Paul’s petit réservoir d'eau salée

[redfishbluefish]

Paul’s Tale of the Little Saltwater Tank


A few days before Christmas I received a call from my adult son who was driving down from Rhode Island for the holidays. He tells me to make five gallons of salt. I’m a little curious, but the fool I am, I don’t ask any additional questions, and let him know that it’s not a problem since I already had ten gallons of RO/DI made. I actually made up all ten gallons (time is about 8PM), and was wise enough to start making more fresh RO/DI. Five plus hours later….after 1AM…..he pulls in to announce that he’s taken down his tank and he wants to put all his aptasia and hair algae infested rock into my tank. Well that didn’t go over very well.


He had two five gallon pails filled with rock and water. On the rock were a few corals and two Mini Maxi anemones…..and about 50+ aptasia, along with hair algae. His interests were (for me) to save the Mini Maxi anemones. The car trip wasn’t too kind to the anemones or coral. So I cranked up the water making, made more saltwater, and filled a JBJ 28 I had sitting empty in the fish room.


I’m a big tank person, so here’s what I know about nano’s, or more specifically, these all-in-ones……nada, nothing, zippo, zero! So I surprisingly got the tank up and running, with a heater and the two return pumps running. The baskets were a puzzle, and up until about a week ago I had nothing in those baskets in the back. I finally put some filter-floss in the top basket to take out “floaters” that were buzzing around the tank. I still don’t know what I’m supposed to put in those baskets. And that pantywaste skimmer with the wood block aerator….what a waste of plastic. So I have no skimmer.


Anyway, enough words, here’s what the tank looks like now, hair algae growing on the rocks and back wall….pretty crappy!

Now here’s the good news, I was able to save the two Maxi Mini’s:

 

[Fish Brain]

Nice thing about a Nano, a "large" water is only 10 gallons!

With all that hair algae and no fish, those rocks must be loaded with phosphates.

Need to:

1) Put 1 unit of Chemipute Elite in one of the baskets.
2) Weekly water changes.
3) Get the biggest Mexican Turbo snail you can find.

 

[redfishbluefish]

Brian, thanks for the response.

1) I don’t have Chemipure, but I do have Kent Marine Phosphate Sponge. I’ve got to believe it accomplishes the same thing.

2) I was good with salt until this tank showed up. I have three bags remaining that I have to nurse until the salt buy. I’m thinking I’ll still make my 15 gallons/week and put five into the nano and the remaining ten into the 90.

3) I actually have a Sumo Mexican Turbo that is a bulldozer in my 90. I have no problem moving him over to this tank.

 

[Edwardw771]

I have some extra rock I can give you to replace that rock. Then you can move the corals over. You home today.

 

[redfishbluefish]

I have some extra rock I can give you to replace that rock. Then you can move the corals over. You home today.

Ed, thanks for the offer, but I’m accepting the challenge and first want to see if I can clear this up by a little tank maintenance. I am not an ”immediate satisfaction” kind of person and am willing to try, over the next few months, to clean this thing up. If that doesn’t work, then I’ll take the “toss it” approach.


Thanks again…..this kind of stuff is what makes this club special.


Oh, and I’m home today.

 

[redfishbluefish]

LIGHTING


I actually have two hoods for this JBJ28….an HQI hood and a CF hood.

I don’t like either one. The design of these hoods put the lights and clear plastic cover too close to the water. Every time you open it up, condensed moisture runs off the hood. In addition, with the CF hood, the bulbs need to be changed frequently, and with the HQI, it runs hot, requiring a chiller. I have the chiller, but I think there is a better solution.


So both these hoods and the chiller are going to go away.


I first was considering the JBJ LED hood…and then a retro DIY LED unit, but either of these didn’t address the closeness of the hood to the water. In addition, cost was an issue. So what I did was build my own canopy, and you can see that DIY HERE.

The plan is to pick up a dimmable “Chinese” fixture and hang it in the canopy. In the mean time I have temporarily hung my son’s non-dimmable TaoTronics Chinese fixture, were I’m only running whites OR blues…only one at a time. I figure both "ON" is a bit too much light (120W) for a 28 gallon tank.

 

[redfishbluefish]

THE APTASIAN WAR OF 2013


As mentioned, the rock was infested with 50 plus of these little pests. I started the battle with my old standby……1 – 2 mls of concentrated lemon (or lime) juice per aptasia, administered with a syringe. After about five sorties, I came to the realization that this small tank would soon be a big bowl of salty lemonade if I were to continue this route of destruction.


With so many to kill, the approach had to have minimal effect on this small tank. So chemical warfare was out. However, being of the Vietnam era, the napalm conflagration came to mind. I’ll burn them out!


I do not have an ATO set up on this tank yet. So every day I have to manually top off the tank with RO/DI water. The way I am now doing this is to first microwave the water to a boil (in a coffee cup), and then using a turkey baster, add this scalding water upon the little beasts. I can only guess that each gets twenty plus mls of hot water.


Has anyone else tried this boiling water approach? And the most important question, does it work? I’ve been doing this for the past week and a half or so, and I’ve greatly reduced the numbers. Just don’t know if this really kills the little buggers, or if they'll be back with a vengeance.

 

[ThatGuy]

Has anyone else tried this boiling water approach? And the most important question, does it work? I’ve been doing this for the past week and a half or so, and I’ve greatly reduced the numbers. Just don’t know if this really kills the little buggers, or if they'll be back with a vengeance.

This is the only way I've ever done it. I just use a eye dropper as to localize where the water is going vs a baister. Always worked well for me. Just if they look like they are deep in the rock just shoot it directly in the whole as to make sure you kill the whole thing.


Also love the nems.

 

[kschweer]

Good luck Paul if anyone is up for the challenge its you. I have had good luck with getting rid of the occasional aptasia by poking them with something so that they retract into the rock and then putting a dab of superglue gel over where they went into.

 

[Chrisgarrick]

Id love to come by and see the tank. I also have some leds i could give you How long across is the tank? I have some marine land 48 inch lights They work good on softies.

 

[redfishbluefish]

Chris, you are more than welcome to come by whenever. But there isn’t much to see, unless you want to see a nice crop of hair algae, and now less than ten aptasia (I hope).

And you are too kind with your offer. However, 48 inches is a touch too long. The longest dimension (within the canopy) from front to back is 22 ½ inches, while the dimension from left to right is 18 ¼ inches. To give you some prospective, that Tao fixture above is 15 ¾ inches long.

If you wish to stop by, shoot me a PM. Thanks

 

[redfishbluefish]

So is it me, or are these stock stands for the JBJ nano’s a piece-o-crap! I am using the mini Magfloat, and the stand is rocking back and forth. I have to clean the glass gingerly so the stand doesn’t sway too much. I’m now thinking before I start to “built” this tank, I need to build a real stand. Thinking I do the same as I did with the canopy, and put the arched front on it.

 

[NikkiT]

We have never had a problem with the stand for our 12g JBJ, and that is with diablo, our 13 lb cat, jumping on it several times per day.

 

[redfishbluefish]

Hair Algae Attack



Holy Cow!



I took Thermosts (Brian) advise and put my big fat Mexican Turbo into the JBJ about an hour ago. Is there such a thing as a turbo dying from eating too much? He has already mowed about a quarter of the back wall of hair algae. I’m almost expecting to find him dead tomorrow morning from gluttonous overeating.

 

[redfishbluefish]

We have never had a problem with the stand for our 12g JBJ, and that is with diablo, our 13 lb cat, jumping on it several times per day.

Oh crap! Now I have to get a fat cat to test my stand!


Actually on the subject of cats, my son had two cats at his place in Rhode Island. As mentioned, he took down his tank and dump everything here. So I went to temporarily use his lights until I find something more appropriate. Well I picked the light out of a Tupperware and find all three fans totally clogged with cat hair. I mean no way is any air being drawn through these fans. I had to remove the fan grills and use a mini wire brush to clean off this cat hair. So if you have cats, check all your cooling fans.

 

[ThatGuy]

Hair Algae Attack



Holy Cow!



I took Thermosts (Brian) advise and put my big fat Mexican Turbo into the JBJ about an hour ago. Is there such a thing as a turbo dying from eating too much? He has already mowed about a quarter of the back wall of hair algae. I’m almost expecting to find him dead tomorrow morning from gluttonous overeating.

Those things can be monsters when push comes to shove. I remember when I had a FO 135 gal with HA all over the rocks and back glass. Took 2 of them a little over a week to mow through it all. I also got 2 starving ones from the LFS, so that might have helped.

 

[ahvrivera]

IF you need a another mexican snail in the tank to help out. i have a couple in my tank i can let you borrow. They cold use a good feeding They have been flipping frags on me to get the algea on the bottom of the frag plug.

 

[redfishbluefish]

IF you need a another mexican snail in the tank to help out. i have a couple in my tank i can let you borrow. They cold use a good feeding They have been flipping frags on me to get the algea on the bottom of the frag plug.

Austyn, thanks for the offer, but my fat guy is enjoying his vacation in nirvana bliss with all that hair algae. I’m not in any rush for him to finish his job of cleaning up the algae….my guess is two to three weeks. But I do have a concern with you having two. Unless you have a big tank or a bad algae problem, two Mexicans wouldn’t survive. I know this first hand…..I originally had two in my 90, and one died….I’m convinced it was from lack of food.

 

[redfishbluefish]

POWER HEAD AND LIGHTS



Power Head

I’ve added an MP10 to the tank. It was used and needed new bearings. I replaced the bearings (detailed HERE), and am still not happy with the slight amount of noise it’s producing. I’m still scratching my head over this.




Lights

Finally decided on the lights. I’m going with a dimmable Chinese fixture with 8 different BridgeLux LEDS. It's overkill for the 28 gallon tank, but with the pots, I can just keep it turned down. Here’s the LED makeup:

21 Royal Blue (450)
8 Blue (470)
5 Violet (420)
1 Red (630)
2 Green (520)
9 Warm White (35k)
9 Cool White (65k)

Should be here in about two weeks.

 

[ahvrivera]

No problem. No mayor algea problem but enough to feed them. I also give them some nori from time to time. 3 years in my tank.
Nice color selection on the led's. Everything is gonna pop in that tank.