280g Inwall

[fishoholic]

Originally Posted by christyf5

rofl....pancake mofos..i just loled and startled the kid. theyre sand dollars

+1

The FTS looks great so glad to see fish in there I think you're right the small wrasse should be fine if he has a few days to settle in first.

[Lance]

FTS looks great Tony! And as for those filter socks: I warned you to go bigger. I wish I had. I'm going to rig up for a larger sock. Cleaning every two to three days is a real PITA. Anyhow, things are looking good.

PS. Brett, only a flatlander wouldn't know what a sand dollar is. Used to use those things as skipping stones on the beach when I was a kid.

[StirCrazy]

I am realy surprised you got the sand dollars Tony, they have a very pour survival rate in tanks and will compete with the fighting conch for food.

looking good though.

Steve

[Delphinus]

Just always wanted to try some sand dollars but never had enough open sandbed to try them so was never really an option. We'll see how it goes.

Yeah Lance I know you told me but you didn't tell me anything I wasn't already thinking. It was a matter of cost and what could be built: the glass sock holders were available for $20 each for 4" but a lot more for the 6" and would have to be fabricated. Plus all my 6" socks have broken rims so I needed to get all new anyhow and a few people convinced me to at least try the 4's. I've been using 6" for a long time now and I get a week before they need to be cleaned.

Worst case scenario I'll just stop using socks, but I'll use them for now as they help clear the diatoms. But I'll switch to a larger micron size first as that would be an easy enough thing to try.

[lastlight]

I got lazy last week and again just ran my tank without a sock for a few days. Unreal how much better my skimmer skims but I really don't like the extra particulates in the water column.

[Lance]

Originally Posted by Delphinus

................I'll switch to a larger micron size first as that would be an easy enough thing to try.

Tony, what's the largest size micron sock you've seen? I'd be interested in acquiring some too.

[Delphinus]

Should have answered Lance's question here instead of in HIS thread, but to anyone else wondering, bulkreefsupply.com has 200 micron bags of both felt and mesh materials and they say the mesh clogs less. I'm going in on the group buy right now and getting some of each, will see what I think, if I like them they stay, otherwise I might switch back to 8". Was looking at the 8" socks that J&L sells over at globaldesigns tank and have to say I like those a lot more than the 8" ones I'm currently using (a nicer "collar" setup).

Anyhow, real reason for this post ... and I'm hella overdue for pictures here, I realize that - will try to correct that tomorrow - but - something of a 1st milestone, my carpet tank is now officially empty! I'm going to drain it and clean it tonight. Otherwise everyone from that tank is now in the cube. Carpets, couple smaller clams, buncha LPS. I can't wait to take some pictures and post them.

I will probably be waiting until next weekend to get the remaining fish from the 115 g over. I moved over the rabbitfish earlier this week and it was a major tank upset with me having to remove most of the rocks to get at him, so the next fish will be all of them because there's no way I'm doing that for all of them individually. Also had a major heart stopping moment when I discovered one of the butterflies had swam into a crevasse underneath a bottom rock and then the whole structure fell onto him, pinning him underneath. All I could see was a motionless tail sticking out between the rock and sand. When I got it off him he just swam away and seemed none the worse for wear. Guess there's something good about having sand after all, it cushioned him instead of impaling or crushing him. Unfortunately I have not seen my dottyback since that day now and I'm fearing that maybe he met a similar fate but did not get so lucky. Hard to say - as a slender fish he can fit into the smallest of crevasses and get out of most - but 2 days without a single sighting is starting to get a little ominous. I'll be bummed if I lost him but I don't know what else I could have done differently.

[Delphinus]

Got a little bit sidelined with the flu last few days. Spent the better part of the last 24 hours trying to sleep it off. So much for the flu shots!! Grumble. Anyhow I've upgraded my disposition from "would welcome death as a sweet release" to "would offer marginal resistance." So to commemorate the occasion I got the camera out.

Tank is going through a bit of a secondary diatom bloom - nowhere near as bad as the first go-round. Hopefully the cleanup crew can keep up. There are also a few tiny patches of cyano that literally hitched in on some things from the (now shutdown and sold) 40g. The Hippopus clam has a little on its shell and there's a frag disk with yellow polyps and red zoos with a little as well. I'm hoping that it will eventually just sort of go away in time.






















Thought this was funny - can you tell where the sand dollar has been? A nice clean 3" strip of sand up against the glass ending in a mysterious mound of rubble.