250 Gallon Starphire tank

[Skimmerking]

PM ed ya on ozone Ben

[littlesilvermax]

Weird stuff I find out, really weird!

I have always heard this fairly loud snapping sound, kinda like a snap of the jaws or pincers of something.

I only heard it at night with the tank lights out, but never saw any missing fish or tell-tale signs of a Mantis shrimp.


Well, yesterday I am watching the tank mid afternoon, and I hear the noise again, I look up and see the female clown (5+ years old, and 3 inches long) snapping her jaws on what seems to be some sort of food, but I am too late to see exactly what it was. Definitely the same noise, I always was sometimes suspect of my plumbing, my 4-way or something, but I could never pin-point it.

Ever heard of something like that before?

[Doug]

Ben, My pair of Cinnamon clowns use to make a clicking noise. It was almost a chatter type sound.

[littlesilvermax]

My CBB also makes a fairly loud chewing/snapping noise at times, but I found that out after I had him for 2 days, not after having a fish for 5 years.

[littlesilvermax]

Saw my female clown chomping down on one of my unknown pest anenomes, cool, just wish she would eat more of them.


Anyways about time for an update!

On Monday mourning I will start the big tank changeover:

-take out all LR and corals
-get rid of pest anenomes (putting LR in sump causes anenomes to release within 24 hours and easily get them out after that)
-re-arrange LR and corals for more of a Japanese type look
-clean everything up
-install 1 larger return pump
-clean other pumps
-install new ozone unit if have it yet
-make old skimmer into new calcium reactor (from a buddy)

probably other stuff too, but we shall see, that is a lot of stuff for one day!

[littlesilvermax]

Tomorrow is the big day!

All ready with containers for LR and corals and I have all of the plumbing bits I need.

Japanese (kinda) style tank here I come!

[littlesilvermax]

I may have pics at the end of week.


As a bit of an update on other stuff:

I will have a new calcium reactor for you all to see soon!


RO stuff: I use to have 100 feet of 1/4 RO tubing going through my sump to cool my tank water and also to pre-warm my RO water to make it more efficient. I recently got a pressure gauge and found this 100 feet to give quite the pressure loss. So I changed it out for 3/8 RO tubing. Then I got 65 gallons per day out of the unit, not bad for a unit rated at 75 gpd (btw my tap pressure is over 60 psi).

Then I decided to try out a booster pump and see if I could make the membrane even more efficient (not too concerned with output, but it is a nice plus). Now I get 96 gpd out of the unit, and my post membrane tds dropped from 8 to 4!
Only problem is the switch that turns on the booster pump only activates when the post membrane pressure is below 28 psi, so in day to day operations it never turns on at all. It will however turn on if I am making lots of water and have almost depleted my storage tank. I will try and get a different pressure switch.