My Caribbean Biotope Tank Build

[jraker]

I am leaving for vacation early tomorrow morning. No updates for a week or so.

[skanderson]

excellent looking fish list. really looking forward to seeing this tank come together.

[jraker]

Bad news, this project may have to be held off for a while. I came home from vacation to see this in my main reef tank:



I might have to use my 65 to put all the livestock until I can get things figured out with the other tank. I would say that it crashed, but stuff seems to be alive.

[Subsea]

Use activated carbon and uv sterilizer. Perhaps some extra circulation to deal with possible low oxygen. It looks like phyto bloom to me.

[jraker]

Carbon is running. I did water changes. I am making more water to do more water changes. Hopefully both my fish are alive, because I only saw a glimpse of one.

[Subsea]

If it is a phyto bloom, water changes will not solve the problem. Trust me. Use a UV sterilizer.

[jraker]

What UV sterilizer would you recommend for a 36 gallon tank?

[Subsea]

Some people use them all the time. I don't. I recently purchased "The Green Killing Machine" from Foster & Smith: 25W for $60. It fits inside the tank and is ugly. Requires no plumbing or external pumps.
I only use it when I need it. As a proactive measure, it could be used one day a week. I pull it out of the tank when I am not using it. With multiple 55G tanks, it works for me.

[jraker]

I don't think it was a phyto bloom. I ran carbon overnight, and the tank is clear. All that is left is a bunch of ugly brown detritus and algae covering my rocks and glass. All the livestock is perfectly fine and healthy.

Sorry for hijacking my own thread, I will get back to the biotope soon enough. I am going to make my first order of macro in one or two days.

[jraker]

I got the tank up and running today.

Here is a shot from under the tank:



The return pump is a bit noisy, but you can't really hear it when you close the doors. Otherwise, everything is dead quiet. As soon as the tank gets heated up, I will put some caulerpa from my reef tank in the biotope tank. I tested ammonia, which turned up at about 0.25ppm. As soon as I add plants, it should go down.



This is day 1 of the tank running. It looks barren now, but it should start to look cool withing a couple of weeks.



I am ordering macro from GCE tommorow. I will be ordering all their samplers (caulerpa, halimeda, red), which should give me a pretty good diversity for starting off. As soon as my ammonia gets down and parameters are stable, I will be ordering my first fish from KP aquatics.

[Subsea]

Consider Red Grapes for another $10. It is a gorgeous deep water macro that is middle of the road on nutrient uptake. In the red sampler pack you may get sprigs of it. When you order it individually you get several plants that were attached to rocks are substrate. Because it grows in deeper water, I would not place it directly under the MH but on the dimly lite side. I cultivate it under T5 at 100 PAR. The lamps that I use are actinic and 6500 daylight that combine to 10K.

[jraker]

I was looking at that along with several other macros, but they were out of stock. Hopefully I will get some in the red sampler because it does look very cool.

[jraker]

For the last two days, I have been ghost feeding my tank with some old fish food that I don't use anymore to get some nitrates. I got my new nitrate test kit in the mail today and it reads between 12 and 25 for my water test.



Macros are arriving tomorrow.

[jraker]

Got the macros today. They sent a TON of macroalgae, and a huge diversity of species.



They were shipped very well, with 2 gel heating packs and each one was double bagged.



Acclimating.



I ordered some snails also. Just some nerites and ceriths.



Here is all the macro in the tank. I will take some more shots when the lights come on.

Quick question: How would you secure all the macros? Almost all the caulerpa and reds are not attached to the rock, and as soon as I turned my pump on, they all went tumbling. Should i try and glue everything to the rocks, or should I let the plants grow onto the rock themselves?

[jraker]

Some pics:

[Subsea]

I would not put Caulerpa near my rocks unless you want a macro rock. It's holdfast will spread everywhere. Just use your finger and push into substrate. In time it's holdfast will go everwhere.

You have already sandwiched the Reds between rocks. Experiment with trying to glue a few. Depending on the species, it may be happy in substrate. I would try a few each way.

[jraker]

Thanks. I started gluing some macros today, mostly reds. I know what you mean when the caulerpa's holdfast goes everywhere. Some hitchhiked into my main reef tank, and trying to remove the holdfast is annoying, because it goes deep into the holes in my rock.

[Subsea]

Originally Posted by jraker

Thanks. I started gluing some macros today, mostly reds. I know what you mean when the caulerpa's holdfast goes everywhere. Some hitchhiked into my main reef tank, and trying to remove the holdfast is annoying, because it goes deep into the holes in my rock.

Caulerpa Prolifera is the worst with respect to holdfast on rock. Caulerpa Paspoides is not so bad. Once, to stop the progression of of take over of Prolifera on a rock, I immersed the complete rock in a 15% ratio of hydrogen peroxide to water for 10 minutes.

[jraker]

I got the rest of the macros glued today. I glued most of the reds to pieces of rubble so I can move them around easily in the future if I need to. I put most of the caulerpa in the sand, but I also put some on the rock. The tank is super cloudy right now because I just stirred up a bunch of sand, so I won't take a picture right now.

[jraker]

Nitrates have dropped from 20ppm to 5ppm. I have continued ghost feeding the tank to get nutrients up. I was going to start dosing KNO3, but none of my 3 local hardware stores had the right type. I had to order it online. I will also be getting some fish soon, from KP Aquatics. That should help with adding nitrates to the tank.

[jraker]

Some pictures of the tank I took today:

[jraker]

Got my first order of fish in today. I ordered from KP Aquatics, who I would recommend to anyone ordering fish. I ordered:

3x Yellowhead Jawfish
2x Sailfin Blenny
1x Chalk Bass
1x Blue Chromis
And also two gorgonians (photosynthetic)

They were nice, and shipped an extra jawfish and an extra gorgonian. I got the package in this morning, so the fish have had a few hours to settle in. I haven't turned the lights on, so I don't have many pictures. Some of the jawfish have already emerged, so I got to take a few pictures of them:






The jawfish are already amusing. The smallest started to make its burrow in the very front, where I could see it perfectly. I was surprised at how much they could lift, my 1" jawfish was lifting up some of the larger pieces of crushed coral easily. Shortly after I took those pictures, another jawfish stole the smallest one's burrow, and now the smallest one is just staring at it. I can tell they are going to be very amusing creatures.

[jraker]

Some good news and some bad news:

Good:

The two jawfish have separated and have separate burrows about 3" away from each other. All they do is stare at the other, occasionally digging deeper.

I am noticing growth on my caulerpa.

I am noticing growth on my reds.

The gorgonians are starting to open.


Bad:

My blue chromis died.

I only see two of my jawfish.

[Subsea]

Originally Posted by jraker

Some pictures of the tank I took today:

Tank pictures are looking good. I see you got some Red Grapes.

[Subsea]

Originally Posted by jraker

Some good news and some bad news:

Good:

The two jawfish have separated and have separate burrows about 3" away from each other. All they do is stare at the other, occasionally digging deeper.

I am noticing growth on my caulerpa.

I am noticing growth on my reds.

The gorgonians are starting to open.


Bad:

My blue chromis died.

I only see two of my jawfish.

With respect to Chromis, I have found that to thrive they need to be in a school of five or more fish.