75g w/ 33g frag tank system

Well, I just got an infrared thermometer, which is capable of reading surface temperatures of objects. I tracked it down at a kitchen supply store, while Xmas shopping today.

It was about $40 and I will use it for a lot more things than just this so I feel like it was a good deal, it's very small and is about the size of some laser pointers so it's pretty convenient.

I measured my T5 bulb temperature and they're running at about 150 F so I need to look into some active cooling to provide the most output and to get the longest bulb life possible.
The optimal temperature, at least according to Sunlight Supply (and I think they're pretty trustworthy) is 95 F.
http://reefbuilders.com/2009/12/10/t...ture-detailed/

So aside from that I spent a few hours tonight (off and on) feeding my Yasha gobies. They're still pretty timid. I'm not sure I even saw the female tonight, I believe I was watching the male although I can't be sure if they didn't swap places. They changed their favorite tunnel emtrance (the shrimp has been busy!) to underneath an overhang AND behind another rock where it's very dark and very difficult to see in.

I haven't seen them eat yet since they came in on Friday, I wasn't expecting them to come out and eat on Saturday because I was expecting them to still be getting over the whole shipping process. Although I tried feeding them.

Yesterday, Sunday, I was busy for a good portion of the day and I didn't see them the few times I checked on them. So tonight I left some food outside of their previous favorite entrance and waited...and waited... and then gave up waiting after 30-40 minutes and dumped a bunch of Rod's Food in the tank and turned off the return pump so it wouldn't get sucked down to the sump and potentially skimmed out or trapped somewhere.
I left the return pump off for probably a solid 90 minutes and watched as I discovered the goby's new location and watched one of them (or maybe both of them taking turns) come out and grab pieces of food from the current as it blew by their little overhang nook.

I really am hoping they'll get used to my presence more so I spent (wasted) a lot of time watching them eat, and I'm pretty sure they were watching me watching them eat. I'm not sure if this is actually a good thing but it makes sense to me right now.

I'm planning on doing the same thing tomorrow as well as pondering how to get some fans on my bulbs.

 

More Yasha updates. They're coming out a little bit more as of today, they are quite a bit more active toward the end of the tank's daylight cycle. I've been feeding more towards the beginning of the tank's day so maybe I'll try feeding a bit later one of these days to see how they like that.

Finally got an OK pic with all three in one of their burrows. It seems the shrimp has exits built on all sides of the island, they can pop back and forth between at least 3 sides now whenever they want, makes keeping track of them difficult.

 

This is looking really good. I am FORCING myself to stay patient. Go slow... go slow. I very much want to get to the stage you are at, but you have much more experience than I, so I have to be patient.

When do you plan to add your first corals??

M

 

Believe me I know how hard it is to wait. I really forced myself to try and go slow on my first tank and I feel like I still went too fast in hindsight. It will pay off taking your time.

I'm not planning on adding corals for another few weeks probably and then I'll be starting off with some of my zoos and then probably LPS and lastly my SPS from my old tank. I'd like to be mostly stocked with fish by then which will be months. I really want to let each stage of my stocking get well adjusted to the tank before adding any newcomers.
I'd also like to mention at this point that I'm really glad I stocked the gobies first. They are so timid that I think if there were other fish in the system right now they would be having a tough time competing for food. Hopefully they'll get comfortable enough over the course of the next few weeks/month that they will have an easier time when I start introducing more fish.

I think ideally I'd like to finish my fish stocking and let everything sit for a month before even adding any coral but I might run into issues running my old tank as a reef for that long. I'm not as concerned with zoos and LPS in a more unstable (nutrient-wise) tank, they are pretty hardy. SPS I'll probably be waiting until a while after I'm done with my fish stocking.

I really want to let things mature and let all of the detritivore populations get established in the system and get adjusted to the full bioload from the fish before adding coral. Something I read by Eric Borneman just today in fact is just reinforcing this about the trophic levels you have available in a reef tank.

The idea is that you want your nutrients broken down as efficiently as possible and having as many levels as possible of organisms that feed on the waste of other animals will aid in efficiently breaking down these nutrients. As you're adding fish you also want these populations to grow with the added nutrients being added. I believe a few weeks is probably a good start to getting some of these populations adjusted to increased bioloads.
This is one of those things I didn't fully understand on my first tank and one of the reasons I like having bristleworms in my tank, they fit nicely in a niche of larger detritivores.
Going by the rough number of 90% utilization that Borneman mentioned (I'm sure it's not entirely accurate but just as an estimate) it sounds like having 3 trophic levels should be a pretty good system for processing waste. Fish will take the raw food from 100% to 10%, larger detritivores like brittle stars and bristleworms will take it from 10% to 1% and then the smallest level takes over, I'm not sure what this is. Maybe some types of small crustaceans or maybe it's bacteria at this point, I'm not positive, but hopefully that takes it from 1% to .1%.
I'm actually curious now that I'm talking about it, what exactly the hierarchy is here in most reef tanks.

Also one thing I didn't take into account on my first tank was the coral stocking speed and adjustment time. It was a smaller system, 30g display tank, and I ended up with a good number of stony corals in there within a couple months probably and ended up getting a huge growth spurt in a lot of my SPS mainly that absolutely sucked the calcium and alkalinity out of the water and I didn't realize it was happening until a few days later and by then my levels were really low and I'm just now getting my chemistry re-stabilized in that tank for a variety of reasons. I also didn't realize fully how quickly adding lots of 2 part to a small system can raise salinity, I was going from about 1.025 to 1.027 in the matter of a couple weeks.

So yeah, I really urge caution and patience for a number of reasons, not least of which is that you don't know what you don't know about your system. I don't think it's possible for a person to really understand everything about a reef system before actually setting one up (although you can certainly go a long ways towards avoiding common blunders and mistakes by doing your research). There's just too much to it.

Phew that was much longer than I intended but apparently I've had some thoughts brewing that needed to get out and your comment triggered it.

Also my standard disclaimer, if anyone reading this has any constructive criticism or thinks any of my thoughts or ideas are off base or possibly incorrect I'd love to hear it. It's the only way to progress in this hobby is to have your ideas and understanding challenged IMO.

Thanks for following!

 

I have spent all day reading the debate between automated two-part dosing vs Ca Reactors. Lots of opinions there. I can see for large SPS tanks Ca Reactors would be considered an advantage. For softie/LPS, I would think it is a draw between the two options. It is darn near impossible to make a choice having never set up either before.

If you assume automated either way, and Ca, Alk, Mg dosing on the two-part... it seems to come down to the Ph probe versus testing.

Lots of fun learning all this.

Staying patient, Merry Christmas Eve,
Mark

 

Yeah that's a big decision to make. There are definitely pros and cons to each method. I decided on a calcium reactor for my system for a few reasons but here's how I think about the two systems personally.

One thing before I get into that though, you mention a pH probe vs testing and if I understand you correctly I just want to mention how useless I think pH test kits are.
In my experience they are not worth the money, they are imprecise, difficult to read (leading to even further imprecision), have a high long term cost through replacement and since your pH will vary throughout the course of the day it's very difficult to keep track of how your pH behaves over the course of the day. On top of that pH isn't really all that important (unless you're running a calcium reactor of course, in which case I think you really need 2 pH probes, one for the reactor and one for the tank just to make sure your effluent isn't negatively affecting the pH of the system). If you keep your alkalinity stable and you have good ventilation in the tank room your pH should be a non-issue.
I think a controller with at least one pH probe is pretty much mandatory even if you're not running a ca reactor. You get a good thermostat for controlling your heater(s), much more reliably than the crappy built in ones that come on most heaters. Plus you get some timing capabilities for your lights, and you also have a method for tracking your pH infinitely more precisely than using test kits. And you can get a basic controller for I think under $200 (although I definitely would consider getting a nicer one, the AC3 or Apex with internet capabilities), potentially as low as $100 (I haven't looked for a while but I think this is still true).

So, on to my take on the comparison reactor vs 2 part.

Calcium Reactor
Pros:
Cheapest long term cost
Once dialed in hopefully no maintenance for months
Easily deals with large alk/ca/mg consumption which I believe my system will have with the frag tank plugged in and plans for lots of SPS and potentially a clam
I haven't used one yet and I like new things to try out and fgure out.

Cons:
Big up front cost (I don't mind this personally but it could be a factor for a lot of people).
Can be tricky to dial in, I'm hoping to avoid/mitigate this issue by using the aquariumplants.com electronic regulator and an effluent rate meter on the reactor which measures pretty precisely the actual rate the effluent is flowing.
There is something to be said for staying in touch with your system, not having to maintain something for months may not necessarily be a good thing. I think you need to regularly check up on the reactor and make sure it hasn't developed any leaks or something isn't going haywire silently.
Still may require occasional adjustments of cal, alk, or mag via 2 part, especially when dialing in.
If you don't account for it (there are a few ways to manage it), the pH level in your tank can be lowered by a small amount (.1 or .2 I believe is common).
Probably more potential for leaks due to added plumbing on the reactor itself.

2 Part (really 3 part including magnesium)
Pros:
I think it's probably easier to transition from occasional dosing to automated dosing since you're already familiar with your chemicals and how they affect the system
Easy to tell when you need to refill your chemical reservoirs (trickier to tell when a CO2 bottle is close to empty)
I think lots of people find it more straightforward to dial in the amount you need to dose and make adjustments rather than dealing with reactor pH and effluent rates.
You already have the chemicals for making adjustments during the dial-in period as opposed to the reactor where you probably need to buy some 2 part anyway. Not a big deal to me but for some people it might be an issue.
Probably more ideal for lower demand systems due to ease of setup and not as much maintenance needed as in high demand systems where you can suck up a couple gallons in a week or two.

Cons:
More expensive long term to keep buying chemicals.
Potential for inconsistency from batch to batch of chemicals mixed up.
Still pretty expensive up front if you want to automate it, dosing pumps are not cheap and you may need to replace the tubing on them periodically.
You may need a lot of space for reservoirs if you have a high demand system and you don't want to mix up a gallon of each chemical every week.
More regular maintence because at the very least you have to mix up new batches of chemicals all the time unless you have a very low demand system.
Raises salinity (although gradually, still something to consider) through added chloride ions.
Due to its apparent simplicity at first glance some people underestimate the potential for problems such as raising the salinity and the potential for unbalancing your chemistry in the long term due to added sulfate/chloride. Basically I think simplicity sometimes lulls people into complacence and not feeling like they need to understand the chemistry.
Tracking down good quality chemicals, cheaply, can be tricky in other countries where BulkReefSupply can not ship cheaply. I don't know of another commercial level supplier for quality reef chemicals (could be wrong).

Well those are some of my thoughts anyway, hopefully someone might find them useful some day.

Quick update, I was gone for a few days over the holidays and the gobies seemed to do fine, they are actually much less shy now, at least tonight when I first got back. It could be because they were really hungry because they didn't get fed for 2 days. The shrimp has been hard at work building up little fortresses around their burrow entrances and who knows how much work he's put in on the burrow interiors.
Have a good bit of algae growing, I shut off the skimmer for the couple days and I wonder if that contributed to it somewhat. Hopefully the cleanup crew (including me) are up to the challenge.

Happy holidays everyone!

 

Great description of Ca Reactors versus 2 part. I chose automated 2-part to get going. I'll have a low demand system to start off and don't plan on populating the tank very fast. Thus, I felt 2 part was a good way to get started. Expensive is relative to different situation, I too am not worried about the cost in upgrading to a Ca reactor later.

Thanks much
Mark

 

Thanks for the information. This is a good read. I am appreciate you sharing the thought process and time you have spent explaining it on this build. I think it will be helpful to me and others on here when/if we decide to go with the calcium reactor. BTW I really like your set up and keep us posted with pics when possible.

 

Yeah, 2 part is definitely a good way to get started. It's definitely a good way to get into understanding the chemistry.

Thanks, I try to keep up with pics as things happen/change!

 

Just a new FTS, nothing else too major to report. The back glass is quite covered by green/brown algae, the snails are taking care of it slowly but surely, there is also some on the rocks as well but that's also clearing up. Not the prettiest FTS but it should give you an idea of what stage the tank is at.

The Yashas are still doing good, they seem to be doing kind of a tradeoff thing while eating sometimes, one will stay right at the entrance of the burrow and the other one will go chase some food for a little while then they will swap. They don't do it every time, I think it might depend how hungry they are because I saw them both come out and grab food at the same time as well right after I got back from out of town and they didn't get fed for 2 days.

I also saw a gammarus shrimp (link) today playing in the velcro on the mag cleaner so I know at least some of their population is still living, not that I doubted it, just nice to see evidence.

Anyways here's the ugly FTS.