illumnae's 2013 newbie office setup

[Guest]

Experienced a tank crash over CNY I did a massive rescape just before the CNY holidays and finally created my "ricordea garden" by using bsi-ic gel and TLF AquaStik putty to stick all my ricordeas (total of 7 pcs of florida and yuma) to a single rock space. However, I think the total amount of glue and putty used was too much for my small volume tank, and I ended up losing all my fish as well as 1 snail. The other invertebrates showed signs of stress too (sun coral closed up, anemone shrank up). Skimmer went crazy too and had to be switched off.

After a 15% followed by a 30% wc over 2 days, the tank seems to have stablized. The anemone has opened up again and the skimmer is no longer crazy. The peppermint shrimp and maxima clam I added over CNY (after the 2 huge water changes) seem to be doing fine too. Only the sun coral hasn't reopened yet.

Very sad that all my fish is lost Will probably do another large water change on schedule next week before restocking the tank again.

In the meantime, I'm getting an sps starter pack from cedricang over the weekend. Do you think my 6x 3W is sufficient for sps? If not, I will switch to 2x lightsets instead of the single one I'm using.

Thats the challenge of keeping a nano tank as small changes will lead to drastic effect . I havent try out beamwork led before but I tested 6x3W par led on sps and the corals is doing well.

Hope it helps.

Sent from my GT-I9300 using Tapatalk 2

[illumnae]

Yup lesson learnt the hard way! Next time I'll stick the corals in one at a time to prevent a repeat of this.

Thanks for the sharing on your experience with your PAR led. I will try with my current setup and if it's not enough, I'll change from the current clip on to the "rest on glass" type recently released by Evo (seems identical to the beamswork). It's also 6x 3w, but rest on glass instead of clip on, so it will be closer to the water surface = higher intensity. It will also allow me to put 2 lightsets instead of 1, which makes it 12x 3w instead.

intend to start dosing either Polyplab One or TLF C-Balance as calcium/alkalinity supplements once I start SPS in this tank. Have also ordered Hanna checkers for Calcium, Alkalinity and Phosphate. Polyplab One is tempting as it allows for 2x/week dosing without having to do actual measurements.

As this tank is overskimmed, I do 15% wc once every 2 weeks (vs the recommended 10% per week for unskimmed tank). I use DD H2Ocean salt for my water changes to keep magnesium levels high enough.

I also use prodibio nano reef kit to keep nitrates in check, and recently added Seachem Phosguard + Matrix Carbon (DIY Seachem Seagel) in a filter bag in the IOS to keep phosphate and other chemicals in check. I intend to replace the Seachem mix every 1-2 months depending on phosphate readings.

Do you think the above is sufficient for SPS + my maxima?

[MarcoVan]

Sorry to hear about your losses.

Basically I can attribute your loss to the epoxy putty you used. I experienced crazy skimming after using the putty and what my HK friend and I deduced was that the putty is 'oily' in nature and the reaction chemically creates more of such oil and other by products which are detrimental to any tank.

Both of us were running a 3 footer that time.

Therefore Im not surprised a nano will take a beating from that. My advice is to go with super glue since so far ive yet to experience a crash and also periodic water changes to help with the chemicals released by foreign shbstances and nutrients released by corals and other organisms.

Im currently on a 6 gallon tank with 3+1 fishes. so far everything looks okay and Im planning to add more fishes and get a surface skimmer to combat the oil film kn the surface of the tank.

Hope this helps.

[MarcoVan]

Oh yes the putty Im referring to is any putty. as long as its epoxy regardless tlf or deltec, you should get crazy skimming.

Part and parcel of the chemical reaction I understand. I was using hardware shop marine putty then.

Hope this helps.

[tropic]

-1 for putty . Makes skimmer go bananas. Sent from my Android using Tapatalk2

[Evolutionz]

When you meant super glue. Are u referring to those common elephant brand super glue?

[illumnae]

The putty really messed up my tank. I'm hoping the ricordeas and yumas get over this episode with minimal casualties - I see 2 of them which looked ok this morning scrunching up now.

The super glue used was BCI-IC glue. Specially meant for gluing corals one. The putty was also for marine use.

I think it's the excessive use in a nano that created issues, since I used quite a fair bit of both to glue down 7 plugs worth of ricordeas and 1 large super sun coral. The oil/fumes released which pose less harm when diluted in a big tank was probably too large for the small 34L tank to overcome, which led to livestock demise.

[MarcoVan]

When you meant super glue. Are u referring to those common elephant brand super glue?

Yes Im referring to the common elephant glue as well.

[MarcoVan]

The putty really messed up my tank. I'm hoping the ricordeas and yumas get over this episode with minimal casualties - I see 2 of them which looked ok this morning scrunching up now.

The super glue used was BCI-IC glue. Specially meant for gluing corals one. The putty was also for marine use.

I think it's the excessive use in a nano that created issues, since I used quite a fair bit of both to glue down 7 plugs worth of ricordeas and 1 large super sun coral. The oil/fumes released which pose less harm when diluted in a big tank was probably too large for the small 34L tank to overcome, which led to livestock demise.

Honestly it doesnt matter for the putty if its for marine application or otherwise. The skimmer will still go bananas and if you use lesser putty, you may not get the strength you want, in such case you might be better off with superglue.

And I meant this in the case where you use minimum putty.

[Evolutionz]

Yes Im referring to the common elephant glue as well.

oh, so the glue is not posionous to the fishes and coral?

[MarcoVan]

From my experience, nope.

[azlindaza]

Hi.. Do u have a pic after u hang on the e3 on the tank?

[reef garden]

Any updates on how your tank is doing?

[illumnae]

My new toy!

[Davidlow]

My new toy!

Nice one ... I got this too ... U will definitely see a great different

[Foo Sheng Wei]

nice settle up

[nickykoo]

nice tank upz...

[brandonm]

Nicky, why have you written nice tank on all twenty threads in the nanos forum over a span of five minutes I've never seen that done before. It doesn't look sincere.

[nickykoo]

Nicky, why have you written nice tank on all twenty threads in the nanos forum over a span of five minutes I've never seen that done before. It doesn't look sincere.

nope i really feel nice then write de.... is really nice maa y say no sincere

[brandonm]

If you walked into a store, and told twenty women they looked nice all at once where each could hear you say it to the next, would they believe you? I realize you are trying to reach a certain post count now. That's why it looks insincere

[brandonm]

No big deal you are almost to 100. What happens at 100th post here?

[Clement Chen]

No big deal you are almost to 100. What happens at 100th post here?

When u reach 100 posts u can start posting on the pasar malam thread

[nickykoo]

If you walked into a store, and told twenty women they looked nice all at once where each could hear you say it to the next, would they believe you? I realize you are trying to reach a certain post count now. That's why it looks insincere

Halo i just post something no need to come and acttack me why u say tat..... vry bad

[reefer6]

Like the setup! Office employing??

[illumnae]

Wow it's been ages! Since the last post I took a break and set up a planted tank in office instead using an ANS 45cm Opticube, then I converted the tank back to marine, before finding all the hanging on equipment too unsightly and tearing it down in favour of an IOS tank instead. Tank has been up for almost 2 months now, and here are some pictures I took about a month or so back:

Unfortunately, since taking these pictures, the anemone decided to go wandering and crawled into my biopellet reactor pump, causing a mini-crash, and I lost all my red spot cardinals, the ruby red dragonet and the purple/green hammer as a result. The helfrechi also jumped through a gap in the tank cover. I've cleaned up the tank and created a new tank cover (picture below) to prevent future deaths to jumping.