labnjab's 29 gallon BTA propagation tank

**labnjab** · 07-29-2009, 04:52 PM

It is set in stone. We will be picking up a complete 29 gallon set-up before the week is over. It has all the equipment including skimmer, heater, powerheads, 250 watt metal halide with ballast and 2 bulbs that are under a month old, live rock and live sand.

The plans are to let it run for 6 months or more and then start adding bubble tip anemones as they naturally split for the main anemone in my display. Its going to be a long process but fun. If the anemone thing doesn't work out for some reason or if I change my mind its always nice to have another tank and I will just turn it into another reef that will probably be sps dominant due to the great lighting. I will also have a few fish in the tank and possibly a few SPS as well as the CUC. Future plans also include adding a sump. Once I get everything I will post some pictures. In the mean time I'm gonna have to start making some R/O and mixing some saltwater water so I have enough to fill it when I get it

**labnjab** · 08-07-2009, 11:25 AM

We got the setup, and for only $200. It had 50lbs of live sand and 25 pounds of live rock. Yesterday I picked up 10 lbs of base rock. So there's gonna be a total of 35 lbs of rock It only came with one koralia 1 powerhead so I ordered a koralia 2 last night. It also has a tunze nano skimmer. There are a lot of softies coral hitchhikers, like xenia and tons of cool looking zoas. While it is cycling I'm going to try and remove the xenia, but I will keep the zoas.

Its been running for 30 hours and seems to be doing good. The coral are open and the xenia are pulsing and the water has cleared up a lot. So far 0 ammonia, 0 nitrite, and 0 nitrate. I'm expecting some sort of a cycle as the rock wasn't completely submerged during transfer which took around 3 hrs so I'm sure there was some die-off. (the guy I bought it off of lived an hour and a half away) If I'm still reading 0 across the board by next week I'll start adding the CUC.

This is how the rock is currently stacked. It may change but I like it now. The water is a little cloudy

The halide, which is 8 inches over the tank and subject to change. Its a 250 watt 14000K double ended bulb. Its a little blue for my taste so I may change it to a 12000K in a few months.

The electronic ballast

and here are some of the zoas

The only thing that I've seen wrong are FLAT WORMS...I saw 5 or 6 on the glass last night so before I add any CUC or livestock I'm gonna buy some flatworm exit

**labnjab** · 08-07-2009, 04:40 PM

Looks like I got my first anemones, lol I found 3 majano's. At this point I'm going to leave them. It is going to be a anemone tank anyways. If they start to be a problem then I will remove them, but at this point their just too colorful to kill

cycle has began, ammonia is at 1. I'm hoping this tank will cycle as quick as our other reef did, which was less then a week

**labnjab** · 08-10-2009, 11:30 AM

Some good news this weekend, what I thought were flat worms turned out to be those snails with the very small shells. That saves me from adding flatworm exit. Luckily I didn't buy any. The cycle was finished as of the morning. It went much faster then I expected. If its still good by Wednesday I'm going to start adding the clean up crew as the diatom stage is in full bloom. The water is now crystal clear so I'll post some pics this afternoon