Blacknifes 50g Battle of SPS learning

[blacknife]

meh.. nothing spectacular going on. still have the slime/sludge algee.

grabbed some biopelets on the drive home last night.. started them up today. got a new phosphate test kit yesterday too. elos, tested higher than 0, but lower than 1 could not decide if it was lighter or darker than the .5 . At least thats better than the no change ever i used to get with my last kit. Still need a new nitrate test kit since that one keeps testing at 0 too.
last dosage of prodibio goes in tomorrow, ill have to see if things kick up a little extra with the pellets in there and decide if i will stick with that or not.

Corals are looking .. so so.. most of my lps are thriving. zoo's are mostly doing ok<i see some more than others> sps frags .. some are holding their color still and some are looking worse. I will try to take a few pictures this afternoon since i have time today.

[blacknife]

so its night 2 of working on the road "temporarily" till there is work in my area again and bam call from the wife


"there is water all over the floor and i don't know where its coming from."

<yelling and screaming from both partys ensues>


turns out my largest hermit crab somehow got past the pad that covers the over flow and decided to try to crawl into the return and block it off completely.

this tank has scared me before with its single return.

so i guess i am on the market for a new tank. I have a 75 lined up in calgary that is 36x18x24 so will fit right where this 40b is. i wanted to keep the 40 plumbed in but i think it will have to be re-drilled for safety if i do that. problem is i don't go to calgary often.

also gonna have to get the girlfriend to somehow pay more attention to what i do to the tank. i had her all talked through how to make it do good for the week to 10 days ill be gone this time but that did not include another bought of water all over the floor. this happened a few weeks after getting this tank originally.

The salinity is down a little 1.021 from 1.026 but i think she can handle slowly brining that back up. I think that was the first time she checked that ever.

ugh

at least i don't have to make an emergency drive the 3 hours home and three hours back to work.

[phi delt reefer]

Originally Posted by blacknife

so its night 2 of working on the road "temporarily" till there is work in my area again and bam call from the wife


"there is water all over the floor and i don't know where its coming from."

<yelling and screaming from both partys ensues>


turns out my largest hermit crab somehow got past the pad that covers the over flow and decided to try to crawl into the return and block it off completely.

this tank has scared me before with its single return.

so i guess i am on the market for a new tank. I have a 75 lined up in calgary that is 36x18x24 so will fit right where this 40b is. i wanted to keep the 40 plumbed in but i think it will have to be re-drilled for safety if i do that. problem is i don't go to calgary often.

also gonna have to get the girlfriend to somehow pay more attention to what i do to the tank. i had her all talked through how to make it do good for the week to 10 days ill be gone this time but that did not include another bought of water all over the floor. this happened a few weeks after getting this tank originally.

The salinity is down a little 1.021 from 1.026 but i think she can handle slowly brining that back up. I think that was the first time she checked that ever.

ugh

at least i don't have to make an emergency drive the 3 hours home and three hours back to work.

sorry to hear about your issues, though on your new tank install a beananimal overflow...three drains off of a coast to coast overflow. the thing is amazing and runs mega quiet. google it and you will see for yourself

also in your display you may want to consider a float switch to turn off the return once the display water gets over a certain height. Safety first my friend

[blacknife]

I am familiar and a fan of the bean, might not be on this next tank but perhaps the one after.

never thought of a float switch on the return. will have to hook that up asap heh

that.. and water on floor switches and other great controller options ..

must make money to spend it on fish tank... ... ...

[blacknife]

hah, Not home yet but the GF told me that I have 2 healthy looking, same size as they looked GBTA now.

That thing has been in the tank 3 weeks and already split? she must be feeding it lots.

She also said all the lps are looking really good and the sps look about the same as when I headed out, Guess I should stop worrying about the tank so much

[blacknife]

Plunked in an MP10 today.. dam i wish i could have afforded one earlier heh.

Everything in the tank is looking pretty good. noticed one fatality though.. the PPE i got that was starting to open up before i left disappeared.. the frag got hermit knocked over and the gf did not notice or even know it was there.

oh well. I pulled the frag rack and put scattered the sps around a bit. I will have to keep an eye on the bubble tip's if they decide to move around to much the frags will have to go back in the rack. I will try to get some update pics soon. some of my sps are starting to color up a bit more than before, so i am guessing the pellets are doing a little something something. either that or i feed more than she does.

[blacknife]

No new pictures yet but lots of change.. heh

got bored today.. .. drilled an old 20g i had around.. bought some plumbing... played around

not what i intend to do, but.. now i got a 20g.. with a 250wmh and the mp10.. with a little rock, and most of my sps frags that have been dragging along.. plumed into the 40 that i put all the old korrilas back into.

so 20g sps tank.. hopefully the sps will do better with even more flow and don't get to shocked from change in light. none of the big crabs or other coral harasses got moved into the 20.

my 14g cube is still running but is now back in the dark, it was starting to look good with that 250 running on it the last few weeks but it will be maintained as a q-tank for now, pulled the few corals i had out and the one crab and snail i could see so it can stay that way till its needed.

I still need to suck a bit more black-nasty sand out of the 40 but i need more water for changes i guess i should have got the bigger brute than i got heh.

if everyone opens back up ill take some pics.

[blacknife]

Egad's I am bad with the pics and posts lately, perhaps because I am unhappy with the tank.

got a couple new fish and corals over the holiday sales, everyone made it and is settled in.

still having problems with my sps but they are growing and coloring up.

haven't tested MG in forever because one of the vials was missing, finally found it today and.. .. wow.. I think thats why my sps are not growing. I was adding some liquid MG once a week or so without testing <but probably not enough> and it ran out a week or 2 ago. and i kept forgetting to buy some when i was at any store.. heh.. off to the stores i go mg of 5-600 doesn't grow corals well from what i hear.

[blacknife]

OoO the other misadventure of the tank.

while looking at how to set up some temporary extra circuits for my tank until i move or the basement is finished realizing that 1 of the 2 circuits the tank is plugged into already is an Against code added in plug off the feed for the furnace.

but really its ok to have near maximum rated draw going to your tanks and hope everything works out every time the furnace turns on.

[blacknife]

something missing from my basement today...


and i like it

the sound of this system roaring and gurgling away is all gone.

curently picking little bits of life out of the sand before i get rid of it.


everything has been crammed into my 50g and looks a lot better in there.

I was going to tweak this thing out to be quiet while everything is in the other tank but i think i will just get rid of everything and save up for the next big thing.