Under Table

[diki88]

Long story short, got itchy and bought a nano tank from bro magical. Convinced myself if all else fails, this would be a quarantine tank for my next tank at my own place.

Again, lied to myself this would be a simple setup with soft corals and a few fishes. Set a budget of $500 for the whole setup including misc like test kits, refractometer etc, but who am I kidding. 

Under table in my room since I'm still staying with my parents while waiting for my BTO next year. That, and they got sick of a flooded living room floor every once in awhile. On to the boring part :

Tank : 35x35x40 IOS; 24x35x40 display

Skimmer : Coral Box S150 -otw

Lights : MarsAqua 165w led - China black box -otw

Chiller : Hailea HC-100A

Return/Chiller pump : Eheim Compact 1000

ATO : 5L red star fish got from gemsurf long ago 

Media : Seachem matrix & chemipure elite 

I think that's pretty much it. So here goes nothing. Abit lazy to go down pasir ris to buy nsw. Managed to pull out my old zero ro/di unit from storage but TDS meter still otw from Lazada, thus tank still dry.  

 

Here's a quick crappy pic taken with my phone just now.

 

Thanks!

[diki88]

Just a few info, ownself problem ownself I encountered while going about buying all the items.

Skimmer : I have an old tunze 9001 but sadly couldnt fit into the ios compartment. read on nano reef, ppl cut off the holder or smthn but too much work for me. so decided on the coral box s150. If not wrong, they just rebadge it since its a also a red star fish brand same like my ATO.

Lights: this was the biggest self inflicted headache. initially decided on the sanrise A029 30w aqua knight. some carousell seller selling for $135 and he lives just down the road. Then I felt IF I were to add sps inside, what if it's not enough? Nearly pulled the trigger on the AI prime HD. Was at madpetz and I was literally staring at it for 15mins deciding. Decided to walk away and give it another day to think. Finally after reading and reading, and being a cheapo, I got the MarsAqua led, an Ebay chinese black box. Receive quite good reviews in the US so why not try, 

Bought already, how to hang since the lights does not come with tank mounts or legs. start another round of searching for light stand, search and search, all damn expensive.  end up, went on lazada and bought a pull up bar for $15 to fix it above the tank. Already kena poke fun of, "for your fish tank u buy pull up bar; for yourself never ever think of getting" that line is to be added to the long list of lines such as "your fish you buy aircon, yourself sweat use fan", "your fish eat better than you", "wah your fish drink vodka, you drink water". I think I can write a short book of "things a reefkeeper's family say".

Some other small issues is hc-100 use 12mm pipes, i didnt think of that, only realise after coming back from c328 with 16mm hoses. 

First time trying the nyos test kits, bought from madpetz, have been using salifert all along. Oh, in my rush, I bought the phosphate test kit as well when otw to gambas, I was telling myself need to get the hannah checker instead. 

I think thats pretty much it, so far.

[diki88]

So I came back home to this : 

[diki88]

Long winded post coming; pls feel free to go TL;DR.

 

Went to AM yesterday to buy red sea blue tub salt, sand and water to get the tank wet. For sand I was looking at caribsea's special grade reef sand before I stepped foot into AM. I left AM with those generic sand thats packed in the plastic bags. Should be grade 3 after washing it. Needed to wash like 5x to get it to be clean, or I was just too shag to wash a 6th time therefore it looked clean to me.

Got an API ammonia test kit as well. Not sure why but I didnt feel the need to get the nitrite one. Up to yesterday, I forgot how is it like to carry a large pack of seawater x4 and a 22kg pail of salt. Can die. 

Poured water in, put sand in, on the return pump, no leaks, happy. 

As for the lights, all in all, very bright lights, need to get a timer for the two channels to simulate a rudimentary sunrise-sunset light schedule. For the price, I really cant argue much against it except it blinded me when I was worried it was d.o.a after switching it on but I was just being stupid as usual since the knob was not turned on.

On a separate note, I tio my first stupid purchase. Had a $10 lazada voucher, decided since the refractometer and tds meter can wait one month, I will buy it from lazada and save $10. After the voucher, total was $17. This was sometime last week. Pat myself on the back for saving money.

Not sure how I reached this RC page in the afternoon, but someone mentioned "so as long as you dont use those brix refractometers meant for beer". What the hell is this guy talking about, but why does it sounds so familiar? So I went back to my lazada order, and there it was in my order summary;  "0-32% Brix Wort Specific Gravity...refractometer" awaiting to be shipped from the seller in China.     bang chair on head also cannot solve this stupidity. I chose the wrong refractometer. There was indeed other refractometers for fish tank at the same price, I go choose the brix one...

So 2 options : cancel or use.

Cancel - since item is in transit, reject receipt of goods, return back to seller. lazada will process refund. this is what lazada cs told me to do.

Use - if for some reason, i dont know it now, but if I go back home after work to see it waiting for me, I found this chart from Randy Holmes Farley for the conversion. Following chart is by him, credits go to him. Which means to aim for a 4.4% brix.

 

Thats enough stupid for the day. Now I will just let the tank cycle. 

[diki88]

Further details on the MarsAqua lights I got :

 

 

Upsides : cheap, well received and used by other reefers, bright?

Downsides : only hanging kit, no legs or mount, no controllability - just channel A and B for manual adjustment, after sales will be a chore if have to send back to china.

You can find the link on RC about this light. It's 66 pages long, I guess if a light is no good, the thread wont last that long. Usually will be a straightforward no dont get it if someone asks. 

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2474870

Have been dosing MB7 for the cycling. There is some ammonia in the tank when I checked. Not sure where is the source since I didn't add anything in. Maybe the chiller had those residue stuck even after pumping water first. Or the MB7 had some dead stuff liao. 

[Acrosss]

Any updates of the tank now?

[diki88]

On 29/04/2017 at 1:27 PM, Acrosss said:

Any updates of the tank now?

hi bro, tank just finished cycling on it's 17th day.

was registering consistently high ammonia till the 2nd week. then I cleaned the bacteria film that was covering all of the tank glass. within few days, ammonia and nitrite dropped to zero. not sure if caused or correlated.

currently, nitrates at 5-12 on Nyos test kit. will most probably ghost feed for a few days or at least till the weekends to confirm cycled.

[Acrosss]

11 hours ago, diki88 said:

hi bro, tank just finished cycling on it's 17th day.

was registering consistently high ammonia till the 2nd week. then I cleaned the bacteria film that was covering all of the tank glass. within few days, ammonia and nitrite dropped to zero. not sure if caused or correlated.

currently, nitrates at 5-12 on Nyos test kit. will most probably ghost feed for a few days or at least till the weekends to confirm cycled.

Great!  Care to share Which system u use for ur no3 po4 export?   Carbon dosing? Redsea nopox,  Gfo ?

[diki88]

2 hours ago, Acrosss said:

Great!  Care to share Which system u use for ur no3 po4 export?   Carbon dosing? Redsea nopox,  Gfo ?

thanks bro. using skimmer and chemipure elite, which is just GAC and GFO in one. 

other than that, maybe when I need to supersaturate my kalk in the future, there will be vinegar.

u got a tank running also?