Category Archives: Pets

Still no fish! I have been having fun visiting local fish shops though (namely Aquaristic, Hurstville Aquariums and Newtown Aquarium too), and picking up coral pieces from each one I visit. I’ve got my eye on a fish (just the one fish I’m thinking for this tank in order to keep the bio-load down), he’s rather special so I’m going to let the tank mature a little bit more before bringing him home.

I’ve got a build thread/tank journal going on Nano-Reef Forums.
Visit: http://www.nano-reef.com/topic/362497-justin-foxs-fluval-edge-2/

FTS. New ISTA 50W heater is smaller than the old one and has the temperature controller outside the aquarium. I’m surprised and happy that the toxic hammer I bought a while back is still alive and doing better by the day. One part of it is not opening up. I figure it was because it wasn’t getting enough flow so I’ve twisted the coral a bit and will see if this makes a difference.

Corner shot.

Side on shot showing placement of a few zoas and a couple of morphs. My VorTech MP10 is still on it’s way!

Top down shot.

Tank in situ.

It’s been bang on a month since I bought the tank and got it wet. The cycle has been long, and has tested my patience (I’ve got none!) but I’ve done it right and last week I splurged on a few easy to keep corals from Fragalicious, an online seller in Victoria.

I stumbled upon their facebook page, which they use to sell off their corals in an almost auction like manner. These guys create a facebook event every time they have a new load of corals, they then upload photos of the corals and if you see something you like, you simply write “SOLD” under the picture and it’s yours!

Their prices are half of what fish shops sell their corals for. Understandable as they don’t have the overheads of a bricks and mortar store. It’s amazing how online shops are killing retail shops in every industry, it doesn’t matter whether it’s cars, bicycles or corals, it’s online and it’s cheaper.

I specified for delivery to be today, they sent the corals last night and the parcel got to me by midday. All corals came in an esky which was cold to the touch. All but one of the corals made it. They’re all grumpy and closed, but starting to open already and should look amazing in a few days!

Nitrites are almost at 0, and nitrate’s not so bad at all! Cycle is pretty much done! I’m ready to start stocking!

I’ve just serviced my 4-stage RO/DI unit (reverse osmosis and de-ionisation unit) replacing all 4 filters. This will make sure I don’t introduce unwanted chemicals from Sydney tap water into my tank.

Years ago I bought a 4-stage RO/DI unit from PSI Water Filters who are associated with the Marine Aquarium Societies of Australia Forums. I gave them a call, they still had me in the system and in an overnight bag I was sent all 4 filters to replace and get my unit up and running again, with discount! Love it that they’re still around! Service was amazing.

inTank media basket on left, stock basket on the right.

It came with a clown fish sticker and a fishy lolly (I was confused initially thinking it was fish food?!), random!

Almost blew up the house with overflow water dripping down a power cable into the powerboard on the floor. Me bad! No drip loops! One of the first aquarium keeping lessons… I’ve now mounted the powerboard up high.

My inTank media basket came in the mail today. Lovely little thing. Very well made, nicely designed too. It holds a lot less media than the flimsy stock basket, but the flow through the media is bang on now!

FTS.

Big boy.

Added 2 tiny little hermit crabs which I found in a rock pool out at Little Bay today.

Top down shot. Hammer coral is hating life, but hanging in there!

I’m finally seeing some algae! I’ve been doing water tests and I’m still getting readings of ammonia and nitrite, but the ammonia is going down, and nitrite is spiking right now. The cycle is almost done! The tank is definitely going through the ugly phase right now but my clean up crew (CUC) are loving it, the turbo snails especially who are at least trying to do a pretty good job of keeping the back glass clean.

The LED unit is actually built into a factory Fluval Edge hood so that it looks exactly the same as the standard set-up.

The hood flipped to reveal the LED unit, with built in fan and splash guard underneath. Above it is the LED controller, which comes with software to program your sunrise to moonlight on a PC.

The old LED unit came off pretty easily.

The LED Controller (which can be hidden in the back of the Fluval Edge, out of sight).

All LED’s on.

Full tank shot. Crazy bright in comparison to the stock unit. Horrible shot though. I’ll have to shoot a video, the rippling water surface and the LED’s shining through it make for a really nice effect.

Today I received my custom built Fluval Edge UltraBrite Reef LED System which I upgraded with an automated controller that sets the unit to go from sunrise to sunset then moonlight over a 10 hour light period. SO COOL!

It’s so much brighter than the stock LED unit. I should be able to keep just about any coral that needs light to thrive. What’s especially awesome about it is that it looks no different to the OEM unit. IE: From the outside, nothing has changed. I’ve seen people go without the hood altogether and really cut up their Fluval Edge tanks which IMHO defeats the purpose of having a Fluval Edge!

These guys don’t have a site, but you can find them on eBay.

I’ve got 4 shrimp in the tank and I’m now waiting for the tank to cycle. I’ve got some new gear on the way though; fresh test kits, a wavemaker, lights and more (couldn’t help myself!).

Parameters:
Alk: 13 dKH
Nitrate: 5 ppm
pH: 8

AquaClear 20 impeller on the left, and the new larger blades on the AquaClear 50 impeller in the middle.

I’ve owned a few of these AquaClear hang on back filters over the years and they’re really easy to modify. Just by changing the impeller to one from a more powerful unit increases the flow from 350 litres/hour to 550 litres/hour

After a bit of research I ordered an AquaClear 50 impeller (number 634), and a spare shaft in case (I didn’t end up needing it at all). It popped right into the pump and as soon as I switched the power back on it was clearly evident that flow was up 2 fold!

Shot a little video of this octopus.

He was actually pretty big!

And super aggressive attacking my net more than a few times.

I saw this shrimp move like a roach, it looks a lot like a pistol shrimp (but with 2 long claws).

Hands down the nicest star fish I’ve ever seen in a rock pool.

There were heaps of these big slugs too.

Collected some more natural sea water today and couldn’t help but do a spot of rockpooling, (which was one of my fave things to do as a kid!). It’s amazing what you’ll find in rock pools if you’re patient enough to wait for creates to present themselves.

Today I played with an octopus, who kept attacking my net as I was trying to catch shrimp!!! He was damn strong and almost took the net off me at one stage!

Aquascape #1.

All my probes have gone bad. Temp reading with a glass thermometer in the tank reads 26 but the digital cheapie is out of whack, the Ph meter probe is out of whack too and reads way low (new probe on order).

OK, my bad. Everything is dead due to my impatience, and lack of experience with such a small tank.

It started mid last week when the fishies killed the shrimps and ate them all. Water was crystal clear though, and fish were doing great. One of the pieces of live rock had a lot of aiptasia on it (I assume as the water quality has been improving they’ve all started to show). I made the call to try and rid the rock of them with Joe’s Juice. There were a few of them, 5-6 of them and by the time I was done squirting the juice with a syringe I think the tank started to crash.

I made a decision to remove the piece of live rock with all the aiptasia on it anyways. I removed the 3 fish and I started aquascaping with leftover base rock I have from my old setup. Stirring up the sandbed doing so (adding to the crash for sure).

I re-introduced the fish to a holding tank within the display tank and instantly realised they were at the surface gasping for air. I used marine buffer to up the Ph and did a 50% water change. 2 fishes died a few hours later and the goby died the day after.

So now I’m back to square one, pretty much. I’m disappointed in my impatience (the fish and shrimp didn’t need to die!) and I’m also quite surprised at how sensitive such a small amount of water is. For example, I put a Koralia 1 I had lying around in the tank and the temperature went up by 2 degrees within an hour.

In some ways I’m glad this has all happened now. I’m tempted to start work on an overflow box and sump for more water volume and gear to hide in the sump (skimmer, carbon/phosban reactors etc), but I’ve decided to try and stick with the concept of a simple nano with weekly 20% water changes for now.