Aquageek's 29G Reef

[aquageek]

Hello all! This is my first foray into Saltwater, I've only done FW/planted in the past. I setup a 29G Coralife BioCube on my desk at work, no idea what I am doing and I am rolling with the punches lol.

We filled it up with treated tap water to get the cycle going (I know, I know) but for water changes we will make use of the office's treated water service. Currently on like day 5 or so, so still pretty early in to it. Everything is pretty much stock BioCube. I recently heard about the InTank media baskets and such for the BioCubes... I am new to salt water so this stuff is all still new to me but it looks cool! May look at adding that in the future (will be messy but oh well). Still trying to get a good aquascape going, so the pics are not the final scape. Any suggestions, tips, or criticisms are welcome.

Couple of quick questions:

During the cycle, how much light should I be putting in? Currently I have it set for 12 hours.
What should my temps be at? In the mornings it around 78, and by end of day its 80, is this too warm?

What I've Got:

Coralife BioCube 29G
Stock lighting (PCs)
Stock Pump (Not sure on this)
Hydor Nano 240
Top Fin 150W Heater
Cheap hydrometer (will be getting a refractometer soon)
Cheap digital thermometer
Cheap timers for lights

22 lbs live rock
20 lbs live sand

Thanks for reading!

 

[greech]

Congrats and welcome. I think you will find SW to be a lot of fun, possibly frustrating at times, but fun nonetheless . I would continue down the path you are on and just let the tank cycle and research what you might want to keep. The stock cubes are fine until you start moving into the more difficult corals, etc. Definitely get a refractometer or at least compare your hydrometer to a refractometer.

A 12 hour light cycle is a bit much IMO but some do run cycles that long or longer. Obviously the more light you give the tank, the greater the potential for algae to grow (probably going to happen anyway). I also notice that my corals tend to shut down after about 9 hours so I don't feel there is much of a growth benefit after that period of time. Temp wise you are ok with a 78-80 but I wouldn't want it any higher than that.

Not sure what your office water is but I assume it is RO which is good but RO/DI would be much better. Perhaps consider getting a couple of water jugs and buying RO/DI from a LFS. Up to you.

Aquascaping is a PITB and you may need to break some rocks to give you some different shapes that allow for more options. Looks like mots of your pieces are either flat"ish" or round which might make it difficult to fit them together.

 

[aquageek]

Thanks for the helpful infromation, greech. I realized that I kinda' rushed into this against my better judgment out of pure excitement. It has been a long time since I have started a tank, and as my first SW tank I definatly moved too quick. I am going slow now, and plan on waiting another 3 weeks, or until the nitrogen cycle has completed in it's entirety. I am still researching what I want to put into the tank. I think the soft corals look really cool, I think the zoa's look awesome. As for fish - I have no idea lol. For my inverts I know I at least want a shrimp or two other then that I am not sure. I feel like there is so many more choices when compared to doing FW tanks. So any assistance in that department would be great!

As for my water service at the office - I found a water report for the water that we get from December. Here is the link, it is a pdf - it looks pretty extensive.

https://ccbw.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/CCBW-Drinking-Report.pdf

Also I found something interesting in my piece of LR that is further along, can anyone ID this?

 

[greech]

That is an aiptasia which is actually an anemone. However, it's not the good kind as it will have babies and eventually spread pretty much everywhere. The main issue is that they take up real estate and can sting corals. Since the tank has no livestock, you can remove the rock and superglue over the nem. Other options are covering the nem with something like Joe's Juice or Aiptasia X which are pre-mixed kalkwasswer pastes. You can also just by kalkwasser at your LFS or if you can find Ms. Wage's Pickleing Lime at your grocer and mix your own paste. The last option is to allow the tank to cycle and buy a couple of peppermint shrimp as part of your initial stock. There is no guarantee that they will eat it/them but most do. Better to buy multiples rather than just one. If it were me, I would pull the rock and either break that section off or superglue it's hole shut. Keep in mind that its foot could be burrired pretty deep in that rock and if it can find another hole, it will come back out.

That is a good list of parameters. TDS (common indicator used in the hobby) measured non-detect but the detection limit was 5ppm. Also interesting that there was a hit of copper. It was only 0.002 ppm which doesn't sound like much but over time could (most likely will) be an issue to corals and inverts. This is where the DI portion comes in to play. I assume this is a post filter sample?

 

[BoCoMo]

Welcome to the saltwater addiction!

 

[aquageek]

Thanks for the information, greech! And thanks for the welcoming BoCoMo! :grinyes:

Greech, yes, the results of the test are post filter. The tap water where I live is quite hard - which works out ok for my planted tank, not so much for the Reef .

Picture Update!

Algae is growing in faster, these pictures are actually from Thursday, Friday there was a ton of hair algae (I think), but I didn't get time to snap any pictures on Friday. I will post new pics on Monday when I'm back at the office. Also, found a few weird things on one of my rocks that I didn't notice before. One of them is a weird honeycomb looking thing, and the other is these weird pincer looking things in a circle. Any ideas on what these are? So many interesting things to look at lol!

 

[greech]

The honey comb looks like a dead coral or a sponge (harmless).

The other is an anemone. Guessing either a ball or majano. The latter being another pest anemone.

Are you running any phosphate media?

 

[aquageek]

Thanks again, greech!

I am not - I have the bio balls and the stock filtration in place still. Before the cycle ends I think I am going to order the media basket and fuge basket from InTank and use Filter floss, Purigen, and Chemi-Pure elite in the media basket, and some chaeto in the fuge basket!

 

[greech]

Sounds good. Those are good products and easy to use. You might find it cheaper in the long run to use a separate carbon bag and GFO bag instead of the Chemipure/purigen. BTW, those products do pretty much the same thing so really no reason to run both. It might be a good idea to buy some Poly Filter (brand name) pad too and use it every once in a while. Very effective and easy to cut to fit for the media tray.

 

[aquageek]

Oh my algae! Is this much algae ok? Should I be doing anything to it? I am about 12 days or so into my cycle.