Saltwater Stu's 75g

[seakingaquariums]

Looks like you are off to a good start! Nice job avoiding complete disaster with the leaking tank!

The sand over the crushed coral will be fine, but will eventually settle underneath the crushed coral, and you'll just have a small layer of sand, and then crushed coral on top.

There's a lot of people who have had success using crushed coral, but honestly I would recommend removing it. Similar to how the sand will settle underneath the crushed coral, a lot of fish food, detritus, fish poo, yucky stuff will eventually settle underneath the crushed coral. There's just going to be a lot of junk underneath there! Diligent maintenance and siphoning will keep it clean, but imo its a lot harder to deal with than sand. With sand the detritus will just settle on top of the sand, making it easier to siphon out, or get blown into the water column where your skimmer can pull it out. Sand will also have a lot more surface area for bacteria compared to crushed coral.

That being said, you can still succeed with a crushed coral substrate, many people do. However if you do choose to take it out, make sure you do it slowly and add the sand slowly. Maybe take out a couple cups of crushed coral a week and add a couple cups of sand a week. A lot of your good bacteria is on your crusehd coral, so you don't want to take out your whole filtration system out at one time. Slowly do it and that way the bacteria colonies on the sand can build up to replace the missing crushed coral.

 

[Saltwater Stu]

Ok here's a question about sand maintenance?
I'm going through an algae outbreak right now, in the past with the coral I could just get in there and break it up, now if I try that I suck up a bunch of sand. So how do I perform water changes and break the algae up without putting a bunch of sand into the water column and my bucket?

 

[Saltwater Stu]

Here are some updated pics of the dt too:

And this is the algae I'm currently battling, not sure type, just assuming its from the mini-cycle:

And here is the qt hood mounted in its maintenance position, haven't put the mounting pegs in yet so I can't put it in its viewing position yet:

 

[seakingaquariums]

More flow will keep things off the sand bed and in t he water column for your skimmer to take care of.. and if stuff does settle there, then you have to be careful when siphoning. Its almost impossible to not get any sand siphoned up, but losing a little bit every once in a while wont hurt.

I do notice you are using a black sand... its probably not aragonite based? which means it wont do much in terms of buffering your tank... Its hard to tell what your black sand/crushed coral ratio is, but it seems like there is a lot of black sand to crushed coral.. so its probably okay to just leave your crushed coral in. It looks nice aesthetically. Just be careful when you siphon. Its also not uncommon for people to slowly add sand back when they notice they have a lot less after a year of waterchanges+siphoning.

As i said before theres a million ways to skin a can, theres no real one way to do it right. Hope this helps!

 

[Saltwater Stu]

You are correct the sand is not aragonite based. And there isn't that much crushed coral in there, so I plan on leaving it in. The buffering hasn't been an issue so far, but that should be something that would degrade with time, I just need to moniter the ph, correct?
Thanks for the info, I've had another 2 powerheads on my list of items to add, I'll just make sure that they are low and skimming the top of the sand.

 

[TJL]

Hey Brandon, the 75 is coming together nicely for you... looks great. You need to get some LR aquascaped in there now and then stop back by and I'll hook you up with some Corals and macro's for fuge. I also have a couple extra K-4's ???

Cheers, Todd

 

[Saltwater Stu]

Todd, rock is cooking right now! I'll keep ya posted, can't wait to get it re aquascaped!

 

[Saltwater Stu]

Got the canopy on the QT, I'm happy with the results, doesn't quite hid the filter and skimmer but stops me from going blind when I sit on my couch!!!

 

[Saltwater Stu]

Finally got all the rock in. Got a few more powerheads, everything is coming together, just need to figure out how to keep chaeto, calpura and other macros alive!

 

[Saltwater Stu]

So my powder blue I've had for the last 2.5 years about, has decided to stop eating! It appears to still be healthy but noticed it wasn't swimming around like it usually does. At feeding time he just swims around like he's interested but doesn't eat anything. Anybody have any ideas? Never had any issues with this fish, always greets me when I walk in the room, but now it just hides....HELP!!!!!

 

[Saltwater Stu]

Ugh, he's gone. Woke up this morning and it was floating wrong side up Tested everything and it all came back normal. Carried out a 20% WC just in case. Odd thing is that all my other fish and coral are fine! Old age?

 

[user 26995]

Sorry for your loss.

 

[Saltwater Stu]

Thanks, the frustrating part is not knowing what if anything went wrong. I think I just need to assume it was the fish and not the tank in this case...

 

[1guydude]

ya thats no bueno, sry! A turkey baster is good to have for sucking things up!

btw sitting on ur couch and not being blind is bueno!
lol
-d

 

[Saltwater Stu]

Turkey baster has actually become my favorite maintenance tool!

 

[Bobby brown]

Crushing read sorry to hear of your troubles, hope things are looking up.

 

[Saltwater Stu]

So whats the secret to keeping coralline off the front of the acrylic tank? I've been using an old credit card and it works ok, but the worst part is having to put my hand fully into the tank. I inevitability end up knocking a frag or sometimes two off of their home. Is there an old trick? Something that can apply enough force to remove the coralline?
Would be nice if I could find a way to reduce the number of times my hand goes in the tank, I'm obviously too clumsy to be messing around in there anymore than I need to be.

 

[Saltwater Stu]

Quick little update, tank is doing good, algae is also doing good Got a bunch of frags from TJL, thought I'd show em off!

 

[Somethings Fishy]

Great looking tanks!! what kind of led's are you running?

 

[Saltwater Stu]

Cheap ass Marine land Reef ready LED. I wouldn't go this route in the future, but it was the first set I bought. I want a setup like TJL's! Home built and completely customizable!