Kyle's 120 Tech Build

[pdfb55]

uncleat it is the GEO 612 I think, I dont remimber when I ordered it. I'll try to look it up and see.

Just a little update: I've had some serious algae blooms lately the two most visable algaes were bryopsis and cyanobacteria. I put on a phosban reactor and that slowed the growth but it didn't stop it. I've been blasting the cyano with a turkey baster and its going away on its own. For the bryopsis I started trying the really high magnesium theory that there was a thread on a while ago. I just started 2 days ago but I really think its making progress. I'm at 1440 for Mg levels and i'm shooting for 1550-1600. I also bought a millepora yesterday, he looks good with good PE. I need to go study for my algebra II/trig exam tomorow or else I would go take some pics. I'll try to take some after my exam tomorrow.

[uncleant]

where did you purchase the co2 bottle for the reactor

[pdfb55]

premium aquatics shipped it empty and there is a welder's supply by my dad's company so he fills it for me. Its awesome its like having having somebody haul it off and bring it back filled!

[pdfb55]

I took some pics today with my mom's camera. Its a nice camera (olympus e 500) and I know it can take awesome pics but for some reason I can't get it to take good pics. If any of you have one of these, what is your secret?
Heres the pics:

The trigger, hes a pig and i think the amount of food he eats is causing my algae problems. Hes had ich twice now and been QT'd for a month after the first time but he now only gets like 4 spots and drops them in a day so i've just been soaking all his food in garlic. Regardless of all this he is still my favorite fish


This is as close as I could get with the normal lense and I can't figure out the bigger lense. Its the millepora a bought the other day.


Here is a pic of the algae that is remaining. There was cyano and bryopsis in addition to this but they are going away from the Mg treatment. This has stopped growing but hasn't died.


heres another of the coral


If I can get rid of all the algae problems I am thinking about ordering that frag pack from Pacific East Aquaculture. I just am worried about them getting taken over by algae. I'm making progress in the algae battle but there is still alot more left to get rid of. My parameters all are in check its just the algae thats giving me trouble. Once I get rid of it, my thread will get alot less boring I promise. I want to start adding more sps. Fish wise if I can get rid of the little bit of ich that keeps coming back next I will add a powder brown tang.

[uncleant]

are you using a phosban reactor? If not i suggest you get one, it would take care of that algae problem and also do you have a clean up crew? when i first set up my 125 gall tank i had tons of algae. i ordered a algae away clean up crew from petsolutions.com and they did an amazing job! just my two cents.. good luck with that algae

[pdfb55]

I am running a phosban. Only for about 10 days now though. It really hasn't done anything in this time. I have a small cleanup crew about 20 snails. I really need some more but from experience with my last tank it doesn't seem like they did anything. I'll try to add a few more snails and see how it goes.

[tcmfish]

In the post on the top of this page he said he is using a phosban reactor but it looks like you have no clean up crew or if you do they aren't in the pics. I think you should get more critters to clean that place up they would have a field day.

[pdfb55]

yeah I probably need a large cleanup crew.

[killagoby]

Nice set-up. I have a 70 gallon Tech with H series Solaris. Are you running phosban in the reactor or just in a sack?

[LarryW]

nice, gotta love the Solaris, Tech Tank and Vortech.... Hey wait that sounds familar too.... Love the Cherry trim too.

[pdfb55]

the phosban is in the reactor. Its not in the sack.

Yeah the solaris, tech tank, vortech combo is pretty sweet. I'm very happy with all 3 of them except that I have one LED out that I need to call them about. 1 led isn't a big deal but I want to do it while its under warranty.

[LarryW]

PFO has great customer service. Just call and talk to Carla, and they will get you taken care of. They ended up replacing my first 400w solaris with a brand new one. They shipped the new one, and then I boxed up the old one and shipped it back.

[Gobie74]

You might want to start filtering your food before you add it ( if you're feeding frozen). Between that and running my fuge light 24/7, I'm winning the battle against my green hair algea.

[uncleant]

get some blue leg hermit crabs in there they do wonders

[LarryW]

you should look into adding a good cleanup crew. they will take care of the un eaten food left by the trigger. that will help lower the nutrients in your tank and should help fight the hair algae. I hate hermits, they knock stuff over, and can be a PITA at times. you should through a dozen or two Trochus snails in there. The are eating machines. the will eat brown diatoms, cyano, but not the Hair. They can also flip themselves over if they fall on their back. they can also reproduce in your tank.

Does your skimmer seem like it's keeping up?

[pdfb55]

Gobie74, what do you mean by filtering the food?

LarryW,
I think i'm going to order a cleanup crew package when I get back on sunday, i'm going out of town thursday. Thats great to hear about PFO, hopefully I can get it fixed smoothly. Thats nice that they ship it to you first so that you dont have to go a while without lights. That was my biggest concern with calling them that I would be without lights for a few weeks or something. Just a quick question do you need to send back your ballast b/c mine are mounted and it will be a real PITA the take them off and put new ones on, its a tight squeeze.

[LarryW]

no, if your replacing LED's then they will send you a block to replace the bad one with. I had issues with my ballasts when I first got mine. I received one of the first H4's that they shipped. they sent me replacements first, and I shipped them the bad ones. Just give Carla a call and they will take care of you.

[pdfb55]

I got back from out of town today and made a run to the LFS. I picked up 20 trochus snails and 5 turbos. So thats 10 astreas 20 trochus and 5 turbos total. I think that should help keep the algae down. The acro is doing very good and I plan to order the Dr. Mac's frag pack thing soon.

[killagoby]

Originally posted by pdfb55
the phosban is in the reactor. Its not in the sack.

Yeah the solaris, tech tank, vortech combo is pretty sweet. I'm very happy with all 3 of them except that I have one LED out that I need to call them about. 1 led isn't a big deal but I want to do it while its under warranty.

I've got 3 LED's out on my new H series.

[Gobie74]

All the other frozen stuff in a cube of food is just loaded with phosphates. So what I do is thaw out a cube of food, then strain the food through some sort of net or something to get rid of the water and such that it was frozen in, then take some RO/DI water and wash the food out of the net into the cup I'm going to feed the fish from.

I ran a check with a Hanna Phosphate meter on the water I thawed the food in and it's loaded with phosphates. Since I've starting filtering the food, my hair algae problem has gone down drastically. It's not gone yet, but it shouldn't be much longer. Good luck.

[pdfb55]

Gobie74,
thats interesting, I will have to give that a try. Does the filtered food remove a lot of the phosphates? Do you remimber what your readings were off the Hana meter?

[Gobie74]

I let a half a cube sit overnight in a cup of RO/DI water and took a reading in the morning, it was almost 3 ppm. Now that was only in one cup of water mind you, not the whole tank so it will obviously be diluted in the tank volume, but if you keep adding that day after day after day, it adds up.

Definitely give it a try for a few weeks. Like I said between that and trying to suck out what I could during water changes, I seem to be getting my hair algae problem under control. Its almost all gone now.

[kfisc]

tagging along-

[pdfb55]

Gobie74,
I'll be sure to try that. Did you just run the food and water it was in through some sort of screen then add it to the tank?

Just a little hair algae update:
Its really going away with the snail additions. I'm going to try and go to Fintastic, my LFS, later today. I'm at my dad's office right now because we had to take my truck in to get some fog lights and nerf bars put on it. My dad's office is less than a mile from Fintastic, its just too temping. I think i'm going to pick up 5 more turbos and maybe some more trochus. They really do a good job. I'll probably pick up a few frags too. I mean you can't go in the LFS without snagging some frags! haha. I'll post some pics of what I get later today.

[pdfb55]

I went to Fintastic today and snagged 4 corals. Birdsnest, an Acro, brain, and an acro that was not doing well so he was free.

Heres some pics







heres the free one, he already looks better once i got him in my tank