18g cubish rimless SPS reef reboot

[clownfish4]

Hello fellow reefers!

I am rebooting my 18g for the third time and am pretty confident/happy so far, so figured a build thread was in order.

Background
I've had this tank for about 7 years now and it has made some major moves with me, including cross country, hence the multiple reboots. It's housed a variety of fishes and corals, and a lot of algae. It's gone from being a cheap setup to an expensive setup to a stable setup.

As for me, I've been in the hobby or 17 years now and kept freshwater tanks for many years before that. I started with a 20g tank, got up to a 125g, and had a a few inbetween. I currently have a 180g sitting in storage while I house hunt. The current 18g is kind of my testing ground for when I finally setup the 180g.

This is my first time posting on R2R. My previous threads have been on RC, but I needed a change from that culture. Onto the tank/build. My apologies, this thread is long and detailed. I tried to cover every aspect of the tank. If I missed anything, please feel free to ask! Comments/suggestions are very welcome as I'm always looking to improve and learn.

Tank, sump, and stand
The tank and sump were custom built by Advanced Acrylics. I had a couple minor issues, but overall the price was good and the tanks have worked out nicely. The stand I built myself, which is apparent in person as I am not a master carpenter. Still trying to figure out how I'm going to build the 180g stand cleanly, but I think the biggest help will be using a sliding circular saw to help keep the legs the same length and square. This stand is a 2x4 frame based on RocketEngineer's design and covered in half inch plywood that I stained.

Equipment

• Apex
  • COR-15 return pump
  • Auto top off kit
  • Fluid monitoring kit
  • Par monitoring kit
  • Doser for calcium and alkalinity
  • Temp and salinity probes
  • I had ORP and pH probes, but they hit end of life and I haven't replaced them. I don't intend to replace ORP and am still debating pH.
• Skimmer - Tunze Comline DOC 9001 DC
• Light - AI Prime
• Tunze nano 6020
• Eheim Jager 50w heater
• BRS RO/DI

Fishless Cycle

• Added 1 lb of cured real reef rock and left it alone for a week.
• Added ~10 lbs of dry reef saver rock.
• Added ammonium chloride.
• Added Seachem Stability for a week.
• Added MicroBacter 7 for a week.
• Let tank sit for another week, then did a water change.
• Don't have the exact timeline, but start to adding fish was about 6 weeks.

Parameters
I aim to hit Randy Holmes-Farley's levels as outlined here. In previous setups I've struggled with phosphate and algae, but I think part of that was poor quarantine procedures that introduced the algae on frags. In the current setup my only issue is nitrate.

Below are the levels from last Saturday to this Saturday. I don't have my doser setup yet as I was testing to see how much was being consumed by my single coral.

• Alkalinity (Hanna) - 9.3 to 8.8
• Ammonia (API) - .25 to .25
• Calcium (Salifert) - 400 to 365
• Magnesium (Salifert) - 1095 to 1020
• Nitrate (Salifert) - 10 to 50
• Phosphate (Hanna) - .03 to .00
• Salinity (APEX) - 34.4
• Temp (APEX) - 78.5. APEX is set to turn the heater on below 78 and off above 78.5.

Long Term Maintenance (about 15 mins a week)

• Scrape the acrylic weekly. I have very light diatoms that start showing up on the glass after about 6 days.
• Clean skimmer cup weekly.
• Replace filter pads every other day.
• Manually dose magnesium weekly.
• Refill calcium and alk reservoirs, as needed.
• Refill ATO reservoir weekly.
• Wash filter pads every other week or so.
• Clean ATO sensors, as needed.
• Clean pumps every 3-6 months.

Short Term Maintenance

• Until I figure out how to lower my nitrates, I'm doing 5g weekly water changes.
• The tank is currently barebottom, but I'm considering adding dry reef flakes. The purpose of the barebottom was to limit algae and make maintenance easy, but I hate the aesthetic and it should add some level of nitrate reduction, but likely not enough to solve my nitrate problem.

Current Inhabitants

• Pair of captive bred midnight ocellaris
• Galaxy montipora
• About 10 lbs of dry reef saver rock
• 1 lb of cured real reef rock from my LFS

Future Inhabitants

• Clam, either maxima or crocea. This will be the show piece, bright blue, and sit right on top of the middle rock.
• Plating montipora. This will be glued to the bottom front right of the middle rock so that it grows out over the front right corner of the tank.
• Some form of acropora. This will go on the top of the back left rock.
• Fire shrimp
• Snails
• Maybe a couple scarlet hermits
• Maybe a more elusive fish. My clowns are very docile, even during feeding, and I'd love a possum or pink streaked wrasse to give me some movement in the rockwork as the clowns hover well outside of the rockwork. I've had a pink streaked wrasse before and loved him, but it was way too shy and got bullied by passive fishes. I've never had a possum. I'm also considering a six line as I'm sure it could fend for itself, but am worried about it harassing the clowns. However, since my clowns literally hangout in the upper corner all day and night, it may not be an issue.

Feeding
I feed heavy. I know this contributes to my nitrate issue, but I'm not willing to potentially compromise the health of my fish. And the filter pads should prevent most of this from being an issue.

Twice a day:

• Add crushed Omega One flakes to cup.
• Add crushed NutriDiet Chlorella flakes to cup.
• Add New Life Spectrum 1mm Marine Formula pellets to cup.
• Soak above in Selcon for 10 minutes.
• Add tank water to cup.
• Add small piece of LRS Reef Frenzy Nano to cup.
• Let sit for 5 minutes.
• Stir until broken up.
• Pour into tank.

My Tunze nano is on a custom wave program controlled by the APEX and shuts off for 20 minutes during feeding time. I aim to feed 10 minutes after the pump shuts off.

Miscellaneous
Recently I connected my AI Prime to my APEX using IOTA. I am not a fan. The graphical interface shows this weird blended spectrum that is pretty useless. I much prefer the visual of the AI interface where I can see the graph of each channel. The APEX also requires a power level be set for each interval, independent of the power level for each individual channel. My assumption is that it has to be equal to or greater than the max intensity of any channel in the interval, but it seems unnecessary and confusing to me. When using the coding view, there are several 0s before and after the channel intensities that I haven't been able to figure out what are for. Spectrum view in APEX:

Untitled by Mike Burns, on Flickr

My project for today is to build a tower for my filter pads. Currently the lay over the entire first sump chamber and are supported by the baffle and a couple of magnets. Not elegant, but it works. The purpose of the tower is to use a smaller pad so I can cut them up into more pieces and go longer between washing. It will be built out of egg crate and continue with my current method of stacking two pads. The top pad will be completely out of the water and the bottom pad will barely touch the water. This is to prevent anything caught by the top pad from sitting in the water and prevent water from dropping into the sump and causing splashing.

Pictures
These are my filter pads after 2 days. The top is the top pad and the bottom is the bottom pad.

Untitled by Mike Burns, on Flickr

Galaxy monti

Untitled by Mike Burns, on Flickr

Midnight clowns (ignore the scratches on the acrylic from the last move :/)

Untitled by Mike Burns, on Flickr

FTS

Untitled by Mike Burns, on Flickr

Sump

Untitled by Mike Burns, on Flickr

PAR (reading bottom right rock where galaxy monti is)

Untitled by Mike Burns, on Flickr

I turned off the probe before screenshotting graph on top of rock where clam will go, doh! But it's about 80 higher.

I use a modified version of Saxby's light schedule. I extended the morning schedule as I work from home and am looking at the tank by 8 AM. I also increased the intensity. Below is the current schedule in Excel, since APEX won't show me this view.

 

[clownfish4]

Finished filter tower. I initially intended to super glue it together, but as I was planning realized that would prevent me from adding/moving shelves. To keep it flexible, I used twist ties on the top corners and strips of egg crate to create very basic interlocks. It's surprisingly stable and easy to slide in/out.

Untitled by Mike Burns, on Flickr

And installed:

Untitled by Mike Burns, on Flickr

 

[clownfish4]

Long delay in updates due to a week long vacation to Florida and the holidays. More about the Florida trip below, but first some aquarium updates.

I'd say the tank it doing good. All of my levels are pretty spot on after adding the chaeto:
- Alk 9.5
- Ca 460 (lowered the dosing to drop this a bit)
- Mg 1300
- Nitrate 0
- Phosphate 0
- pH 7.98

For Christmas I got the pH probe for the Apex and refills for my testing kits. Last year I got water of floor sensors, but they were the rj jacks instead of the 3.5 mm jacks and I didn't have a module for them and didn't realize it until it was too late to return them. They've been sitting in a box for a year. However, right before I left for Florida both of my Apex ATK optical sensors stopped working. Luckily I had a Tunze Nano ATO and got new optical sensors for Christmas, so now I am using both so if one fails I won't run dry. Instead of throwing the optical sensors away, I cut the jacks off and twisted the pairs to give my water on floor sensors the 3.5 mm jacks. Worked like a charm, just need to get some electrical tape before permanently installing them.

Untitled by Mike Burns, on Flickr

I say my tank is doing "okay" because my levels are good and my fishes/corals are happy, but I don't think my corals are thriving. They don't seem to be growing or extending much, but they're not losing any color or receding. I'm currently dosing Alk, Ca, and Mg and not doing any water changes. The diatoms are still growing, but much slower. I'm going to throw some carbon on this week to try and polish the water off a bit. I also picked up a red chalice a couple of weeks ago, but haven't been able to get a very good pic of it.

Untitled by Mike Burns, on Flickr

When I got the chalice I also added 3 cerith snails, because that was all the store had. Still waiting on my sand to arrive as it was back ordered, but will likely do a Reef Cleaners order when I add the sand.


Now on to Florida.

We covered a lot of the state on our trip; Vero Beach, Orlando, Key Largo, and Cape Coral. We went snorkeling in Key Largo, but unfortunately this was the quality of all our pictures:

Untitled by Mike Burns, on Flickr

We did see some amazing fishes though. There were a lot of Atlantic blue tangs, a barracuda, a massive pufferfish, the biggest long spine urchin I've ever seen, a huge lionfish, and countless others. The schools were absolutely amazing to see in the wild.

There was a restaurant on the water with beautiful views, and great food. They installed blue lights on the pier posts so you could see the fishes at night. The pelicans also loved this area.

Untitled by Mike Burns, on Flickr

Untitled by Mike Burns, on Flickr

In Cape Coral we saw a lot of mangrove pods taking root, which was cool to see.

Untitled by Mike Burns, on Flickr

In Orlando we spent the day at Universal, but unfortunately I couldn't make time to stop by WWC or Top Shelf. Definitely next time.

And last but not least, a gator from our air boat ride.

by Mike Burns, on Flickr

 

[clownfish4]

A LOT has happened since my last post in December. The tank is doing amazing today, but it was a rough road. Here are a couple pictures, which are awful because I don't have a good blue filter for my super high quality iPhone pics. The details of the long road are below the pics.

Untitled by Mike Burns, on Flickr

Untitled by Mike Burns, on Flickr

In January the male clown died and I was never able to figure out why. He was eating, was fat, and had no concerning behavior, then one morning he was buried head first in a rock, motionless. The female is still doing great.

In March I made a long distance move. A week before the move I put the tank on the ground as the stand went into the shipping container, but the tank came in the car. During this week, the jedi mind trick turned very pale, while the chalice had no ill effect. After the move this trend continued, with the jedi both turning pale and retracting its polyps.

Shortly after the move I decided to plumb the 90g sump from my 180, which is sitting empty, into the 18g. This increased the water volume by ~45g. During the move I also had to do a ~40% water change as I didn't have enough room in the car to move the full volume of water. I have not changed any water, or added any additional volume, beyond these two events. At this time I also switched from my filter pad tower to filter socks, as the sump has holders, and added my CAD Lights PLS 100 skimmer. I now have that and my Tunze skimmer running.

It is now April and the chalice and clown are doing great, whild the jedi mind trick is very pale and has all of its polyps fully retracted. At this point I order the 5 sps frag pack from WWC. I end up getting a neon green birdsnest, german blue digi, neon green monti, starburst monti, and green slimer. I put all five on a frag shelf at the bottom of the tank for a couple of days, then move them up on the rock work.

Over the next few weeks, all of these corals started to decline, losing color and retracting their polyps. It is now clear to me that whatever is ailing my jedi mind trick is affecting these corals as well. Note it is not the most obvious ones as I test weekly and have auto dosing for calcium, alk, and magnesium. At this point I have 0 phosphate, 0 nitrate, 450 Ca, 9 alk, and 1350 Mg.

I made a stupid rash decision and decided my lights were to blame. I immediately started increasing different channels in my light to try and get the colors back and polyps to extend. This, of course, did not help and the green slimer started declining very rapidly. After about a week of this I stopped touching my lights, stopped skimming all together, removed the filter socks, and started dosing coral aminos and Red Sea trace colors a, b, c, and d. After about a week, EVERYTHING turned around. The starburst monti was fully extended, the birdsnest was fully extended, the blue digi was fully extended, and the jedi mind trick started getting its color back and was fully extended. It is now July and my jedi mind trick has not only regained all of its color, it looks better than the day I got it. The only issue was with the green slimer. It was so badly damaged that it only has 2-3 polyps left that were barely visible, but no skeleton was visible, it still had full tissue coverage.

In the beginning of June I ordered the 5 zoa frag pack from WWC. I got radioactive dragon eyes, red people eaters, eagle eye zoas, raggedy ann zoas, and purple pinwheel zoas. The purple pinwheels and red people eaters are growing like crazy. The radioactive dragon eyes are also growing, but a bit slower. The eagle eyes unfortunately melted within a couple of days (most disappointed about this) and the raggedy anns melted over a week or so. I did end up with a random orange one on the radioactive dragon plug, which floated into a rock crevice and is going strong.

In the middle of June I added Tropic Eden mesoflake sand. Up to this point I was running bare bottom. Fast forward to June 27th. I have been testing weekly and my alk was always very close to 9, within .5 in either direction. On June 27th I test my alk with my Hanna checker and it read 4.7. I immediately put a cup under the alk hose from my doser to verify it is still running. Without thinking, I poured in soda ash. Luckily I only poured in enough to raise it ~2 dkh. I tested again and now it is reading 5.7 dkh. It's at this point that I realized my mistake. I mixed up a fresh batch of reef crystals and tested it, which read 1.5 dkh. Clearly I have bad reagent. I switched to a new bottle a couple of weeks ago. The first test was fine, but it went bad after opening. I went to the LFS and bought an API test kit and the alk was at ~12. The next day the green digi was completely gone, 100% white. Luckily no other coral showed any signs of stress and all are still growing like crazy today. Note I did NOT do a water change. I emailed Hanna and they shipped me replacement reagent at no cost to me immediately. I know there have been comments about their quality control. This is the first time I've had an issue, but I can attest their customer service is excellent!

After I got past the alk issue I added a six line wrasse, which is doing great!

So, with all of that, my current management plan is as follows. A few of these items were not covered above, but if you have any questions on the specifics let me know and I'll happily add more detail.
- I still feed a combo of new life spectrum pellets and omega one reef flakes twice a day with the auto feeder.
- I run a filter sock and carbon, but no other filtration. Neither of my skimmers have been turned back on.
- I dose .3 ml of Red Sea trace a, b, c, and d every day.
- I dose 1 ml of coral aminos every day.
- I feed a mix of reef roids, coral frenzy powder, and coral frenzy pellets once a week.
- i vacuum the sand bed once a week.
- My current params are:
- Phosphate 0
- Nitrate 10
- Ca 450
- Alk 11 (slowly bringing down)
- Mg 1360
- My new lighting schedule is:

Untitled by Mike Burns, on Flickr

In conclusion, I know this is a hot topic, but I am a firm believer that the success of my tank is in line with running dirtier. I don't do any water changes, don't skim, don't have a fuge or ATS, and am unable to get my phosphate above 0 or nitrate above 10. I believe this is an indication that my tank is in good balance. I'm also a proponent of the Red Sea trace colors, especially since I don't do water changes. An interesting find is that I no longer dose magnesium mix. I suspect this is due to magnesium coming in through the trace elements.

And the final fun news, I just bought a house and am moving, which means the 180 is getting setup and this tank will run as is until the 180 is ready, then most likely be shut down and everything moved to the 180.