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-   -   The Life of Blue Spots Tank 1800L (http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2477110)

Blue spot 01/31/2015 04:53 PM

The Life of Blue Spots Tank 1800L
 
1 Attachment(s)
So This is going to be my new Thread for my New tank. I have recently upgrade from a Red sea max 250 to a custom 8ft X 2.5ft X 2.8ft reef tank. The aim for my tank is to create conditions for my favourite fish (as my name suggests) the blue spot jaw fish……… and try and pack in as many interesting things at the same time without jeopardising this key goal. I will try to explain the problems I have faced, the questions I have had and also any solutions I've found along the way. So I'll start from where I have left off , how did I leave the red sea before breaking it down….. Oh and I'll also need to learn how to write a thread at the same time

Blue spot 01/31/2015 06:04 PM

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/picture.php?albumid=9

Blue spot 01/31/2015 06:08 PM

[IMG][IMG]http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/pi...ictureid=68129[/IMG][/IMG][IMG]http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/pi...ictureid=68131[/IMG][IMG]http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/pi...ictureid=68132[/IMG]

Blue spot 01/31/2015 06:12 PM

old tank
 
[IMG][IMG]http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/pi...ictureid=68127[/IMG][/IMG][IMG]http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/pi...ictureid=68126[/IMG][IMG]http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/pi...ictureid=68125[/IMG]http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/pi...ictureid=68124http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/pi...ictureid=68123http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/pi...ictureid=68122

Blue spot 01/31/2015 06:16 PM

more old
 
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/pi...ictureid=68121http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/pi...ictureid=68120http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/pi...ictureid=68119http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/pi...ictureid=68131http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/pi...ictureid=68130http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/pi...ictureid=68129

Blue spot 01/31/2015 06:28 PM

onto the new
 
So as I said I had a red sea max and learned a lot ! the first thing I found was that I could not keep my ideal fish (blue spot) in the red sea max due to the excessive temperatures . my tank ran for a year and never dipped below 81 deg. I also found that if you keep any type of sand sifter although fine sand is good for their feeding habits it creates a permanent sand storm (love the fish, not the permanent particles in the water) but my sand was always kept pristine (I will always keep one of these fish, love them) I learned that PH is more stable if the air is fresh on the skimmer intake , I had permanent problems with PH drop then I read on reef central that someone pumped fresh air in, I hooked a tube up to the outside and had much better stability (might have been coincidence but it worked for me) and the other key thing I learned was never go on holiday and leave you're mother in charge of you're tank ! They may find that the fans are "too noisy for them" in the middle of summer and turn them of causing a massive temperature spike, killing half of you're fish (My only wipe out to date) So onto the new

Blue spot 01/31/2015 06:34 PM

onto the new
 
right the new , tank size 8ft X 2.8ft X 2.8ft sump 7ft X 2.5 ft X 1.3ft. double thickness base, low iron front panel, braced and LH corner overflow 3 holes 2 to sump 3/4 inch and 3/4 inch return sump fairly simple 3 chamber and 1 separate top off.
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/pi...ictureid=68107

Blue spot 01/31/2015 06:52 PM

scaping
 
once in place
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/pi...ictureid=68108
it was time to start scaping. for me this was a nightmare. bought on by myself. I had read so many things in preparation about flow, the golden rules for aesthetics, spaces for the fish to swim naturally, type of rock and the list goes on and on and on. it became a chore rather than the pleasure it was supposed to be. In the end I got a grip put these things in my mind and got on with it. I chose dry rock mainly because in the old the I had a few of the unwanted hitchhickers (including a war on flat worms….I HATE FLATWORMS !) I also decided to cure the rock in the tank (no acid baths, didn't trust myself) .I was going to use tap water get things moving and then replace the water with RO (Not what happened but I will explain this later) I also chose three types of rock to create different structures, Again I know this is not the best for bacteria concentrations, but I liked the look. I scaled dry and rodded for stability , again this was something learned from previous tank although I like to tinker i.e take everything out and end up with a completely different looking tank by the end of the day , i lost more corals from rock falls than anything else. Anyway heres the dry scape.http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/pi...ictureid=68111

worm5406 01/31/2015 09:46 PM

Very nice start. I really like your aquascape.

I am planing out my 265 in my head more and more each day. I am going to do all dry to start out with also. Is there a structure under the rock for support?

+1 on the flatworms. I got some and well.. I got a 6line and it has taken care of all of them in my 180. Onto my 120 next.


So, what is under the hood?

Blue spot 02/01/2015 12:10 PM

onward
 
thx worm look forward to seeing the 265 and nice tip on the wrass. As for structure the one end with all the plating rock is rodded. well 1 big rod a lot of sawing and balancing to get this how i wanted it. I found the best was to put everything on where you want it (leave the rod long) feel the top of the rod to find out where the structure is biasing and cut the bottom rock to offset this. took about three attempts but the structure on the far side is relatively self supporting. This way I did not have to tie it in cable it or anything, looks small on the picture but I assure you this is a big chunk of rock. In all I was plead with this bit.
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/pi...ictureid=68198
Now because i had damped the rock down to saw easier and hosed a few pieces off, my relaxing plan of taking my time and getting everything how I wanted went a bit by the by after a sort off harbour smell started to go through the house, after receiving a considerable amount of moaning I sped the last bit up so the rest is only sawn on the base and then placed. In the end though this worked to for the best as I ended up with a solid structure but not set forever. As mentioned earlier I do like to move things around.

Blue spot 02/01/2015 12:19 PM

the fill
 
so As mentioned previously their was a smell which meant I needed to get the water in quickly so I had 500 l of ro water in my mixing tanks. remember i was going to tap water but read that the rock would leach quicker with ro. so in it went. then i had to wait a day to get another 500 , in that went, ad so on. All through this time I had not placed any heater or pump in the tank……. yes I know now ! this happened !!! and the smell was something else
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/pi...ictureid=68112http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/pi...ictureid=68113
so of to my lfs in a flap to find to what I should do . the answer was , get the water over the top, get some circulation, get the temp up and get the salt in. I thought well I am going to have the same problem if I start again as I could not produce enough ro to get into the sump in under 4 days so I will try and save this water.

Blue spot 02/01/2015 12:22 PM

saving the water
 
after some phos ban lots of carbon and an earlier than planned uv introduction I ended up with this after 3 days.
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/pi...ictureid=68114
at this point I had a chill in the top and went to work on the sump.

Blue spot 02/01/2015 12:33 PM

top spec
 
So to finish off in the top I have 4 gen 3 pro radions on a custom hanging fixture (made from bosch ally extrusion) I didn't want anything detracting or hanging above the tank so I made a custom one on rollers so that the whole unit can slide out of the way for access. flow is from the return and 2 gyre's. love these but noisy (for me) even after breaking in. glad I had 2 so that i can run at lower power and combat the noise. I have a apex feeding station attached to the extrusion and a cover net. remember I want blue spots. that reminds me ..substrate . Although I appreciate the benefits of a substrate free tank I never like the look of them. but i didn't want masses of sand as I know that this can be a detritus trap. So I used rock rubble in certain areas where i wanted the jawfish to be (I know long shot but I figured if I gave the right conditions they might find this area) Oh that also reminds me I want to try 2 jawfish . covered this with crushed coral again in certain areas. The covered everything with a medium sand ramping it up at the back to help with perspective. this gave what I felt was a nice effect and gave plenty of building material.

Blue spot 02/01/2015 12:51 PM

top done onto the sump
 
sump houses in order form flow though

theiling rollo mat (My favorite thing, no more socks, i can overfeed as much as I want to and if anyone takes a trip to the sump they sit in the box till I'm home)
skims sm253 skimmer with auto clean head
Uv steriliser
phos ban reactor
big refugium
variable speed jebao return pump 12000
2 titanium heaters
auto top off section with reef octopus top off into
apex unit monitoring ph. temp. ORP, Cond
and ecosmart marine. Didn't take any pictures at the time so I've just got some as it is now. Don't mention the wires…. i know…. I've got some tidying to do , but a couple more things to add in yet. then the big tidy.
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/pi...ictureid=68197http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/pi...ictureid=68196http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/pi...ictureid=68195http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/pi...ictureid=68195http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/pi...ictureid=68193http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/pi...ictureid=68192http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/pi...ictureid=68191

Blue spot 02/01/2015 12:54 PM

one more post and i'll be up to date !:dance:

worm5406 02/01/2015 02:51 PM

There is something wrong with your temp. It is a tad too warm!! That is like 170 american. WOW...

Blue spot 02/01/2015 05:53 PM

Temp question
 
What temp would you recommend ? I ask lots of people and find people are all over the place. I was worried it was to cold for the coral but lowerd it cause of the jaw fish. Currently I am doing 77.5 to 77.8.

Blue spot 02/01/2015 06:05 PM

Hey worm you've worried me now ( I'm easily worried ) whats 170 american ?

dave.m 02/01/2015 06:26 PM

I think Worm is teasing you a bit. Your temperature reading seems to be in degrees Fahrenheit. If it had been in degrees Celsius (UK) then you'd get the conversion 77.6°C = 171.69°F.

I usually aim for 26°C/78°F. I think your temperature is just fine.

Dave.M

worm5406 02/01/2015 08:34 PM

Exactly. You got it right. Currenty I am at:

Quote:

If Temp < 79.5 Then ON
If Temp > 80.1 Then OFF
For all three of my temp outlets.

Blue spot 02/02/2015 11:19 AM

I feel thick now. Are you lot teasing the Brit . I spent an hour last night researching temperature and american temperature conversions . Mind you I learnt some pretty interesting stuff ...... That I'm not going to share with any of you . Lol :D

dave.m 02/02/2015 02:11 PM

Aw shucks!

Dave.M

Blue spot 02/02/2015 02:40 PM

Onward
 
Right on with the thread as I am having some problems and need some advice if someone can help. So top done, sump in. this took around a month so I just let the tank run and remove a lot of the die off leaching from the rock.

Let's start transferring. so my LFS told me to seed the tank with Dr Tim's one and only. I tipped it in turned everything off for a day and let it settle. next day I added my first fish as this is important to start feeding the bacteria. This for me was another first as I had always gone the live rock, live sand route and had no trouble. The outcome from this method……. fine so far. this was around 3 months ago and I have slowly been adding my fish about 1 a week (no coral as I didn't want to add any flat worms). Nothing dead and no issues yet (apart from 1 which I want help with). I've done 2 10% water changes and added a little calk. Thats about it but again this is obviously early days.

Blue spot 02/02/2015 02:53 PM

it's blue spot day
 
So one month ago and after many years of patiently waiting. I finally got my blue spot jawfish……… Not just one , but 2 . My Lfs tends to get a batch of around 20 in and they try kindly agreed to put some in the tanks together, keep an eye on them for aggression and keep me 2 that were getting along. out of all of them 4 (2 pairs) set up shop together. I picked 2 that were living in the same rock. I know this is not saying there are a pair they could be together for any number of reasons, but I thought I wold give it a go. So in they went and immediately swam to the area that I had created for them, deeper sand/rubble area with a clear view above so that they would hopefully have a good view and feel safe. Amazingly , even though I set up 2 areas either end of the tank they are still living together under the same rock within 4 inches of each other. to say i was chuffed was an understatement. Although it does not show on the pictures one is significantly more orange than the other and this is also the larger of the 2 fish. I don't know if this is an age thing as I have only ever read up about these fish but never kept one.
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/pi...ictureid=68186
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/pi...ictureid=68168
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/pi...ictureid=68166

Blue spot 02/02/2015 03:25 PM

other tank mates
 
I'm not just all about the jaw fish this is my current tank mates.

1 chromis
1 male carberryi Anthias
1 borbonius Anthias (with the maddest top fins)
1 forktail blenny
1 linear blenny
1 starry blenny
1 tail spot blenny
1 midas blenny
2 zebra goby
1 breading pair of kauderns cardinal
1 spotted manderin
1 yellow clown goby
1 diamond watchman goby (who always comes out to watch the simpsons..seriously as soon as the theme tune starts)
1 female yasha white ray goby with tiger pistol shrimp
1 tigerpyge angelfish
4 helfrichi fires fish
1 powder blue tang
2 dragonface pipefish
2 yellow multi banded pipefish
1 janss pipefish (male) female on order
1 wetmorella
1 rollands damselfish
1 starcki damselfish
1 Swissgaurd Basslet (with a bulgy eye, thats one of my questions. it happened on move day)
2 platinum clownfish who finally moved into my ritteri anemone
2 anemone crabs
2 anemone shrimps
3 bubble tip anemones
2 cleaner shrimp
1 blood shrimp
2 blue leg hermits
10 scarlet hermits
2 squat lobsters
5 crystal shrimps
1 long shinned sea urchin (sold as albino, but I think it just has some sort of deficiency which I am trying to combat)
2 red starfish
1 chocolate chip starfish
1 blue starfish


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