crabs new 24" cube

[i have crabs]

well did something stupid last night, so ill be awaiting someone to hit me with a you know what.
since the tank is now ready for corals the last real step was to do a big waterchange check the levels and start enjoying.
how it actually went was i did the waterchange which ended up being about 20-25g smaller than i thought it was but big enough a bit after i tested the alk at 6dkh i though frig its still that low so i grabed the jugs of 2 part i had and poured about 200-250ml of each about 5 mins abart and in seperate areas.
i came back maybe an hour later and had a snowstorm in the tank... great im an idiot i thought

what i think happened is for the last month ive been dumping a bit of kents coralline excelerator stuff i got at macna so ive been adding calcium but no alkalinity and when i tested the alk at 6 i didnt even test the calcium cause i just assumed it would also be low since i forgot about the coralline stuff. anyway thismorning all my fantastic purple rocks where covered in chalk and my skimmer was filled with chalk and my glass was covered in chalk... yes there was a nice white coating of chalk everwhere and i continue feeling a bit stupid but atleast i now know what it liiks like when calcium precipitates in your tank..

other than that my mystery wrasse has decided he dosent want to eat and has a nice case of pop eye, i noticed it slightly when i got him home last sat but today its worse and im stressing a bit about a $100 fish not eating

[i have crabs]

well ive had the new light for a month now and love it, the 250w bulb is a bit yellow for my liking but not badenough to spend the money for a new one yet i think its a 13k so maybe ill try a 15-18k when im ready.
since getting the new light ive been adding corals a bit at a time, i actually thought i added some pics but i guess not, i was really wanting to not use big blobs of epoxy all over the place but havnt really been able to avoid it so now im just gonna live with it.
i usually always used the deltec epoxy but tried a few other things to see what i liked best,deltec epoxy is a fairly firm product when mixed up and easy to mold arond corals and rocks and still have the strength to hold(if that makes any sense), i tried the twolittlefishies epoxy and found it very soft when mixed almost to the point that you cant hold anything up untill it starts hardning, the part i do like is it hardens very quick compared to the deltec stuff which is nice sometimes even though i tend to waste small chunks cause it would be to hard to use when i would be ready to do another frag or whatever.
i also tried the zeovit speedglue, it was a real pain to figure out the best way of mixing the stuff so it would work but after a few tries i got it down fairly good, the problem i would have is once you get it mixed to a kind of playdough like chunk it would be hard in like 30 seconds so you need to be ready and know exactly what your doing with it, i tended to waste quite a bit of this also since i usually mixed up more than i needed, its kinda a pain to mix it up every time your ready to use some like if your gonna mount 2 or 3 things your probably gonna mix up 2-3 batches. definatly has it place and im glad i bought it, i like the grey cement look alot better than the fake purple expoy look also.

the other day i also noticed another mantis in the tank, not happy about it but thats how it is, i bought a trap from bigals for $20 but since nobody at the factory was smart enough to makeshure it dosent float i havnt tried it yet. i did a getto silicone chunk of glass to the bottom job. and i hope i catch this mantis soon, hes about 2.5-3" i though it was a pistol shrimp and never payed much mind to it untill i seen the little jerk hiding under a coral.

a couple pics for a update




ive had trouble keeping anything in the center due to the strong flow, i put the vortec back in cause the tunze was just too much of a stream in a tank this size, ive tried a few corals and the keep getting dead tips from the flow
ive also decided that i dont have room for a clam so ill be putting in a flame angle and hopefully he can behave with the sps, the bicolour blennie nips the underneath of the mili sometimes but nothing major sofar

[Delphinus]

The flow shape is wider from the Vortech? Odd, I would have thought they were nearly the same shape. That's good to know...

[i have crabs]

vortec is much wider and higher flow its very noticeable the tunze hit the front of the tank like a firehose and went everywhere plus the vortec looks better

[fishytime]

Corey, the little tank looks awesome bud. Was that vortech a 20(Im assuming) or 40?

Tony the output on the vortech is basically the entire outside diameter of the pump, which is about 3". The tunze output is about 1 1/2" assuming Corey had the 6055. So the difference in stream is huge.

[Delphinus]

Oh.. I was assuming a 6100 (which is about 3" IIRC). Anyhow, interesting nonetheless.

[i have crabs]

mp40 and a 6105
mp20 are for mixing salt