IM 25g 3’ Frag/Display Tank

[Max_nano]

Hi! I’m Max and I’m in San Francisco.

I have a 36”x18”x8” acrylic tank. It’s an All-in-one peninsula. The AIO section is 4”x18” and is divided into 3 sections.

I have this tank in my living room and have it split to pretty much be 50/50 frag area and display area. The display area is on the far end away from the AIO wall and all the pumps so it’s a good spot for things that appreciate lower flow so I have zoas and mushrooms there. Then the half next to the aio chambers has a frag rack with things I fragged from the display side.

I’ll be adding more details and copying from my journal on my local forum in the next few days, but here’s a recent picture of the front

 

[Max_nano]

Lighting
Lights: G4 XR30 supplemented by 2 24” aliexpress 470nm led bars that are dimmed with a break out board and dimmable power supply controlled by my GHL

Flow
Return pump: Sicce 1.0
Powerhead: 2 ai nero 5


Filtration
Filter floss and an IM nano skimmer
I also have mangrove seedlings but I’m not sure what impact they have at this point. I have low nutrients and dose nitrates to keep them up

Dosing: GHL 2.1 SA doser
Alk monitor: KHG pro
Controller: GHL profilux mini with power bar
ATO: Smart ATO micro
Stand: An aluminum stand I got for a 90 gal and never set up.

 

[phatduckk]

Love it!

 

[Max_nano]

More pictures.
BC shag priority

BC Kermit song granny

torch

acro

Orange chalice

Pink goni

red Goni

Front

side

 

[Humblefish]

Featured!

 

[OZ_SPS]

This is one of my favorite frag tanks threads outthere. Great job Max..

 

[Max_nano]

This is what the tank looked like just 6 months ago.

I was planning to copy over events from my other journal on a local forum, but I had a minor crash/coral loss event that makes me bummed out to look through old pics. I lost a lot of corals due to a nem getting blended by a powerhead, I will cherish the corals that survived and know they’re some hardy corals.

Ideally I would have had this tank setup for longer before I put corals in but my options were limited due to life circumstances. I had to put everything I had in a previous frag tank into this new one while the rock was still bare white. I did anticipate this so I did put the rock into a holding tank with dr Tim’s and I fed a little to hopefully start a bacteria population before I put it all into the tank

here’s a picture of my frag racks when I first got everything moved into the new tank. I have 1 of the acropora, the gonis, one of the montis, the gsp (duh, haha), and the zoas. I lost almost everything else

 

[Max_nano]

This weekend I’ll try to add some information about how I take care of my tank. I’m still such a new Reefer with just a year of experience with some highs and lows. I am open to criticism and would appreciate any input you have, I want to utilize this groups hundreds of years of experience. Thanks everyone, enjoy your tanks/weekends!

 

[MrWheelock]

Welcome! Looking good, glad you stuck it out through the low spots and glad to have you here on the forum

 

[Max_nano]

Water
I start with Tropic Marin Pro salt that I mix 10 gal at a time. I make it with RODI from my brs 4 stage rodi, I’m fortunate to have low tds source water, around 25. I change 5g/20% each week, but I’m lazy so it becomes every 2 weeks pretty often. I want to automate this soon.

I try to keep alk at 8, Nitrates around 1ppm, and Phosphates around .08. I don’t test for anything else on a regular basis.

Alkalinity
To keep alk stable I use kh guardian to test every 4 hours and have used that to build my dosing schedule. If I see a dip in alk I then set a dose to happen between the two tests where there was a change. This has gotten me a schedule where I’m theoretically dosing during the times there is an uptake which keeps alk very stable. Last week I was at 8 for 3 days in a row, then eventually it went to 7.9 and it got a bit thrown off by the increased dose. Going forward I’m going to wait to see 7.8 before increasing.
In the past month I haven’t had a change larger than .2 in a day which I’m very happy about, I was worried alk would be more volatile in a small volume tank like this. But I’m sure it would become tricky as things grow and alk intake increases.
I have been using b-ionic 2-part.

Nutrients
I want to keep N and P stable so I believe that a good way is balanced nutrient import/export. For export I have filter pad in the return chamber to catch food and detritus, a protein skimmer, the bacteria, and the weekly water changes. For import I have pellets on an auto feeder that’s aimed at a feeding ring, I feed frozen LRS nano frenzy, and I dose nitrates

For nitrates and other nutrient control dosing I got the ATI nutrition system that has N P and Carbon. I like that it will be consistent, I don’t trust myself with the diy after trying it for nitrates with the loud wolf potassium nitrate. So far I’ve only needed to dose Nitrates and have been dosing them to keep above 0.

I like this system because I can test weekly and if N is low I dose that, it P is low I dose that, if both are high I dose the carbon. Eventually I want to try to raise nutrients and see what the impact is and then I can dose carbon so I can raise the bacteria population. my understanding of carbon dosing is that it would increase the bacteria population which then consumes the increased nutrients from n and p and then the coral can eat the bacteria as a source of n and p.

 

[Max_nano]

My female clown had some stringy white poop stuck on its way out. It’s gone now, but is there anything I should do about this?

They are captive bred clowns and are currently the only fish in the tank. They have been alone for about 6 months since I moved to a small tank. I feed ocean nutrition pellets supplemented by LRS nano frenzy. Let me know if there is any additional information that would help. I have seen this happen before and did nothing, but it doesn’t hurt to ask this experienced group. Thanks!

 

[OZ_SPS]

@Humblefish any idea?

 

[Max_nano]

@Humblefish any idea?

I found another thread that leads me to believe that it is just due to the food. In the other thread HF said that there would be additional symptoms if there was an intestinal issue

 

[Humblefish]

Just for continuity:

Usually when a fish has intestinal worms or parasites the white stringy poo is consistent AND you'll also notice these additional symptoms: Pinched stomach, fish has faded coloration, fish eats voraciously but still seems to be losing weight.

Irregular white stringy poop can just mean intestinal irritation (no treatment needed).

 

[Max_nano]

My male clown “Buddy” lives in the red goni. In a previous tank I had these clowns in I had about 5-6 RBTA that they never touched, now with no nem they decide to start having corals host them. So cool to see. He gets skiddish so I can’t get a very clear picture but here he is

 

[Wrangy]

Such a groovy little tank mate!!

 

[Max_nano]

Such a groovy little tank mate!!

Thank you! While I’m looking forward to a bigger tank in the future, this little shallow tank has been awesome and makes the most of my 25g limit.

I think it got me hooked on shallow so I’ve been looking at tanks like the frag series from WB.

 

[Max_nano]

I have about 2 weeks of b-ionic 2 part left. I’m going to switch to Ati 2 part for a few reasons, and am wonder how to approach that.

I’ve found calculators online and have a rough estimate that I will need to dose about 3x as much 2 part if I’m using the Ati stuff. My plan is to take the b-ionic off the doser and set up the Ati and set a conservative schedule, then use the khg testing to monitor and adjust the dosage until I’m on track and stable with the new stuff.

Is there a better way or other suggestions on how I should approach this? If I had additional dosing heads I would probably do something over complicated to slowly transition, but without that option I think the switch over plus manual dosing at first will be a good approach.

 

[OZ_SPS]

Since you have the khg, I would not worry too much. Profram your doser to dose what the calculator is projecting. Program your doser to dose a bit more than the values calculated.
Then have the khg turn off the doser when kh value goes above your target.

I think switching from bionic to ati is OK and I do not see a need to switch gradually..

 

[Max_nano]

Program your doser to dose a bit more than the values calculated.
Then have the khg turn off the doser when kh value goes above your target.

Yeah I’ll make it test every 2 hrs and do something similar. I still haven’t upgraded to the p4 so I can’t program that yet.

Alk has been variable recently, I think it’s a combination of starting aminos and keeping my windows open for higher pH. I’ve been seeing pH up to 8.55