Jared’s sca 50g reef (1 year update 5-17/24)
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Ef4life
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August I changed the aquascape up a bit. And I moved some corals around, I also added some new stuff. Purple gorgonian, myagi tortuosa, goniastrea, another acan echinata, red chalice of some type. I added a purple and a red micromussa
Gumbies R Us
Certified Noob
I like the redesign you did!August I changed the aquascape up a bit. And I moved some corals around, I also added some new stuff. Purple gorgonian, myagi tortuosa, goniastrea, another acan echinata, red chalice of some type. I added a purple and a red micromussa
OP
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Ef4life
Valuable Member
I guess I’m all caught up in the build, I didn’t do much but look at the tank from August until now.
So the orphek is fixed, it was my fault. When I hooked up the power leads for the circuit board the positive terminal screw sheared off so I couldn’t tighten the leads down and it was making intermittent contact. I had to do some desoldering and remove a terminal that wasn’t used to solder in place of the messed up one.
Missing screw head that sheared off, I need to replace that contact with the unused contact in the center
If the threaded portion of the screw would have came out it would have been easy no soldering necessary, but that didn’t happen, the contact broke off forcing my hand
The plastic cover also shows a little bit of the burning from being loose
Final product, pulled the center contact out and soldered it in place of the broken one.
Reinstalled on the heartsink.
Back up over the tank
So the orphek is fixed, it was my fault. When I hooked up the power leads for the circuit board the positive terminal screw sheared off so I couldn’t tighten the leads down and it was making intermittent contact. I had to do some desoldering and remove a terminal that wasn’t used to solder in place of the messed up one.
Missing screw head that sheared off, I need to replace that contact with the unused contact in the center
If the threaded portion of the screw would have came out it would have been easy no soldering necessary, but that didn’t happen, the contact broke off forcing my hand
The plastic cover also shows a little bit of the burning from being loose
Final product, pulled the center contact out and soldered it in place of the broken one.
Reinstalled on the heartsink.
Back up over the tank
OP
OP
Ef4life
Valuable Member
bare bottom this tank was having some issues, so I decided to add a small sand bed in a container in the sump a. It’s been there a few weeks, but the tank is starting to get better. I’m actually getting a light dust of algae on the glass every few days which is good. Coralline has also started to show up is spots on the bottom glass. Hopefully it can get a good hold before algae does on the white rocks. Daily I’ve been feeding a half cube of frozen mysis or marine cuisine and some pellets. I also decided to take my 10g tank down, so I added in my royal gramma from that tank. 4 fish in this tank now total.
Here’s the sump as of today, I added this filter sock holder a while back. It works. I also added a kitchen sponge holder and a place to hold the turkey baster. I need to add some type of hook to hang the wet filter socks over the sump to drain/dry.
Here’s the sump as of today, I added this filter sock holder a while back. It works. I also added a kitchen sponge holder and a place to hold the turkey baster. I need to add some type of hook to hang the wet filter socks over the sump to drain/dry.
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Ef4life
Valuable Member
I added some more coral tonight, I believe one is a vivid plumberry, a tiny chip of an Oregon blue tort, a chunk of pc rainbow, and a chunk of bill murray. Red anacropora, purple and green digitatas. All these frags were taken from my other aquarium.
TNT anacropora
Vivid plumberry
White coral was new growth on a bill murray frag, hopefully it will color up nicely in this new tank, and the small frag of blue tort which has been very slow growing for me
Purple and green digitata and a setosa I got at the club meeting auction last month. It wasn’t looking good, but seems
To be making a comeback,
Ugly chunk of pc rainbow next to a button scoly
New full tank photos
TNT anacropora
Vivid plumberry
White coral was new growth on a bill murray frag, hopefully it will color up nicely in this new tank, and the small frag of blue tort which has been very slow growing for me
Purple and green digitata and a setosa I got at the club meeting auction last month. It wasn’t looking good, but seems
To be making a comeback,
Ugly chunk of pc rainbow next to a button scoly
New full tank photos
OP
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Ef4life
Valuable Member
I didn’t like the way a few frags were placed. I moved the green and purple digitata further back on the rock it now hangs over the back side of the aquascape it should grow in much better this way. I pulled out a piece of live rock in the back right corner and put the pale golden rod anacropora in its place. The rock went to the sump. I moved the small gorgonian above the red chalice below the setosa, I’ve had this gorgonian for a while now and it’s never grown at all, I’m hopeful the new spot will change that.
I rotated the pc rainbow frag down towards the center of the tank more so it gets more light on the front of it now, it looks better. I swapped the bubble gum digitata and the green hammer, I think they will both grow out in a more pleasant way. The hammer would block a lot of view in the center once it starts getting big so it’s new place it won’t hide as much. I pulled out a small frag of encrusting montipora as it had an aptasia on it.
I rotated the pc rainbow frag down towards the center of the tank more so it gets more light on the front of it now, it looks better. I swapped the bubble gum digitata and the green hammer, I think they will both grow out in a more pleasant way. The hammer would block a lot of view in the center once it starts getting big so it’s new place it won’t hide as much. I pulled out a small frag of encrusting montipora as it had an aptasia on it.
jeremyjay692005
New Member
How do you like the sump without any baffles?bare bottom this tank was having some issues, so I decided to add a small sand bed in a container in the sump a. It’s been there a few weeks, but the tank is starting to get better. I’m actually getting a light dust of algae on the glass every few days which is good. Coralline has also started to show up is spots on the bottom glass. Hopefully it can get a good hold before algae does on the white rocks. Daily I’ve been feeding a half cube of frozen mysis or marine cuisine and some pellets. I also decided to take my 10g tank down, so I added in my royal gramma from that tank. 4 fish in this tank now total.
Here’s the sump as of today, I added this filter sock holder a while back. It works. I also added a kitchen sponge holder and a place to hold the turkey baster. I need to add some type of hook to hang the wet filter socks over the sump to drain/dry.
OP
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Ef4life
Valuable Member
It works fine with no skimmer, but if/when I decide to add one it would really needs some baffles to keep a more consistent water level. I would like to eventually have a bigger sump made that’s a better fit under the stand and it would have baffles and space to the filter sock to be build in.
OP
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Ef4life
Valuable Member
I just left the coral farmers market show today, lots of beautiful corals for sale. I snagged a nice gold/peach goniopora and a bright orange micromussa. I decided to get a nice frag rack from pnw- not a fan of the glowing acrylic so I bought one in all black, it should hide nicely in the sca50 if I ever need it for frag overflow room.
Next up I’m headed to the reef club monthly meeting. It should be fun, we are having an aquascaping discussion/demonstration. Then the usual raffle and coral auction. - if you’re reading this and live in Arizona why are you not a member of azfrag.org ????!!!
Next up I’m headed to the reef club monthly meeting. It should be fun, we are having an aquascaping discussion/demonstration. Then the usual raffle and coral auction. - if you’re reading this and live in Arizona why are you not a member of azfrag.org ????!!!
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Ef4life
Valuable Member
So we have pretty mild winters here in Arizona if you didn’t know, Saturday morning we had a huge rainstorm come through and we had a massive rook leak on the back side of the house. House is headed for some serious demo and construction now. But my room has not been effected, and the tanks are all fine for now
Except -
since I have been leaving the windows open to help dry everything out, the temp at night in the house is dropping into the low 60s. I typically run undersized heaters- My bedroom reef this morning was 72*, I have 2 heater in that tank my winter heater is shut off until well this morning- everything is looking ok though, now the heater is on, temp is rising back to normal. The new sca is down to 74.4* so quite a bit lower than it should be. I’ll be headed to petco now to buy a secondary heater for the winter.
Except -
since I have been leaving the windows open to help dry everything out, the temp at night in the house is dropping into the low 60s. I typically run undersized heaters- My bedroom reef this morning was 72*, I have 2 heater in that tank my winter heater is shut off until well this morning- everything is looking ok though, now the heater is on, temp is rising back to normal. The new sca is down to 74.4* so quite a bit lower than it should be. I’ll be headed to petco now to buy a secondary heater for the winter.
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Ef4life
Valuable Member
I went out to the store to pick up 2 banggai cardinals, I forgot to shut the door, all kinds of stuff happened. Illegal fishing, pirates showed up, and a couple noisy parrots few in.
OP
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Ef4life
Valuable Member
Not much to update on the tank, but I was getting a feeling something was off chemistry wise in the tank. I did a full run of tests to prove I was right.
Salinity 1.025
Ph - 8.6 salifert kit, not entirely sure how accurate that is, it was blue blue though. Kalk and having the windows open right now 24/7 has kept it high
No3 - 1ppm
Po4 - .02
Alk - 4.something dkh, test doesn’t read that low
Ca - under 250
Mg 1200
I dose 2 part in my other system, but its soda ash, Adding that with the already high ph might be a disaster since it also raises ph. I guess I can get some baking soda to use instead to buffer the alk for future dosing
So today for maintenance I did a 5g wc and then added about 20ml alk/ca 2 part and then some tropic Marin part c as well. The wc reduced the ph slightly and raised the alk a little bit (tmpro salt is around 7.3dkh in my experience), then I added in the small dose of 2 part. Such a small amount in 50g the tank didn’t seem to skip a beat, I didn’t measure the oh change though. I got busy doing other stuff.
I also cleaned up my other system really well and did a 5g wc on it. I had a r2r member stop by today for some frags so I wanted all my systems looking good. I haven’t done a wc on this system in 2-3
Months, sand bed was getting really funky. Siphoned out abojt 25% of the sandbed and pulled out 5g of extremely brown nasty water. Tossed in a carbon filter in the hob and the tank was just looking killer today. Everything always perks up after a waterchange.
So here’s a few photos of my 40b display, the frag tank is overly full so unfortunately I have that rack in my display which is full of micromussas im growing out.
Midday spectrum - I run the same exact orphek program on this tank as the new sca50
Nightly blues
Salinity 1.025
Ph - 8.6 salifert kit, not entirely sure how accurate that is, it was blue blue though. Kalk and having the windows open right now 24/7 has kept it high
No3 - 1ppm
Po4 - .02
Alk - 4.something dkh, test doesn’t read that low
Ca - under 250
Mg 1200
I dose 2 part in my other system, but its soda ash, Adding that with the already high ph might be a disaster since it also raises ph. I guess I can get some baking soda to use instead to buffer the alk for future dosing
So today for maintenance I did a 5g wc and then added about 20ml alk/ca 2 part and then some tropic Marin part c as well. The wc reduced the ph slightly and raised the alk a little bit (tmpro salt is around 7.3dkh in my experience), then I added in the small dose of 2 part. Such a small amount in 50g the tank didn’t seem to skip a beat, I didn’t measure the oh change though. I got busy doing other stuff.
I also cleaned up my other system really well and did a 5g wc on it. I had a r2r member stop by today for some frags so I wanted all my systems looking good. I haven’t done a wc on this system in 2-3
Months, sand bed was getting really funky. Siphoned out abojt 25% of the sandbed and pulled out 5g of extremely brown nasty water. Tossed in a carbon filter in the hob and the tank was just looking killer today. Everything always perks up after a waterchange.
So here’s a few photos of my 40b display, the frag tank is overly full so unfortunately I have that rack in my display which is full of micromussas im growing out.
Midday spectrum - I run the same exact orphek program on this tank as the new sca50
Nightly blues
OP
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Ef4life
Valuable Member
I tested the alk again Wednesday, and it was still in the 4.4dkh range, so I increased my alk dose to 30ml. Slowly bringing it up to 7-8 will take a while still, but the tank is doing great. I clipped off the original frag sprout of purple gorgonian on the left, it has been growing well, but you could clearly see the new growth was totally vertical vs the original frag was on an angle so it just didn’t look natural to me. Now it’s all new growth and looks very natural although short like it got a hair cut.
Since there isn’t much news on the tank, I do have a new lego Bommie on display next to the reef. I traded a new sealed Lego set for 4 retired poly bags of a diver and little reef scene with a stingray. I Built out a little Bommie for the diver and ray. I think it turned out ok, I was going to buy a bunch of dark grey mountain pieces and slopes for building the drop off, but the lego pick a brick site shut down until after January- too many orders for the holidays I guess. So that will set the build back but let my wallet rest for a bit haha
Next to the reef under morning blues, I love the lego “coral” color it just glows under the leds
Since there isn’t much news on the tank, I do have a new lego Bommie on display next to the reef. I traded a new sealed Lego set for 4 retired poly bags of a diver and little reef scene with a stingray. I Built out a little Bommie for the diver and ray. I think it turned out ok, I was going to buy a bunch of dark grey mountain pieces and slopes for building the drop off, but the lego pick a brick site shut down until after January- too many orders for the holidays I guess. So that will set the build back but let my wallet rest for a bit haha
Next to the reef under morning blues, I love the lego “coral” color it just glows under the leds
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