labnjab's 10 gallon softie tank

**Reefkeeper18** · 08-30-2010, 05:16 PM

Love the little caves in the rock looks like a mini mountain I'm sure the tank will look awesome when your done

**rageybug** · 08-30-2010, 11:23 PM

Killer little tank, looks awesome!

**labnjab** · 09-08-2010, 11:09 AM

Thank you everyone. I'm hoping our flasher goby comes in today. The LFS said it would be 2-3 weeks and today makes week 3

**Cliff** · 09-08-2010, 04:10 PM

I am very impressed. From everything I’ve researched, a 10 reef can be extremely difficult if you don’t have very strong knowledge.

Your tank looks great.

**labnjab** · 09-08-2010, 04:34 PM

Thank you cliff. Its actually been fairly maintence free. I clean the filter in very hot tap water weekly to kill any nitrate that may build up and do a 20% water change every other week with water from our 75 gallon. So far its had very little algae and its been running almost 2 months.

I have been thinking about adding a skimmer, or at least a surface skimmer. The water is clear, parameters are great and coral is growing, but I'm not liking the film on the surface. I had my hand in the tank yesterday cleaning the glass and had a yellowish ring around my arm. I'll probably buy the next cheap, used one I see.

**labnjab** · 10-18-2010, 04:29 PM

The tanks been running 3 and a half months and all is great. I've been impressed with the growth. Coraline is really picking up and all coral is happy. It seemed to skip the algae stages. It had a little hair algae which went away by it self. We do a water change every week to 2 weeks with water from our 75 and that's it besides top offs. I tested the par with all 18 bulbs and I'm getting over 100 on the sand and it goes up from there.

We are still fishless but it is home to a CUC and 2 pepermint shrimp. We hope to add a fish or 2 soon. I plan on adding a few more pieces of rock from the 75's sump so that I can place some of the frags

FTS, I just turned the lights on so everything isn't fully open yet

This acro impresses me the most. Nice growth and color and its not directly under the lights

**Cliff** · 10-18-2010, 04:35 PM

Look'n great.

Thx for taking some time to post a few pics

What;s your secret to avoid all the nasty algae stages ???

**labnjab** · 10-18-2010, 04:52 PM

thank you

I'm not sure about avoiding the algae. I got lucky, lol. I used cured rock from an established tank, had a short cycle, didn't feed for a month and kept the lights off during the cycle. I'm also wondering if the leds have something to do with it. I only have to scrape the front glass every few weeks. Guess its turning out to be as low maintance as I hoped it would be