28g JBJ HQI

[bauder1986]

Wow, this is going to be one heck of a coral producing tank once you have it all set up, I really look forward to seeing the end!

[mseepman]

Any new news on how this tank is doing?

[makana]

Well so far everything is on track. I bought aprox. 18lbs of live rock and it is doing its thing. There has been no noticeable spike an anything yet so I am not sure if there will be an actual cycle. I have the lights on a timer at 4 hrs/day this week. I am following the advice I have received from bauder1986 and increasing the daylight by 2 hrs every week to avoid problem algae.

The live rock came with aptasia that I am trying to kill off. I have also spotted a crab in there that I have to figure out how to catch. Any suggestions?

[bauder1986]

Originally Posted by makana

Well so far everything is on track. I bought aprox. 18lbs of live rock and it is doing its thing. There has been no noticeable spike an anything yet so I am not sure if there will be an actual cycle. I have the lights on a timer at 4 hrs/day this week. I am following the advice I have received from bauder1986 and increasing the daylight by 2 hrs every week to avoid problem algae.

The live rock came with aptasia that I am trying to kill off. I have also spotted a crab in there that I have to figure out how to catch. Any suggestions?

There are a couple of threads on here about bottle trapping. I dont really know what that is about because I got lucky this far and havent had to go and catch any annoying hitchhickers (knock on wood). But yah, search bottle traps/trapping in the forums and read away.

[makana]

Well things are going good so far. There was no cycle so the rock must have had very little die off. The hair algea is starting so I didn't increase the light cycle this week.

I was thinking of peging my rockwork. Any advice on the best way to do that? Any reason not to do it?

[makana]

nothing new to report. I have some hair algea and the start of a diatoms bloom.

I was wondering if I should remove the ceramic rings and sponge from the filter chamber. Any thoughts?

[makana]

Well I finally have an update worth posting about. I added the sand, rock, and the first fish. I tried pegging the rockwork but that really didn't work out. I tried a few different ways and every time the rocks were unbalanced and I really wasn't happy.

So instead I tried epoxy putty and zap straps. The zap straps allowed for securing rocks in very interesting positions. I am happy with what I was able to do with that. Hopefully it doesn't take long for coraline to hide the ugly straps though. I am not really sold on the putty. It has no bonding at all. it works well to even out surfaces for stacking rock but for the most part I could have accomplished the same result with the zap straps alone.

The fish has been in there for a few days now. Amonia is 0, nitrite is .1, and nitrate is .5. Im not really sure were the nitrate came from with no bioload. It is a little frustrating to have climbing nitrate already and an unstocked tank.