So you got lots of magnesium and high alk, then you need to just dose calcium, sounds like you have things under control, hope it all works well for you.

Razz begun parting out his livestock for his 180 gallon setup. He told me his toadstool was 10". I figured he meant the head was 10", but when I showed up and the STALK was 10"... wow...

I also got a finger leather from him that's a fair size. Thanks again, Razz for selling me the corals :D

I'm trying to figure out what to add next for fish. Something that'll get along well with the cinamon clowns and the royal gramma I have already. I want to take into account their full size growth, down the road too. I have about 100lbs of liverock and a good euroreef skimmer at the moment, and nitrates are almost undetectable. I think it's time for another fish or two, just don't know exactly what to get. Oh, and it's an open top. The last fish I got was a bicolour blenny that went carpet surfing :(

here's a picture of the tank. My last picture was back in NOVEMBER so it's a lot nicer now :)

http://www.kwirky88.com/images/01-20-07.jpg

actually I took more pictures, I just couldn't resist it ;). They're all shot with my digital rebel, with various lenses and extention tubes (I can't afford macro lenses, so I use tubes).

http://www.kwirky88.com/images/xenia.jpg
this xenia started as a frag of about 5 polyps
I moved it yesterday to a position so it'll completely cover my "centerpiece" rock, and hopefully go inside it's cave. we'll see in a couple months.


http://www.kwirky88.com/images/xeniaclose02.jpg
aesthetic close up :)


http://www.kwirky88.com/images/fingerleather.jpg
this is the finger leather I got from Razz.

the little frag that could
 

http://www.kwirky88.com/images/aquar.../littleguy.jpg
The Little Frag That Could...

so this little toadstool frag, my first frag ever has been succumbed to all my mistakes starting from my first nano tank. It hasn't grown at all. In fact, at one point it even shrunk in size. It's fallen off rocks into rockwork, it's gone through n00b water parameter swings. It's gone through everything.

I decided to "be a man! do the right thing!" and give it a permanent home. I epoxied the little bugger down to let him live the rest of his life in solitude :)

except, as fate would have it, when I was cutting his plug with the dremel he flew 10 feet across the room! So he's now glued down on a good spot, and he won't be moved EVER again.

He's the "little frag that could" I've even decided to name him. "Little Guy"

side note:
by the way, albert's plugs are annoying. I always have to dremel off the "legs" to get them to epoxy down in good spots. Too bad the plugs don't have "week lines" along their legs so they can be snapped off if we don't need them.

so i fragged some of the branches off the leather coral. 10 in total. I'll see how they do in the next week.

Also got some chaeto for the fuge. We'll see how that does. It's in the slow moving area of the fuge.

And I bought some kent turbo calcium to fix my calcium/alkalinity imbalance. littlesilvermax has some calcium chloride on the way, so thankfully it won't be expensive to maintain. I'm in the process of baking baking soda ATM.

Oh, and I got an urchin, and I wish I got more, it's so damned cool :D

my calcium is under control now. been dosing to part mix every evening. 30ml each night. my coraline is coming back, and my frogspawn has shown to benefit from it.

I added two sixline wrasses today. very small. quite cute, really, and I think their roudy nature will be ok with the cinamon clowns and the royal gramma already in there (which are at least twice their size, and will be much larger when all are fully grown).

now to solve my coral coloration issues.

I was tired of not having places to put coral, and being a student, I don't have the $$ to just go out and buy another 80 lbs of liverock. So I built a PVC/eggcrate support. Did it all with stuff I had lieing around. I used every single zap strap in the house. Not a single one left :biggrin:

Surefire way to make 90 lbs of liverock look like 140+
Just need a little more rock to fill out the right side and a bit on the top. that'll be when the semester's over. The great thing is I KNOW there aren't any dead spots piled under all the rock, cuz it's just a big open space :smile:

I've got a powerhead pointed at the back (as you can see) to make sure nothing collects behind the rockwork. The overall water flow's better too, this way. Just flows right over all the rocks.

I was even thinking of leaving the little bit of PVC/egg crate open on the right, as it was an extremely convenient place to place all my frags. I don't know of too many people who have their frag rack integrated into their rockwork :wink:

BEFORE:
http://www.kwirky88.com/images/01-20-07.jpg

AND AFTER:
http://www.kwirky88.com/images/aquar...2-23/rocks.jpg

I hate to say it but I like before better than after.

Yeah the previous one was definately aesthetic, but it JUST didn't quite win it in my own heart...

The previous structure, if you were to compare it to historical landscaping, was like Wrest Park Gardens (england). It was aesthetic, but didn't quite strike my fancy after living with it in the house for a while.

Also, when I first started the tank, I had the idea of going for the "natural" look. Limited species of coral grown in groups. Avoid the "fruitstand" look with 30 different types of corals all scattered about fighting each other for visual space, as well as chemical space ;). I'm hoping to get more of a NY central park look. It's like the word 'wild' vs. the word 'nature'. I want a wild look.

I looked at it when I was done, and I liked the pile look, but I know it's going to look like a fruit stand if I keep it this way. The idea behind the rack was to allow for tunnels without wasting precious rock as structure. I'm a student, and can't afford to buy loads of liverock just to stack it in the back and never see it again.

Yeah, the previous arrangement looked nice, but I'm shooting for something a little different, and this one's still not quite how i want it.

I want to see like 5 different types of coral, at the most, grown so that they're grouped together, completely filling the rockwork. It's SO hard to do that, I find, too; to not buy another frag just because it would be neat :)

I'm keeping some of the coral I fragged up, and I'm going to group some of it together. And I'm doing a slight rearrangement this afternoon, while trying not to disturb the coral I moved around already last night.

got my rocks how I want them. still fighting aiptasia. down to two little polyps (used to be 8). I've been using joe's juice as I haven't been able to get pepermint shrimp yet.

I'm going to try to deal with the cyano that's on the one end of the tank. Nitrates are below 0.2ppm, using rowaphos in a reactor, so I don't think it's nutrients. I think it's my photoperiod. It's currently 13 hours of 10k, and 11 hours actinic. I switched it to 12 hours actinic and 8 hours 10k. I think this might return some of the colour I've lost in the corals, too. We'll see how it goes. I'm also due to replace 5 of my 8 bulbs in april (9 month point).

I bought some new coral the other day. A large (about 8") nicely coloured zoo rock, a small acan piece, and a 2.5' tall branching montipora. I really like the colour of the monitpora, so I'm now planning to get more SPS.

I finished putting my nano gyre together, and now I'm waiting for the money people owe me to come in. I'll be getting liverock first, then I'll have time to decide on the lighting while the rock's cycling. I won't tap it into the sump of the 120g till the rock's cycled.

Income tax return is coming in soon. Plan on either getting a PM calcium reactor, or a dual channel litermeter III, depending on which I can get my hands on first. I'm so impatient when it comes to buying equipment :).

I'll post more pics when I feel like it.

Whats this when you fell like it , you have some nerve Sean. well I can't speak.. mister spilly talker.......:lol:

ha, sorry for holding back on the pics. Call it nervousness? heh...

Here're the catchup pictures. lots of 'em.

First of all, here's my extremely messy sump:
http://www.kwirky88.com/images/aquar...-27/mysump.jpg

and here's a full shot of my fish tanks in the basement. Figured i'd show their "context"
http://www.kwirky88.com/images/aquar...7/longshot.jpg

the gyre nano I'll be tapping into the system soon to use as a strictly SPS tank. watch it in action here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TOCOnxOnwsI
http://www.kwirky88.com/images/aquar...7/gyredone.jpg

the small rock of damaged acan i'm hoping to doctor to good health. It's now sans-aiptasia, too.
http://www.kwirky88.com/images/aquar...7/acanrock.jpg

my favorite softie in the tank. got it bout a month ago, and it's blue colour has returned.
http://www.kwirky88.com/images/aquar...-27/softie.jpg

my first SPS, a branching montipora I got a few days ago. Love the colour :)
http://www.kwirky88.com/images/aquar.../montipora.jpg

and a piece of toadstool that I never realized I lost until I saw it growing in the complete darkness. Yes, it's GROWING down there lol.
http://www.kwirky88.com/images/aquar...ayingalive.jpg

and a large rock of nice looking zoos recently aquired from Gold's :)
http://www.kwirky88.com/images/aquar...27/zoorock.jpg

I think I have a microbubble problem. I'm going to have to find time to remove the sump, and silicone in baffles. Right now it's baffle-less.

The water looks like it has particles in it. When the pumps are turned off and the water column's observed right away, I notice tons of little bubbles floating to the surface. Algae only really grows on plastic stuff, but where it's growing, there's large bubbles stuck to it.

I wish there were glass places closer to my house. I either have to take the bus and transfer 3 times, or take a bus and a train, then walk about 20 minutes further.

I think I screwed up making my last batch of 2 part, too. I didn't use the same bottles as last time for the alk/calc parts. I mixed the two up, and didn't rinse them well before hand. My alk's dropped 1 dkh in the past week, and I think it's the 2 part. Either that or I didn't bake the b.soda enough this time. baked it at 400F for an hour spread out about 1/4" thick on a baking pan.

I just love the gyre nano :). I'm debating whether to use the 150W light I have now, or upgrade it to a 250W halide or a T5 setup.

Baking the baking soda (sounds funny) does not change its alk value (at least by much) it just drives off CO2 to keep your tank ph up.

In other words, if you do not bake it well, that is not the reason your alk is down.

yeah I figured it out a little while ago. It was the mixing up of the bottles. I emptied my mix out of each and rinsed the bottles well, then made up a new batch of 2 part. When I mixed them up incorrectly, I remember thinking "how come everything's not dissolving as nicely as last time?" lol. It was precipitating in the bottle :D

just moved all the rock from the gyre tank into the display tank. It's beginning to look full.

Bought a hydnopora colony today that's about 7" across. Waiting for it's polyps to come out.

I remember it had green polyps at gold's a while ago, and now they're brown when I bought it today. I think it's cuz they were kept under 20k 150W lights. I think the colour will come back under my T5 lighting.

I still think they look good even if they're brown :)