Matt's 29g Custom LED

You are remembering your chemistry classes I see, add a little, slowly, and watch and test.

I'm very interested in this though as I can only fit a 10G tank in my cabinet (other than building a custom acrylic sump), by the time I have given the skimmer space, and that is with the skimmer standing outside the tank, the return pump area and the bubble trap zone it has left me what I feel is a small area for cheato and LR. And as such, needs more "assistance".
In the one corner I built an acrylic tower, where the water enters. I had planned to fill that with smaller pieces of LR as I read that is a good bubble on the entrance to the tank. There are vertical slits in one side, plus extras at the top.
I'm also thinking of looking for a rough sponge to fit the down pipe into, to act as an initial large detritus filter, one that is easy to remove, and squeeze out when doing a water change. A secondary effect maybe to quieten the sound.

So what you are doing maybe an option.

I had also envisaged (that means I had the idea, but as yet no idea of how to make it practical) of making some type of carbon filter envelope which could filter into one of the bubble trap spaces of the exit from LR and Cheato. Thinking what the cheato doesn't absorb, the carbon would. Frequently changed would be a requirement I know, but, just an idea.

I really want to try for the basics though, of keeping the tank it's own eco system, without external help for filtration.

The story continues......

Your carbon idea should be rather simple. Buy the carbon packets used in freshwater and modify the sump to hold one and force the water through it. I've seen it done.

I loved starting out quite natural with filtering. It allowed me to learn much more while having a low maintenance setup grow and mature. I have no doubts that it is effective and could continue to be used successfully... however I was already feeding very little and my phosphates were slowly but surely on the rise. I either needed to remove fish, or improve filtering.

Obviously I didn't want to remove fish! ;-)

Alright, so tonight I ran water quality tests. My phosphates raised to .10 which is no good. I'm completely positive that api kits are worthless for phosphate testing now because even though I'm at double the high level of .05 (.02 is desired), it's still less than half the lowest reading on an api test kit.

Nitrates are still 0 but those phosphates are going to lower my growth rates and fuel the green hair algae. I'm going to add a bit more biopellets tomorrow... I think I'm safe. :-)

Matt, does your cheato not work as the phosphate extractor? I was under the impression that the cheato was a great tool for phosphate removal.

It requires both nitrate and phosphate to grow. So it'll grow and remove phosphate until all of the nitrates are removed, then it can no longer grow without nitrates present, so it's unable to remove phosphates further. If your nitrate and phosphate are balanced, this won't cause a problem. Mine apparently aren't. :-( Lol

The biopellets work by providing a carbon source for the bacteria to constantly feed on. In that way the bacteria can be maintained in large quantities even without nitrates and phosphates present. However... whatever nitrates and phosphates exist will be consumed quickly as they become available.

What about your clams? Clams also need nitrate to survive. You don't think the bio pellets will deprive them of what they need? I would keep an eye on that crazy growing Deresa and see if it starts to go down hill. Clams do most of the micro management of the water quality IMO.

I'm not planning to strip the water as much as biopellets are capable of... that's why I'm trying to add them so slowly. I'm also planning to feed some products that will help them such as CoralAmino, PhytoChrom & Reef Snow.

Got a few things in from BRS yesterday. Quite a few things that I really needed. I learned two very important things today because of what I ordered.

An improperly calibrated refractometer can be flat out wrong. The directions on the refractometer I purchased said to set the refractometer to 0 with RO/DI water and that it would be calibrated... wrong! I ordered some salinity fluid and calibrated my refractometer to 1.026... it was off by nearly .005... I thought my salinity was 1.026 previously, but it's actually been 1.021 the entire time. Luckily I hadn't been trying to run my salinity any lower!

I also ordered a Hannah Checker for Alkalinity. I debated on ordering this or not because I have two boxes of salifert's alk test kit... each with about half remaining. They give some consistent readings and I was actually pretty happy with the test... it was quick and easy to read with very little variation between multiple tests. However... I get my Hannah checker today and my alk is reading a point and a half dkh higher! Salifert kits were showing my alk to be 7.8, but the Hannah checker showed my alk this morning at 9.2. I'm going to trust the hannah checker as my main reading kit and pull back on the alk dosing today! I can't wait until I pickup the calcium kit and they release the magnesium kit. These are so easy to use and give accurate results.

I also ordered several more things... one of them being the Ecotech coral glue. I'll give my opinion on it vs super glue later on today after I try it out. The price wasn't near as bad as it seemed... similarly priced to super glue gel when you consider that this is a 75ml bottle and super glue gel is a 3ml tube.

Can you use the Ecotech where you place glue on plug, and then stick it to the rock, with the rock still under water?

Yeti wrote:Can you use the Ecotech where you place glue on plug, and then stick it to the rock, with the rock still under water?

According to their product description, yes. I wasn't trying it in water, but reviews that I found say that most people are unsatisfied with it when attempting to use it underwater (many of them put the entire bottle underwater... and found a rock the next day).

I did use the glue on several cut frags today. I've got to say that I'm surprised but it actually seems to be better. I only had to hold the frag against the frag plug for about 4 seconds before I could let go. With the super glue gel I've been using thus far it is easy to say that the Ecotech glue bonded faster. The larger bottle is also worth it... much easier than messing with the tiny tubes.

So with all of the stuff that I fragged today and the cleanup I did on the tank... the tank is looking really good. It might be biopellets or the mb7, but my water is extremely clear right now. I actually walked into the room and was almost surprised when I looked at the tank, I'm loving it right now.

So I was a touch impatient today when adding the biopellets. The .10 phosphate level has me wanting to get the biopellets up to a dose high enough to lower those levels sooner rather than later. So... I doubled the level. I'm now running at 60% the recommended amount for my tank. Everything still appears to be going smooth.

One of Jenny's friends is a photographer and let us borrow her L-series Macro lens for about 20 minutes before a party they were headed to today. I didn't have much time, but I snagged as many good pics as I could with it. :-)

Oh.. and I'm not going crazy. Today Jenny looked at the tank and said... the water is really clear. So ha! Lol.

On with the eye candy.
Mini-Maxi Carpet Nem - Still steals the show. Still my favorite thing in the tank.


GARF Bonsai Acro


Green Slimer Acro


Pink Birdsnest


Branching Hammer Coral


Left Side of the main shelf rock.


Right side of the main shelf rock.


Sandbed - Derasa Clam is still growing extremely fast!


Frag rack packed full of SPS.


Full Tank Shot - sorry... all of them I took were out of focus. :-(

Wow Matt great photos! Your tank is amazing thanks for sharing, helps keep me
focused to where I want to get.

Thanks Terry! :-)

I held off on dosing the alk last night and my alk dropped pretty good. I dosed again, am going to get it back up a touch and test right before bed. Then I'm going to test at the same time tomorrow. The hannah alk checker goes by ppm, so it measures by the .056 dkh... I should be able to set my dosing amount off of a single days drop. I'll test every three days or so to make sure I'm keeping track for awhile.

Also.. the phosphates tested 0 tonight. I tested twice... and then I wondered if maybe I should have tested twice when I got the .10 reading. They appear to be 0 for sure today. Biopellets maybe? Doubled them 36 hours ago... might have done it?

Also... had to super macro this shot:

Tank looks Great. Have you had any problems bleaching with the leds.

Thus far none. I've really had great luck with the LEDs... I did raise it to six inches and my colors seem to be getting better but I'd buy this exact fixture if I had it to do over again. :-)

My JBJ LEDs seem to bleach out some of the coral. They are so bright. I'm thinking of leaving the 14k on only 7-8 hours a day and see if that helps. My cousin is setting up a 90 and is going to use the evolutions.

My full spectrum lighting is only on for 7 hours. I turn my blue LEDs on at 10:30AM and shut off at 9:30. White LEDs on at 12:30pm and shut off at 7:30.

I've got acros on my sandbed, so I think it's okay! Haha.

The biopellets appear to be working well. The green hair algae has slowed down and my phosphates are staying down even with the insane amount of feeding. I did increase it to a full dose recommended for 29g this past weekend since I've saw nothing but good thus far.

I ordered in some fun products that I'm going to try out. Brightwells coral color, strontium, potasion, coral amino and sponge stuff. I'll give my opinions on if these products actually do anything or not! :-)

When you add these Herr Doktor Frankenstein, is there any way to test for concentration levels? How will you know if they are being used, or if you are risking an overdose?

Basically you add slowly until your nitrates and phosphates drop to 0. Mine dropped, but I still had some slow green hair algae growth, so I knew they were still around.

It is like a crazy experiment for sure. Lol

I'm running full tests tonight and tracking on here. I did not find my maintenance dose last week because I realized I was adding salt water in my ato to raise my salinity to 1.025 (which it is now at). So I'm going to do that this weekend. Tonight I'll take readings and then dose to ideal numbers. Tomorrow I'll take readings and note results, then Sunday I'll note the drop that occurs over a 24 hour period. Then I'll calculate my daily maintenance dose.

Salinity: 1.025 - Refractometor
Nitrates: 0 - Elos
Phosphates: 0.04 - Hannah Checker
Calcium: 520 - API
Alkalinity: 6.16dkH - Hannah Checker
Mag: 1350 - Elos Pro

These Hannah Checkers are spoiling me. I hate running other tests! Lol

Wow alk vs cal surprised me. How does it keep getting thrown off when my mag is fine? I can't wait till I've got the cal and mag hannah checker! :-) Time to dose some alk!

Tonights alk reading: 6.94dkH after adding 14ml of alk 2-part last night. I'm going to double up the dose this time, adding 14 tonight and another 14 tomorrow morning. Hopefully that'll put me near my desired 8.5dkH and cal can drop to my desired 480. Then I can do my 24 hour test on Monday night.

8.12dkH tonight at 11pm.

I'll test tomorrow at 11pm as well, and that will give me my daily dose value. The great thing about the hannah checker is that it measures in increments of .056dkH, so it should be a very accurate daily dose. I'll give my readings tomorrow.

Tonight at 11pm. 7.44dkH

So here's my total dosing plan, all Brightwells products.

2-Part - 7ml per day
Koral Color - 5 drops per day
Potassion - 5 drops per day
Strontium - 2 ml every other day
MB7 - 2 ml every other day
Lugols - 1 drop twice a week
CoralAmino - 2 drops twice a week

Gotta put this into the calender on the phone!

I'm going to add some zeo products in soon also. Just the ones in the nano pack. :-)

After two days of dosing I have determined one thing.

It feels cool!




but of course... if it doesn't show positive effects on the corals that absolutely won't be worth the money! Haha.