|
Blacknifes 50g Battle of SPS learning
I've had my 33 sumpless over a year.. Learned lots.
After all summer of being unemployed the tank looking like crap.. And no money to spend on it.. I get home tomorrow after my first 10 days back at work to see what is gone on in there.. How much work am I going to have, what am I going to have to cram into the weekend to make it look good before I go back to work.. I hate working on the road. time for some more automated upgrades.. |
More to follow :)
|
Tank looked good.
HA is still out of control, Pretty sure it is just from to replace my lights, as it never slowed down after getting the damsels out. There was a very slight hint of cyano but not the heavy dose like I had briefly before I went away. Stopped by the lfs on the way home and got a lawnmower blenny, hopefully he will pick at some of that ha while I'm away at work. Got one peppermint shrimp to hopefully try eating the little apistas that keep magically appearing, I keep trying to kill them and they keep trying to grow back. I have only seen it once since I put it in, hopefully the last addition doesn't make a meal of it. I could not say no to getting a tube anemone though, i've wanted one for a while and they look so purdy. cleaned up the few corals that had fallen onto the sand bed and put it in. I might have to get some more glue just to make sure there are no accidents :) too bad I missed the fragfest, oh well there will be more frags I have been getting an idea for the next tank, the location I have my tank there is no room for a stand it is in bay window kind of thing that has a kind of ledge or sitting area in it so no room for a sump. I want to find or get a tank that is the same depth as the window, and then build a little mini sump/refugeeum/hardware area into the back of it so everything is out of sight, Kind of like the all in one tanks available but fit to my window. I guess I am just looking for any opinions on that kind of setup, or advice that would change the way it gets set up. |
I had HA go nuts in my 60 for the last little while, I found a little brown tang that did wonders for it, as most lawnmowers will only take care of short HA.
Sea hares or dragon gobies will take care of it too. As for the FragFest there is always next year. :) Ken - BWA |
I hear ya, I am away 22 days at a time. Wife feeds and looks after then. But the tanks are allways in bad shape when I come home. Coraline on glass, needing water changes etc
|
I was picking at it pretty regularly all summer and it never seemed to make a big dent so perhaps if both me and the fish pick at it it will make a bigger dent.
I have thought sea hare's but have not seen any on any of my shopping trips, would one sea hare clean out the HA in time and starve? Would the tube anemone have to be rehoused while the sea hare was in there? |
Thought i killed the anemone earlier..
but i think its going to pull through. lesson learned don't siphon anywhere near the mucous tube it gets picked up pretty easily :) i ripped a small chunk off of it while cleaning but it is back out fully extended 20 mins later. tough little bugger I guess. |
picked up some LR today and one piece had an aiptasia on it well once the kids were in bed I boiled up some water and with my 2 oz seringe I took the rock out and dose it little bugger. it is now completly white and I believe dead may have lost about 1 inch of LR. meaning everything within 1 inch maybe dead but better 1 inch dead than a tank full of aiptasia. I am keeping my fingers crossed as I could not get the little bugger out of the crevis it was in.
Bill |
Added a phosban and carbon reactor and a k2 a couple days ago. I think I can see a difference all ready. Did a 1 bucket cleanup water change and sucked up all the red slime, usually it is grown back thin the next day… it's not growing back at all.
everything is growing good, green rodidactis split again, perhaps ill take some update pics and some old pics for the evolution page, I know every time I look back at how it looked when I started I want to laugh. the little crab is long gone from the christmass tree coral, and it is still the same size or perhaps a touch larger than when i got it. the little hitchhiker has plucked many of the spikes off each polyp, i hope not for the worse, and the challice at the base of it is slowly regaining color and meat. I want to add a few more small fish, but I'm not sure what. |
Last week the girl noticed the ato was not working right and decided to fill the tank up.. . saw some white stuff in the bottom of the water container so stired it all up<kaulk> and poured it in till it was full then sends me a text a while later saying the tank looks like crap and she thinks its her fault.
Christmas tree coral is now near death, it looks all melted on the outsides and really shrank down. and at least one snail died.. everything else has slowly bounced back. I missed out on the store tours yesterday but its probably a good thing, work is kind of sketchy lately and christmas is coming so i have to pinch every $ i can for a bit. did my own mini store tour today but bought nothing. even though i was really tempted. after i got back i looked in my refugeeum and my cheato is all full of HA agian, if i knew that i would have grabbed some fresh stuff from one of the stores if they had any. It is not really spreading around the tank any more but it has not stopped growing. I need to do more water changes but i have been slacking on that a bit lately due to the pain of having to pick water up all the time. hopefully santa can afford a RO unit for the holidays after he is done brining the kids presents. |
All this time sittin around the house ive been having my hands wet way to much for the gf's liking...
had the AC running cleanup duty the last few days since i keep randomly going in and plucking out HA. i barely redid some rock and coral placement today moving some zoa's off the little shelf peice on top and moving them down so I can try some sps up top. now that the AC300 isnt sitting on the front of the tank and i have it cleaned up a little I will have to take some pictures. I hope the zoa's still grow good where i moved them cuz they were looking pretty good where they were. really wishing i had a little bit bigger tank though there is just not enough real estate in this one :) |
Got some pics?? :D
|
I tried taking some pics but the girl has her camera with her, and the lense i have on my slr does not do the tank justice.
and the lights went out just after i took these. Shot from late this spring for comparison http://www.canreef.com/vbulletin/pic...pictureid=2330 FTS from today http://www.canreef.com/vbulletin/pic...pictureid=2341 Left Side http://www.canreef.com/vbulletin/pic...pictureid=2338 Right Side http://www.canreef.com/vbulletin/pic...pictureid=2339 I got a couple more up in my album too. http://www.canreef.com/vbulletin/album.php?albumid=160 I stoped by AI tonight too and got a couple little things i wanted, was going to stop at blue world too but i never made it in time, dammed traffic. the roads were crap on the drive back to Leduc. |
I had a good little laugh today.
I bought some tanks from leducreef, I wantted to upgrade and move the tank from the window to make sure any spills did not dammage the laminate or hardwood or whatever it is the tank is on. i got his 40breeder, sump and 15 gallon addon.. got it all to the house and was setting stuff up and she asked me "So what am i leaving in the old tank?" took me a minute or 2 to realize she thought i was just starting MORE tanks, oh the things i could have gotten away with. saved most of the water from the display since it was only a 6 block drive, currently whipping some up to fill the sump and side tank. if I can get the params stable and close to matching my other tank would it be safe to move all the livestock over tomorrow? probably heading out of town to work monday morning, so my thoughts are to either bring everything down or just bring my few bad peices of HA covered rock to cook in dark for a couple weeks. Thanks again Jon(John) for the tanks, and gear and the help getting them over here. |
hey no worries hope it all works out for you if you have any problems
give me a shout :smile: |
Never know what to expect <40breeder version>
2 quick questions then the summary
Where is the easiest place to find epoxy for frags. leduc or southside edmonton I keep looking at the hardware stores and not seeing, I know one of the reef stores in ed should have it but i was hoping not to go to ed. Where do you find the small eggcrate, or something like it to put around overflows to try to keep little swimmers out? well for better or worse everyone is moved over. the girlfriend was at first sad that there is no fishtank to look at in the living room any more but then glad that there feels like there is more room up there. Things look great so far and I think i will have alot more success with this setup. The goal was to make a lower maintnance more stable environment for my fish while im still working on the road <looking harder for a local job or a job i would have to move for but have to be home> so now the setup is pretty much as leducreef had it before 40breeder display, on top of a 25? sump with a small dsb chamber with a big ball of cheato on top of it.. 15 gallon is inline beside with a 5 inch sandbed and 10-15 pounds of really ha covered rocks with no lights over it for now. ATO sits on the floor under the 15 and is a ?? big tall rubbermaid container, with lightly kaulked water. The 40 breeder is a much nicer shape than the 33 i had, it just feels like there is so much more area to work with. pulling out the worst of the HA rock probably helps here too. so far i am happy with the aquascaping. central island with a few tunnels and overhangs, near gyre conditions with no rock touching the wall and the powerheads all blowing the water round and round. I need to go get some glue to redo all the coral's that were moved. My diy pc lighting still looks bright even though its a bigger tank, probably because it is shallower. I would not mind upgrading them but thats out of the budget for a while. beside all this sits my old 33 on top of a heavy duty rolling counter. this will be for new salt mixing/water making. with storage underneatH. behind the fish area is my workbench and in the room beside it is my mancave. so there is lots of room for toys and lots more reason to be in the basement. all the corals opened back up after the water cleared, mucked it up a bit moving some of the sand in. had a few minor hickups while tweaking all the plumbing out but i think i got it safe now. My tiny watchman goby was the first victim to the overflow found him swiming in the sump today. What is the chepest/easiest thing to get like that small eggcrate for blocking that off? <in/around edmonton> he can stay alone in the 15 for now if i do not find anything. While getting it set up i had a few close calls with the overflow too, I kind of wanted to drill an emergency overflow before i set it up but i rushed into things. is it possible to drill on a setup tank or would that be a strip it down and drain most of the water event? either way I might have to work on that next days off just for peace of mind. The girl is allready talking seahorses in the 15 but she needs to learn how to take care of the tank more before i try something crazy like that. |
looks great man i have some frag epoxy and some egg crate if you want it :biggrin:
|
so things went great till today
girl goes downstairs and there is water all over troubleshooting ith her over the phone was terrible.. she got it all back working but we found no problem so i told her to keep an eye on it 2 hours later she has not looked at it.. so i remind her water is everywhere again and i STILL dont know the problem im shut down from cold weather today anyways i might as well drive the three hours home to see what is wrong |
Crap, sorry to hear, hope its simple fix
|
did not drive home.. so far its holding out. at least its in an unfinished basement now. I just hope it doesnt crap out again and then not get looked at for a day or 2 heh
|
Made the 3 hour trek home last night and then 3 hours back to work this morning.
The bad news: a few corals look rough. One of the brownoporia frags I put in a few weeks ago is gone. One of the clowns had a couple flecks of what looks like ick. Slight diatom bloom in the low flow areas. The good news: everything else looks in awesome shape. the girl did a good job containing the mess and getting everything but the sump up and running again. i got the sump back up to working temp tested the water and got it working again. I ran it full out for a bit and the leak did not appear. Not wanting the gf to deal with any more bs for the tank I then cranked it down so its just a nice low steady flow though the overflows till i can get home and check it out more this weekend. so far so good. |
Found the tanks first victim today.
the overflow has been backed up for 2 days, but i have had a very busy day including traveling around the countryside for job interviews. Basicaly i saw it was plugged up, assumed a snail was in it or something and just throttled the pump back so more drains into the sump. today i went to modify the returns, as i allready planed to do and found my lawnmower blenny jammed in the return pipe, the plumbing previously had had a small rigid pipe into it for venting. My lmb had gotten into the overflow then sucked into the hole and stuck on the vent tubing so he could not swim out or get dumped into the sump. Now both tanks have durso style vents so if anyone falls in they will get sucked straight to the sump. the other advantage to this is now the main tank's return has no problem taking the full GPH of the return pump. It will never have to do this as some is going to the second tank and a small amount returning to the sump. I did run it at full speed for about 15 mins and the water would not even rise an inch over the overflow. The gf is sad that was her favorite fish. was one of my favorite too. no more fish untill i get some kind of grating on the overflow though. |
New peave
after not testing the tank for a while testing it only to find everything is near perfect. I am working in Leduc again so the tank gets little bits of maintenance regularly. and it shows.. everything is looking better. HA is still not beat but diminishing. thinking about a couple new fish.. dunno what yet. I want to drill my 33 and pull it beside the system and join it in instead of just having it be the fresh water purifying tank. must get hole saw one of these trips. I want to upgrade my lights as well, and add real lights to the fifteen. tank is mixed reef so far, would like to try a bit more sps. for the 40 b i was thinking a combo mh/t5ho unit but im undecided as to get 1x250 or 2x150 for the metal halides... any ideas? and for the 15 with intents to go into some kind of frag tank would a 70w mh or 4 bulb t5ho cut it? I had an excuse to run into Edmonton this evening, for some reason thought it was Thursday.. rushed in to try to get to bwa and ma before they close just to look. mwhahaha did i feel silly when i saw they were closed and remembered its only Wednesday |
Sad story and funny story.
I got a royal gamma and a red spotted blenny at BWA last week. first night my dottyback was picking on the gamma so i put them lights out and they left each other alone. lights come on an hour or two before i get home from work, when i get home the gamma is in an open area of the tank .. with a couple little nipps but looks ok... i watch them lots and the dotty seems to be leaving it alone all the time. come home from work the next day and it has a few more chunks out so i put him in the 15gallon. come home the next day and its dead and half eaten by the sandmonsters allready. so then yesterday i cant see the red spotted blenny at feeding time.. thought nothing of it he might be hidden, go down to feed them today and he is not seen again check the overflow, check the sump. watch the tank for like 15 mins look at the frags in the 15.. and low and behold there he is there is no way he could have jumped across because the canopy blocks it. my only guess is he went up the shared return line and got spat out into the small tank. I think he looks skinny i think he might stay there for a few days till he gets plumped up |
Stuipid blenny found his way to the floor sometime last night.
guess those little red spot ones are good jumpers eh? I guess ill just stick to new corals and not get any more new fish for a while. |
Killed a few birds with one stone today.
at least there were no more fish involved. problem 1: Christmas tree coral :shrinking like crazy. Problem 2: HOB refugueum that i had nothing to do since i went sump-less problem 3: lots of hoses and extra power-head in the sump for Phosphate remover+carbon reactor. problem 4: Cyano and problem algae in the fugue/sortie tank. solution 1: Isolate non-photosynthetic coral and increase feeding since its not getting enough in the DT. Solution 2: use HOB fugue to put the coral in. Solution 3: Plumb the reactors and the HOB off the return, thus freeing up power-heads. Solution 4: Re-organize freed up power-heads so there is more flow in the tank and the Fugue, hopefully curing the cyano. So now I guess its time to sit back and see how things work out. The HOB has a small powerhead and heater in it, and I will probably get some more LR rubble. I will try to give it lots of little feedings and the extras can slowly drip out into the system. I got a few frags from Dez's fragapoloza last week so far all but one look good. Superman monti is starting to brown a little but i kind of expected that. I have my eyes on new lights for the dt in the very near future. When that happens i am thinking seriously about modifying the stand, plumbing my old 33 into the system where the 15g fugue is, and putting the fugue above the 2 tanks just as a fugue instead of a fugue/softie/beginner frag tank. Might have to rename it Frankentanks but that's ok because its sitting in my unfinished basement. To add to the madness the girlfriends sister gave the gf a 50 gallon tank.. which is now full of Fresh water, she plans to start easy, i keep telling her it should be salt so she can have the seahorses shes all ways wanted but she doesn't need extra babies right now with our second one coming out next Monday. |
Baby is out, came out early, brought on by food poisioning or something from some bad fish.
I picked up a 38tall with hopes of redoing the sump for my system. turns out i forgot to take into account the black trim when deciding it would fit in the stand the glass is 12" the opening in the stand is 12" the trim takes up an extra 1/4" on each side. doh so I have a new vision There is room enough room between the DT and the wall and then to the door to the mancave that i could put the 40 there, with only a couple inches overlap in the corner. draining to my 33 as a LRR at the same height, and tied to the 20 gallon sump from the main tank. i can probably push the tank back towards the wall so there is no overlap, Just have to wait till i have the sump off to drill and drain off most of the water quickly. Just have to draw up a quick sketch of the stand to figure out how much wood i need, and wait till i have hole saws and the guts to drill. Tank would be FOwlr or perhaps low light, preadatory reef with the PC lights that are currently on the 40. the sump should then be able to handle the drainage from all three tanks, and there will be lots more room to play in. |
Tankenstein
Got glass hole saw..
got crazy decided to go with the added sump water, made a "stand" to put the new refugieum the same hight as my sump. lined up and marked holes. drilled the empty tank.. Making a new big batch of water to fill it up. tomorrows project.. drain and clean the sump then drill it and re-pumb everything that needs re-plumbing. I think i will attempt to make some of the rock for in there, i will see how that goes. but for now it can just be extra water for stability. |
All projects got derailed by going on a week of storm callout down south the next day.
Came back and my new/used lights were in the post office. 6 bulb nova extreme. they look great and i swear i can see growth on some of the sps after a week of having them. 15g addon is on lights off and all it is housing is the tube anenome, gorilla crab, and a hermit. it had the softies, some lr and the cheato in it with standard flourescents but it seemed to just want to grow cyano and diatoms. the sandbed is black in it and i am not sure what to do. might just take it offline, rebuild the stand and put one of the bigger tanks there. might just leave things the same. Main tank looks good same small little patches of HA but its not spreading at all and i can deal with that. If the "easier" sps that are in there keep doing good i might have to try a couple little harder ones. I want to setup the other tanks as either an addon or separate. I was thinking all the low light corals could go in the other tank. I would like the ease of having a common sump but wondering if the long term health of some of the hard corals would be better if i left the softies in a separate tank instead of just using carbon. |
You are really dedicated, good job!
|
Down to one tank.
Failure of the day.... looking at the plumbing of the return from the 15 gallon.. thought i put a union in it when i put the tank together after the flooding incidents of a few months ago. barely touched the plumbing... cracked the tank. I was looking to move it so i could put the 40 tall beside the 40 breeder and leave the 15 a fuge.. but now.. i just have the 40 b. and room to build everything. on a side note took my kid on a tour today to all the fishstores. all i got were 2 acro frags and some salt. playing with everything to get the rock from the 15 back in the 40 messed my flow up and i cant find a spot to make my alveoporia happy. everything else is settled in and normalizing. that sand in the 15 was pretty rank. it was nothing like that when i moved the 33 into the 40 and split the sand between the 2 i wonder why it ripened up so fast. |
Dammit jim
i took a pic of milli that has stringy stuff on it, found a different way to use the camera to get good macro shots.. decided to go back and take more pictures only to discover the mj1200 fell off its suction cups and fell on some stuff and sprayed sand everywhere..
yay fun times.. |
Everything is still growing and doing ok.
sps are growing and.. showing hints of colour but not not really colouring up. im not sure if it has only been since i got my new lights or if it has been longer, but all my zoo's and some of my lps have been looking fairly washed out lately. looked through some of my old pictures last night and was affirmed of that. I know need to put new lights in my newer fixture but i don't think that would cause this. New lights are waiting till I'm working again. what do i need to do to get some color back in my zoo's? |
Hah off all summer and no updates.
Fish come and go.. corals do good then do bad. not sure what i had for fish before but im down to the 2 clowns, dottyback and a yellow line goby it is staying this way for now, work is to unstable dead fish make me to sad. all my blennies have either jumped or found their way into pumps.. the fish i have have not committed suicide yet so ill keep it that way as long as possible. I'm back to work so this means 2 things.. more money for the tank.. back to less time. oh well keep trying to automate things more. replaced half my lights a few weeks ago the rest today. as well IO got some prodiobio<sp> to try out. I have been battling with a mix of diatoms/cyano. most trays it looks like diatoms but some days it gets little red patches here and there, dust off the rocks and suck what i can out and call it good. I think i need to look at getting an ro unit soon to make this problem go away for good but who knows. Some of my spas are having a real battle.. my alk got low a few months ago.. or something else was bugging them and the birdsnests' and one of the pocks has been fighting back to life since. the milli i got from dez ages ago finally pinked up.. i assume its a rose milli of some kind because.. i pretty much gave up on it having any color other than brown. the couple arco frags i have are slowly looking more like when i got them, I was going to take some shots tonight to throw in for good luck but the reefbooster food made everything to cloudy for now. I still want to add a bit more rock to the sump but i have not find the right rock at the right price yet.. base rock.. used live rock i don't care just need the right stuff. on another note i found a small 12ish gallon classic cube<has stainless frame around it to boot. i was going to use it for mixing but instead i put a small hob filter on it .. one picee of rock.. and a few days later some of my softies. plans are to get a couple more nice pieces of rocks for it and put softies/mushrooms/ what not in it.. but right now i just watch all the pods run around on the rock doing their thing with no predators. |
I THINK there is less algaee growing all over the place. not sure.. perhaps the prodibio stuff is doing something.
Made some aggrocreete rocks today too. I will have to see how they look tomorrow perhaps i will make more perhaps i wont. if they are ugly they can go in the sump if they turned out good they can go in the tank.<after curing of course> I had to spend quite some time rinsing out my old sand in a bucket that has just been sitting there it was black as black. kind of makes me think against ever doing a remote dsb bucket, after lots of rinsing almost all the black was gone and just using that sand for shaping anyways for now, had all new stuff for the aggrocrete. would having some flow over that much gravelactualy keep it from getting black? My one other thought from the day.. i did the rock in a nice flat rubber maid container, but looking at it it would be perfect for a dsb, almost thinking building a rack above the sump for one of these and some mangroves... but one project at a time. |
Dammit, I am in calgary, wanted to grab a few things from other canreefers and visit some stores but have no time.. oh well.. next trip i guess.
|
Did some de-constuction today... 15g wc with an attempt to suck up as much black nasty pockets of sand as possible.
got about 2/3 of the sand i can get to without moving the rocks around. the new water felt a little cool compared to the tank water even though the thermometers read the same so i called it quits at that. try more in a couple days. I changed my GFO and carbon over the weekend then came home on sunday <with a few frags from the lfs heh> to find my one milli that used to look at least kind of healthy bleaching/rtn from the tips. assumed this was from the gfo and turned the flow to the GFO and carbon down to a trickle. The rtn has slowed down not sure if its done though. I hope that was the problem. that was the last thing i wanted to see when brining more SPS home to play with. At the same time i chilled out the little frag tank i have been trying to make in my room, its still runing just in the dark till i can get real lights for it, the daylight cfl's that were over it were barely keeping the softies and zoo's alive. I think i might empty it drill it than tie it in to the main tank and get some real lights for it. as frag tank or larger fugue.. either one is needed heh:) enough late night rambling i think changing all that water made me tipsy :drinking: |
HOB dsb is dead. i tried moving it to the sump. turned it on.. thought it was flowing good.. looked away for a few mins and came back to wet floor.
anyone want a HOB refugium? it doesn't usually flood just have to be careful when you start it up that you get all the air out heh. price free it was running .. i think over a month and the sand looked clean except for a little black stint right at the start by the top lip. I did use used but well washed sand mix of Crushed and fine. the cheato tank is not doing much i think i will go get some fresh fine aragonite sand and put it in there and run the 5g half+full of sand and leave the cheato on top. got some coral snow today too. put my prodibio dosages in early in the am.. put the coral snow in before shutting down the pumps cuz the dsb was going goofy. left the pumps off for a bit.. and everything is covered in sliminess.. like the algaee/cyano that is there but different heh oh well i think its clearing up. I only have a couple weeks of prodibio kicking around i think i am going to drop to just the digest and tp and supplement with the coral snow. the reefbooster is what makes my protien skimmer gum out and not do much for a couple days after i guess there is to much fatty acids or something in it for my skimmer |
I guess its time to start dipping. I have seen 2 interesting critters in my tank the last few days that i have never seen before.
The first one a whitish flat free swimming ribbon, about 3/4 inch long and 1/32 or less wide, attracted to the flashlight as i looked in my tank the other night.. followed it around the tank once.. thought what was that.. lost it.. watched for 15 mins then saw it again.. found something to trap it with then did not see it for a while.. saw it and missed the trap attempt then decided it was well past my bedtime. Last night i saw a small clear object in my fugue. shaped like a classic star trek communicator with a heart or something in the middle. I am thinking some kind of flatworm but I have not looked it up yet. all this was prompted by noticing the pump to my fugue was not working and my reactors have not been hooked up for a couple days. My ato was kicking in regularly and can barely keep up to the evap, I swore it was leaking but i looked all over the tank and discovered that while re-plumbinng the fugue and reactors I must have bumped the return line because now it has a slow drip<not even a cup over night so i am safe for a bit> unfortunately last time i re-plumbed it i could not put a valve in between the sump and the pump so now instead of a simple fix its going to be re-plumb the whole return line. but thats ok.. its all fancy with a manifold on it im not using any more i think it will be going straight into the tank for now. the sad part is i think the fugue was just not flowing cuz the cheap vinyl tubing had pinched. To add to the troubles my kitchen sink drain is not working. the same one i plumed my laundry machine into. i got home early from work went to put in laundry. the girl was doing the dishes and the laundry machine was full of dishwater. laundry machine is back in the drain for the house for now. 15 ft snake ran into some junk but did not clear the problem so i went and got a 25 ft snake..which did not clear the problem either. every other drain in the house works and it is only 15-20 feet to the main drains in the middle of the house so im not sure whats going on. time to call a plumber i guess. |
| All times are GMT. The time now is 01:49 PM. |
Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.7.3
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.