afboundguy's 35 gallon and display fuge build!!!

[afboundguy]

Pulled the trigger on some new fish from @Cultivated Reef!!! Picked up an Orchid Dottyback and an Indigo Dottyback and they arrived this morning and are currently in my acclimation box with a few pieces of PVC for cover with a divider in the box. Going to let them relax in there for a few days to let the clowns get used to them!

 

[afboundguy]

I took out the divider in the acclimation box to see how the much larger Indigo would treat the smaller Orchid and there was some aggression so I put the divider back in. A day or two later the Orchid got out and was in the tank so I let the Indigo free and placed a few PVC pipes in for them to have spots to hide.

Few days later they are eating like pigs and have their own spots and they go next to each other similar to how the clowns matched up so I am hoping with the size differences they will be a mated pair!

Orchid dottyback...

Indigo dottyback..

 

[afboundguy]

Little love going on?

 

[afboundguy]

As some of you know I plan to change my "breeding" tank since I can't catch any clownfish larvae and plumb it into my main tank and upgrade the sump. I was going to use a normal 10 gallon tank but I found a free frameless rimless AIO that I plan to use instead. It's only "6.8" gallons but it's really 8-9 if you include the AIO compartments.

I had to remove some of the glass baffles in the AIO section so I could tackle trying to drill it for the overflow. I didn't even check if it was tempered glass or not, which I probably should have, but it was a free tank! Well I successfully drilled my first tank! I used a 1/2" piece of wood as a guide to help keep the drill in the same spot and it worked well.

 

[afboundguy]

I was on the fence about removing the whole AIO section or keeping it in but after I took out the baffles and saw how "clean" the old caulking was it made the decision easy. I simply added the overflow to the inside of the AIO section. I might take off the ghost overflow part and just keep it as a bulkhead as I think I have a spare bulkhead but what also lead me to keeping the AIO section is the slits are smaller than the slits in the overflow and in theory would decrease the chance of dwarf seahorses and subsequent baby dwarf seahorses from getting sucked into the sump!

Next I plan to soak the tank with concentrated kalkwasser and then give it a nice rubbing alcohol bath to make sure it's clean and get out any medications that might have been in the tank in it's old life!

 

[afboundguy]

I started dosing Aquaforest 3 part/balling method as well as set up an automatic phytoplankton dosing. I am dosing 10 ml of the 3 part spread out over the whole day and it seems to be keeping everything in check. I also am dosing 75 ml of a mix of all of the phytoplankton strands into the return section while also at the same time taking out 75 ml from the skimmer section 3 times a day to keep salinity the same as I noticed it kept creeping up when I was dosing phytoplankton by hand. I am dosing that much as I have several NPS corals, gorgonions, a clam and several scallops and also want my copepods to have plenty to eat in the sump to keep the mandarin well fed!

It's not the prettiest set up right now as I didn't want to waste time and efforts since I will be upgrading the sump. I now have some magnetic stir plates under all three bottles of the 3 part as well as the phytoplankton. I have them running 24/7 on the lowest setting. I plan to hook up the 3 part stirrers to the Reefkeeper system to have them turn on throughout the day and not have them run 24/7. I have found that having the phytoplankton running 24/7 helps with it spoiling. I do plan to try and get one of those 6 can desk top super mini fridges and see if I can fit it all in there to keep it colder to help it last even longer.

 

[afboundguy]

Here's a quick video of the whole setup

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[afboundguy]

Went downstairs tonight before bed to check on the space heater I left on as with this lovely heat wave basement has been in the 50's and I saw the Orchid dottyback (female) sleeping by the clam right near the clownfish's egg spot. This is sort of funny as the clowns killed my old orchid dottyback when I did the tank swap out.

 

[afboundguy]

Indigo dottyback (male) has his little cave under the BBS feeding disk and is sure acting like he is guarding some eggs or plans to eventually!

 

[afboundguy]

Parents and grandmother bought me some tank goodies! The V2 light might be used on the display fuge and the "older" one would go on the fuge!

 

[afboundguy]

Went up to Manchester NH to do Xmas with my aunt and uncle who came up from PA and setup a 2-part system with dosing pumps for their tanks and visited the LFS' up there and picked up some pom pom algae and threw it in the 10 gallon tank for now!

 

[afboundguy]

Also think the female Orchid dottyback might be pregnant! Her belly looked awfully plump and the male Indigo was super interested in her today as I was enjoying the tank before I made the trip up to NH today!

 

[afboundguy]

3D printed a Hanna test kit holder. I found one and customized it and had to split it in half. Just need to get the pH kit to fill that empty spot!

Calcium is too high so I need to do a water change. Already cut the 3part/balling method dosing from 10 ml to 5 ml.

 

[afboundguy]

Also started a kalkwasser soak of the tank I found to start cleaning it out! Have a small PH going to get some flow in the tank.

 

[Mike Lemming]

Making moves! Love to see it!

 

[afboundguy]

Making moves! Love to see it!

Slow and steady wins the race! Need to have heart to heart with the misses about the $500-$600 desk/stand project and then stuff will really start to take off!

 

[Mike Lemming]

Slow and steady wins the race! Need to have heart to heart with the misses about the $500-$600 desk/stand project and then stuff will really start to take off!

I wish you the best of luck! hahaha

 

[afboundguy]

Got the approval from the boss to place the order for the aluminum extrusion! Spent the day swapping out the pump to the HOB fuge that is on the sump as the old pump was barely moving any water!

Also stopped by a LFS' in Portsmouth NH and picked up some nassarius snails as well as some new macro algae!

 

[afboundguy]

Also empties out the small tank and dumped it in the sump for a leak test as well as about 10 gallons of old tank water as I had to do 2-3 water changes as my calcium was over 500!

Sort of cool to see how the RODI/kalkwasser doesn't mix with the saltwater and creates layers! But more importantly no leaks!

 

[BiGGiePauls33]

Just be careful with the various macro algae as I bought a bunch last FFM and some went asexual and caused some issues