My New Marine Aquarium (2005)

1st October 2005

I collected my new aquarium and cabinet today. I found a cabinet manufacturer on eBay who was happy to have the tank made and drilled for me and also to have a sump made. The cabinet is made of solid pine and is very sound and heavy!!. I have a 50mm hole drilled in the rear left of the tank and a weir assembly siliconed around it. I will place a standpipe within and also silicone a comb to the top to filter the water of any suicidal fish. Another smaller hole for 20mm pipe has been drilled in the top right which is where the water will be returned to the tank through.

The cabinet has three doors and encloses the sump which you have to place in through the top, so once it is in!! The cabinet has yet to be stained the correct colour and some parts cut from the cabinet for ventilation purposes, otherwise everything will overheat and the condensation within the unit will be unbearable. I am hoping to have the aquarium running for Christmas (this year) but we shall have to see what other financial constraints I have.

10th October 2005

Passing by Castle Donington today, I dropped into Fit Filtration (now closed at this location) for a look. I purchased a small container of Bacterlife to help in seeding the filter and a Ocean Runner pump to run my system.

The tank has also been filled for the first time today to leak check. The Ocean Runner pump has also been switched on for a brief trial. Now all that is needed is for the leak check to be successful (so far so good), then the aquarium and cabinet can be moved to the lounge.

26th October 2005

Over the last couple of weeks, money has been "trickling" away. The cabinet has been stained and a backing put in place.

The tank has taken almost four days to fill with RO water, hopefully the sump will be filled by lunchtime tomorrow. The RO unit is not producing at its' optimum rate due to being outside where it is colder. The best water temperature for producing RO water is about 74F, my supply is about 56- 58F, so you can see the problem!!

30th October 2005

Tank is filled, water is at 76F and SG 1.023. Pump is running happily and all tubes are now fitted with reflectors. I am still waiting for the delivery of two powerheads to add to the extra circulation. Yes, I know you can see the eggcrate beneath the rocks but I have still to add 10kg of live rock to the system and have to put it somewhere!!

Below you will see the sump. They are not very good pictures owing to the way the cabinet is constructed. Water flows into the first chamber (still trying to get the bl**dy gurgling noise from the overflow pipe under control) through the bioballs into the second chamber. This is where the skimmer will go as and when I decide on having one. Water then flows over the top to chamber #3 which has a 3" sand bad, 2x 300w heater stats and a 25W Sun Glo tube above. May have it on an alternate cycle, may have it on 24hours, not sure yet. Water then flows into #4 which again will have some bioballs in, before going to #5 and the return pipe.

7th November 2005

Over the weekend, I purchased a small frag of xenia and branch coral (I think that's what it is) to add some extra to the tank. Working near Leicester today, I dropped into Marine Madness to buy some turbo snails and I also bought some small blue leg hermits. I must confess that they are very small and difficult to see once in the tank, but hopefully the scarlets won't beat up on them too much when they go in. To make sure I can keep some of them, I have placed four in the main tank and three in the sump.

Panic stations this morning. One of the clowns was floating around by the weir overflow looking a bit sorry for itself. Out came the test kits to make sure no ammonia or nitrite was present, both turned out to be negative. Reading on another forum, I found this is quite common and some clowns adopt this area to sleep at night. Panic over as this afternoon they are playing chase again around the tank.

18th November 2005

Another quick trip to the local fish shop to buy a new powerhead. I had ordered a Maxijet 1200, but it hadn't arrived due to distributor problems and I settled for a Maxijet 900. What a difference the extra 300lph made to the water flow! I have placed the K30 powerhead to the rear of the tank to blow along the back glass in an attempt to keep the detritus moving until it reaches the weir. I will buy two Maxijet 1200's, but that will now have to wait until after Christmas. The two cleaner shrimps are supposed to be the more "sociable" shrimps you can get, they are supposed to be always out. So far I have seen them for about 20 minutes in total as they have taken refuge within the egg crate under the rocks to the right of the tank. Every now and again, you will see the white feelers poking out as they think about exploring. I think one of them has just moulted and hence is feeling a bit vulnerable until the body hardens again. Another 6 hermits went in today just to try and keep on top of things. I would like to get some more snails before Christmas, but that is it as far as livestock goes now for a while. Time to sit back and watch as the tank matures and hopefully starts to blossom.

19th November 2005

Looked like the builders had been in today!! The new powerhead is obviously much more powerful than that which it replaced. Because the Hydor rotating head is on to give a bit of current, the blast is aiming straight for the sand bed. Ideally that would be good, to keep it free from detritus, but this time it is making large sand dunes in the middle of the tank!! The powerhead is already situated at the top of the tank, so it can't be moved higher to weaken the blast. I may have to strategically place a rock in the way to try and act as some sort of a breaker.

I finally relented today. Despite promising not to buy anything else for the tank until after Christmas, I was persuaded to buy a 150w Aqua Medic metal halide lamp with a 13000K rated bulb (I have since been informed that even though labelled as a 13000k bulb, it is in fact 14000k). I now have to work out how to suspend the light above the tank and also how to place the two T5 tubes so that I can have some actinic light in the tank still.

It is a bad move to take the wife shopping with you as she can then see the prices of things also!! In the invert tank were two small black urchins. They have a bright orange eye and within the centre body, there are neon blue tentacles waving furiously back and forth. The shop told me that they are extremely good scavengers, so good in fact that they may scrape away the coralline algae from the rocks. I needed something to scavenge for me and I was assured the bio load they would add would be miniscule. With a little bit of pestering from the Wife, one was bagged and brought home

Prior to carrying out a 25 litre water change, my vital statistics were: Nitrite 0.01; Nitrate 2.5ppm; SG 1.023; Temperature 76.7F. All in all I am very happy with the way things are turning out. I have taken a lot of advice over the last few weeks from my local stores, Interfish and Essential Aquatics. I have also found useful information on the Marinefish UK Forum (now closed).

4th December 2005

Unfortunately, both cleaner shrimps appear to have passed away. They disappeared from view on Wednesday for what was assumed to be a moult. After a couple of days, one of them re- appeared at the front of the tank, but was a bit listless, returning later to the "house". Yesterday I spent the day watching it wriggling on it's side and back. At this stage I was hopeful it was still trying to get out of it's old casing and was struggling. Today however, once the tank lights came on, I found the shrimp in the corner curled up and not moving. It definitely isn't the moulted casing, it is the whole shrimp. Water parameters have remained constant throughout, although the SG is currently measured with a glass hydrometer while I await delivery of my refractometer.

I purchased a new type of food for my fish which arrived yesterday from Marines Dream (no longer trading). Apparently the food is supposed to be irresistible to fish and inverts. I have tried feeding it to the fish for the last two days and although they are eating it, they don't seem to have the passion I was lead to believe they would have. That said, one of my mushroom anemones caught a rather large particle and has wrapped itself around the food parcel to inwardly digest. I shall keep an eye on how they take to this food, although I will still be feeding the brine shrimp, mysis and flake as well.

A couple of messages via the Marinefish UK forum and a chat at my other LFS (Interfish) has reassured me that the algae I have in my sump is okay, so long as that is where it stays!! Fast growing algae is the best way to export excess nutrients from the tank, which must be why my levels are currently so low (that and the low stocking level).

19th December 2005

I have taken delivery of 25 sand sifting cerith snails. These little creatures are supposed to keep the sand bed turned over, so I added 10 to the main tank and 15 to the sump. I have seen more of these snails crawling around the glass of the tank than I have burying themselves!! I have another 20 coming tomorrow hopefully. Overkill? I'm not sure, we shall have to see if the tank can handle that sort of population.

The installation of the copepod culture was a bad move. I mistakenly floated the container in the sump. Evaporation is quite substantial there and after three days, I found a almost dried up culture container. I rapidly filled the container with water and flushed out any surviving pods to the algae. Hopefully some have survived and will populate the algae rather than being delivered directly to the tank. I may have to consider another culture in the new year.

I have purchased two Maxijet 1200 powerheads today. I don't really think the tank needs the extra movement as everything seems to be growing well. I would however like to keep some of the debris suspended a little while longer to give it a chance to enter the sump and be filtered out.

Unfortunately, a lot of the information between the end of 2005 and August 2006, June 2007 has gone missing. Below is what is left of the set up whilst in full flow.

27th August 2006

There have been some new arrivals in the tank recently. I bought 3 yellow clown gobies the week before the tang died. I didn't have a chance to update with their details before. They are cute little things and have currently taken to perching on the algae magnet as well as some of the open rocks. They tend to hide quite a lot at the moment, but they are the smallest fish in the tank at the moment!!

Yesterday saw me visiting Interfish where I ordered my new protein skimmer. I am going to go with the Kent V2 Skim 400 which seems to suit my requirements. The air driven skimmer does its job, but the pores on the wooden diffuser block with alarming regularity. It's time to buy a skimmer that is sufficient for the aquarium's needs, especially now the sump has so much life. I still don't want to overskim in case the sump life is affected, but I still have this niggling 0.01ppm nitrite reading and I need to do something about it.

In the "cheapo gap fillers" section I managed to pick up a reasonably sized piece of organ pipe coral. The inner area of the structure was devoid of any polyps which would be why it was so cheap. I managed to pick off all the valonia bubbles I could see growing within the structure, but that's not to say there isn't still some there.

I also decided on buying a dwarf angel. I have looked at the coral beauty for many months now and although not as vividly colourful as some of its other relatives will be a welcome addition. I didn't want to add an angel and a butterfly to the same tank in case of squabbling, but due to recent circumstances, I am now able to add one. Since releasing it yesterday, I have seen it a couple of times. It fed with the rest of the fish last night, but I think it is still finding its way around the tank and is extremely shy. I have put a sheet of seaweed out for it today, but it obviously isn't that hungry just yet.

I decided to take some pictures of the tank from above. I thought this would be a bit different to the ones that are almost always normally taken from the side. Unfortunately, the only pictures I have currently of the angel are not very good as it is while it was still in the bag.

I am trying two new products at the moment, one is a food for corals called Coral Vibrance. It is a fine powder that can be fed 2- 3 times per week. I have been using it for about a week now. The coral polyps obviously like it as they wrap around the particles with vigour as soon as it is put in the water column. I am also experimenting with Seachem Flourish (iron). This is a freshwater plant food which is high in iron. Having spoken at length to one of the regulars at my LFS, I was told that putting the iron in the sump with caulerpa gave it a "bit of a boost". When first put in my sump, the caulerpa did a fantastic job and grew quickly. Over the last few months though, the growth has slowed with yellowing of the leaves and small holes appearing. I first added the supplement yesterday which made the tank cloudy. Initially, panic set in but it was soon apparent there was no effect on the inhabitants and it soon cleared. Today you wouldn't even know there had been anything wrong.

17th June 2007

Has it really been that long? This update has been somewhat neglected recently, but having recently (ish) purchased a new camera, I am hoping the updated photos will make up for it. Unfortunately the brain coral which lived at the front of the tank has died. There is something in the tank somewhere that is causing rockfalls. Upon coming downstairs one morning, there was some rockwork that hand landed on top of the coral. Unfortunately this then caused the tissue to recede and for the coral to eventually die.