24 Gal Cube SPS nano reef tank

[project1004]

Santa Monica drop 1.2x UFS (upflow algae scrubber) is now doing really well. Initially added on January 4th. 74 days ago. This was 2nd try. First one didn’t work due to too low of nutrients.

First picture is from Feb 26th.



Second is today March 19th.
Plan on letting grow for few more weeks.

 

[project1004]

Took a top shot while doing a water change yesterday.

 

[chuck]

Man it was great too see you again been 5 years i think. I will say your new tank is amazing. And im glad your back. Hopefully your knowledge can help other nano lovers

 

[project1004]

I know Chuck! I was so happy and delighted to see you knowing all the fun informations we exchanged and helped out one another before many times!!!

So wonderful to see reefers reaching out to help others succeed!!! Things have changed a lot but man…. I still think that was not a coincidence meeting like that again. Hahaha.


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[project1004]

In attempt to make more space for coral placement, I’ve moved all the sand to the back half, making front a bare bottom. I’ve taken all of encrusting corals to frag disk. I will let them encrust onto the disk. Thinking back, I didn’t even needed to move the sand so that was useless. Ideal being, that I’m going to make these corals encrust on the bottom but they look way better on a disk.

I’ve lost hecter’s goby after eradicating the algae from the display. He never touched any other type of food. I knew he will soon die when he stop coming out from his barrow. Find him stuck on a overflow. Plan on getting YWG with Pistol shrimp combo when it becomes available.

Front
Right side


Left side


corals





Watching these corals for the colorations

 

[project1004]

My current light and pump setup:


Hydra 26HD: Main Light. I’ve raise up 20% since Monday. I’ve moded the schedule for 30mins. 45W at peak currently.


Two Prime 16HD: Assistance light. Only Blue’s and UV. Lit from the side of the tank. 17W at peak currently

.(NOTE: all my Nero’s point towards the surface due to having only 18” dimension. Giving more randomized flows and current).


Two Nero 3’s: Flow from Sides
Both are set at random minutes apart I’ve noticed if that if you have two pump on random BUT on same schedule, it will give exact same flow from two pump which means it will be limited granted it is random. I havnt figured out but I’ve given 45mins as it might be more randomized? Idk. Lol

Nero 1


Nero 2


Nero 3: Is one on the back. Lesser flow but definitely is helping.

 

[project1004]

9 month update:

-Tank: 24 Gal aqua top reef tank + 7Gal sump
-Light: AI Hydra 26HD and 2 AI Prime 16HD
-Flow: 3 AI Nero 3 on random,
-Filtration: Roller Mat 500, Santa Monica UFS, Miracle Mud, Sphere Media, activated carbon some times, UV rarely
-Misc: Neptune Apex (Old 2nd edition), Bubble Magus BM-01 doser, IM Hydrofill , Tunze DC9001, Hygger titanium heater on controller sensor, Hygger 915 dc return pump

Details:
-Tank was started on July 9th 2022 (Upgrade from 15AIO on September 30th 2022). (Moved to new home on March 9th 2023)
-Started with Dry Rock Dry Sand raw shrimp
-Zero lost other than 2 initial test frags of 10 (2 millepora) (Added September 1st 2022)
-Added 9 more SPS frags (you can see them with bright superglue all over the base). I am horrible at using glues. (Last Friday)
-Removed some of frags to friends tank (WB130G) for him to start on SPS journey
-Adding 2.5lb of miracle mud in the sump for added nutrients
-Plan to add the rest of the sand that was taken out when tank was relocated month ago.
-Started to add Kalk in addition to 2pt via doser (Started today 1/2tsp per Gal mixture)
-Lowered 2pt dosing due to corals taken out
-Vodka carbon dosing. Started 3 weeks ago
-4 Fishes ( two clown, cherub angelfish, mandarin goby) and few small snails and 1 crab
-I seen bubble algaes but very few

Tank Parameters:
Salinity: 1.027-1.025 (Milwaukee reflectometer) -tested twice a week now
pH: 8.5- 8.3 (Hanna & Redsea) -Tested randomly twice a week
Alkalinity: 8.5 to 8.9dkH -tested twice a week now (Hanna & redsea) - currently at 8.6
Calcium: 375-395 ppm -rarely tested (redsea)
Currently not sure. Dose same with alk amount as 2pt
Magnesium: 1400ppm -rarely tested (redsea & aqua forest). Currently not sure. Didn’t test
Nitrate: 6.5ppm-0.0ppm. tested weekly now (Hanna & redsea) Last month was 10-6. This month it kept dropping. Noticed hammers looking shrunk. It dropped to 0.0ppm (4days no testing), added Neo-Nitro to bring back to 3.0 then to 6.0. This means my tank filter system is taking everything and need extra feedings. I feed 3 times a day for fishes. It’s mixture of rod’s food with dry pellets, Nori, vitamins and coral foods etc all premade for a week worth.
Phosphate: 0.20- 0.01 Last month was 0.4-.02ish tested weekly now (Hanna & redsea) currently 0.01 but my phosphate goes up and down 0.2 to 0.01

Maintenance:
-Feed the fishes 3 times a day.
-Dose needed supplements (Added BM dosing pump to dose 2pt ESV and amino acid manually, vodka manually) Dosage is 5ml each 2pt and 2-3ml amino daily
-Water change 5Gal per Week Fritz rpm
-UTS Scrubber is now full on effect. LED on for 12 hrs only and air bubble lowered due to too much extraction of nitrate s phosphate. Was at 24hr LED for about two week but I noticed my nutrient dropping faster than before. So lowered air bubbles and led on time

100% On LED




With regular light schedule

 

[project1004]

I had chance to work with @chuck on adding Tonga branch scape into his existing scape.

It has large base with many connected parts and some lose pieces for easy coral placement.

Came out very nice! We like the finished looks!

Left panel view

Right panel view

Center panel view

 

[project1004]

I made a common mistake I assume x.x

in short, I’ve started vodka dosing (It was more for coral growth than was for nutrients export) which was competing against my turf scrubber. Vodka dosing was started on March 15th.

eventually, killing my algae scrubber. (Was in the system as conjunction to one another for about 25days). Scrubber was added on Jan 4th as second time tying after failing the first time due to low nutrient. Never gotten to seed.

I was doing maintenance yesterday and pulled out the scrubber expecting it will be full (Last time I’ve clean, it was working great. Maybe two weeks or so ago). But it was flaking and clearly was dyeing off). Wasn’t sure what was the problem but after going over, only thing I’ve added was vodka dosing, currently only dosing 1.5ml per day and keeping there as of now which is simple dosing.

So I am sticking to vodka dosing and taking off the scrubber. Vodka dosing will have more benefits to my system since carbon sources and bacteria are what I want. Lesson learned.


Picture from yesterday.
Dying algae scrubber. You can see the nail marks when I was Cleaning it few weeks ago.
Picture from March

Pictures for. Feb 2023

 

[project1004]

Took a photo while doing a water change.
I’ve added the rest of the sand that was taken out when moved. Ran throughly via rodi, let it sun dry in the sun and rinse again in rodi before adding back to the tank.

Also took a photo of the coral that had pale side when lit from the side. Looks more robust and happy.
before:
after:
This photo is from yesterday evening. looking very happy.

 

[King Piscean]

Took a photo while doing a water change.
I’ve added the rest of the sand that was taken out when moved. Ran throughly via rodi, let it sun dry in the sun and rinse again in rodi before adding back to the tank.

Also took a photo of the coral that had pale side when lit from the side. Looks more robust and happy.
before:
View attachment 74778after: View attachment 74776
This photo is from yesterday evening. looking very happy.
View attachment 74775
View attachment 74777

Hammers on hammer time! Nice!

 

[project1004]

I think only two of the four are actually hammer and two other are hybrid octo-hammers. My wife loves em. . Your tank looks great btw!


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[project1004]

10 month update:

-Tank: 24 Gal aqua top reef tank + 7Gal sump
-Light: AI Hydra 26HD and 2 AI Prime 16HD
-Flow: 3 AI Nero 3 on random,
-Filtration: Roller Mat 500, Miracle Mud, Sphere Media,
-Misc: Neptune Apex (Old 2nd edition), Bubble Magus BM-01 doser, IM Hydrofill , Tunze DC9001, Hygger Titanyheater in heater controller, Hygger 915 dc return pump

Tank Parameters:
Salinity: 1.027-1.025 (Milwaukee reflectometer) -tested twice a week now
pH: 8.5- 8.3 (Hanna & Redsea) -Tested randomly twice a week
Alkalinity: 8.5 to 8.9dkH -tested twice a week now (Hanna & redsea) - currently at 8.4
Calcium: 375-395 ppm -rarely tested (redsea)
Currently not sure. Dose same with alk amount as 2pt
Magnesium: 1400ppm -rarely tested (redsea & aqua forest). Currently not sure. Didn’t test
Nitrate: 6.5ppm-0.0ppm. tested weekly now (Hanna & redsea) Last month was 6.5-0.0. I still feed 3 times a day for fishes. It’s mixture of rod’s food with dry pellets, Nori, vitamins and coral foods etc all premade for a week worth.
Phosphate: 0.20- 0.01 Last month was 0.4-.02ish tested weekly now (Hanna & redsea) currently 0.07 but my phosphate goes up and down 0.10 to 0.01

-Currently battling green cyano bacteria. It comes on day time and goes away at night.
-Added tons of CUC and taken out the killer red hermit and put em in the sump with sand shifting Star.
-Vodka dosing seems to be throwing my chemistry off. But it’s only assumption. Keeping an eye on the cyano
-Replaced broken Nero 3 pump on the back

FTS


Top down


sides

 

[fabbss]

Looking really good! Nice work!

 

[fabbss]

What kind of fleece roller do you have? Pic?

 

[project1004]

It’s red sea roller mat 500.

 

[civics14]

What are you doing for phosphate control?

 

[project1004]

Vodka dosing. I test with Hanna twice a week for po4 and no3. And. I dose reef roid’s booster when phosphate gets to zero. I 10 drops bring it upto 0.10 and it goes down from there. Gone in 4 days.

5Gallon water change every week. I still have to dose nitrate and phosphate. So I have to vodka dose and than dose additional amount of no3 and po4’s.


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[civics14]

Vodka dosing. I test with Hanna twice a week for po4 and no3. And. I dose reef roid’s booster when phosphate gets to zero. I 10 drops bring it upto 0.10 and it goes down from there. Gone in 4 days.

5Gallon water change every week. I still have to dose nitrate and phosphate. So I have to vodka dose and than dose additional amount of no3 and po4’s.


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Oh ok. My vodka dosing has never made much impact on my phosphates so I have to run GFO. I hate dealing with GFO…

 

[project1004]

In my tank, Vodka is having too much impact but I am only dosing “0.05ml” per day.

And as is with carbon dosing, one dominant strain of bacteria will be presented and it happens to be green cyano or Dino but looks more like cyano than does with Dino. I kinda regret going vodka dosing rough over the turf scrubber route. But it works.


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