Blacknifes 50g Battle of SPS learning

[blacknife]

so the GF likes wrasses..... 55g sps tank... 65g fowlr+zoanthids..+lps


are my tanks even big enough 55 has a dottyback, scopas, target manderin, and lawnmower... 65 has a pair of gold stripe maroons and a ssb-dsb


want to try some nicer looking wrasses... more googling will follow once the current beer goggles are off.. but.. will anything from bwa upcomming hawian order fit in my tank.. preferably a pair, but will run anything that might work past the powers that be.

I have googled most of the wrasses on that order before but ...... right now while the lights are out i am more concerned with what might make the tank more interesting...

also considering something for algae control for the 65.. either another tang, or blenny, but i am worried if i have to recombine everything into a single larger tank at a later date THAT EVERYONONE .. dammed caps.. .has a chance of getting along..

I am not ruling out moving the dottyback either to the frag tank or to the lfs for bait.. as it has allready beat up a few potential additions including a mcoskers that is in my frag tank that might like to have other friends instead...


...

[blacknife]

My corals have a major hate on me right now.

the day of fragfest.. my control for one of my mp10s fell in the tank. not replaced yet.

that day i picked up a used calcium reactor.. played with it for a few weeks and thought it got stabalized, stopeed testing for a week or so as i was busy with work, corals look funny, so i test.. alk is higher than usual(169@hanna) which is high for zeo, so i turn off the co2 for a few days.

in those few days my kind of noisy skimmer <skimz 161 with es2800> gets really noisy and stops skimming, or even pumping more than a trickle of water.

then yesterday i realized that all powerheads but my one mp10 that still works were turned off for 2-3 days as they are on the same powerbar as the skimmer.... and i was really frustrated at the skimmer and forgot to turn them on.

come today and i come home and my skimmer is moved from where it was<outside the tank to outside the tank> and for some reason there is a puddle of water under it. the pieces of controller for my mp10 that does not work is not on the shelf beside the tank any more but is now in the bottom of my tank. after some yelling and invasion by mom my 5yo admits to playing with the skimmer and says the cat knocked the controller in. the cat was the suspect for the contrller all along but the fact my kid blames the cat makes me wonder if it was him heh.

my corals that were just starting to look nice again after the tank crack back in the spring summer are all looking like crap.. some are bleached some have burnt tips.. algaee that was almost under control is growing.. and .. i .... just ... want.... a bigger tank that is worth skinning in and building cabinets/cubpoards for that will keep cats/kids out..

[daplatapus]

Ugh, sorry dude. Sounds like a bad run. I feel for ya.

[blacknife]

added victim to my list.

1x250w radium bulb. approx one month use. was going to be switched out in the next month or so for the year old bulb currently on the tank.

it was 7 feet in the air on my shelf by the tank, currently housing all my fish stuff that needs to be kept away from the kids. a few weeks ago the gf moved the cat tree beside the shelf and i guess it took till today for the cat to try to climb up there, perhaps he thought it would be an easy jump into the kitty pool from there..

perhaps the frag tank will be moving to led's sooner than i thought.


on a side note.. any store in Ed carry radiums?


got my calcium reactor stabalized again, and did a 30% wc on the weekend.. coral stn/alkburn/random death appears to have slowed down. hopefully things only get better or i will be going FOWLR for a while. sick of seeing the $$ turn white and throw flesh off in the tank..

Hah on a related/similar note I not sure i want to add any fish right now even though some nice ones are comming in, and i was contemplating some wrasses off BWA's hawiian order.

[blacknife]

damit another possible vicim of cat,child, equipment age.. my other mp10 controller fell into the water while i was gone. I thought i had all the cords done tied to the pegboard its on good enough that they would not touch but noo.. it was apparently just hanging in enough to get a little water in the housing but there is a big fried black mark up the middle of it, a little scary it could have started a tank side fire.

this weekends project.. to skin the tank area, making it cat and child proof, wether it looks sexy or not.

I also have not tested my levels yet but someone/thing pulled the feed tube to my calcium reactor out of the water so who knows how long that has been overloading itself<no controller yet doh>


it is obvious which corals are going to pull through and still look good and which are all ready done or probably not going to make it from all these adventures.

all my t5-s are past due for change.. sitting about 11 months right now but I'm going to stretch it out and either go led or upgrade to a more modular MH system<pendants of some kind> I am sick of these 2 little tanks tied together i want something that fills the same space 6-8 feet, unfortunately that wont be in the budget till after christmas unless something falls into my lap.

[mr_alberta]

I do have a used 6' 135G setup with steel stand and sump sitting in the back of my shop right now Jon...cheap cheap.

[blacknife]

Enjoyed the meet today, a few new faces I have not met before.

Finally saw and played with the maxspect razor at AI, I still like it and think it looks good for the upstairs tank, but am still tempted to see what i could pull off for DIY for the same price, perhaps over christmas.

I got a few new additions while at Marine experience, and with all the talking at the meet on the drive home i made a couple decisions.

I wrecked my aquascaping that i liked to get to the neon dotty back and finally get him out of the tank. Not sure if I want him gone for good but I want to add a few more fish in there and not worry about him going aggro.

I pulled all the frags from the frag tank and spread them on the dt. fixed the few accidental frags that allways happen when you move rocks smothered in sps, and called it good.

I want to cut down the fish space/expense in the basement for a bit while i save up for upgrades and running a MH light on a bunch of burnt out frags is not really saving heh. something about the thought of wanting to put a nice lookdown frag table in its place has my gears spinning today.

[blacknife]

While leaving for a 10 day shift at six am this morning noticing the co2 cylinder will be empty by the end of the day= fail.

Oh well things in that tank can't look any worse than they do now anyway.

[blacknife]

I don't need this $h1+ right now: domestic problems in the house so I Might have to shut things down and start over again at another time.

65g sumpless 2 maroons, bicolor blenny, manderin dragonet, cleaner wrasse, lots of zoas + lps, lots of rocks up for easy pickins

55g sps tank, lawnmower blenny, scopas tank, lots of struggling sps corals and lots of rocks. no hardware from this tank at this time.

probably post it up in the for sale section if i get time to take pictures.

Pm me to make any offers or suggestions

[blacknife]

Drama averted... as usual more to it than that but The gf has to much going on when I am away at work and doesn't want to deal with the tanks. talked down to leaving them as is or perhaps shutting one down untill i can get the new tank setup.

on a positive note after a week of fiddling around at night when i can I finally popped the overflow off the new tank. it was in very tight to the main glass so tight i can not get a blade in everywhere. the main pains are the same way. Hopes are to strip it apart, change it to an external overflow + wave box, then rebuild it.

then build all the important things like stand, new sump, controller, and extra hardware to make it low maintenance and automatic so the gf and kids can just enjoy it.

Debating going off the zeo, but i will try to get a controller and small doser first before i do something drastic like that


BTW


HAPPY NEW YEAR

<celibrating in style with a beer and working on the tank hah>