75g w/ 33g frag tank system

Well not a lot of hugely interesting stuff happening lately. The initial cycle is done, down to zero ammonia/nitrites and something like .5 nitrates according to Salifert. I was in between 50 and 100 nitrates on the kit (those are the 2 highest gradations on the kit) for a couple weeks and I was considering doing like a 60g water change to try and get them down but something must have kicked in in the last week because I'm down to next to nothing as verified by 2 separate kits and testers. Maybe the denitrification bacteria just kicked in in some of my rocks or maybe the prodibio had something to do with that, I'm not sure but either way I'm happy with it.

I threw in a few hermit crabs from my old tank today to see how they do as well as some micro brittle stars. I'm starting to see some diatoms on the sand/rocks. I've never seen blue legged hermits eat diatoms before but it looks like they are going to town cleaning up some little paths very efficiently through the diatoms, so that's cool. Glad they're getting a good meal and taking care of that brown junk.

I'm continuing to dose prodibio biodigest and bioptim. I have been doing one biodigest per week, and I did 2 bioptims last weekend on the same day as the biodigest but I think I'm going to try spacing them out more and may cut back to just one. I want to take the carbon source stuff slowly. I'll probably go to the recommended 2 week period as well since the cycle is done.

I also put up a temporary black background on the display tank, just taped it in place to see how it looks although I'll have to clean all the glass to really get a good feel for it. I have some SeaView Gel to try too if I decide to go that route.
I stopped by an LFS and found they are carrying the larger pinwheels (they used to be purple) that fit the sicce pumps on the Extreme 200 skimmer I have. I forget who makes them but it brought the pump up from a piddly 15 or so SCFH to closer to 25 SCFH which is awesome, nice improvement for $30, not bad. I think it may need to break in some more because it's pretty loud and doesn't start perfectly quiet like the original one did but that's not a big deal to me. I started playing with the water level that the skimmer is in as well, it's about 10" sitting on the bottom of the sump, I tried raising it up maybe an inch or so but didn't see much difference so I may put it back down or might try even a little higher just for the heck of it, it might start easier a little shallower.

Otherwise aside from that I'm just waiting to track down a harem of McCoskers flasher wrasses or a pair of Yasha gobies or potentially a pair of another type of shrimp goby and then they'll be on their way in!

 

Just an update mostly for my own reference. The diatoms/brown algae I believe have peaked and are on their way out, or at least are clearing up pretty quickly.

The skimmer is pulling out a lot more skimmate than before, not sure if it's just cleaning up the diatom bloom or if the new needlewheel I got is causing it to skim much better than before. I assume it's probably a combination of the two.

The skimmer pump is still pretty loud with the new needlewheel though.

I'm looking to get some stuff from reefcleaners and inland aquatics in the next week to add a cleanup crew and to help seed the tank with all of the little life that I love having in the tank. Also looking to get my first fish soon as well, I think I'll be starting with Yasha gobies (or maybe another shrimp goby if I can find a pair) and a pistol shrimp, or a McCosker's pair/harem.

 

Nce thread. Your aquascaping looks amazing!

 

Thanks I appreciate it!

Also, another quick update. I got my calcium reactor setup and running today on the tank. Not running any CO2 right now since I don't have any coral in it but I'm just running water through it just to break everything in and make sure it works on the tank, make sure no long term leaks develop etc. So far so good, once I get the chamber lids screwed down tight enough, which is kind of tricky because they are just nylon screws and I don't want to snap one off or break one by overtightening.

Once I get the wiring etc more organized and things prettied up under the tanks I'll take some pics of everything running but for now it's just a mess.

 

Great setup...looks nice!! How many lbs of LR do you have in there?

 

Thanks! That's a good question and I'm not entirely sure, I bought a bunch of rock up front from bulkreefsupply, then I hand picked a bunch of pieces of dry rock from my LFS so I didn't really keep track. I'm guessing I used maybe 70 lbs of dry rock in the display. I have a couple more big pieces in the frag tank and some in the sump as well probably around 100lbs total in the system.

I'll also probably be putting in a couple more pieces with coral on them.

 

Another update today. First of all I came home from work and decided to clean my skimmer cup. I turned off the pump and cleaned the cup, which was kind of a hassle because the foam didn't want to collapse. The whole cup was full of these really large foam bubbles I believe because I'm still getting a hang of dry vs wet skimming and it was set a bit too dry, last time almost the whole cup was full of light tea water so I guess I'm going between the two extremes.
So anyways, I go to turn the skimmer back on and nothing happened. So I yanked the pump apart and found that the stopper on the collar of the needlewheel had snapped off and partially cracked the whole neck of the needlewheel. So I called up my LFS and they told me that they actually must have had a bad batch of plastic because they had others with the same problem.
So I drove out there and swapped it out for a new one hopefully made from different plastic. They also showed me another needlewheel that had almost the exact same crack/shatter pattern as mine, it was uncanny how similar both of them looked. My only regret was not snapping a picture.
So, that's all fixed now, it also fixed how horrendously loud the skimmer pump was, I could hear it inside the stand as soon as I came into the same room. It's now much quieter, I hope it stays that way, I wonder if maybe it had partially cracked and that was causing a lot of the noise. Dunno.

Also, I should have 3 packages in the air today arriving tomorrow.
One from BlueZooAquatics containing some CUC, ceriths and trochus snails.
One from Inland Aquatics containing some of their cultured live sand, one of their refugium starter kits that contains live mysis and gammarus shrimp and copepods, as well as some sandbed worms, spaghetti worms etc. I know these are not necessary I'm just looking to kickstart these populations and try and get a headstart on biodiversity.
I also have a pair of Yasha gobies and their Randall's pistol shrimp buddy coming in from LiveAquaria. I know LA has had these fish for sale for weeks and since there are no other fish in the tank I'm going to put them right into the display tomorrow. All other fish will be quarantined.

So lots of acclimating and new stuff tomorrow!

 

Everything came in at about 10:15 this morning, 3 boxes containing approximately12-15 bags packed with various critters. I saw my first live mysis shrimp.
I spent the next 2 hours or so in the process of acclimating all of the inverts and fish, no pics though sorry was too busy trying to keep each set of acclimation procedures straight. I want to do everything by each vendor's book in case I had any issues with anything surviving. Overall I don't think I had anything significant die on the trip, at least not yet.
The Yasha gobies looked good, although one was a little bit less active than the other one but hopefully it was just freaked out from the move, it took cover in the rocks immediately when released into the tank. They're both hiding at the moment, maybe they've already found their pistol shrimp buddy too! I have no idea where they are so I'll probably find out at some point over the next couple days.

The tank is a bit cloudy from the sand I got from Inland Aquatics, I'm really interested to see what kind of crazy life springs up out of this junk.
One thing that always annoys me about small animals being bagged is when they're small enough to fit into the creases by the top of the bag or in a corner of the bag. It makes it tough sometimes to both open the bag and also to get them out of the bag.

Also another note about the LiveAquaria shipment. I was really impressed with the packing, styrofoam peanuts were packed around the 3 bags I got and there were a couple heat packs wrapped in paper in there as well. Each bag was actually 3 layers of doublebagging, so 6 bags around each animal, plus they have these cool opaque black bag liners that they put around the innermost bag to keep out light, I assume to lessen the stress on the animals.

The other packaging was definitely well done as well from BlueZoo and Inland but not quite as impressive, although I was just getting inverts from them so I don't think they require quite as much care in packing.
Once the water clears a bit I'll see if I can grab some pics of some of the new livestock!

 

I just saw both Yasha's out of their burrow for a few seconds along with their pistol shrimp buddy. Everyone's looking good so far! I'm working on pics but they're pretty skittish still and a hermit crab scared them back into the burrow by the time I got the camera ready.

 

Here is the happy couple. Not the best picture but as soon as they saw me they tensed up and prepared to dive into the burrow. It didn't take long before the more timid one, not sure if it's the male or female, headed back to the burrow. The other one followed shortly.
The shrimp is making some good progress on the burrow as well.