Hello everyone I would like to finally introduce myself, I have been using this amazing forum for bout a year now without posting or registering. I am now registering because I have got to a resting point on setting up a economy tank for my grandmother. Its a 55 gallon tank, now she has always wanted a reef tank but couldn't afford the equipment and did not want to mess around with checking water perimeters all the time, so I stepped up and did a lota DIY to save money and used her old equipment ( except for the lights they had to be replaced went with LED, in the center I have a 165 watt LED panel, as well as each corner having a 16 watt wave point clamp light (the center led panel was not big enough to get light to the corners. She has had the tank for bout 10 years now but when only she was taking care of it, it was fish only. I am posting pictures of our tank so you all may tell me what you think and give any pointers, everything seems to be doing really well but all the same I would like to know what the professionals say.
As you can see I am still at the frag stage nothing has grown terribly to much except for the first thing put in the waving hand on the left, and the Condylactis Anemone witch has moved now directly under the waving hand under that bridge I got setup. I apologize for the dirty overflow box just got through cleaning and got lazy lol.
The waving hand that thing is becoming a monster might have to cut it back soon, witch brings me to my first question can you just simply snip it like a bush? Also my green star polyps there they are starting to grow down onto the rock from the original frag plug
There is the newly added frogspawn my new fav, the LFS guy warned us that its specially sensitive to nitrates I used to think my nitrates where at 60 ppm so at first he said wait to buy this, however he enlightened me to the crappiness of API nitrate test, so I bought a red sea went home nitrates tested 20 ppm right along a API saying 60 ppm with the same water. So far it has been in there for almost a month and it fully open's during light hours so I think its doing well besides a little bit of algae growing on the skeleton that concerns me a little bit. The cabbage coral is doing well at first had a issue with mucus secretion but pointing the outlet from my refuigium towards it has solved the issue. Also the red polyps there are starting to divide like crazy
my yellow polyps they are doing really well, started with 9 it stayed that way 'FOREVER' that was before I slapped the refugium on. They had lots of algae growing off them cant believe they made it hardy as they come man. They snapped back 2 weeks or so after installing fuge and now I got like 30 or so polyps.
There is my leather coral and green polys, the leather coral had the same problem with mucus I didn't foresee how much flow these things really needed so I picked up a circulation fan/wave pump pointed it directly at it, it loves it polys are always extended pretty much. Also what are those ugly grey polyps by the green ones, anything bad I hope ( would give me a reason to pull them out) cause my grandma wont let me pull them out I hate them they are so ugly and nasty looking lol love the small feather dusters but not them.
There is a new addition as well pulsating Xenia witch I love to watch, at first I couldn't figure out how to get them to pulse. Looked all over online and lots of people say that its uncertain to what makes them pulse. I however have cracked it if you want them to pulse put them in stagnant water they pulse in completely still water with just the occasional current coming there way, so I just target feed them in case they are not getting enough food in the current-less corner, they seem to be doing well and are starting to grow.
There is the two color verities of mushroom polyps they seem to be doing well the purple one just split a little tiny dot that I assume will soon be a second mushroom. That green blob don't remember what the LFS guy said that was some other kind of mushroom but it has not done anything sept sit there and it has been in there almost as long as the waving hand I don't get it not very impressed with that one. Also you see what looks like a hair flowing off the left side of the rock. Thats the only one the camera picked up but they are all over the tank like hair like single worms that build themselves tubes like the feather duster they don't seem to harm anything they just wave around in the current. Any idea what they might be they are fine white worms as fine as hair, they build there tubes on rocks and even out of the sand nothing harmful I hope
That's my Refugium setup witch is completely DIY, I am interested to what you all might say about my setup. I used a 10 gallon fish tank and siliconed baffles in for compartments. Got two 20 watt LED 5000 k lamps on the cheto it seem's to be doing really well. All I have in there is the mineral mud with crushed coral over the top and the cheto algae as well as one peice of live rock anything else I should think about putting in the fuge or is that good? As for the return pump so grandma wouldn't have to spend any more money I used her 10 year old canister filter ( I replaced the impeller it works like new now) it seemed to work well the cascade 1500 can do 350 gallons a hour. I have since changed this though, in the first picture on the left side that powerhead/pump is a 10 year old RIO 1400 (it still works well but am thinking bout replacing the impeller in that as well), I took the RIO and put that into the refugium and am using it for a return pump, while I took the canister filter and put the intake in the display tank so its just a polisher now (The reasoning behind this is the canister filter would not stop blowing micro bubbles, so I decided to put it the way its designed to run pulling water from above and pumping it back up the air bubbles have slowed down to almost nothing but its only been 24 hrs so ill give it longer to completely stop.) Oh forgot to mention before you go all crazy about me having a canister filter on a reef tank there is no bio pad's or rings just a charcoal pack bio floss that I change regularly and a package of seachem nitrate gravel. Again sorry for the nasty green algae on the first baffle I cleaned that out and it has been staying squeaky clean ever since I started a round of vodka dosing in attempts to get the nitrates to 0. Last on the list to talk about is my protein skimmer its a CPR backpack it seems to work pretty good but want to get a reef octopus as soon as I can afford it. I want to change this out because its only rated for 60 gallons with my fuge its right around 60 and I hear that its best to overestimate the skimmer a bit, unfortunately it might be a while before I can replace that. Hope you all like my tank I have been working my butt off to give my grandma a spectacular tank to look at in a couple years or so :D
As you can see I am still at the frag stage nothing has grown terribly to much except for the first thing put in the waving hand on the left, and the Condylactis Anemone witch has moved now directly under the waving hand under that bridge I got setup. I apologize for the dirty overflow box just got through cleaning and got lazy lol.
The waving hand that thing is becoming a monster might have to cut it back soon, witch brings me to my first question can you just simply snip it like a bush? Also my green star polyps there they are starting to grow down onto the rock from the original frag plug
There is the newly added frogspawn my new fav, the LFS guy warned us that its specially sensitive to nitrates I used to think my nitrates where at 60 ppm so at first he said wait to buy this, however he enlightened me to the crappiness of API nitrate test, so I bought a red sea went home nitrates tested 20 ppm right along a API saying 60 ppm with the same water. So far it has been in there for almost a month and it fully open's during light hours so I think its doing well besides a little bit of algae growing on the skeleton that concerns me a little bit. The cabbage coral is doing well at first had a issue with mucus secretion but pointing the outlet from my refuigium towards it has solved the issue. Also the red polyps there are starting to divide like crazy
my yellow polyps they are doing really well, started with 9 it stayed that way 'FOREVER' that was before I slapped the refugium on. They had lots of algae growing off them cant believe they made it hardy as they come man. They snapped back 2 weeks or so after installing fuge and now I got like 30 or so polyps.
There is my leather coral and green polys, the leather coral had the same problem with mucus I didn't foresee how much flow these things really needed so I picked up a circulation fan/wave pump pointed it directly at it, it loves it polys are always extended pretty much. Also what are those ugly grey polyps by the green ones, anything bad I hope ( would give me a reason to pull them out) cause my grandma wont let me pull them out I hate them they are so ugly and nasty looking lol love the small feather dusters but not them.
There is a new addition as well pulsating Xenia witch I love to watch, at first I couldn't figure out how to get them to pulse. Looked all over online and lots of people say that its uncertain to what makes them pulse. I however have cracked it if you want them to pulse put them in stagnant water they pulse in completely still water with just the occasional current coming there way, so I just target feed them in case they are not getting enough food in the current-less corner, they seem to be doing well and are starting to grow.
There is the two color verities of mushroom polyps they seem to be doing well the purple one just split a little tiny dot that I assume will soon be a second mushroom. That green blob don't remember what the LFS guy said that was some other kind of mushroom but it has not done anything sept sit there and it has been in there almost as long as the waving hand I don't get it not very impressed with that one. Also you see what looks like a hair flowing off the left side of the rock. Thats the only one the camera picked up but they are all over the tank like hair like single worms that build themselves tubes like the feather duster they don't seem to harm anything they just wave around in the current. Any idea what they might be they are fine white worms as fine as hair, they build there tubes on rocks and even out of the sand nothing harmful I hope
That's my Refugium setup witch is completely DIY, I am interested to what you all might say about my setup. I used a 10 gallon fish tank and siliconed baffles in for compartments. Got two 20 watt LED 5000 k lamps on the cheto it seem's to be doing really well. All I have in there is the mineral mud with crushed coral over the top and the cheto algae as well as one peice of live rock anything else I should think about putting in the fuge or is that good? As for the return pump so grandma wouldn't have to spend any more money I used her 10 year old canister filter ( I replaced the impeller it works like new now) it seemed to work well the cascade 1500 can do 350 gallons a hour. I have since changed this though, in the first picture on the left side that powerhead/pump is a 10 year old RIO 1400 (it still works well but am thinking bout replacing the impeller in that as well), I took the RIO and put that into the refugium and am using it for a return pump, while I took the canister filter and put the intake in the display tank so its just a polisher now (The reasoning behind this is the canister filter would not stop blowing micro bubbles, so I decided to put it the way its designed to run pulling water from above and pumping it back up the air bubbles have slowed down to almost nothing but its only been 24 hrs so ill give it longer to completely stop.) Oh forgot to mention before you go all crazy about me having a canister filter on a reef tank there is no bio pad's or rings just a charcoal pack bio floss that I change regularly and a package of seachem nitrate gravel. Again sorry for the nasty green algae on the first baffle I cleaned that out and it has been staying squeaky clean ever since I started a round of vodka dosing in attempts to get the nitrates to 0. Last on the list to talk about is my protein skimmer its a CPR backpack it seems to work pretty good but want to get a reef octopus as soon as I can afford it. I want to change this out because its only rated for 60 gallons with my fuge its right around 60 and I hear that its best to overestimate the skimmer a bit, unfortunately it might be a while before I can replace that. Hope you all like my tank I have been working my butt off to give my grandma a spectacular tank to look at in a couple years or so :D
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