Hello everyone,
My name is Charles, and I am new to MASC, but have now been in the hobby for roughly 6 months. I have always been fascinated with marine ecosystems, but was limited in my early life as far as exposure (Grew up in Durango, not a lot of sea life around...). I loved visiting aquariums, and was blessed enough to be able to visit the Monterey Bay aquarium when I was about 10 that really kick-started my fascination. I maintained a freshwater aquarium when I was young, but could never afford saltwater. What really sent me down this path was my time in the USMC though. I was fortunate enough to spend some time in the Red Sea during a deployment, and was able to do some snorkeling in some seriously remote and untouched reef off the coast of Djibouti that changed my perspective completely. Organisms that were familiar from books I've read, but completely unique and different were all just feet from the shore line. Undisturbed and more than likely never visited by humans. It was a true blessing. I knew as soon as I got out and could get my own place, it was time to start the hobby. Now, a little about my current build...
I have a 32 gallon biocube. I have done some minor modifications, to include a pump upgrade to get a little more flow and GPH rotation. Steves LED's have been installed (Still acclimating with blues currently at 40% and whites 20%). I changed the L joint where the return pump comes in to vinyl tubing to assist with flow as well. I have the intank media basket with filter floss in the top, Purigen in the middle compartment, and Chemi-pure Elite carbon in the bottom. Also in chamber 2 I have the refugium basket with rubble and chaeto as well. I have introduced copepods as well to help establish the tank. I have about 30lbs of live rock and the tank seems to be pretty well established at this point, as it has been up and running for roughly 6 months.
Livestock:
-Lightning Maroon Clown
-Purple Firefish
-Purple Striped Dottyback
-Yellow watchman goby (Paired)
-Tiger Pistol Shrimp (Paired)
-Cleaner Shrimp
-3 Nassarius Snails
-6 Blue leg Hermits
-6 Red leg Hermits
-6 small turbo snails
Coral:
-1 RBTA (Sm) I'll include a picture
-Green Polyp Toadstool
-1 xenia (2 tiny trees have also developed recently on another rock)
-Green palys
-orange palys
-Agent Orange Zoas
-Macaw Zoas
-Medium Red Acans
-Weeping Willow Toadstool
-1 orange RFA
-2 small frogspawn frags.
Current tank issues:
- I currently have a small outbreak of GHA that I am trying to get ahead of now. I think it was due to the LED upgrade, as the stock lights were not very strong, but the new lights seem to make everything perk up (even the stuff we dont want to). Also, originally I think my sand bed was much to deep. A couple weeks ago I removed a large portion of the sand, and when I did, I think it caused my Nitrate levels to dramatically rise to around 20PPM. I have been doing regular 5 gallon water changes and now have it down to about 10 PPM. Before the removal, I was getting readings of 0-5 PPM regularly. I think the combination of the lighting change with the added nutrient levels helped promote the GHA growth. I can see it starting to spread from the rock it was originally on to others, and so I have shortened the time the LED's are on to about 9 hours (Sunrise to Darkness) with an hour and a half ramp up/down on either end. So the lights are on full for roughly 6 hours. The tank seems to be pretty happy currently but I just want to make sure to get on top of the GHA as I have heard horror stories about it getting out of control. Also, I was running the little coralife protein skimmer, but was unclear if it was required with my current set up. It was restricting flow quite a bit, and I had a lot of particles floating around that I wanted to run through the filter floss, so I removed it for now. I was hoping someone could shed some light on if I should include it, or if it is overkill. I look forward to becoming part of the community and appreciate all the help & future help (There will be much needed
). Talk soon!
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View attachment 12502
My name is Charles, and I am new to MASC, but have now been in the hobby for roughly 6 months. I have always been fascinated with marine ecosystems, but was limited in my early life as far as exposure (Grew up in Durango, not a lot of sea life around...). I loved visiting aquariums, and was blessed enough to be able to visit the Monterey Bay aquarium when I was about 10 that really kick-started my fascination. I maintained a freshwater aquarium when I was young, but could never afford saltwater. What really sent me down this path was my time in the USMC though. I was fortunate enough to spend some time in the Red Sea during a deployment, and was able to do some snorkeling in some seriously remote and untouched reef off the coast of Djibouti that changed my perspective completely. Organisms that were familiar from books I've read, but completely unique and different were all just feet from the shore line. Undisturbed and more than likely never visited by humans. It was a true blessing. I knew as soon as I got out and could get my own place, it was time to start the hobby. Now, a little about my current build...
I have a 32 gallon biocube. I have done some minor modifications, to include a pump upgrade to get a little more flow and GPH rotation. Steves LED's have been installed (Still acclimating with blues currently at 40% and whites 20%). I changed the L joint where the return pump comes in to vinyl tubing to assist with flow as well. I have the intank media basket with filter floss in the top, Purigen in the middle compartment, and Chemi-pure Elite carbon in the bottom. Also in chamber 2 I have the refugium basket with rubble and chaeto as well. I have introduced copepods as well to help establish the tank. I have about 30lbs of live rock and the tank seems to be pretty well established at this point, as it has been up and running for roughly 6 months.
Livestock:
-Lightning Maroon Clown
-Purple Firefish
-Purple Striped Dottyback
-Yellow watchman goby (Paired)
-Tiger Pistol Shrimp (Paired)
-Cleaner Shrimp
-3 Nassarius Snails
-6 Blue leg Hermits
-6 Red leg Hermits
-6 small turbo snails
Coral:
-1 RBTA (Sm) I'll include a picture
-Green Polyp Toadstool
-1 xenia (2 tiny trees have also developed recently on another rock)
-Green palys
-orange palys
-Agent Orange Zoas
-Macaw Zoas
-Medium Red Acans
-Weeping Willow Toadstool
-1 orange RFA
-2 small frogspawn frags.
Current tank issues:
- I currently have a small outbreak of GHA that I am trying to get ahead of now. I think it was due to the LED upgrade, as the stock lights were not very strong, but the new lights seem to make everything perk up (even the stuff we dont want to). Also, originally I think my sand bed was much to deep. A couple weeks ago I removed a large portion of the sand, and when I did, I think it caused my Nitrate levels to dramatically rise to around 20PPM. I have been doing regular 5 gallon water changes and now have it down to about 10 PPM. Before the removal, I was getting readings of 0-5 PPM regularly. I think the combination of the lighting change with the added nutrient levels helped promote the GHA growth. I can see it starting to spread from the rock it was originally on to others, and so I have shortened the time the LED's are on to about 9 hours (Sunrise to Darkness) with an hour and a half ramp up/down on either end. So the lights are on full for roughly 6 hours. The tank seems to be pretty happy currently but I just want to make sure to get on top of the GHA as I have heard horror stories about it getting out of control. Also, I was running the little coralife protein skimmer, but was unclear if it was required with my current set up. It was restricting flow quite a bit, and I had a lot of particles floating around that I wanted to run through the filter floss, so I removed it for now. I was hoping someone could shed some light on if I should include it, or if it is overkill. I look forward to becoming part of the community and appreciate all the help & future help (There will be much needed
). Talk soon!
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