ChronicCoral35's 28G JBJ DIARY

blazin2k6

blazin2k6

Active Member
UM.....DID I MISS something ? Do you have Metal Halides on your tank or what ? Cause i mean you shouldnt be adding all these sps's and clams to your tank unless you have mh's. At least that is what i had been told. Tank looks awesome by the way :) But be careful buying certain things if you dont have the right amount of light. I mean they may look beautiful in pretty in the tanks at the lfs or wherever else but they will die with time if not provided with right lights. Anyways not bashin you or anything. Tank looks good though. glad to see you went with two regular clowns. i know i seen you saying something about wanting to add a b/w clown when you already had a false perc.
 
chroniccoral35

chroniccoral35

Member
I do have MH, its 150W 14,000k. Yeah I decided to just get another false perc...they get along great. I am still not sure if I am going to leave the filtration alone or modify it...if so not sure how. I also may add one more powerhead. Thanks for noticing my diary tho Blazin lol, I did my research for a few months before I upgraded from the 15g. Though I am still having some problems with params.
 
chroniccoral35

chroniccoral35

Member
No, right now its stock...I did not put the ceramic rings the filter came with in. The stock black sponges are still in there. Skimmers working fine but I still have nitrates. Should I take the sponges and filter box out completely and put in live rock rubble or?
 
chroniccoral35

chroniccoral35

Member
Well, my calcium was low...but thats going up. I've been dosing it and will continue until it reaches about 420-440, should it be higher if you have SPS? another thing is my Nitrates....they never go above 20..but even after I do like a 4.5g W/C they'll read about 5, and in a few days seem to go up? I don't over-feed. I run stock filter system that comes with the 28g JBJ, the skimmer is hooked up also.
 
chroniccoral35

chroniccoral35

Member
I appreciate all comments, yes I do know its bad to have low calc. with sps's...I wasn't testing it at first...I kind of just figured my caclium was decent due to the way my corals looked. I was wrong, once I seen it was so low I went to the LFS and bought calcium and started dosing everyday since. It's at 380 now, I'm bringing it up slowly. This is the reason my clam is not opened up all the way
yet? I am also still not sure why I have so many nitrates :(...like I mentioned before its not over 20, ever...but I'm not happy with having 10-15 everytime I test...even when I do W/C's every week, I use Natural Sea Water when I do a water change. I am still getting use to the nano cubes also...so I am not sure on how to change up my filtration system if this is what will stop my nitrate problem.
 
N

nemo_66

Guest
well, first off, your corals can live with some nitrates if you keep softies and lps, but i see you want some of the harder stuff, which i cant help you on, as i have never tried to keep them.
also, on the filtration, from my knowledge, you have bioballs in the back chamber. i would replace those with some live rock rubble. maybe add a fuge with some cheato too.
with that said, i think you could leave the sponge in there, but i would clean it once a week to make sure the nitrates stay low.
yea, seems a lot, and thats why i never have and probably never will venture off to the sps side of reefing...
good luck.
 
chroniccoral35

chroniccoral35

Member
No bioballs come with JBJ's tanks, just ceramic rings...which I did take out. I am going to put LR rubble in the back chambers where I can, eventually I will buy a small PC light and put chaeto in the back, I just can't right now. I only have one sps, I do not plan on adding anymore until I get everything under control. Calcium is up to 400 atm I plan to dose tomorrow and the day after until I see its around 450-460. I also did not know you have to clean the sponges. Do I clean them all? there is one next to the skimmer but its all the way at the bottom. Thanks for commenting nemo, yeah sps seem a bit hard to take care of...but I don't want to give up all help is appreciated.
 
chroniccoral35

chroniccoral35

Member
I'm hoping the non-cleaning of the chamber sponges was causing nitrates even when I do weekly water changes. I cleaned the sponge inside the filter box and the long one right next to it, I also emptied the skimmer cap which was about an inch 1/2 full. I plan on doing this every week.I am making a stop to the LFS next friday to buy LR so I can hammer it down to rubble, should I take out the filter box and put some underneath that and on both ends of the chamber? one next to the skimmer and one next to filterbox chamber? I also decided I am not going to make this an SPS tank aside from the one I already have. I'm not ready to take care of a tank full of SPS so I'm going to hold off until I am ready, but if anyone can help me with my questions I'd appreciate it.
 
subielover

subielover

Active Member
IMO the sponges would be a definite source of trates. Rinsing them out in the dirty water from a water change could help to get some of the gunk out of them
 
chroniccoral35

chroniccoral35

Member
Yeah I am going to clean them in the SW I get from waterchanges every week. I still wan't to add some LR in the chambers, any idea how I go about this? do I just go buy some and hammer them into smaller chunks?
Also what should my Alk be at? and whats the best dosing supplement for it.
 
blazin2k6

blazin2k6

Active Member
anything new ? pics ? whats up. hehe
Awesome. hey well i was reading over ya thread and seems you stressin over nitrate this and nitrite that. ima just give you some advice what i do. ok i have a 24 gallon aquapod and 24 gallon jbj nano cube. I FEED ABOUT 10 TIMES A DAY. LOL. well not actually but probably something like that. I feed as soon as i turn lights on. a bit of flakes. then i turn off pump and feed my corals all my corals mysis. wait an hour turn on pumps again. and then maybe in middle of day ill feed some more flakes or pellets and then maybe some cyclopeeze and then more flakes. LOL. Sounds like total overfeed i know but the food i give them is not much. usually gone within 1 minute after i feed em i dont see any food left. Well i do a weekly 4 gallon water change. i still have everything stock in the back except for jbj , i have a filter floss over the black sponge and i change that ever week. and the sponges i dip in about a gallon of the water im changing and then squeeze all the junk out. and then thats all. well anyways sorry im like talking way too much on ya thread. sorry bro :) GOODLUCK THOUGH. And sorry i missed you saying you had mh's. WISH I HAD MH'S. I want those hard corals. cause some just look awesome.
 
chroniccoral35

chroniccoral35

Member
Nah I appreciate you commenting my thread lol. I do have a small nitrate problem, I now clean my sponges weekly and I do turn off my powerheads once a week to feed the only coral I can feed atm which is my Long Tentacle Plate. Other then that I just put in a pinch of flakes due to both pepp. shrimp my goby and both clowns come right up and eat them. What do you feed your clowns? is there a better food for your tank then frozen brine? thats what I feed them right now just because everything else in the tank eats it too but usually I'll cut the chunk of frozen brine in half but still see left overs and I hate that, what can I do different?
Also I am going to my LFS today, I am going to put LR rubble in my chambers and IF they sell a small PC light that can fit on the back of my chamber I will buy it and put in chaeto and just take out the sponges and filter box. I hope ya comment again soon ttyl bro
Also I'll be posting new pics soon. I also found out I have no sps lol, that one coral is a leather but its beautiful...it fooled me.
 
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