phenom5
10/01/2007, 12:15 PM
finally, i'm getting my tank back on track. i figured it might be kind of interesting to see my tank evolve from it's humble beginnings to what it is now...which isn't much at the moment. :D
about 3 1/2 years ago i was ready to get into SW tanks. at the time, my wife and i were looking to purchase our first home. nevermind all of the expenses that go into that sort of thing, once we moved into our house i was going to setup a reef tank. i figured i could get things going with a little 10g. it would be a great way to get a jump on my "real" setup, and feed my addiction in the mean time. ultimately, that temporary little 10g became not so temporary.
this is the oldest picture i have of that tank...not much to look at, but it was a start.
http://reefcentral.com/gallery/data/500/31947tank1.jpg
back then my tank was simple...easy...fun.
here's that tank when it had matured a bit.
http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a272/phenom5/10g.jpg
this was the point that i enjoyed my tank the most. everything was thriving, and i was doning a minimal amount of work to keep it that way. every 5-7 days i'd do a 2ish gallon water change, and top off as needed.
shortly after this time...i lost my damn mind. :D i realized that my larger dream tank was on hold indefinately. so i decided to move towards keeping SPS. i decided that the best way to get the needed flow in my little tank was to go BB. unfortunately, i had a pretty poor understanding of BB systems at the time. every once in a while you might see a reply in a DSB vs. BB thread from me that warns of the problems you might run into with a poorly setup BB system...this tank was the reason why. i thought the BB look was okay, but i needed a lot of flow in my tank for SPS. BB seemed to be the answer, that way i could get tons of flow w/o blowing my sand around. after i had made the switch, i did a little research into BB systems. i had plenty of water movement, and i could adjust it to give me plenty of water movement on the bottom. the problem i ran into was my sump...i converted my DIY fuge into a DIY sump. however, my DIY skimmer was not effective enough, and with water being pumped up to the sump, the suspended detritus wasn't being removed very well. this would get into my least favorite time of running this tank. i was constently spending large chunks of time working on the tank, trying to stay on top of my water parameters. my tank, that had been so easy to run, had now become a chore.
http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a272/phenom5/10gBB.jpg
after switching to MH.
http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a272/phenom5/b73c76f4.jpg
it was a lot of work. moving to SPS increased the amount of work, but things were going pretty well. i was getting to the point that my tank was pretty stocked with frags, and i was content to let stuff grow out.
this is one of the last pictures of my old little 10g.
http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a272/phenom5/FTS.jpg
at this point, my GSP weren't too happy for some reason. my frogspawn didn't open a fully as before because of the increase in flow, but it was splitting, and budding new heads left and right. all my SPS were growing like crazy, and were coloring up nicely.
then disaster struck. i had been reading about tank disaster, and read about people having major crashes because of old heaters. i thought that it'd be silly to lose my tank to an $8 heater...so i figured i'd get a new, fancy heater. well, i removed my $8 LFS heater that had faithfully kept my tank's temp spot on for years, and replaced with a my new, fancy heater. turns out, my new, fancy heater was a new, faulty heater. the thermostat on the neew heater didn't work, it would turn the heater on, but it wouldn't ever turn it off. the net result was a lot of loss of corals. the tank temp was 95+ when i caught it, i tried to bring it down a slowly as possible, but my tank took a serious hit from that. i lost all my acros, a couple of montipora, a mushroom, and both candy canes. that really took the wind out of my sails too.
most of the remaining corals went off to local reefer's tanks, and i was at a crossroads. do i try to get things back on track, or breakdown the tank completely? my concern was that if i broke the tank down, it could be a really long time before i got another up and running. so i decided to move onward & upward. i moved everything into a 20L.
http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a272/phenom5/20LFTS.jpg
as the tank sits now, i've added about 15lbs of MI nano rock from PA. i've got a couple of frags, beefed up the cleanup crew, and added a clown (at the wife's request :D ). my plan is to get this tank back to my 10g's former glory. mostly LPS & zoa's...maybe a monti here and there.
updated pictures to follow. :thumbsup:
about 3 1/2 years ago i was ready to get into SW tanks. at the time, my wife and i were looking to purchase our first home. nevermind all of the expenses that go into that sort of thing, once we moved into our house i was going to setup a reef tank. i figured i could get things going with a little 10g. it would be a great way to get a jump on my "real" setup, and feed my addiction in the mean time. ultimately, that temporary little 10g became not so temporary.
this is the oldest picture i have of that tank...not much to look at, but it was a start.
http://reefcentral.com/gallery/data/500/31947tank1.jpg
back then my tank was simple...easy...fun.
here's that tank when it had matured a bit.
http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a272/phenom5/10g.jpg
this was the point that i enjoyed my tank the most. everything was thriving, and i was doning a minimal amount of work to keep it that way. every 5-7 days i'd do a 2ish gallon water change, and top off as needed.
shortly after this time...i lost my damn mind. :D i realized that my larger dream tank was on hold indefinately. so i decided to move towards keeping SPS. i decided that the best way to get the needed flow in my little tank was to go BB. unfortunately, i had a pretty poor understanding of BB systems at the time. every once in a while you might see a reply in a DSB vs. BB thread from me that warns of the problems you might run into with a poorly setup BB system...this tank was the reason why. i thought the BB look was okay, but i needed a lot of flow in my tank for SPS. BB seemed to be the answer, that way i could get tons of flow w/o blowing my sand around. after i had made the switch, i did a little research into BB systems. i had plenty of water movement, and i could adjust it to give me plenty of water movement on the bottom. the problem i ran into was my sump...i converted my DIY fuge into a DIY sump. however, my DIY skimmer was not effective enough, and with water being pumped up to the sump, the suspended detritus wasn't being removed very well. this would get into my least favorite time of running this tank. i was constently spending large chunks of time working on the tank, trying to stay on top of my water parameters. my tank, that had been so easy to run, had now become a chore.
http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a272/phenom5/10gBB.jpg
after switching to MH.
http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a272/phenom5/b73c76f4.jpg
it was a lot of work. moving to SPS increased the amount of work, but things were going pretty well. i was getting to the point that my tank was pretty stocked with frags, and i was content to let stuff grow out.
this is one of the last pictures of my old little 10g.
http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a272/phenom5/FTS.jpg
at this point, my GSP weren't too happy for some reason. my frogspawn didn't open a fully as before because of the increase in flow, but it was splitting, and budding new heads left and right. all my SPS were growing like crazy, and were coloring up nicely.
then disaster struck. i had been reading about tank disaster, and read about people having major crashes because of old heaters. i thought that it'd be silly to lose my tank to an $8 heater...so i figured i'd get a new, fancy heater. well, i removed my $8 LFS heater that had faithfully kept my tank's temp spot on for years, and replaced with a my new, fancy heater. turns out, my new, fancy heater was a new, faulty heater. the thermostat on the neew heater didn't work, it would turn the heater on, but it wouldn't ever turn it off. the net result was a lot of loss of corals. the tank temp was 95+ when i caught it, i tried to bring it down a slowly as possible, but my tank took a serious hit from that. i lost all my acros, a couple of montipora, a mushroom, and both candy canes. that really took the wind out of my sails too.
most of the remaining corals went off to local reefer's tanks, and i was at a crossroads. do i try to get things back on track, or breakdown the tank completely? my concern was that if i broke the tank down, it could be a really long time before i got another up and running. so i decided to move onward & upward. i moved everything into a 20L.
http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a272/phenom5/20LFTS.jpg
as the tank sits now, i've added about 15lbs of MI nano rock from PA. i've got a couple of frags, beefed up the cleanup crew, and added a clown (at the wife's request :D ). my plan is to get this tank back to my 10g's former glory. mostly LPS & zoa's...maybe a monti here and there.
updated pictures to follow. :thumbsup: