Paul's Return to Reefing 90G

[pauldrapeau]

Hello all,

I've kept some kind of tank for about 13 years now. I've done a couple nanos, and a ~65G but since we moved into our new house a few years ago I've only had what I would call a COWLR (Clown Only With Live Rock) housing a clown fish that has been with me since the start in a 20G nano. I decided that had to change this summer and we renovated my man room/game room area with a wet bar, wood look tiles, and a space for a new tank.

Getting back into it...

So far the tank is:
SCA 90G "cube"
DIY stand (to be skinned once all the setup is done)
Trigger Sapphire 34 Sump
Vertex skimmer (from my older system, still going strong will be eventually retired to "backup" duty)
ATI 6 bulb T5 (not hung yet)
Maxspect Gyre powerheads

Got all the water in, salt mixed. I've got some older rock I've had cooking in the basement for a few months that will go in this weekend as a base and I'm placing an order for the Tampa Bay Saltwater package today.

The threads here have been helpful so I figured I'd try to start another one and you folks can all keep me honest about doing it right



Tank with my crazy kiddo



Sump




Plumbing... I went with the 2 45s on the emergency drain to move it back and get it a little higher. This works really well. Saw it on a thread here (forget which one).

So far so good... next up hang lights, put in base rock and wait for "The Package"

[pauldrapeau]

In case anyone is interested... freshly mixed ~95Gal of brand new box of Reef Crystals and RODI brand new Red Sea test kits

Temp 76F
1.026 SG
pH 8.3
dKH 10.4
Ca 420
Mg 1280

No ammonia, nitrate or nitrite detectable with the kits.

[liverock]

Originally Posted by pauldrapeau

In case anyone is interested... freshly mixed ~95Gal of brand new box of Reef Crystals and RODI brand new Red Sea test kits

Temp 76F
1.026 SG
pH 8.3
dKH 10.4
Ca 420
Mg 1280

No ammonia, nitrate or nitrite detectable with the kits.

Sounds like you are ready..locked and loaded!!

Dan was diving yesterday for your rock!

Ready when you are.

PVD works on weekends also!~

[pauldrapeau]

PVD works on weekends also!

Well in that case I could take delivery Tomorrow or Sunday! Email inbound

[liverock]

Originally Posted by pauldrapeau

Well in that case I could take delivery Tomorrow or Sunday! Email inbound

Rock and roll..delivery...info in the am.....!!!

sea ya

[pauldrapeau]

Originally Posted by liverock

Rock and roll..delivery...info in the am.....!!!

sea ya

Alright! I'm up for the challenge

[liverock]

Originally Posted by pauldrapeau

Alright! I'm up for the challenge

Piece of cake..

you have the best live rock on the planet coming.......!

[pauldrapeau]

All ready to go. Southwest tells me my rocks are in the air I don't know if I'll keep the dry rock base yet... depends what is in the package. I'll leave some in the sump likely has backup filtration for at least the beginning since they've been well cycled for a while.

ATI fixture hung. Just for future reference and to help anyone else out that may have the same problem. This is an ATI dimmable sunpower 36" T5. When I started it up the controller buttons wouldn't work right. They acted as if you were pressing them multiple times when you were only hitting them once. Channel 1 was set to 100% but appeared dimmed all the way. Bulbs worked if i switched them around to channel 2 etc. Solution was a "hard reset" ... hold all 4 directional buttons down for 3-5 seconds.

[pauldrapeau]

Ok Part 1 of "The Package" has arrived and been installed.

I picked it up at the freight counter at the airport and my tank went from empty glass box to awesome stuff to look at in a few hours. So cool. I'll never do it another way again. I cannot wait for the rest.

A couple tips/comments:

• I covered my floor with a tarp. Do that... this is messy. I had porcelain crabs running across the floor at one point
• This was a little high on the creepy crawly factor. Embrace that now Wear gloves. I had a long rubber glove on my left hand and a dive glove on my right. Worked out.
• Eat your Wheaties, you'll be lifting 50lb bags of sand up over the tank.
• You get a lot of boxes that say "Live Tropical Fish" I intend to save these... endless fun at parties.
• I dunked each rock in a bucket to try to knock off any hitchhikers and go through them. I pulled out a few dozen small gorilla crabs and some snails that looked sketchy.
• I quickly realized... I'm not going to get all the bad guys out right now. You could literally pick through the sand for days. This is awesome and part of my plan. I'm not putting any fish or corals in here for a while so the hunt will keep me busy.

This live rock is simply amazing stuff. It is really live rock. The boxes were packed so well and rock came out wet and covered with life. NO smell. My last shipment of "live" rock years ago was wrapped in news paper and I almost died when I opened them, flies came out. NOT THIS STUFF... It is fresh...





The rocks are cool... But the SAND! Wow... I dumped it in and hermits and worms took off all over.

These worms flew all around the tank until they found the sand again.



... and here is one of the hermits that went for a walk

[pauldrapeau]

I'll be honest... I believed about half of the hype going into this. I wanted a tank that was alive. I wanted hitchhikers. I couldn't be happier. I wish I could order 2 more of these just to pick through them




Finally I asked for some rocks I could make arches and caves with. Richard and Dan you guys delivered! I can't wait to monitor this for a little while and do part 2! Thanks!

[pauldrapeau]

Tank is clearing out nicely overnight. Skimmer pulled about 1/4 cup of wet skim. My wife and daughter busted a decent sized gorilla crab (1-1.5" shell) and it was banished to the sump for now (I'll feed it the whelks lol).

Conditions as of this AM are
Ammonia 0
Nitrite 0
Nitrate ~3 (it was between 2-5 on the Red Sea kit)

I'm really impressed with the the fact that two ammonia tests ~12 hours apart since putting the first load in there have registered zero. Nice!

Watched the barnacles feed this AM. Pretty cool... hopefully they last a while. May feed a little if the ammonia stays down.

I've got to learn to take some not blue pictures of the tank here. My light does have 4 Blue+ bulbs but it is not this blue to the eye

[liverock]

How is the tank doing?

[pauldrapeau]

Originally Posted by liverock

How is the tank doing?

Going great... Still 0 Ammonia, I haven't seen any on any tests yet. Reading about 5 on my Nitrate test. I've removed a few more hairy crabs and a nice sized mantis shrimp that I have in a 10G with some rocks, pump, heater at the moment. I'm feeding it making sure it is healthy and will probably keep it.

Been very busy with work the start of this week but the tank is great. New life pops up every day. Critter hunt still goes on.

I should have time later this week to post a larger update with some pics. Drop me an email and we can talk about scheduling part 2 provided the tests stay consistent.

[pauldrapeau]

So, longer update...

Part 1: The Mantis

There are some clicks coming from the rocks. I've seen numerous small pistol shrimp (just under an inch long) so I know some of the clicking is coming from them. Sunday afternoon I'm doing some tests on the tank, setting up my BRS carbon/GFO reactor andI hear some good clicking. Look up from under the tank and see a pile of sand fly out from one of the rocks. Keyed in on that and that is when I saw the beady little eyes Looking back at me from under the rock. I knew it was sort of now or never, the rock was on the right side of the tank under all the rest (of course). I tore into it after watching for a second, the shrimp was definitely headed into a hole in that rock.

Out came the rock and I just went at it carefully with a hammer and chisel breaking out the rock around the hole. Eventually the shrimp came out into a waiting bucked of salt water. It now lives in a 10G I had and I'm going to set this tank up for it. It is truly an awesome animal and is thus far doing pretty well. Right now the goal is to keep it and It is eating some snails and pest crabs.



The rest of the tank is doing very well, some of the sponges are clearly on their way out and I'm getting a little in the way of diatoms. There are tons of good hitchhikers as well. I've seen a bunch of keeper snails, a couple porcelain crabs are starting to emerge and new stuff pops up every day. I love fan worms and they're all over, in the sand, on the rocks, in the rocks etc.

I've been feeding a weak dose of Reef Chili every other day and that seems to be keeping stuff happy without any huge parameter swings. Zero on every ammonia test I've done (2 per day). I think it is almost time for a full on clean up crew (Part 2?!??!?) I'll do a water change or two to knock down some of the nitrate soon and start stocking the fuge with some macro.

Yeah I've run into some pesky hitchikers but all things considered the package is still awesome and the tank is doing great.

I have some bottle and glass traps in there for tonight to see what I can get to come out... I know there is at least a couple more gorillas in there

[liverock]

It is a wennerae.....cool critters...I have had many folks leave them in their tanks, as that type is not like you read about mantis being terrorists ... they are pretty mellow if kept fed...they like raw shrimp......... and have the most advanced eyesite in the animal kingdom...do a search for Dr. Roy Caldwell...he is the guru...on them.......

[pauldrapeau]

A couple more pics. I realized if I shine my LED flashlight into the tank I can get the camera to not be so blue This is the color on some of these rocks!




Some of the hitchhikers... Some cerith snails



One of the larger porcelain crabs



I could use some help IDing this one. Center of the picture. Very hard to get a good shot of... this is a ~1"x.5" clam shaped thing. I threw it on the sand when it came in... it was closed... it disappeared and now it is in the rock. It definitely moves on it's own... I've seen it move a tiny bit but it has moved about 8" over the course of a few days and now is in this hole...

Ideas?

[liverock]

angel wing clam...

[pauldrapeau]

Originally Posted by liverock

angel wing clam...

Cool.. Thank you! Impressive how far it has moved and how far into that rock. The rock is very porous, pukani looking. I'm amazed with the clam's climbing ability.

My daughter and my wife are loving the porcelain crabs. Any pro tips on care for them? I have never had one...

[pauldrapeau]

So today I found out this is only about half the rock Wow... They don't short you do they?!?!? I kind of like the open look I've got going but I know I've got to get more in there for filtration if I can. Worst case I'll have a bunch of rock for my new mantis tank. LOL

Thankfully I only used one small piece from my previous tanks more out of nostalgia than anything else.

[pauldrapeau]

Not much has changed. Parameters are still stable. I started hand dosing a bit of BRS 2 part as my Alk and Ca levels are coming down. Just trying to get a feel for what the tank is doing before I hook up a controller.

I've picked out a few more very small gorilla crabs and tossed them in with the mantis. After setting some bottle and glass traps for a few nights with some super stinky shrimp that made the skimmer go nuts I didn't catch anything of note.

Part 2 comes today! I'm super excited.

[pauldrapeau]

Part 2 of the package impressed! I took a few less pictures just because of the volume of stuff I had to set up, sort, acclimate, etc. I also started the day with a wicked cold so I was sick on top of that. Oh well. Everyone is safe and sound in the tank.

I will say I bought too much rock. Even taking 10lbs or so and putting it in the new mantis tank made for a challenge to aquascape. I took my old rock out of the fuge and replaced it with some of the boulder shaped pieces from the package. This was a 60gal package if anyone is looking for sizing in the future. You'll have "Extra". In fact if anyone is local to MA and wants a few pounds I have some pieces in a holding tank in the basement. PM me (free to a good home!!!).

Acclimation time while I rockscape...


Early Christmas!


Hitchhiking Long Spine Urchin


Glass box to reef tank!






I still have to say I couldn't be happier with my decision to go with the package. I recommend it highly. I'm still hunting hitchhikers and I will for a while (see next post). You'll probably see less and less of this post once I do an equipment update over the weekend because my plan is to observe this tank and leave it fishless for a few months. Taking it SLOW but that was always part of my plan. The package gives me life and cool stuff to look at (and outsmart) while I do that.

[pauldrapeau]

Red light hunting...



Saw this... scooped her out... Pregnant gorilla crab packing eggs...


Even though they probably could never live in a tank to maturity, this was pretty high on my NOPE list. FLUSHY FLUSHY!

[liverock]

Squish him and toss back in, your inverts will love you for it!

[Esh1]

great setup! TBS has awesome rock with a ton of critters. I just got my part 2 from them on the 10th. 12 days later I'm still finding new things I didn't see when I first looked it all over. Just found a bunch of sea urchins last night.

[pauldrapeau]

Originally Posted by Esh1

great setup! TBS has awesome rock with a ton of critters. I just got my part 2 from them on the 10th. 12 days later I'm still finding new things I didn't see when I first looked it all over. Just found a bunch of sea urchins last night.

Yes it is pretty awesome. Like I said I would do it again. I've never had a tank this interesting in this short a time. I don't think I've ever had the diversity of life in a tank.

I never saw a bit of ammonia on the test kits (still monitoring for it) Nitrates have been low with minimal algae. I'll be stalking the tank for a while tho until I trust it enough to rehome my clown into it. I'm going to try another round of traps and see what I can pull out. I definitely have a lot of "bug" activity after lights out and I want to grab some of them and see what is up.