15G Peninsula Upgraded Desk Reef

[BZreef16]

After 8 months of chasing consistent stability in a deskmate..... I decided to upgrade to a Waterbox 15. It's the largest I can go that will still fit on my desk. I kept all the equipment and and added a Nero 3. I was able to get fairly good growth in the 5G with weekly WCs and dosing AFR so I will be doing the same with adjusting the amount.

Current Tank:
WB 15 Peninsula
Eheim 50W Heater
Elitech Temp controller
General desk fan
AI Prime with Reef print diffuser
AI Nero 3 & Mp10
Bubble Magnus Miniq
Jabao 3xpump Doser.
Prism ATO (with Kalkwasser)

Temp: 77
Sal: 1.026
Calc: 450
Alk: 10
Mag: 1350
PH: 8.0
no3: 6
Po4: .06

Daily: Feed mysis, pods, and reef chili.
Dose: All for reef (10ml), Microbactr 7 (1ml), Coral amino (10 drops)


Old tank:

Current:

Progress:

I took advantage of the move by dipping everything in coral rx. I did overly stress everything with the dip water being way to warm. Everything seemed to recover and within 2 days.... I started to see some good PE. The only thing still stressed seems to be the candy cane....but I think tissue is growing back.

Now it's a matter of tuning the light and Nero. I will do a PAR test in the next week and so and slowly adjust the Nero, however everything seems to be happy with it at 30% max on pulse mode. I learned from the LFS that having it run at 100% for 1min around 10pm with all corals are closed does wonders for keeping detritus suspended and then filtered.

Next I need to add more to the CUC.

 

[BZreef16]

 

[Gumbies R Us]

Great looking tank!

 

[BZreef16]

 

[Northern Flicker]

First off, love the upgrade.

Secondly, do those deskmates glow? I didn't realize the bottom edges had fluorescents built in.

 

[BZreef16]

First off, love the upgrade.

Secondly, do those deskmates glow? I didn't realize the bottom edges had fluorescents built in.

Thank you. They do have a glowing effect since the bottom of the tank is orange acrylic. I was always for the natural and simple looking reef tanks...but ended up loving how the glow effect looked.

 

[girlsdad_AAA]

Clean tank, love it!

 

[BZreef16]

Some updates:

I just can seem to get my PH up so I built a DIY CO2 scrubber based on someone else's build. this is the first Ive seen it done with a reef glass skimmer so I report back on if it works at all.

Kraken lid ordered.
Almost lost the clownfish. I was about to leave the room when I heard a splash...He jumped out and landed below the tank. I didn't find him for a couple minutes but was able to grab him and bring him back up.


Some new corals.
TSA the Fuzz
JF Coolers Champagne
JF Shock Tart
Utter Chaos Zoa

 

[BZreef16]

Two month update:

Starting to get some good growth and consistent readings. I can't confirm the C02 scrubber is helping since im only using a API PH test kit. I plan on getting a PH monitor soon.

Dinos were getting bad so I decided to dose silicate. Right away, cyno appeared and competed with the Dino. After a week or so I added a UV sterilizer and treated with chemiclean and everything seems to be doing great.

I also dialed back my light schedule with longer ramp up and shorter duration.

 

[Haggisman14]

Great looking tank, like your aquascape. As a fellow deskmate classic owner, what were your issues with it? Do you think you were feeding too much? Only thing I do to mine is top of manually every other day, and a 2.5 gallon water change every 8-10 days.

It looked like you were having great growth in the Deskmate, just curious what was going wrong for you...I'm assuming you just wanted more volume for more stability...which I totally understand!

 

[BZreef16]

Great looking tank, like your aquascape. As a fellow deskmate classic owner, what were your issues with it? Do you think you were feeding too much? Only thing I do to mine is top of manually every other day, and a 2.5 gallon water change every 8-10 days.

It looked like you were having great growth in the Deskmate, just curious what was going wrong for you...I'm assuming you just wanted more volume for more stability...which I totally understand!

really just came down to wanting more space. I purchase RODI every two weeks at a LFS and bring back a frag every time. Deskmate filled up really fast. Corals colored up right away since adding then to the larger water volume and im doing the same thing from the deskmate. That makes me believe that even with all the extra gadgets.....having consistent parameters in a <5G is fairly tough.

 

[BZreef16]

Minor update:

CO2 scrubber seems to be working. My PH has been consistent up about .1- .2 from pervious reading. The media has been exhausted which makes me also believe it's working.

Also went on a 6-day vacations and the corals were in better shape than when im home so that also makes me believe that im either over-feeding or over dosing manually. That said im going to go from weekly to bi-weekly WCs.
I noticed ALK and CAL were a little low so I increased the dosing of AFR to 15ml/day

Also added was a yellow tip torch

 

[TruRacr314x]

Awesome tank…thanks for sharing! I’m getting close to upgrading my little desktop tank to a 15g. I am deciding between the Waterbox 15 and Fluval EVO 13.5. I like the compartment setup on the Waterbox, so thinking I might go that route…

 

[BZreef16]

Updates:

Added a MP10 I got a for a great deal. thought I would use it to get rid of a few dead spots towards the back.

New ATO container. Since this new one would be hard to clean im going to dose Kalk separately instead of adding to ATO.

Turned off UV sterilizer to see if that helps with competiting algae for the hair algae problem I have. I manually remove it weekly and just started to dose Microbacter clean.

Added a temporary addition: Flameback angel. Hasn't seemed to bother anything except possible the Kenya and GSP. Those are the only corals struggling and I haven't caught him read handed so I can't say its for sure him.

All over corals are doing great. Finally starting to sprout new stalks on the original Acro's and all others continue to encrust.

Also finally starting to see Coraline on the rocks.

Still dosing AFR and manually adding N03 as needed.

Lastly... switched salts to RS pro reef.

#nanoreef #WaterBox #Peninsula

 

[BASEDVXO]

Interested in finding out what skimmer you have hooked up to the co2 scrubber is it just a genetic glass skimmer like the one above?

 

[Macbalacano]

Have the same tank as you and love your aquascape. Will follow along!

 

[BZreef16]

Interesting in finding out what skimmer you have hooked up to the co2 scrubber is it just a genetic glass skimmer like the one above ?

Correct... its the glass skimmer from #BRS. Im not sure how air pumps pull air in but i figured passing it though a CO2 scrubber couldn't harm anything. And the media seems to be depleted after use so i assume its working a little. I just got a PH monitor so im going to test its affect

 

[BASEDVXO]

Correct... its the glass skimmer from #BRS. Im not sure how air pumps pull air in but i figured passing it though a CO2 scrubber couldn't harm anything. And the media seems to be depleted after use so i assume its working a little. I just got a PH monitor so im going to test its affect

nice looking into doing something similar for my nano, would be nice if you could post some live ph levels. will be following along.

 

[BZreef16]

nice looking into doing something similar for my nano, would be nice if you could post some live ph levels. will be following along.

Honestly.... I might say to try a pump-driven skimmer. You'll get better aeration and the water is forced through filtration rather than passed through the water column which might help with PH better than the glass skimmer.

The only reason i went with the glass is that its virtually silent and I need that considering the tank is 1ft from my computer where I take calls.


Tested PH yesterday and im getting close to the same results from no CO2 scrubber.
Morning - 7.82
Day - 8.19

I also just added an Algae scrubber from Santa Monica filtration to see if that helps. But in the long run, I'm not going to chase it any further. The research I found says that PH swings are natural and I'm still within range of a healthy environment. My goal is to just have a bit higher of a morning and afternoon benchmark.

 

[BZreef16]

6 months of growth.