ULM 30G SW nano reef conversion

[Gretchacha]

Hi! First post to my build thread. I’m converting a 30G waterbox rimless FW aquascape to an ultra low maintenance (ULM) nano reef. I will run the same filter slightly differently - Oase biomaster thermo 250. The goal is a bright tropical look with gorgonians, soft and LPS corals.
I enjoyed the BRS TV ULM topics and decided to do a clean start for the tank. As such, I have 20 pounds of marco rock and fresh matrix media to seed with Fritz turbostart. Today I started dissolving a batch of AF NeoMarin salt in RO water.
I will be building up the microorganisms in the rocks and media over the next 3-4 weeks before cleaning out the DT and QT and setting up the new tank. I will also start seeding pink coralline algae to the marco rock and PNS substrate sauce to the rock, matrix media and eventually the fiji pink dry sand.
It begins today….

 

[Gumbies R Us]

Can't wait to see what the tank looks like!!

 

[Gretchacha]

Build thread update: QT tanks set up
This past weekend I set up two quarantine tanks and completed the cycling of marco rocks and matrix media.
Details: 1-2 weeks ago I set media cycling buckets. 3 5-gallon buckets of neomarin+RO water dissolved with circulation and heater 24-48hr before adding media and bacteria. Bucket 1 has 10# marco rock with Fritz Turbostart 900 and Brightwell QuickCycl. Bucket 2 has mesh bags of fresh SeaChem Matrix and ARM aragonite media and a dark lid also with TurboStart. Bucket 3 has 10# marco rocks with Dr Tims SW one-and-only and QuickCycl. The Dr Tim’s bucket is on Day 8 with no change in ammonia. I added an ounce of Dr. Tim’s today to see if it will kick in. I added Substrate Sauce two times after 1week to all buckets and added pink coralline algae spores to Marco buckets. Marco buckets are covered with clear bowl covers.
Saturday I set up a 3 gallon coral QT and 10 G fish QT. Started with Fritz TurboStart and QuickCycle. Added substrate sauce. I am feeding everything 1 drop per gallon of QuickCycl daily to feed at appx 0.2 ppm ammonia, which is my estimated rate of ammonia per daily feeding to start. Lights are off, but both tanks receive sunlight and ambient light. (I’m not feeding the Dr. Tim’s bucket but testing ammonia daily).
QT’s have filter, and heater, I am not running the chemical filter inserts until I add livestock, though. The 10 G is a Landen tank with Oase BioStyle 20 and a cheap powerhead I chose because it was white and not too aggressive for a 10G tank. The 3 G seems quite small for a powerhead, but the filter flow is very low. I added an airstone, but I will need to find another powerhead when I add corals. I added ARM aragonite to both in a thin 1 cm layer and some fiji pink sand to the fish QT. If I need to medicate I use hospital buckets. I will dip before placing in QT. The silly jellyfish my son wanted. LOl. They actually look cool at a distance and do help me visualize the flow. They will make the tank interesting when not otherwise inhabited. Possibly they will get algae in time.
DT: I started the breakdown of the planted tank. Rehomed fish to local store. Cleaned filter parts, removed hardscape. I still have to get out some water and the aquasoil and clay and sterilize the tank. I also have to fix/level the base cabinet. That’s a long story….

 

[Gretchacha]

One Month Update: April 16th, 2023

Topics:
Acquisition, death, and return of fish
Acquisition, cleaning, installing corals
Additions of inverts, conch, snails
Evolution of the microfauna and ecosystem
Setting light parameters
Filter and flow adjustments
ATO set up
Dosing regime
Feeding and starving
Fish QT to hospital back to observation
Coral QT to pod culture

On March 4th I acquired 3 fish from my LFS and acclimated them to the fully cycled fish QT. One royal gramma, one flame hawkfish, one ocellaris clownfish. The royal gramma hid behind the filter and heater and barnacle cluster. The next day he holed up inside the barnacle. The following morning he was dead in the barnacle. I removed the barnacle and fish promptly. I started lowering the salinity. The next week, the flame hawk started turning white, then breathing heavy and acting listless, then being sensitive to light. I realized it was velvet and treated. While both fish took a bath in H2O2, I cleaned out the tank completely to bare bottom. I dosed Ruby Reef Rally and replaced the fish. I dosed Rally for three days every morning and ran UV at night, since Rally decomposes over time. After three days they got another H2O2 bath and I cleaned out the tank again 100%. I added copper power at appx 1.75-2 ppm. The hawkfish was improving while in Rally, but one week into copper power, he had velvet again. I repeated what I had done before, but he didn’t make it. He died in my hands in the bath as I was trying to revive his respiration with his clownfish buddy nudging him. The clownfish was traumatized. He never showed any signs of infection, but from then on he stopped eating and hid all the time. I added fake coral decor to give him comfort, which he clearly appreciated, but he still would not eat. His poop became stringy and white. I made him medicated food, but he wouldn’t eat it. I medicated the water with API General Cure 3 times, but the poop stayed stringy and he would not eat. After 9 or 10 days of this, I once again removed him and completely reset the tank without copper. Replaced the cleaned decor. Got new yummier foods. But he would not eat. I wondered if he were heartbroken, so I added a robo-fish of the same size and color. He was very interested in the fish. So I went back to my LFS and got him a friend. While the new fish was in the specimen container in the tank, the first clownfish swam up and positioned himself parallel to the new fish and shimmied. He kept this up and when I released the new fish, he buddied up and swam all over with his new friend. I hoped he would eat with his new friend, too. However, he did not recover his appetite. His attitude had completely changed from super sociable to Nemo’s father. He kept the new fish down in his hiding spot unless I was feeding them. One week later, today, I returned both fish. I knew if I kept them, the first would starve. If I only returned him, he would likely be broken again and not survive. His best chance of survival was to be returned to the store harem with his buddy.

 

[Gretchacha]

One Month Update: April 16th, 2023
Acquisition, cleaning, installing corals

On March 11th, my local community had a reefing sale with 15-20 vendors, mostly from the midwest, but one as far away as Texas. I went with mu husband and we picked out a lot of frags from multiple vendors at very reasonable prices. These all went into my cycled 3G coral QT.

the two sps were freebies.
Show purchases were: ORA goni; mint pavona; blastomussa merletti- I asked for red raven, but I’m not sure that is what I got; Hairy purple mushroom sold to me as a magic carpet ride; fireworks clove polyp; long neck alveopora, short neck with peach center alve; red ricordea Florida that turned green asap, yellow ricordea Florida, Japanese toadstool that I am pretty sure isn’t; and pulsing xenia that was supposed to be pink, but I think is silver tip. LOL. So lots of frags that weren’t quite what they seamed. Chaos reigned and it was fun anyways. I also won two door prizes, including a Triton test kit and a frag rack.
I had also purchased 3 frags at my LFS the week before with the fish. They were a duncan, a red ricordea, and a coral skeleton with a bunch of orange baby ricordea.
I dipped everything and QT’d. luckily I did, too. A week or two after being in QT, I noticed all kinds of nasty pests and algae on the plugs and skeleton. I eventually just cut everything off of their frags and replaced before glueing in the DT, because multiple dips and scrubs didn’t really take care of the problem. I ended up tossing the two sps freebies. Pests I found included a nudibranch, a flatworm, aptaisia, spirobid and vermitid, bryopsis and other macro algae and hair algae. Yuck. I nearly killed the mushrooms getting them off the skeleton and plugs. I also nearly killed the duncan with the dip. It lost all its zooxanthele and burned its tentacles. I must have not made sure it was retracted when I dipped it. That was my first dip. But I fed it live phyto and reef energy AB+ daily plus some enriched brine shrimp. It has fully recovered.
Two weeks after those first coral additions, I glued/placed them in the DT and got orders of other coral from online vendors. My design needs were specific. I ordered 2 more alveopora, 2 Fox coral, asterospicularia, giant bali xenia, 2 ruby red xenia, 4 sympodium, a button scoly, a blue/mint candy cane, 3 rock flower anemone, 1 coco worm, one weepy willow toadstool, 2 more ricordea florida in peach and lavender, one St Thomas mushroom, and one candelabra gorgonian. Some of these wild harvested specimens came in with the nastiest hitchhikers 2” aptasia, multiple 1” vermitid, and other unmentionables

 

[Gretchacha]

One Month Update: April 16th, 2023
Build out of hardscape and design elements
Over the course of a month Feb/March, I emptied the freshwater tank and filter, cycled new media and fake rocks, and built up the aquascape. I had a few inspirations that I wanted to emulate. The tank is supposed to be ulta-low maintenance, so it needed soft coral and slower growing lps. It is supposed to help me get through SAD in the long Wisconsin winters, so it needed to be bright, colorful, cheerful, and alive – not dark, static, and psychedelic. And not to heavy feeling, rather plenty of visual open space and sand.
I had cycled rocks in buckets, and placed them in arrangements on a bin lid of the same size as my tank. Over the course of a few days, I settled on an arrangement that was a triangle and two peninsulas. I only needed half the rock that I had prepared, and I did not need the reef cement/morter I had bought to bind the hardscape together.
Since I had purchased some base rocks, I did not want to bury them in the sand. I also didn’t want the rockscape to collapse if I got sand dwellers down the road. I used 1 1/2” terracotta pots (tiny!) to use beneath the rocks to boost them up. Around this I filled in ARM reactor media course aragonite gravel. Then well rinsed fiji pink dry sand 2” deep in back sloping to ½” in front. I also glued in 2 large barnacle clusters in case I get some small cave fishes. I ordered these from sellers on Etsy. One seller sent me tiny loose dirty barnacles of no use to me. The other one sent nice big clean clusters.

 

[Gretchacha]

One Month Update: April 16th, 2023
Additions of inverts, conch, snails

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My family loves snails. We had a forest snail as a pet for a while some years back. They have so much attitude and cool geometry. After one or two weeks of the tank being filled with water, brown stringy diatoms appeared. My first set of frags were installed in the DT, and a second set of coral and snails arrived by FedEx. 7 cerith snail and 1 tiger conch survived the journey and made short work of the diatoms. I also had transitioned my nerites from fresh to saltwater and the lent a tooth. The nerites are horned sun nerites, and are very fun to watch.
The conch is hilarious. Everyone loves him with his two eye wands and proboscis. We named him Marcel after the famous YouTube phenomenon and movie star shell. Everyone seems to like taking turns riding his back (cleaning him).
A fantastic variety of snails arrived on my birthday from Alyssa’s Seahorse Savvy. A ninja star, 2 large tongan nassarius, 4 small nassarius, 2 banded trochus, 2 coraline covered cerith, 4 dove snails. I have had some casualties of the original cerith, and I moved 2 of those ceriths plus the 2 trochus to the now vacant fish QT to clean it up. I do worry they don’t have enough to eat since the algae hasn’t arrived after the diatoms like normal. I guess my ecology is working as I had planned and hoped. But I am still surprised. I do add live phyto twice daily and some algae extreme pellets weekly.
We also got 2 ruby serpent stars from Alyssa. They are pretty cool. They hide under. The rocks until they smell food. Then they either climb up and wave their arms to catch small particles, or they scramble onto the sand to race the nassarius for larger meaty bits. They are fantastically sensitive creatures. They caused me a minor panic attack the first time I fed them and they got all entangled with the nassarius and the anemones and hairy mushroom. What a mess! I was sure they would all eat each other alive! But they sorted it out amongst themselves in a few minutes.

 

[Gretchacha]

One Month Update: April 16th, 2023
Evolution of microfauna and ecosystem
Filter, media, cycling saga

One month in to water in the tank and no algae. Too soon for the uglies you say? But I had diatoms around weeks 1-2, with precycled rocks and filter media. The algae hasn’t come yet. If I make it one more month without the uglies, then it will be a method to seriously consider for tank set up.

The hypothesis:
A robust ecology is not easily pushed out of balance by an opportunistic species, so build a robust ecology before adding fish and heavy nutrients.

The details:
I set 5-gallon buckets of reef water (Brightwell Neomarine) with circulation or airstone and heater and added dry artificial rocks, ARM media, and SeaChem Matrix in these (Matrix and ARM were in mesh bags). For those who don’t know, Matrix is a natural volcanic tuff which is highly porus and thus has enormous surface area for bacteria to populate but does not alter water chemistry. It is the ultimate biological filter media for freshwater applications. I’m using my Oase Biomaster Thermo canister filter with built in heater and prefilter sponges for my filtration, nutrient cycling, nutrient export, and reactor. All in one. The biomaster comes with four trays that have fitted sponges, but i replaced the bottom two with Matrix, the third with ARM, and the thin top one with ROX activated carbon and filter floss. I change the top section (carbon and floss) monthly. Why the ARM? No, it will not dissolve and keep my harness or alkalinity up to any great degree, I would need an acidic environment for that. However, it is the right substrate for the kind of bacteria I want to thrive in my filter. Bacteria create acid plaques that erode the alkaline rocks. They feed on these released ions and also help free up the ions for use in the filter.
The activated carbon adsorbs organic waste that isn’t used by the organisms I invite, but which can be utilized organisms which are pests. So I am removing these already from the very beginning of the filter set up.
So back to the cycling buckets. Two buckets got Dr Tims. 2 buckets got Fritz Turbostart 900. Both were fed with quick cycle which has ammonia, phosphate, and carbohydrates which are more complete nutrients to feed bacteria. I dose well below the DrTims recommended 2 ppm. Instead I dose .5-1 ppm. Too much ammonia inhibits the growth and progress of the cycle. I also got pink helix coraline algae in a bottle to seal the rocks and PNS Substrate Sauce, which is live bacteria that fills a different niche. I hoped that the bacteria and algae would cycle all kinds of nutrients and out compete any bad stuff for real estate.

The problems:
I did not know the coralline algae could not be used while cycling. It is smmonia inhibited and also needs blue light. Ambient bucket lighting from windows and cycling ammonia made that a wasted addition 22$ at that point in that method. I really didn’t want to add a bottle of coralline algae to the DT and have it immediately growing on all my tank accessories and glass, which is why I added it to the bucket. So, no coralline algae. Dr Tim’s (Amazon order) didn’t cycle at all over three weeks. The ammonia never went down. So that was a 17$ bust and a waste of three weeks of precycle on half my rocks and media. PNS Substrate Sauce made bacterial blooms in everything I used it in. I was simultaneously cycling my 10G fish QT and 3G coral QT. The only thing that really worked flawlessly during bucket QT was Fritz TurboStart 900. I ended up purchasing this twice more during my set up. Luckily it works fast- like 3-5 days. A bunch of resetting and moving stuff around happened with the buckets, and UV on the QTs and partial water changes fixed those bacterial blooms. I nearly threw away the PNS Sub Sauce because of the nasty problem risk, but every time I read about it, it was so compelling. I saved it and ultimately did use it sparingly later. The type of bacteria in SubSauce is the most prominent in ocean water, and from the BRS Investigates, I had hoped it would stave off the uglies. Instead it became ann ugly. It also lives in anoxic areas in the sandbed, helping avoid the cyano that always seems to start st the glass in the sand. Plus, it is an important food source for corals. So I had good reason to expect good results from the $30 bottle.

so after tidying up the cycle and filling the tank, I next added copious copepods and macro algae and live phytoplankton. I started with red pom pom gracillarous, 5280 pods, and ocean magic, all from AlgaeBarn. They are close to me and we had a terrible winter in the upper Midwest, so I figured I had the highest chances of success with them due to proximity alone. The pom poms (3 softball sized clumps when expanded from one jar) had a hard time adjusting to my lighting for a week or two, but are niw super resilient. I even have one in my unlit fish QT. They make a great habitat for breeding copepods and also utilize excess nutrients that hair/bryopsis algae would. So I have 2 clumps wedged in the back of my DT rockwork and one in my QTs. Unexpectedly, the live phyto are absolute workhorses at pulling ammonia. I got them to feed the pods, clean the water, and feed the corals and filter-feeding inverts. The copepods eat cellular algae, diatoms and bacteria from rocks, glass and substrate and become enriched food for fishes and corals, helping feed my tank. This ecosystem is both self cleaning and self feeding, which is all fitting in to my ultra low maintenance formula.
But, feeding live phyto is a manual twice-daily addition. The bottle needs to be shaken daily to prevent suffocation of the settled phytoplankton and it must be stored in the fridge.
I’ll make a post about feeding and phyto, bacteria, pods, etc.

The take-away from this so far is that setting up a tank with lots of intentional specimens for tank health is worth it. It’s probiotics for the tank. Just one week of minor diatoms is all I have contended with. This is a huge contrast to the evolution of problems I faced with freshwater planted aquascapes which closely regulate many of the same parameters. The tank has been filled for 4-5 weeks and with corals and snails for 3 weeks.
Today I had 1ppm ammonia after over zealous feeding to show off my stars, nassarius and corals eating. I dosed phyto and two hours later the ammonia was down to 0.4 ppm. Pretty impressive, and beneficial impact to all the tank life instead of another swing. The life force can balance itself. I have added 3 more bottles of pods from Reef Nutrition and am now using their live Phyto, which is super concentrated.

 

[Gretchacha]

A Steep Curve Towards Ultra Low Maintenance
The goal at the outset of this tank build/conversion was to create an ultra low maintenance tank (ULM) that would be easy to leave on vacation and not require much routine maintenance with supplements, cleaning, feeding, or equipment. Choices were made to keep slow-growing, hardy, passive LPS with similarly inclined softies as buffers and fillers. Plenty of live dosing was initiated to feed the inhabitants and act as a vacation buffer while controlling nutrients naturally.
While this process is on the right track, the start up phase has decidedly not been low maintenance. At 4 weeks I had ammonia. I think this was due to weekly additions of lugol’s iodine, which is too strong even at one drop in a 30 Gallon tank and hence impaired my bacteria. I remedied with additional live phyto dosing to consume ammonia, small amounts of daily SeaChem Prime to keep the ammonia species non-irritating, and Fritz TurboBoost to get the colony built up again. I also checked all my foods and used the highest carbohydrate and lowest protein source for 2 weeks, including Benepets and Reef Enhance, which also have bacteria that help corals process phytoplankton. I also performed some water changes, the first ones, actually, and the corals puffed up with happiness.
The major parameters were unstable, too, first all were low, then all were high. I was using Brightwell Neomarine mix, which I selected from the BRS investigates series as a very clean mixing and stable salt. However, my first batch mixed with very low parameters, much lower than BRS and package claims. Too low for a reef. I adjusted with liquid calcium, magnesium and alk, and then I started using All For Reef to maintain. However, All For Reef has a delay, and once it caught up, and I started a new bag of salt, I was suddenly way over the correct values. Alk jumped to nearly 12, calcium to over 500, and mag to over 1500 ppm. This lined up with the ammonia spike, too, but was unlikely to be the cause since nitrifying bacteria enjoy hardness. So, a series of water changes brought everything back in line.

Everything that is, except for low pH. My pH is dropping to 7.8 over night, and I am concerned my oxygen/gas exchange is low. So, investigations into CO2 scrubber, algae scrubber and refugium and skimmer have taken up quite a few evenings. My options are limited or nonstandard considering I have no sump to work with. I have worked on improving circulation, which I can see the corals appreciate. I tried an atomizer that is used to inject CO2 in freshwater planted tanks to improve air exchange, but it was loud and distracting and the mandarin didn’t like it. I tried an airstone, which made a salty mess on my equipment. Then I decided my corals were happy and just to dose my live phyto and maintain my macro algae in my DT. I may add a HOB or nano in-tank skimmer down the road, which I could always add a CO2 scrubber to, or get a drop-in upflow algae scrubber such as this Santa Monica model: https://www.santa-monica.cc/DROP12-...-surfaces--12-cubes-feeding-per-day_p_69.html

My husband is super glad I decided to go with a low maintenance tank
I reminded him it was not just low maintenance, it was Ultra low maintenance