of Pickling Lime one of the benefits of my journey

I just got back late last night. I had a great 4th and I hope everyone else did also. I also was able to get several updates out this weekend (thanks to wi-fi and several portable programs example: portable photo editor on my flash drive). The tank looks amazing and I am happy to see that everything did great while I was away. I will try to get another post out soon with test results. As for now here are some tank photos.

The Tank Upon Arrival:
Close-up On The Amazing BTAs:

An Easy Way to Save Money

One common trick reefers will use to save money is to buy pickling lime rather than aqurium marketed kalkawasser. As explained in prior posts Kalk is a solution of Calcium Hydroxide and water. It has a pH of 12 and must be dripped slowly. Kalk is used to maintain calcium and alkalinity levels. The name brand kalk made by Kent Marine is quite expensive and if you buy at the LFS (local fish store) you can pay over $30 for less than 1 lbs. Pickling Lime on the other hand is about $2-3 a pound and it is the same chemical as the name brand product.

Mrs. Wages is the pickling lime of choice. It is pure and safe for your reef. The only downside is it hard to find. I have looked everywhere and have not been able to find it. You can order it online, but I try to avoid that because of shipping costs. Finally on one of my voyages up north I figured out where to get it: Walmart. There are other places to buy it but this is the only one where I have found that it is constantly carried. Now for some pictures:

When I went there were two types of containers, both hold one pound and are exactly the same products.

Container 1

Container 2

I bought 6lbs, which should last me for a while. The reason I bought so much is because Walmart is not in my area, and I don't know when I will be able to get some more. Here is how much I picked up.It will be interesting to see how long they last. One more use for kalk is to kill aptasia, which I will talk about in another coming post.

The June Water Quality Graphs

Even though I am out of town this weekend I have made a special effort to get this out. This is my graphs of the values of Calcium, kH and Nitrates over the month of June. I used to make these every month, but got off track. Hopefully this will be the start.

Calcium

As you can see from this graph when I went on vacation (outlined in red on this chart) the Ca level went down, which makes sense because I cannot add calcium and the corals slowly use it up.

KH

The kH, Interestingly enough did not get used up like Ca during my vacations, I don't really understand why, but the average kH has been really low this month and I would like to see at least a kH of 9. My current average in Red and my goal in Green.

Nitrates

There is not much to say about them other than this shows my fuge/skimmer/low-bioload combo has paid off. Another thing to considor is that I do frequent 10%+ water changes.

That is all for my water quality graphs! Hope you enjoyed reading and staytuned to the Henryreef blog for a coming post on a great way to save money.

Some Tank Shots....

I am once again leaving for this forth of July weekend and I am racing to get this post out and beat the traffic up! I will try to get something out later this weekend but I don't know. The BTAs and everything looks great upon departure. Here are some pictures of the BTAs and the Tank befroe I leave. I am also behind on my water quality graphs so I will get those out asap. I can hopefuly update at least once via email from a mobile phone, but that means no pictures.

More posts and updaes coming soon!

Back in Town

I got back from my vacation late Sunday night and I haven't been able to get an update out untill now. The reef looked very nice when I got back and I was happy to see that everything was happy. I tested water earlier today and the results were good except kH was a little low. Here they are:

Calcium: 400

kH: 6

Salinity: 1.024

Nitrates: -0-estimate...I didn't test because I have been gone for several days and have added no nutrients.

I also got around to cleaning up my area somewhat here are some shots of what it looks like now.

This week I will try to get everyone filled in on the possible 90 upgrade, I will get some nice tank photos out and also since the end of June is upon us: the June water quality graphs!

Hope you all enjoyed reading the Henryreef blog, check in later for more info.

The Pre-Vacation Week Roundup

I am going out of town for the weekend, so I wanted to leave the tank in the best condition possible. I did a 15g water change and cleaned all the pumps in vinegar. It really made them run better. I try to do this once a month but I have been quite busy. I also tested water here are my results:
Calcium: 365
kH: 10
Salinity: 1.025
Nitrate: 0 (I think it was high before my water change)

I will not be having anyone come to monitor the tank as I will only be gone for one full day. In general tank news the only major item of notice is that the BTAs were looking a little deflated, but that happens sometimes.

I hope you all have a great weekend and check the blog for updates. Hope you enjoyed the henryreef blog, that is all for now.

Major Update

OK first off the weather in Ann Arbor has been super hot! This has raised the temperature in my reef to over 84 (this is my max temp). I know that these days are few and far between, so a chiller is really a waste of money (and alot for that matter). The first way I am attacking this problem is ice. I will freeze 2Ls and put them in a bag and float them in my tank (in most setups the sump is the best place). This works quite well, but is a pain in the rear. I will use this tactic on those few days.

The second thing I am doing to combat the heat is installing a clip on fan to move the hot air between the Metal Halides and the water out. This dramaticaly reduces heat exchange and therefore helps cool tank. This also helps by evaporative cooling. I think I will get another of these soon as one really doesn't cut it.

Secondly a new frag is now for sale. One of those mushrooms that i found in my system when it was first started is now for sale. Here is a picture of the very first one!

Now they are all over my tank and I have to many. They are very hardy and this is going for $20 (quite cheap). The picture is not very good but they are really beautiful.

Click to view all of my frags that I am selling (including this one). This button is always on the sidebar of my site, and you can setup and RSS feed with it to know whenever I add a new frag listing.

Finally in general tank news, the tank is doing very well . Nothing major to report other than this cooling issue. I tried to add the modded maxi-jet (described in earlier post) and it worked very well but fell from its magnetic mount (my fault) and created a sandstorm which was a pain to have to clean up. It took hours to baste the sand off everything.

MJ mod

Modding Maxi-jets have long been a way of increasing flow without paying much. One popular mod is the euro-reef mod which you install a bigger prop for more flow. I have not tried this one yet but I have heard of its amazing results which aparently increase flow up to 3 times! I decided to do a simpler mod that seeks to create a wider flow output and increase flow slightly.

Equipment List:

• Saw
• Dril
• Maxi-Jet (I reccomend 1200)

OK now lets move on to STEP 1 You first want to use the saw to cut off the output nozzel. You want to make the output whole as wide as possible, so the flow will be nice and wide.
Here is what the pump should look like after step 1:
STEP 2 You need to drill more hole to help increase the pumps ability to intake water. Any small drill bit will work. I drilled four holes. See outline
This is what the pump should look like after step 2
You have finaly compeleted this mod! Here is what the final product should look like. (Note my pump was used before the mod).

Final Thoughts: I really like this mod as a it is easy to do and you spend nothing. I am very happy with this mod and suggest you to try it out on one of your old maxi-jets.

I will have the major detailed update out later today or Monday!