Nico's new 4ft Reef

RiaanP said:
Hope you do have a siphon break.
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Hi yup, I do. When I noticed how low it came I drilled a hole on the underside of the pipe, just above the water line. You can see the "fountain" if you look really hard. Makes a little splashing noise that makes one want to pee :lol:, I will fix this once I have decided on how to make the return more stable.
 
Ok, so I know it is only 2 days of parameter readings.... but so far, so good..... :)

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Update on tank cycle. The ammonia is still really high... 0.088 ppm toxic ammonia and nitrite and nitrate have not yet started to spike..... arrgh I hate waiting...... On the plus side, the first scaping has been cemented into place and the first signs of a diatom bloom are appearing. There is also what looks like feather dusters appearing on the rocks.

I seeded the sand bed with AragAlive live sand by CaribSea. About 5kg's worth of live aragonite. We shall see how and if this helps.



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So I finally got a refractometer and was able to measure specific gravity, it was: 1.022

I also added 2 more light units. This makes 8 x T5 2ft tubes :thumbup:. The light is good, but when I am feeling rich again I will change the tubes for ATI tubes and get a better mix of Blue/White, Blue and Actinic. Will post pics with the new lights soon.
 
This is going to be such a cool tank! I just love the look of a new tank:p

Your tank is cycling perfect..... patience.... patience.... Its doing exactly as it should! Hang in there, and you will be rewarded big time!
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O yeah, forgot to add... If your're plan is to add corals when the tank has gone through its cycle the SG of 1.022 is a bit low, bring it up slowly to about 1.025. Easier to do corrections now than when you start stocking the tank.
 
Helga said:
This is going to be such a cool tank! I just love the look of a new tank
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Thanks so much :thumbup:

Michael B said:
Keep the updates coming & enjoyed those graphs you got going (what programme / spreadsheet?)
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thanks Micheal :) I am using simple old Excel 2007. I had built a database in Access, but alas, it keeps rounding off the decimals and I cannot for the life of me figure out how to stop it rounding off. Will post more of the graphs asap :)

Helga said:
the SG of 1.022 is a bit low
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I know, I have huge amounts of evaporation, about 5 to 10Lt/day. I topup with RO, and this seems to drop the SG a bit. I am working on a solution for this.... Will keep you posted.

Rossreefer said:
Hi Nico, what are you doing to combat the GHA
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Hi Rossreefer, not doing much right now. I have increased the flow by changing from a 1750lt/h return to 2500 lt/h return pump and adjusted the skimmer. Everything I have read and researched says that after the initial NO2 and NO3 spike the GHA will die out. As the NO2 starts to drop toward zero I will add some cleanup crew... locally caught snails and hermits.
 
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Onother thing: last week we had a nasty wakw up call.... in all the storms we have been having the main stay line supporting the Municple electricity cables outside pulled out of the ground and the cables crossed, all 5 phases. The sparks looked like little guys with large arc welders running up and down the lines. Needless to say we lost power and here is the kicker........

MUNICIPALITY DID NOT FIX IT FOR 3 DAYS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I nearly lost everything in my boyu holding tank (sergent major, dragon wrasse, fox face, hammer coral) and my FW systems as well the knock on my new cycling tank.

In order to prevent this happening again, I have resurected my old 1.5kva genie. It is in for a good service and then I will be hooking it up to run the fish systems with a manual crossover switch on the DV board. Fortunately I have already got all the tank running from a dedicated 16amp breaker on the main board.
 
ok so here are the latest set of water parameter tests: Day 23 of the new setup.

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Given that Ammonia is 0 and nitrite is 0.1, I think I will add the first fish today. It will be a Sergent Major damsel. He is a very hardy fish caught on our coastline and is a dedicated eater of GHA ;)

I will then see how the water params change with the addition of 1 fish over the next week at least, perhaps 2. I am still hopefull that I can add the foxface, and dragon wrasse by Christmas, but the water will tell :p
 
Very nice Nico, looking good!
 
ok so here for a quyick update: the tank is slowly starting to look really good. Added 2 more pieces of LR to the DT and filled the sump with LR. Chaeto is growing nicely and the GHA is now looking like a nice and neatly mowed lawn thanks to the fox face and sergent major. However, they are boxing now and the sergent major is really aggressive to the dragon wrasse, so he is going to have to go. Anyone keen to swap for some frags?

I was having a real problem with the 12000 lph sun sun flow power-head falling so I have removed it and now stuck it permanently with pratlley puttey. I also added a magnet at the same time instead of the sucker pads. This is also stuck with prattley.

Otherwise things are looking good. Will post pics and params soon.

Nico
 
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