[zhenya]

Ninong,

That is exactly how I do my water changes-syphon it from the sump and it gives me a chance to clean the sump. I just make sure that I take out the rubble and house it in some of the ald water while I'm putzing around in the sump

[Ninong]

Yesterday afternoon I removed 25-lbs of Buna Spiney live rock to lower the skyline in my reef. I had to remove about 15 pieces of rock from the top and both sides of the rockwork first and then I attempted to see how many of those I could get back into the tank without it looking overcrowded. I decided that leaving out the five largest pieces of Buna Spiney provided the most satisfactory result.

I rearranged the structure so that no pieces of rock are any closer than 3" to the front glass and most are much farther back than that. There is not much I can do about the right side of the tank without removing virtually all of the rock and starting over, which I wasn't willing to do. So the cast acrylic upright support there is still leaning against the right side of the tank. I thought I had fixed the left side of the tank so that the closest pieces of Buna Spiney were at least 3" away from the side glass but it looks like one small piece attached to the cast acrylic rod has slipped out of position and is now too close to the side glass. I can fix that easily later on today or tomorrow.

What I am most pleased with is the fact that I have opened up the sand bed a lot compared to the previous arrangement. It was really fairly open before compared to most tanks but it is really wide open now. Open sand bed in front of the reef ranges from 9" to 5" with most of it being in the 7"-8" range. That's because the base footprint of the reef is much narrower than the superstructure.

I have preserved all of the cave systems and perhaps even improved them by removing some of the Buna Spiney rocks that were acting as partial front walls. The new arrangement is completely open throughtout the reef and yet much flatter on the top for placement of corals and clams. I honestly prefer the looks of the Kaelini anyway and wasn't too unhappy about removing the Buna Spiney that was hiding some of my nice Kaelini with all it's coralline and wormy critters.

Yesterday, about three hours after dumping the "very live sand" from Palmetto Reefs into my tank, the water was relatively clear and I figured I might take a few pictures to show off my new rock structure, but for some unknown reason I suddenly got the urge to rinse out the foam block and polyester filter pad in the Lifereef sump because it was obvious that both were really filled with silt from the new live sand addition. Big mistake! I should have turned off the pumps before even thinking about doing this, especially if I had any intention of taking any pictures anytime within the next three or four hours.

I tried to gently life out the pads without disturbing the silt they were holding. Well that worked reasonably well with the foam block but the polyester filter pad was another story altogether! I created another instant Southdown milkshake throughout the entire tank. Now I know where all the silt went that was bouncing around in the tank for the previous three hours. I should have turned off the pumps, removed the filter pads for rinsing in clean saltwater and at the same time siphoned out the entire sump and cleaned it. There is a good 1/4" thick layer of silt in the sump. That would have given me about an 18-gallon water change. I haven't done a water change yet because I wanted to get the sand bed cycled first but I really need to clean the sump now, so I guess my first water change will be today or tomorrow before my order from Inland Aquatics gets here.

There is a lot of sand on the rocks in these pictures because I didn't want to blow it off just now or I would have had to wait another couple of hours to take the pictures. The glass, especially the back glass, is pretty dirty with that Southdown film. The "very live sand" from Palmetto Reefs was a blend of Southdown sand, Florida Keys sand and Fiji sand that Darren cultures in his live rock curing tanks. It arrived in very good shape in a nice little styrofoam shipping container. There was about an inch of water above the surface of the sand and the bag of sand just exactly filled the interior of the container. The interior dimensions of the container are 6"x8"x7"deep and the exterior dimensions are 9"x11"x10"deep. The shipping weight was 14-lbs, so I guess I got a little lagniappe. It was shipped late Monday afternoon and was delivered to my house about mid-day Tuesday. There was "stuff" in it but my eyesight isn't good enough to give you a complete rundown.

OK, where are the pics, I thought there were supposed to be pics in this post?

Before:



After:



Before:



After:


After, but from an angle:



OK, that's my 5-pic limit for this post so I have to submit this before I can put up some more pics.

[Ninong]

The new look continued:


Close-up:


Lots of Kaelini on top now:


A lot more flat surface on the top now:


More:

[Ninong]

Left side, before:


Left side, after:



Looking right, before:


Looking right, after:


Close-up of looking right, after:

[Ninong]

Right side cave, after:


Close-up of inside of middle cave, after:

[Reefland]

Looking good Ninong! The new structre appears to give you more coral placement and really does open things up a bit. I personaly like a more open look and has been mentioned, once the corals start growing some of the rock has to go anyway.

Are you starting to get any bubbles in the sand bed yet? It looks as if there are in a couple of the pictures but it's hard to tell if it is that or a "layer break". I am really looking forward to getting my hands wet tomorrow and seeing what I can do.

Later,
Scott

[zhenya]

I love it,Ninong. Thanks for posting pics Now you can grow some huge looking Acroporas in there

Scott,

I was looking at that line runing in the sand bed as well, could be that layer break as you said.

[Ninong]

NH4 = undetectable
NO2 = 0.1 ppm
NO3 = 25 ppm

Observations: Still no diatoms; none that I can see anyway. No cyanobacteria yet either but I am finally starting to get a little green algae on the large upright piece of Tonga Branch at the left side of the tank, on the 16" long flat piece of Kaelini at the top center of the reef and also some on the 12" long flat piece of Kaelini on the right side of the reef structure. Finally. I was beginning to think I should remove the GAC (granular activated carbon) and Phosguard from the sump. The main reason I have Phosguard in the sump is because I don't know what to expect from my DI cartridge filter that I am using to prepare my freshwater. I need to get a regular RO/DI setup soon. I am also running the freshly made saltwater through a polyfilter before using it. I'm trying to remove as much of the nasties as possible before the water even goes into the tank. I decided to go with Crystal Sea Marinemix Bio-Assay Formula salt mix. Unfortunately I ordered my 4 boxes before they improved the recipe ingredients to make it easier to dissolve. I find that it is just a little cloudy the first hour after mixing and almost crystal clear after 24 hours of heavy aeration. The initial saltwater for the tank was aerated for more than three days before it went into the tank. And, if you will remember, I started my tank with just Southdown sand and a 2"x3"x1/2" piece of raw fish. Since it took almost seven days to clear the initial Southdown sandstorm, my live rock didn't go into the tank until the 10th. day.

I started feeding the tank (sandbed) with spirulina flake yesterday and will start daily feedings of DT's phytoplankton tomorrow after I get my detritivore kit. At first I was running just the two 55w PC actinics -- that was during the sandstorm phase -- but I started turning on the two 250w AB 10,000K HQI DE lamps once I had live rock in the tank. At first for just 5 hours a day but since I wasn't getting any algae, I upped that to 8 hours a day a couple of days ago. So right now I am running PC actinics 13 hours a day and metal halides 8 hours a day. I am running the 25w moonlight every night once the actinics are turned off. Still haven't rigged up my Neptune Systems AquaController yet because I have been procrastinating. I haven't tested my calcium and alkalinity yet, but I might do that later on this afternoon. I started dosing a two-part balanced ionic supplement of calcium and buffer yesterday so I may as well test the water to see what I am starting out with. No need to begin Kalkwasser yet. (Another reason I have some Phosguard in the sump is because I am not yet dosing Kalkwasser. Kalkwasser has the added benefit of precipitating phosphate.)

I checked out my tank at 4:30 this morning with a small maglight flashlight. Need to get me one of those small astronomy flashlights (red lens) like the one I sold with my Tele-Vue Renaissance telescope when my eyesight started going bad on me.

This is what it looked like:


So anyway, getting back on topic, I took a peek at the tank with the small flashlight trying not to alert the whole tank. My problem is that I can only see small things if they are fairly close to the glass, either on the rock that is within seven or eight inches of the glass or on the sand bed. So maybe I'm missing a lot of life that's in there but I just can't see it. I'm like the T-Rex in Jurassic Park, I usually don't notice something until it moves.

I did manage to spot two thin white feeding nets in two different areas of the tank last night. I couldn't see what they were coming out of, maybe vermitid snails. Found three or four tiny feather dusters. At least, I hope they were feather dusters!!!! I am reasonably sure that I have not spotted any aiptasia. I have not spotted any crabs yet. If there're in there, they're hiding from me. So far no mantis shrimp or pistol shrimp, fortunately. I can see lots of tiny worms sticking out of the Kaelini, but only at night. I can't tell you exactly how many amphipods and copepods are really in there because I can only see them if they're up-close-and-personal, but I have seen several. So far I haven't spotted any bristle worms but I have several of those coming in my detritivore kit anyway. I'm not the best critter spotter and no one else, except for my brother-in-law, has shown any interest in my tank. I asked my brother-in-law if he saw anything the other night and he said, "Yeah, you have fleas." So one of us can't see worth a damn and the other one has no idea what he's looking at.

[Ninong]

Originally Posted by Reefland

Are you starting to get any bubbles in the sand bed yet?

Yes, I notice some rising up from the sand bed every now and then but I haven't seen any bubbles in the sand bed up against the glass yet.




P.S. -- Now that you asked that question, I decided to remove the front black acrylic shield so that I could take a look at the full sand bed. And yes, there is some activity visible but not a whole lot. Maybe my sand bed is just a little slow getting started.

[zhenya]

Originally posted by Ninong

So one of us can't see worth a damn and the other one has no idea what he's looking at.

Sounds just like my wife and I She wouldn't care if I told her ten times the names of some critters that I point out sometimes,it's gone right out the other ear

[Ninong]

Question posed by someone on another board:

Can you get any close-ups on how you did the black acrylic "lip" on the top & bottom?

Sure. The acrylic shields are made from 1/4" thick opaque black acrylic. The bottom shield is 5" tall and 45.5" long with two pieces 11" long attached to it with Weld-On #16. There are three 1"x3" strips of velcro on the front piece. I removed the velcro from the bottom side pieces when I decided to glue them to the front piece.


The top pieces are not glued to each other but each of them sits on top of the tank's frame which is 1" wide. Top pieces are 7" tall so that 2.5" covers the tank's 2" tall top frame and 4.5" extends above the top of the tank's frame.



I used 5" long pieces of semi-translucent black 1/4" thick acrylic scrap glued to the shields with Weld-On #16 to construct the attachments:


There is a piece 1"x5" glued to the shield piece and another piece 3/4"x5" glued to the edge of the 1" wide strip. The 3/4" piece has to be glued to the 1" piece first and then after it is dry, the whole thing is glued to the main piece. I made the 3/4" pieces wider on purpose so that I would have a stronger joint. The part of the frame that I was attempting to snap onto is 1" wide and 1/2" deep.

To make sure that the strips of acrylic were aligned evenly, I placed a 1x3 piece of oak (2.5" finished size) flush with the edge of the acrylic shield as a brace for the first minute or two that the little strip was glued on. You have to remove the wood before it gets stuck to the acrylic but not until the acrylic joint has cured for about a minute or two.

[Ninong]

Did a 17% water change this morning, my first since starting the tank back on July 8th. Raised the salinity from 32 ppt to 33 ppt. I intend to gradually raise it to 35 ppt over the next couple of weeks.

Received my detritivore kit from Inland Aquatics this morning at 11:50 a.m., which isn't too bad for FedEx priority overnight service to this address. The live sand that I received a couple of days back from Palmetto Reefs was shipped FedEx standard overnight and it arrived just after noon, so I can't see much difference in the delivery times. In the future I will probably drive the 40 miles to Covington to pick up my FedEx overnight shipments rather than let them ride around for several hours in the truck.

The detritivore kit arrived in perfect condition. It was very well packed and everything made in alive. In addition to their basic kit (which is now $70), I had them add 6 Trochus snails at $3.99 each and 6 spaghetti worms at $4.99 each. Shipping was $27.99 + $2.00 cold pack + $6.00 box charge. Total = $159.87.

The Trochus snails were about the only things I could easily see and count. They were really nice looking with purple coralline covered shells. I held the other bags up to the light and used a magnifying glass to see what was in each. The largest bag held mysis shrimp and gammarus shrimp. I have no idea how many of each were in there. Just a swarm of little bitty things swimming around in the bag.

I can't tell you how many amphipods and copepods were in there either. There were supposed to be six miniature brittle stars and I believe that was about what I got. Baby bristle worms = 12+ (hard to say for sure, but I assume the count was correct). Stomatella varia = 3 (yes, I was able to count those). Peppermint snails = 5 (I think so). Micro stars = 5 (probably).

Everything was moving in the bags except the 6 spaghetti worms, the most expensive items at $4.99 each!!! I was afraid they might not have made it alive, but they did. They were in a clump of "something" about 2 cc in size. When I gently tilted the bag back and forth, the clump just rolled from one side of the bag to the other but with no visible signs of life.

The vendor recommends floating the bags in the tank for 15 minutes and then pouring 1 cup of tank water into each bag every 5 minutes until 4 cups have been poured into each bag. Then you are supposed to just dump everything in the tank. That didn't sound slow enough to me so I decided to take my good old time. After a 20 minute float, I added 1/4 cup of tank water to each bag. Then I added 1/2 cup every 10 minutes until the bags were full and there was no more room for any more water. That took me about 2 hours but it probably won't take you that long.

I removed each of the Trochus snails by hand and placed them on the rock. They look great and are moving around making themselves at home. All of the other bags were more or less just poured into the tank as close to the sand bed as possible. Everything moved on its own as soon as it hit the sand. The Stomatella varia invariably made a beeline for the glass. They move pretty fast for snails. The bristle worms all split up and looked larger on the sand bed than they did in the bag. All were about 5/8" long and reddish-orange in color. They wriggled off in different directions. The peppermint snails are very tiny so I'm not sure how many I got but they were moving, too. The tiny brittle stars were about 1/2" across and they took off as soon as they hit the sand. The micro stars made it OK, too, but it's hard for me to tell how many there were or what size they are. I think they're smaller than 1/2" across.

The "clump" of spaghetti worms didn't do much of anything at first. Then it started wriggling. It took at least 30 minutes for most of the clump to separate into individuals. I made sure to place these guys right up against the front glass so that I could see if anything was alive or not. I have been checking with a magnifying glass every 15 minutes or so to see if I can figure out what's going on with them but all I can see is lots of very thin arms attached to thicker bodies that are trying to untangle from each other. There are at least three of them that have managed to get free and bury themselves in the sand bed with just their "arms" sticking up. I guess there were six of them in that clump but I'm not the best person to count something that small.

I would have to say that I was completely satisfied with the order from Inland Aquatics. It was well packaged and it appears that everything arrived alive and is still alive in the tank. I may order something from IPSF soon just so that I can have lots of different stuff from different sources.

[Reefland]

Great news, I am glad everything made it alright.

Are you going to get some Narsarrius Snails in the future?

[zhenya]

Great deal, Ninong. When I got my first order from IA I could not believe how well the little critters looked. BTW,that Montipora that I promissed you the frags off is from IA and it had taken it almost 6 mo. to start growing but once it started it grew....Soon enough you'll have tons of pods and your tiny shrimp will migrate into sump,mine did - stress free environment

[Ninong]

Originally Posted by Reefland

Great news, I am glad everything made it alright.

Are you going to get some Narsarrius Snails in the future?

Yes, I expect to get some Nassarius snails sometime soon but I haven't decided when I should get them. I hope to include them in a larger order of snails but I have to see something going on in my tank first. No need to overstock with snails if there is nothing for them to eat. And the Nassarius don't eat algae, so I would have to feed them to keep them going. Maybe in a couple of weeks, who knows?

[Ninong]

I didn't have access to the camera when my Inland Aquatics detritivore kit arrived but I thought I would take a few pictures of the Trochus snails, Stomatella varia and maybe even the spaghetti worms in the sand bed this evening before the fluorescent actinics went off.

So I got real close to the glass and clicked. I figured I had just taken a close-up picture of the critters mentioned. Wrong!

I learned something new about this camera: It has a "review" button that you can press to see how your picture came out. I have never used that feature because, believe it or not, I didn't even know it existed.

If I had known about this review feature, I would have realized that all of my close-up pictures were complete wipeouts. Now I have to figure out how to stop the automatic flash from going off on every picture. I think that's what's messing up my close-ups. And besides, what good is it to take a picture under actinic lights if the flash is going to go off and change everything?

So I learned about the review button (after the fact), now I have to find out about killing the flash.

Anyway, no close-ups of any critters but here are a couple of shots anyway. These are the only ones that came out at all.


New and improved open sand bed area with more open cave entrances. From this angle you can see the cast acrylic rod to the left of the Tonga Branch upright piece in front of the right side cave. (P.S. -- The light at the top is just a reflection of the camera's flash.)



Close-up of center cave.



From this angle you can no longer see the cast acrylic rod next to the Tonga Branch piece but you can see the other acrylic rod 10" farther back in the right side cave. You can see them because the camera flash bounces around in them but if you look at the tank they are almost invisible in the water.

[Elmo18]

Lookin' SCCHNNNAZZZZZY! Awesome work in progress Ninong!

I'm starting a new 10 gallon nano at this moment also, about as far as you are....except I haven't seeded the 1 inch sandbed.

Keep us posted!

- Elmo

[mrok12]

Looking great..I agree that it looked way crowded before. I love the rock and that cave and flat surface will make it easier to posistion the corals I think..Kepp us posted on this work of art!

[Barry N.]

Man, that is VERY nice.

[Reefland]

Hi Ninong!

Well it has been a couple of days since a report and I was curious if you have noticed any diatom or algae starting to pop up yet? I am also curious if you are noticing any more activity in the sand bed (i.e. gas bubbles forming against the tank glass).