25 Gallon Nano Build

[cloakerpoked]

Installed the diffuser and the new RF chip in the Radion, so now it runs on the Mobius app of my phone. This is about 90% a good thing, since hooking it up to the PC laptop that we almost never use via a USB cord was super annoying.

Now for my one complaint about Radions. They are obsessed with the blue spectrum. All of the template programs you can load through Mobius are heavy blue. I really liked the one on the website that was based on actual spectrum measurements somewhere in the South Pacific. It looked....well...natural. I'll probably tick off the majority of people reading this too, and we'll have to agree to disagree. I don't like the blue-heavy settings. I know that technically speaking, the colors are not fake, but they just don't look real to me with heavy blue spectrum and no white to balance it out. I find Ecotech's overall custom settings template to be somewhat cumbersome.

First world problems right? I'm sure all the people in Myanmar feel real bad for me and my annoying app issues.

The diffuser has made worlds of difference in the overall appearance of the tank, and I'm very grateful for that. It seemed more expensive than what I actually received, but for the difference it makes, it is still money well spent.

Also been dosing Alk. I've always (and will probably continue to) used Reef Crystals salt. I like the high Mag and Ca that it has. I'm totally sure that not supplementing it (or doing water changes) was a huge reason why my SPS didn't grow much in my previous setup. Time to bust out the notebook and start calculating draw on the tank again.

Eventually I'll add a dosing pump. Any recommendations? There seems to be a huge price difference, and I'm wondering if the cheap pumps on Amazon are good enough.

 

[vlangel]

Hey kiddo, you have a smartphone that you run your aquarium lights from and you did not tell your mom that you have a cell phone? Hhmmm, what should I take from that????? JK

I think you got the wanting to see more white balance in your lighting from your mom. I too do not want an overly heavy blue look to my tank which is why I still have T5s where it is easy to have the color I like.

 

[cloakerpoked]

Hey kiddo, you have a smartphone that you run your aquarium lights from and you did not tell your mom that you have a cell phone?

No, I got the smartphone to run the aquarium lights AND the MP10.

It is Krista's old smartphone, so it doesn't send text messages or call people. It LITERALLY only controls my tank, plays metal music in my car, and allows me to text/FT Krista when I'm connected to wifi. So I suppose you could say that you don't understand how true it is when you say that I have a smartphone to run my aquarium lights.

(That's either commitment, or insanity...which if you look up commitment in some dictionaries is a synonym anyway)

 

[cloakerpoked]

 

[cloakerpoked]

Hey kiddo, you have a smartphone that you run your aquarium lights from and you did not tell your mom that you have a cell phone? Hhmmm, what should I take from that????? JK

I think you got the wanting to see more white balance in your lighting from your mom. I too do not want an overly heavy blue look to my tank which is why I still have T5s where it is easy to have the color I like.

Should have said too, it can be adjusted with the Radion, but the program in Mobius can be a little cumbersome

 

[vlangel]

The tank looks real nice. Are you happy with how it turned out, except for the heavy blue with the lighting?

 

[cloakerpoked]

The tank looks real nice. Are you happy with how it turned out, except for the heavy blue with the lighting?

I am, and I've adjusted the blue lighting by creating my own custom program. That's the benefit to the Radions, you can program them to be pretty much any color combination that you want. The trick is figuring out the programming in the app, which is not the most user friendly, but once you fight with it for a bit, you get what you want.

Right now it's all about adjustment, including making sure that I don't hit the corals with too much light. Right now, the Radion peaks at 38% intensity for my tank. The XR30 that I have is literally double XR15's, and that's really the size that I needed. However, in my research Radion made a huge upgrade between Gen 3 and Gen 4 (it was the first time they created a light that wasn't upgradeable...prior to that, you could buy the new parts for a Gen 3, and upgrade your Gen 1 to the Gen 3. However, they significantly changed the lenses on the LED's to give a much more even PAR distribution. The deal I found on Ebay was a really good one (3 year old lights and the mounting arm for $400 shipped). I've put another $80 into upgrading the chip and diffuser, so it's a huge expense, but I'm not sure that there could be anything better. An added benefit besides being able to upgrade with it to a bigger tank someday is that the light comes from two light points, rather than one, so there is even less shadowing in the tank. Running the LED's well below 100% should also be nice to them.

So far, nothing seems to be frying with the light schedule I'm running, although it's only been 6 days since adding coral. I had a huge colony of green pocillipora that died in the 65, but when it did, it spawned, and I had about 3 or 4 baby colonies throughout the tank. I honestly cannot believe that they survived given the neglect of that tank, but they did. I'm already getting much better polyp extension and color from them in the 5 days since I moved them over. I did a water change today! First one that I've done (like actually syphoning water out of a tank) in probably 6-9 months. I've also been testing my trace elements. The alk was low, so I moved it up to 9.0 over the last few days (probably started at 7.5). If I remember correctly, Reef Crystals mix low on Alk, but high on Magnesium and Calcium. When I checked the calcium, it was 320, which is insanely low. I'm dosing that now to try to get it closer to 450. Magnesium was 1440, so I'm happy with that. I'll probably try to run the whole tank close to 9.0 Alk, 450 Ca, and 1400 Magnesium. At least that feels right from my previous reefing days.

The next piece of equipment to add will be a 3 way peristolic dosing pump. I hate to buy the expensive aquarium ones, have you seen any information on the Chinese Amazon ones? I don't need them to be exact, I an always dose a little low on purpose and test every 2 weeks and do a maintanence bump dose. The draw on the tank right now will be so low that I don't need to worry about it. I'll just test once a week or so after the water change, and make adjustments.

My next coral shipment comes in 2 weeks. It will be a huge one (like 13 or 15 corals) so that will definitely fill up the rock space. Eventually, I may end up trading out or selling mini colonies to upgrade space to other ones that I want more.

Hooked up the booster pump to the RODI system today as well. It pushes the pressure to 40PSI or so (it is 15PSI from the tap), and it is making a HUGE difference in the rate I'm getting water. I think I'm getting about 1.5 gallons per hour (instead of about .33 gallons per hour). The RO membrane needs 50PSI to work at maximum efficiency. I want to redo the plumbing in the crawlspace. Right now it's a saddle valve that tapped into the line. I'd rather put a T in the line, with a straight line into the push-to-connect fitting. My guess is that will give me better pressure. To work at optimal efficiency, the booster pump needs 20PSI. Either way, I'm getting more.

Tore down the rest of the 65 today. Cleaned the protein skimmer and removed the return pump. They'll be ready some day if I upgrade the reef tank (a 93 cube would be a dream tank for me, and at this point I have most of the equipment for it other than probably trying to add an MP40. The light I have should still work for a 93 cube). At this point, I'm almost ready to start re-setting it up as a discus tank. I'm going to go with a self-contained system in the stand, and give Krista the hall closet back. No more fish room (for now). This is a reef forum, so I won't waste a ton of space with this question, but I'm curious if you have any thoughts on running an open sump vs. a canister filter for Discus. I'd like to infuse CO2 at some point, so I'm leaning toward the sump system, but I'm not locked into it yet. The canister filter with an inline heater would give me a lot more storage space in the stand for fish-related stuff. I'm not 100% sure I need the space though, so I'm not sure how big of a deal it is.

 

[cloakerpoked]

Just checked Calcium again, now up to 375. I'll probably dose about 25ppm for the next 3 days to try to get it up to the target level. Don't want to shock the system too much.

Getting brown algae. Nothing concerning, since every tank I've ever set up has dealt with it.

I love sitting in the family room looking at the tank. It's fun to have the tank so close to where I hang out in the house most of the time again. I'm 100% certain that will be another reason why this tank is better cared for.

 

[vlangel]

It definitely helps having fish tanks in high traffic areas. I love having my tank in our livingroom where we hang.

If you read Michael Hoaster's 'Weeds' thread, he recently added CO2 to his tank by injecting it into his input of his canister filter. I asked him about it and he gives an explanation in my thread as well. I think he even drew a diagram for me, that might help you.

I am glad that your calcium is coming up. Sounds like everything is coming together. Wow, that's a lot of coral you are ordering! Our club is hosting a frag swap on the 17th that Dad and I are attending. I do not know if I will actually come home with anything though. Maybe ricordia if I see any.

 

[cloakerpoked]

Not that I have the time right now, but the reef club and just in general the community of reefers is definitely what I miss. I haven't found the existance of one in Charlotte, which surprises me because there are several stores that sell coral, so I imagine there are a fair number of people here...

 

[vlangel]

It definitely helps having fish tanks in high traffic areas. I love having my tank in our livingroom where we hang.

If you read Michael Hoaster's 'Weeds' thread, he recently added CO2 to his tank by injecting it into his input of his canister filter. I asked him about it and he gives an explanation in my thread as well. I think he even drew a diagram for me, that might help you.

I am glad that your calcium is coming up. Sounds like everything is coming together. Wow, that's a lot of coral you are ordering! Our club is hosting a frag swap on the 17th that Dad and I are attending. I do not know if I will actually come home with anything though. Maybe ricordia if I see any.

Ooops, I forgot to say that Michael's thread is on RC under the macroalgae/seagrass topic.

 

[cloakerpoked]

 

[vlangel]

So can I assume from all the frags that you got the new shipment of coral? It looks like a lot of sticks with nice PE. The color of the lights that you took the pics under looks good too. A nice balance of white and blue.

I went to the 3RMAS frag swap yesterday. Usually frag swaps do not excite me because there is a lot of high end stuff that I would never consider but yesterday turned out to be a lot of fun. Most because of Dad's keen eyes. I was specifically looking for FL ricordia and he found a plug with 2 different color ricordia on it. The plugs were $15 ea. and she gave me the one with 2 for $20 so I was thrilled. I bought a hand book on fish that we used at the Seahorse years ago, an oldie but goody. I got free samples plus Dad and I both bought $10 in raffle tickets which earned both of us free Spectrum Life food. Then Dad spotted an item in the raffle with a wooden seahorse plaque and a $50 gift certificate from a vendor that had some FL gorgs that I liked. That item was not getting much attention so we packed it with all our tickets and I won! The free food was worth the $20 investment so I was really excited.

 

[cloakerpoked]

I lost one coral when my alk dipped down around 7.0 or even a little lower. The draw on the tank is very high. I suppose with a total system volume of about 30-32 gallons, that's just going to be what it is. I think I was dosing less when I had my 60 gallon set up, and I really didn't expect it to happen this quickly, but it does mean that everything is growing.

All the other corals appear to be doing well. Color and Polyp Extension are good. I'm not getting obvious encrusting yet, but a lot of that could be the big swings in parameters, which I'm hoping to get more tightly controlled by a more systematic 2-part dosing regiment. The water changes and Reef Crystals salt are keeping the magnesium levels plenty high, so that won't be an issue right now.

I'm really hoping for some nice Acans and a few LPS for the sand bed soon.

I've also added two Koralia Nano powerheads to the upper corners of the tank to add more flow. The Vortech on 80% was too much for the sand bed on the far side of the tank, so I decided to get more flow by adding the two other powerheads instead. They aren't overly distracting, so I suppose it is ok. I swapped out the MJ1200 for a Sicce 1.0. The tank is almost totally silent now. The only problem I have is that the outlet nozzles on the Sicce are not playing nicely with my hose that I'm using on the return, so the hose pops off every once in a while and I get no flow to the tank. I notice it right away, so it isn't a huge deal, but it could technically cause problems for temperature, since the heater is in the sump. The sump in general is a disaster, because the 10 gallon I'm using is too high to be easily accessed. I don't want to go smaller, but it's a huge pain to not be able to easily do maintenance in it. I may need to redesign another 10 gallon with partitions and everything but that still won't address the basic problems of height.

Right now, I'm only running the light at about 30% output capacity. I may try to increase it if I think the corals would prefer a higher amount. The sickly little frags of green pocilipora that came out of the 65 are looking really good, but I'm not sure if that's light or water parameters. Nothing appears to be bleaching or losing color, so at least that's an indication that all is ok. Duncans are growing again too.

 

[vlangel]

Sorry to hear about the one loss, that is a bummer. That is why I avoid the finicky sps, ha ha!

I feel for you about the height of the 10 gallon sump. I had that issue with the 90 gallon tank I had with a 15 gallon tall sump. The top of the sump was not far from the bottom of the display making maintenance on the skimmer and sump near impossible. I had chosen the 15 high because of all the water that would drain into the sump when the return was off and it was a small enough sump to still leave storage room in the cabinet. However, cleaning the skimmer cup was a bear! I never did that again.

Acans and LPS sound nice for the sandbed.

 

[cloakerpoked]

For now I am still running a skimmerless system, and I plan to continue that. I did order some filter sock core holders which should make it easier to pull those out. Once I figure out how to stop the hose from coming off the outlet on the return pump, that should make things a lot better.

 

[vlangel]

For now I am still running a skimmerless system, and I plan to continue that. I did order some filter sock core holders which should make it easier to pull those out. Once I figure out how to stop the hose from coming off the outlet on the return pump, that should make things a lot better.

BRS sells plastic clips to hold hoses on. Maybe even a zip tie would work???

 

[cloakerpoked]

I have upgraded or fixed my equipment somewhat. Here is a picture of the sump and what I hope is a solution for my return pump. I put a bunch of Teflon tape around the pump to hold the hose on better and then tighten the zip tie really hard and super glued it to the pump and the hose that way it’s almost like a tether so even if it tried to come off I’m not sure that it could. I’ll probably have to cut it off if I ever need to switch the pump for some reason. Also put a screen top on the tank, the overflow and light mount make it impossible to go all the way to the back, so for now I’m improvising with twist ties attaching the loose screen to the back, I’ll probably get four more of the mounting clips that are holding the screen in place and zip tie the screen in the back to that for a cleaner look, I just can’t leave that back part open, because by the overflow is where the fish are going to be hiding if they are uncomfortable, so that back corner is especially risky for jumpers I would think.

 

[vlangel]

I am pretty sure the hose on the return is not coming off now, ha ha!

The screen top looks clean and I guess it will be better when you secure the back. My screen also does not lay down flat in the back near the overflow. I have never lost a fish to jumping though, at least so far. I have had a few go over the overflow and end up in the fuge however.

 

[cloakerpoked]

Now that I have a tight fitting top, I got a new pair of clown fish and bicolor blenny. Also bought a maxima clam and a couple of acans with my birthday money.