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Saturday night, girlfriend is working, might as well take some more pictures of the fish.
http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/h...icture1334.jpg http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/h...icture1338.jpg http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/h...icture1586.jpg http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/h...icture1592.jpg http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/h...icture1591.jpg |
I've decided to go back to GFO and take the Vertex pellets out at least for now. Some combination of their use and my tank getting a little bit too warm (83ºF to 84ºF) for a week around the beginning of the month has caused all of my soft coral to bleach. I'm mostly blaming the pellets as my nano where I keep the mother colonies of my soft coral has been sitting at those high temperatures (and perhaps higher) for longer and the coral in there are coping much better. Also, I've found several posts from others using these products who have experienced the same. Apart from the bleaching and some slightly increased skimmer production I didn't notice any change in my system for better or worse during my month long trial.
Heres how my toadstool frags look at the moment. A sinularia and capnella look similar. http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/h...icture1619.jpg |
Too bad about the coral but on the bright side is that they will colour up again just fine :)
Nice looking tank btw. Love your fu manchu and eel. |
The frags from Tang Daddy didn't make it but we were able to resolve that peacefully. So I placed an order with Oceanic Corals last week and got these three. We had a slight problem with the high school drop-outs who work at Greyhound but everything arrived alive and in good shape. These pictures were taken today. There's a Hawkins Enchinata, Pearlberry and Mellon Berry Chalice. I'm especially pleased with the chalice as I didn't have to break the bank on it, its a good 2" square and its one of the bluest LPS I've ever seen.
http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/h...icture1666.jpg http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/h...icture1669.jpg http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/h...icture1674.jpg |
Its been a bad year for clams in my tank. I've lost 4 now out of the 7 that I started the year with. The large maxima and crocea I had for about 5 years each while the squamosa and little maxima I only had for a year or two. I believe that the squamosa may have carried a disease or something that infected the others as it was the most recent addition. From day one the squamosa would exhibit classic signs of pinch mantle. In total I think I gave it 4 fresh water dips which would work for a little while and then the symptoms would return. I also routinely inspected all of them for parasitic snails but never found any.
What really confuses me though is how all of them died. The large maxima looked pinched on a Monday in April and was dead on the Friday. The Squamosa looked pinched for about 5 months starting in the Spring and finally died in October. The following day the crocea which looked perfectly normal the night before as it had for years was dead in the morning. Two weeks later the small maxima died basically the same way the big one had. The three clams I have left are a 5 year old Crocea, 4 year old Derasa and 2 year old Maxima. On the plus side the tank continues to look great and everything else is growing almost out of control. http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/h...icture1848.jpg http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/h...icture1863.jpg http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/h...icture1849.jpg http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/h...icture1856.jpg |
I feel your pain, I lost several clams this year including my oldest ones (one was over 6 years in my care. :cry:) It seems once one of them gets something it transfers to others fairly easily.
Nevertheless the tank still looks fantastic, great colours. |
Sorry to hear about your clams. Amazing FTS. Love the green on that cap. Not sure if mine is just a different strain or what but it's such a pale green...makes me jealous!
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Tell me about it! I have a frag of that very cap. It grows like crazy but I have yet to get it that green..... |
All of my bulbs are 250W 14K Phoenix MH. I'm not sure if thats all there is too it of or if its a water quality issue as well.
http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/h...ntipora3-1.jpg |
Do you dose anything other than Ca,Alk,Mg?
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I've got a small assortment of things I use every once and a while. Once every week or two I might use Lugol's, Selcon, Vit Chem or Kent Garlic. Each week I add some magnesium salts to my water change water. Then every couple of days I'll feed Coral Frenzy. Kalkwasser and a Calcium Reactor do the rest. I haven't added baking soda or calcium chloride in months and I only breifly tried some Pro Bio products and Vertex bio pellets earlier this summer.
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Dude your tank is awesome. Ever consider running a dosing pump vs reactor?
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The only downside to the calcium reactor in my case is that my pH tends to be quite low throughout the winter. Right now I sit around 7.7 to 7.9 I'm trying nearly every trick in the book to combat this. What I may try next is drawing my skimmer air through CO2 absorbing media. |
My Tunze ATO has begun to act up this month for the first time in 4 years. For some reason it doesn't always stop topping off once the water level returns to the bottom of the photo eye. So what I've done is add another float switch to my controller along with some more program language so that if the water level reaches the float switch the controller will shut off the tunze for 30 min. While doing this I also added a command to shut off the ATO for 30 min whenever the Kalk reactor mixing pump comes on. This way freshly mixed kalk water isn't being pumped into my tank anymore.
Overall my program looks like this now: If Power 020 Then LT1 OFF If Power 020 Then LT2 OFF If Time > 00:00 Then WP1 ON If Time > 00:00 Then ALM OFF If Time > 00:00 Then SKM ON If Time > 00:00 Then ATO ON If Time > 18:00 Then FWT ON If Time > 19:00 Then FWT OFF Max Change 005 M Then WP1 OFF Max Change 020 M Then LT1 OFF Max Change 020 M Then LT2 OFF Max Change 030 M Then ATO OFF If Sun 060/-120 Then LT1 ON If Sun 120/-060 Then LT2 ON If Moon 000/000 Then MON ON If Temp > RT+1.3 Then COL ON If Temp < RT+1.0 Then COL OFF If Temp > RT+1.3 Then FAN ON If Temp < RT+1.0 Then FAN OFF If Temp < RT+0.7 Then HET ON If Temp > RT+1.0 Then HET OFF If Temp > RT+3.0 Then LT1 OFF If Temp > RT+3.0 Then LT2 OFF If Temp > RT+3.0 Then ALM ON If Temp < RT+-1.0 Then ALM ON If Temp < RT+-9.9 Then HET OFF OSC 003/255 ON/OFF Then KAL OFF If pH2 > 06.60 Then CO2 ON If pH2 < 06.50 Then CO2 OFF If pH < 07.60 Then CO2 OFF If pH < 07.60 Then ALM ON If pH > 08.60 Then ALM ON If pH > 08.40 Then ATO OFF If Switch1 OPEN Then ATO OFF If Switch1 CLOSED Then ATO ON If Switch2 OPEN Then WP1 OFF If Switch2 OPEN Then ALM ON If Timer KAL = ON Then ATO OFF New pictures Top right to show off the montipora colonies. http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/h...icture1922.jpg Top left to show off the green acro http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/h...icture1925.jpg Probably my all time favorite clam. Fortunately its also one of my few surviving ones. http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/h...icture1915.jpg These two Pocillopora colonies started growing on my returns about a year ago all on their own by either spawning or polyp bailout. http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/h...icture1928.jpg http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/h...icture1929.jpg |
At 4:00am this morning I couldn't sleep so I went down stairs to have a look at the tank. The one year old seal on my crappy Reeflo Dart pump must have just went so there was about 2 gal of water on the floor. Ironically I had just removed my water on the floor sensors last week so that I could use a second float switch on my ACIII to protect against my failing Tunze ATO... If they were still in place I might have had some earlier warning about the flood. Fortunately I'm not a complete idiot so I have a spare Dart to use as a backup when these things inevitably happen. So an hour and a half later my rusty old spare is in use again and some of the water is cleaned up. Now I'm just waiting for Reeflo to respond to my email so that they can gouge me with the price of another seal to get me by until next year. Merry Christmas devil tank.
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Wonder if that was the "watery" noise that we heard? Crazy. Funny how, what was it? a week ago? you were talking about that very backup pump. Good thing it was there. Could of been an interesting day.
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That sound we heard certainly sounded like a small burst of water. I bet thats what it was too.
This is the second time I've needed to replace a seal... actually its the third time because I've needed to do it on both my primary Dart and what is now my spare (both were purchased used BTW). part of the process is to silicone a new one in which then takes time to cure. That is the main reason why I own two but its a good idea to have one extra regardless. What weirds me out is the last time it was just a slow leak that resulted in a little salt creep and corrosion. This time it was flowing out at about the same rate that water passes through my calcium reactor. Up until now it was absolutely fine, no salt creep no nothing. |
I've acquired a few new goodies over the last few weeks. The girlfriend got me a new camera (Canon EOS Rebel XS) for Christmas so I've been playing around with it and thumbing through the manual. Then I got myself a Neptune Apex on boxing day. I also picked up a new seal for my Reeflo Dart when I visited Progressive Reef so that I could immediately fix the leaking pump. In a few more weeks the two that I ordered directly from Reeflo should arrive. I was very pleased with their customer service considering the time of the year.
Here is some more good news, my toadstool which bleached back in August is finally re-gaining its color! If you look back in my thread I mentioned how it and a few other coral begun to bleach when I tried out a minimal amount of Vertex biopellets. http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/h...icture2035.jpg Now that the dying has stopped I wanted to show off this pieces as well... It was a nice healthy looking platygyra when I bought it a month ago. Unfortunately it was inadequately bagged for the trip home. Upon arrival the bag smelled like rotting fish. However I consider myself lucky that this much survived and I accept 50% of the blame. When I told the retailer that I had a long drive back to PG what I should have said was please use a larger bag and a lot of water. http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/h...icture2022.jpg Here are a few random shots with the new camera. http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/h...icture2039.jpg http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/h...icture2010.jpg http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/h...icture1990.jpg http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/h...icture1942.jpg http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/h...icture1999.jpg |
Nice pics. Did you use a different macro lens than the one it comes with?
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No just the EF-S 18-55 lens it came with.
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Go
great pics
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wow
beautiful tank!!!!
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Thanks :biggrin:
Clamless 2011 full tank shot. My last clam, a derasa, now lives in the frag system. I'm beginning to think that it could have been pyramid snails all along. The reason I've been doubting it is because I was lead to believe that if I did have them they would be swarming the fleshy undersides of my clams. All I ever saw would be one or two underneath the mantle and many others all over the sand, glass, rocks etc. The only up side is that this gave me a little bit of extra space so now I can fit one of my elegance frags up top. 14 months alive and counting. http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/h...icture2378.jpg http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/h...o/IMG_6795.jpg http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/h...icture2122.jpg |
I'm happy to report that the expensive little frags that I bought from Oceanic Corals last September (5 months ago) are doing quite well.
http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/h...icture1666.jpg http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/h...o/IMG_6834.jpg http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/h...icture1669.jpg http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/h...o/IMG_6819.jpg |
Great looking frags. The first one has a mimi brittle star
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Yeah the brittle star came from my tank, not from the frag. I bought a piece of liverock at our LFS around 5 years ago because it was covered in the little things. Now my tank is full of them. I probably have thousands. I also have a big green 'death' brittle star that I bought 7 years ago as a bad impulse purchase. Fortunately I've never had the desire to keep any small fish with it so it has not caused me any problems. But it is huge... heres a pic of it in the bottom of an IO bucket (the white balance is off on the camera) so that you can see the size.
http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/h...icture1250.jpg |
Kent Tech M vs bryopsis
Those who are familiar with my tank know that I've had a minor bryopsis problem for a few years. By decreasing the phosphate level in the system I've been able to get most of it under control. However a few areas still remained. Most notably along the spraybar that extends across the lower back of the tank. Some of it can been seen just to the right in the picture of the the platygyra if you scroll up the page.
On RC I had read about some impurity in Kent Tech M that for whatever reason kills bryopsis. So after watching a friend experiment with it on his own system I gave it a shot too. I purchased a 64oz bottle and added 200ml daily for about two weeks until I ran out. This brought the Mg in the system up from 1300ppm to 1500ppm (the total system volume is just over 200gal). Some of the bryopsis I pulled out manually which I would do monthly anyways and the rest yellowed and disapeared. Here is a picture of the spray bar now bryopsis free: http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/h...o/IMG_6886.jpg |
Tank looks great as always. Good to see the Kent Mag worked for you. I ended up using 6 liters of it.
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+1 on the tank looking great.
Was it the "impurity" that killed the bryopsis or was it simply the elevated mag levels? http://austinreefkeeper.wordpress.co...f-of-bryopsis/ Brad |
Tank looks really great, while I have seen this thread before I went through it today for the first time in a really long time, it's great to see the changes throughout the years.
What is almost equally impressive is that you wear gloves! I've never seen a refer wearing them! I used to wear smaller gloves sometimes when fragging, but I can't tell you how many times I've been stung by bristleworms and other things, and once even stung by my own dwarf lion fish. Your hands must love you! |
The lionfish hasn't stung me yet but bristle worms have pricked my figures a lot in the past. I've also been bitten by the clownfish a couple of times too so I find gloves to be necessary when putting my hand in the tank.
I've attempted elevating the Mg in my tank to 1500ppm and above in the past using a conventional 9:1 magnesium chloride and sulfate salt mix. Even after several weeks the bryopsis still persisted. Take a look on RC and you'll find many reports of people successfully getting rid of it with Kent Tech M. Here is one of them: http://reefcentral.com/forums/showth...esium+bryopsis I tried to find a thread with one of Randy's posts in it but I'm running a little short on time. This product doesn't seem to work for everyone but for whatever reason it worked for me and Madreefer. Edit: here is the original Tech M treatment for bryopsis thread from RC: http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1113109 |
Just went through the whole thread. Great tank and many nice changes. I have had a dwarf lion for about 3.5yrs and he eats like a champ. frozen mysis and he knows when I enter the room as he comes to the glass and sits on a toad stool and looks at me until i come over to feed him.
Thanks for sharing! |
Porifera - the best things in life are free
Just a few of the sponges growing under my rocks. FYI I don't use any liquid phytoplankton foods.
http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/h...o/IMG_6907.jpg http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/h...o/IMG_6916.jpg http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/h...o/IMG_6938.jpg |
Well to start I must say your tank is inspiring to say the least. I came across your thread a while ago when searching for images of the bullet 3 skimmer. Your coral and fish husbandry show amazing results. Sorry about your loosing most your clams they looked amazing too. I have already planned on attemping to have my 100g stock tank sump look as clean as yours, since most stock tanks are just a mess of cords and tubes.
I must say i would appreciate your input on my (your) skimmer. I normaly frequent on RC and have recently ran into some confusion on sizing my skimmer. Ive always thought a skimmer should be sized to your system. And when i was posting that i planned on using the bullet 3 i was told it was to big. Then got different responses one saying to size skimmer to display anouther just to size to your bio-load.... Which if you ask me is a loaded response. Anyway my system will be similar to yours with 120 display, 100g stock tank, want a 50-60g frag tank, 50g refugium, and recently decided to have a small (30-40g) softy tank or other type of specialty tank added in. To judge by (bio-load) main display to be packed with SPS and LPS 3-4 tangs and many smaller fish, then i would have frag tank probably with a fish in it, and the specialty tank with some fish ( thought about doing a mini predator tank.) To judge by whole system would be roughly 370 with out rock displacement. And to judge by display 120 G It sounds like you've been very happy with your bullet 3. long story... long Do you feel my system would be ok with the same? Here is a link to my build thread. http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/sh....php?t=1969241 |
I've tried to cut down on the mess of plumbing by keeping mine very direct and simple. However if you look closer I do have a lot of wires. I just try not to photograph them.
I plan to continue to use the bullet 3 when I eventually upgrade to a 250gal display which will boost my total system volume up to around 350gal. At the moment it seems to be more than enough of a skimmer for my tank so I'm confident that it will handle just fine. However the whole reason I use this skimmer is because I got a great deal on it buying it used. If I were to buy something new I'd probably get a modern design that is compact, quieter and more energy efficient. |
I've been wanting an Ornate Wrasse since last July and I finally got one! A big thanks to J&L for getting it in. I've only had it for five days now but its settling in nicely. Having the wrasse in my frag bin makes it pretty difficult to get a good picture. Out of the 200 I took this is probably the best.
http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/h...o/IMG_7614.jpg I also picked up a tailspot blenny because they're so cute. http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/h...o/IMG_7457.jpg Oh and I tried bio pellets again for the first few weeks of March... Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. There will not be a third time! It took months for my poor toadstool to recover from bleaching last time. So I tried cutting back to just 100ml of pellets but as you can see the results were the same. Everything else in the tank remains the same but my soft coral begin to bleach. http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/h...o/IMG_7463.jpg |
That is so weird about your toadstool and pellet reaction. I have a Devils Hand and figure leather, been running pellets for about 6 months or more without any bleaching.
Love the new wrasse and tailspot, I see a frag of green monti with my name on it too :lol: |
+1 on the fish....absolutely love Tailspot blennies......mine is one of my favorite fish.....also dig the sponge pics:biggrin:
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Two weeks ago the yellow canary wrasse jumped out of my frag tank... So last weekend I spent a lot of time building this contraption to keep that from happening to the ornate wrasse. I used about 20' of 1/2" PVC, a lot of angles, zip ties and about 10' of plastic chicken wire that I bought from a local pond and garden supply store. The chicken wire is grey and not transparent but its extremely fine so it doesn't block very much light. The openings are 1/4".
http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/h...o/IMG_7664.jpg |
Man that's a big frag tank! ..and wrasses in a frag tank?
Looks awesome! - Brad |
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