Novahobbies' 37g column tank reset build

[novahobbies]

Wow, it's been a while since I posted in here. Yes, this tank is going well still. In fact this was my emergency coral vat when I had the massive heat crash in the big tank. Everything I could grab went in here....and most is STILL in here. While the big tank settled down (and I convinced myself to re-start it) the coral in here just grew out that much more, so I was actually able to take frags of many of the corals in here instead of the full colonies. Short verion of all this? Now I have TWO sets of most everything here!

I'm posting this now because I was thinking about it, but I'll post a better photo after I've done a water change soon. This is all messy because I just finished cleaning the maine powerhead and restarted it -- lots of schmutz had built up on the zoa boulder!

 

[novahobbies]

PS: Current (and final) fish stock list -- two black ice clowns, 1 juvenile potter's wrasse, 1 blue mandarin, and one kole tang. Tang police stand down, he's a small Kole and he has plenty of room to swim plus big caves to hide in. ;-)

 

[novahobbies]

Here we go. Some better pictures post-water change.

 

[novahobbies]

Just a quick non-photo update. The Falling Blossoms tank (named for the painting my wife did on it) is going along well, but the time has come to make some small additions and upgrades to this little bedroom corner reef. It's just time to replace some aging equipment, so I thought I'd start revamping pretty much ALL of the nuts and bolts. Here's what we're going to do:
Equipment part Current Upgrade
Lights Chinese LEDs RapidLED ONYX
Filter Penplax Waterfall Penguin 200 Biowheel
Powerheads Chinese "Koralia" Jebao RW 4
Skimmer Old Tunze Hydor Slim

The upgrades are starting this weekend, with a pickup of the new LED lights! The old Chinese box will get transferred to the QT tank / ersatz frag tank and the ONYX light will be installed Monday. I also ordered the new skimmer tonight, so I should see that by midweek as well. I'm especially looking forward to trying the Hydor skimmer, since it's one of the few nano style skimmers that actually incorporates a surface skimmer element to it. These small columns tend to get a fair "skin" of schmutz on them that is rather hard to get rid of easily.

I know my choice of filter might raise some eyebrows. The tank isn't drilled and isn't going to be. Space precludes any significant sump under the tank unless I rebuilt the stand 100%...which isn't going to happen....so I'm sticking to HOB filters. The Cascade filter is decent, but the filter replacements are expensive and limiting as to what I can filter WITH. THe Penguin Biowheel will allow me to use the second slot for alternate filter media such as purigen or GFO, which is something I'm interested in for my phosphate levels. And the basic filters are cheaper.

The Jebao RW-4 is a nice upgrade from the cheap fauxralias. Not that there's anything terribly wrong with them (and I may still use one of the two for pure flow) but I love the RW-20 in my big tank, and the wave action is definitely something I'm missing in the bedroom tank. It's perfect for stirring up detritus on the bottom, and these new RWs have been consistently reviewed as "stronger than they look." So unless someone wants to send me a MP-10 for the same pricetag, I'll be choosing the Jebao.

That's probably going to be the final equipment upgrade this tank will see for a long time. The only other thing I WISH I could do for this tank would be upgrades for ATO and 2-part dosing, but once again, space is an issue. So for now we'll have to live with manual RODI topoffs and nightly two-part dosing by hand. So no acros for this tank obviously.

 

[novahobbies]

Starting to come together! The new lights will be here tonight. The filter (plus the additional cartridge) and the phosban for the extra cartridge will be here tomorrow. And the skimmer should be here by Friday. Got it gently used for $50 instead of new for $89.......sounds like a good deal to me!

I have to wait for the next paycheck for the RW-4. Darn those pesky real-life problems. "Bills," "Gas Money," "Groceries"......who needs these things??

 

[lmforbis]

Still waiting on pics. Sounds like a lot of good changes.

 

[novahobbies]

Well, there aren't many new growth pics since the last set of images, but here's some shots I took last night...

Clownfish:

She likes to "host" this Zoa colony:

Juvie Potter's wrasse:

Couple coral shots:

(I LOVE these Rastas!)

Some of the coral in this tank has since been moved back out to the big tank where it belongs. The orange Monti Setosa, for example. But most of it just got fragged from one tank to another, so I have backup copies in case anything happens in either aquarium.

 

[novahobbies]

The upgrades started today! I removed the old lights, cleaned up the canopy a little, and mounted the new lights and filter.
What a mess:

Time to start cleaning!

When I took the canopy off, I found a LOT of salt creep. And I decided that there was a lot of extra lumber in here that didn't need to be there -- it was originally built to have a light sit on wooden "rails," but that's long gone.
So we go from this....

To this....

To this! Lots more space, just have to clean up the nails and sand down the wood.

 

[novahobbies]

Once it was cleaned up, I went in for a test fit to make sure everything stayed true:

....like a glove. And bonus....I can now build a net top to make sure I don't get any jumpers! That extra lumber prevented me from doing that before.
Anyway, you can see the old filter is still here. Nope! Not anymore!

New filter is smaller, quieter, and is putting out more flow than the old one. I chose this because I can change out the types of media. I added an extra basket that has phosguard in it.

Oh yeah, back to lights! Here is my SUPER SECRET High tech hanging rig for these bad boys.

I know you're all in awe over the difficulty level here. I sure was. So. Hung:

Lit:

And finished for now!

The next parts of the project are the new skimmer (to be delivered on Friday) and the new powerhead (not yet ordered, out of money!!) Hope y'all like the in progress shots!

 

[lmforbis]

Looks nice. Your wife did a beautiful job on the painting.

 

[novahobbies]

Thank you kindly, I'll pass the compliment along!
The more I look at it, the more I'm convinced that the zoa boulder has to go. I put it in here when the big tank crashed in an effort to save the corals, but it's just become a trap for detritus and it really messes up the whole "flow" of the "zen rock bonsai" aquascape I was originally going for. And right now there seems to be a lot of aptasia and algae bits on it, so....yeah.

 

[patrick8929]

as i was reading your post i was thinking the rocks resemble a bonsai! very cool. i still like the zoas but i can see why you would want to lose it. i gotta ask how is the tang doing? kind of a small tank for one but i know things like that have been done before without issue

 

[novahobbies]

Thanks for asking Patrick. The tang has been doing great, no issues with his swimming or behaviour. I chose a blue-eye Kole tang since they are one of the smallest bristletooth tangs around, and I made sure that my rockwork was roughly columnar and in the middle so he has plenty of room to zoom around the whole thing if he ever chooses to. I've never seen him do that, but hey....if he gets a wild hair, it's available to him. When it comes to tangs, I'm much more concerned about how people keep Acanthurus or Paracanthurus and some of the larger Zebrasoma tangs. Most Ctenochaetus (bristletooth) tangs can safely be kept in smaller tanks in the 45g range with good rockwork, or column tanks like this one as long as swimming room is provided. That's just MY opinion though, and I wouldn't recommend a new hobbyist to try it.

Honestly I feel like I'm pushing the bar more with my Desjardini in a 110g tank. He's not full grown of course, but he's still a 5+ inch fish in a 4 foot tank. I get away with it thru 40% total monthly water changes and a very open rockwork with lots of swimming room and hiding spots. One day I'll have to give him away though. Desjardinis have been known to get HUGE. As in, "let's eat this fish for dinner" sized. ;-)

 

[novahobbies]

Found the powerhead I was looking for on the 'Bay for a very reasonable price. Unfortunately it's slower shipping, but I can wait. Too bad I feel like Cookie Monster in the new iPhone commercial, but I'll have to deal.

In the meantime, the skimmer is here! I'll be setting that up this weekend.

 

[novahobbies]

I'll be taking some photos later tonight, but I have to say this new skimmer looks EXTREMELY well made. Everything about it reflects a perfect combination of precision and simplicity. You can disassemble the entire skimmer in less than 5 minutes and strip it down to bare components, and yet reassembly is straightforward and practically idiot proof. Everything fits together just so, with no real way to screw it up or assemble it incorrectly. Cleanup looks like it's going to be a breeze. I also love the fact that it will be almost impossible to overflow this thing. If you skim too wet or the skimmer decides to go nuts (and we all know they do, from time to time), the mere act of filling up the skimmate cup will cut off air flow to the impeller, killing the skimming action. The impeller isn't a needle-wheel design, which I'm a little surprised at, but it looks like it has many more blades than one would expect. I'm very interested to see what kind of foam this produces.

My new wavemaker will be here Monday, so I'll most likely wait and put both devices in at the same time. No use letting the clowns get at my arm hairs twice in one week.

 

[novahobbies]

Here we go: the final hardware revamp. First up, the pump! I went with the Jebao PP-4 wavemaker pump.

I love the size of this little thing:

Here's what it looks like next to the 800gph Fauxralia pump that it's replacing:

Love it. Nice and small, puts out some serious pressure, aaaaand......

....almost impossible to see. I tucked it in the back and ran the cord up behind the filter's return pipe.

So let's talk about that Hydor skimmer. Since I didn't get it new, I didn't photograph it out of the tank. But you can see it in the photo above. Day one and it's already producing a nice dark-tea skimmate. I gotta say I'm impressed. It's quiet, well made, and powerful! It doesn't take up much more space than the Tunze I was using, but now I've got a good clear water surface free of proteins and floating crap, and the skimmate is already much nicer than the stufe the Tunze gave me. All in all, I'd say it was a great deal.

Now, time to start thinking about that damn Boulder.....

 

[lmforbis]

Nice, I have 4 jebao wave makers RW4s and WP40s, two on each tank. I really like them. Haven't seen the PPs before I'll have to look them up, my RW4s work great but I wish I'd gotten the next bigger size. What is their max flow rate? I have some like your old ones. They are my back ups.

 

[Kristin1234]

Your tank is one of my favorites. I love when you post new pics.

 

[novahobbies]

Lmforbis, I think the PP-4 is identical to the RW-4....just renamed for 2016. In terms of output, it's rated for 500 to 4000 LPH, which is roughly 130g to 1050gph. I have mine set at about 70% power right now, but I might go up. I MIGHT also get another in the future, but that depends on coral choice.

Kristin1234, thank you for your very kind words! I have to admit I love having this tank in my bedroom. It was lovely as a seahorse tank, and though I miss the 'horses, the coral selection in here makes up for it.

Speaking of corals. I think I'm going to have to re-locate that pocilipora up near the top. New lights are making it stay retracted a lot. Worried it might burn.