Project New Reef by Achilles Tang

[Achilles Tang]

And of course, everyone else in the family had their turn in our new tank!

Heh! My dog hates water and sulked the whole evening!

[B|uEc@rpEt]

AT! U look quite entertaining...in btw....urmm pardon my question...but issit a little "dirty" to have ya whole body in the enclosed water area....eg the hair?

[B|uEc@rpEt]

Juz saw ya dog!!!

SO cute!!!

wats his/ her name???

[Achilles Tang]

It's just tapwater!

We had to go inside to clean the glass properly.... and take a bath at the same time!

[B|uEc@rpEt]

VERY romantic....!!!

[Tanzy]

All those organism you see above are NOT REEFSAFE, I repeat not suitable for reef aquariums.

Not to be attempted by the novice reefer without knowing the proper requirements. There have been reports that the abovementioned are extremely dangerous to the keeper.

Please avoid.

[Achilles Tang]

Wahahahahahahahahahahah!!!!!

In your professional opinion, which one is most compatible with shrimps? I wish to acquire the dog fish but am worried whether shrimps are part of his diet?

[Tanzy]

I will be more concerned about the Homo sapien having shrimp as part of his diet than the Canidae.

[Achilles Tang]

My plumbing work is finally done with the fixing up of my main pump.

I have washed all my sand.

Tomorrow, I am going to make saltwater mix and also transfer some of my old tank's water, live sand and liverock in to make the cycling faster.

Gonna pop in a smelly old raw sotong piece that I have been saving to create the ammonia I need to kickstart the cycle.

The bacteria in a bottle I am gonna pour in to colonise the 15 packs of #1 sand asap.

Hopefully my cycle will be over in a week and a half.

Then my corals will go in first.

Gonna leave my tank uninhabited by fishes for at least a month to kill off any ich parasite cysts.

Gonna treat my fishes with hyposalinity treatment to kill off any adult ich parasites on them.

After a month... then the fishes get to go into their new homes...

By then... hopefully, the pod population will have exploded in my refugium and my main tank.

[kelstorm]

seeing AT in his tank.. i think i'm gonna fish for a mermaid for my tank.. hehehe.. !!!!!... .....

[Tanzy]

You can never never get rid of ich. When there aren't any fish around, they just become dormant. It really is just like the common cold for fish.

[Achilles Tang]

Yes, you can prevent ich with careful procedures... its never 100% sure.... but still... prevention is better than cure.

Sometimes even common cold can kill...

Ich never becomes that dormant... its possible to starve them.

Ich can be introduced by liverock, corals, water from the bag... many many ways of entry...

[Hon]

Achilles!!! How is the prgress now????

Pics..pics...pics leh....

Best can do a step-by-step picture sequence...kee..kee...

[Achilles Tang]

Been quite busy these days... will update very very soon!

Got some nice pix to show of my plumbing.. haha!

[Tanzy]

Amyloodinium has a life-cycle as long as 72 days and Crytocaryon has a life-cycle as long as 60 days. The only prevention is to ensure good fish health.

[Achilles Tang]

Arrggh!

Are you 100% certain???

Most of the info gotten off the net advocates about 4 weeks!

[Tanzy]

I'm not a marine biologist, but I'll say just live it!

[Achilles Tang]

Sorry folks... for the late updates.

About 10 days ago... I filled up the tank with water to test for plumbing leaks (of which I ran into a few!)

I made a six inch tall glass T partition so that the back part of my tank will have a 6 inch DSB guaranteed without sand movement.

The rest of the tank slopes to 4" at the front.

I recycled my old tank's stand cover and use it as an intank backdrop. It is black acrylic and is siliconed to the glass back. I cannot use a sticker backdrop as I have an external overflow box.

I cut holes in it for the closed loop bulkhead right at the centre and lots of oval holes for my overflow teeth.

I cut the black acrylic sheet to be shorter so that after putting the 6" sandbed at the back, I have a 1" tall 'window' that runs along the length of the tank.

It also lets in light so I can use a torch to peek at the back of the tank. Perhaps in future I may even build a FL tube fixture over this 'window' so my caves will be lit up!

[Achilles Tang]

With a huge amount of sand to wash... I am talking about 21 bags of #1 sand.... it would be backbreaking to wash them in the bathroom and transport them out into the room and heave them into the tank.

So the decision was made to wash the sand right there in the tank!

We poured the sand right in and use a lot of filter wool to catch the floating debris and gunk and also used a fine net to scoop out those that didn't get caught by the filter wool.

Here's a pix of the sand pouring into the tank.

You will see some reef racks that I have custom made to support my liverock at the back.

I wanted to maximize the sandbed exposure for maximum detrifying effects and at the same time, save space for my fishes to sleep in as well as to save money in liverock.

See how blurred the view was? The dust took about one and a half day to clear as I used my reeftec to churn up the water.

Of course my reeftec doesn't churn out bubbles like this... its just too close to the surface as I was draining out the water.

Here's the gunk and debris caught by the filter wool... all this from 21 packs of sand!!! I found a sweet wrapper fragment, wood bits and raffia string inside the debris!

[Achilles Tang]

I used black fibreglass netting in my DSB to protect any disturbances from sandburrowing creatures.

For my 6" segment of my DSB... the netting was deployed at 3" from the bottom.

For my 6" sloping to 4" segment, the netting was at the 1" mark.

FYI, the reef racks will reviewed in the DIY segment and the fibreglass netting will be featured in Product Reviews later.

[Achilles Tang]

Guys! I forgot to mention that last Sat night... my coral banded shrimp gave birth to baby fry!!! I could see it arching its back, fanning its legs and using its claws to 'throw out' its newly hatched fry!

IN MY NEW TANK!!!!!!

There were like hundreds of them!!!!

It was an auspicious sign yes?

My fishes and corals had a good feast!

Too bad my digi cam was with a friend. Gonna get it back today and show you some photos of my new tank setup!

[robe]

Hi At,

Have comb the sand for stell or iron particles. Typically coral sand aare taken from the beach and contains a lot of junk both inorganic and organic. The sand grains also contains some amount of sedimentation , it would be better to wash and rinse it a few times to get rid of the sediments. It is best to rinse it till the water is almost clear before putting it in your tank otherwise it might present some problems later on due to high organic content in the sand.

[Achilles Tang]

Robe...

No worries... already have the sand washed very very clean.

Must have used a Olympic swimming pool's amount of water... don't see any metal bits or big shells...

I have no worries about small sediments... they are supposed to be good for DSB.

My water is crystal clear now.

[Achilles Tang]

Here's a preview of what's in my new tank!

[Achilles Tang]

My anthias...