So its been a few days and it's time to do an update on progress. We've had a few cold days here and I noticed condensation on the windows. I previously installed a bathroom fan in the display tank canopy and on the filtration room ceiling, but there was still room for improvement. I also noticed a fair amount of heat in the canopy when I'd reach into the tank. I decided to make a few adjustments to the system. I placed a piece of 1" foam over the canopy the open top of the canopy and then used metal ducting tape to adhere it and seal any seams. This way the heat and humidity can't escape into the house and will be exhausted by the fan. Next I decided to keep the filtration room door closed. I have my cats litter boxes in the same room, so the door was always open for them to enter. I cut a hole in the door and added a dog door for the cats to use. It has a plastic flap that covers the hole when not in use. Thirdly, I set up a dehumidifier that I used in my last house and placed it near the sump in the filtration room. The dehumidifier has a drain that I plumbed into the floor drain. The results were dramatic. Humidity is sitting at 43% in the filtration room, meaning the rest of the house is even less. My wife even told me yesterday that it is now too dry in the house for her skin.
bathroom vent in the canopy
filtratrion room exhaust fan
Dehumidifier
Now on to the display tank. So there have been goods and bads with the display. Everything has been going well. I added the rest of my corals and I've been purchasing some corals and clams from other hobbyists as well as some cheap colonies and frags from LFS. I also collected some macro algae from other systems to increase the diversity of my refugium.
The Display tank colours are decent, and I've got some growth on some of the sps. There was an initial cyano bloom, but I noticed my R/O unit had exhausted so I changed the filters, and the cyano is receeding.
I've had two strange losses. I came home from work yesterday and my giant gigas clam was dying. It's very odd, I had this clam for years. Grew it to a large size. It has survived multiple tank transfers and sat in my holding tanks in my garage all last summer. I'm wondering if there was too much flow on it from the MP60s. In order to have high flow down to the opposite end of the tank I have the powerheads running pretty high. With the clam being so large, there was no where to put it that wasn't in the direct path of the flow. Very disappointing, I'm not sure I will be able to find another, as far as I know they don't export gigas clams anymore.
The other strange thing that happened was I bought a large lime green monti cap from a fellow hobbyiest. I out it in the tank and it looked amazing. The next morning the whole thing was dead. I've never seen a whole coral die like that. Usually it starts to receed somewhere and you have time to reposition it withing the tank or whatever to make it happier.
Perhaps the lighting or high flow was too much for the coral. The only other thing I can think of is I've been gluing a lot of corals to the rocks lately. Perhaps is some chemical leakage from the epoxy that stressed the clam and cap. I'm not sure if these substances leach into the tank. I've never had trouble before with epoxy. My skimmers have been going a little nuts the last couple days too. I replaced the carbon in the system just in case this was the case. This morning the skimmers were normal again. Just wierd that the clam and cap die but the other corals are fine. My water parameters are all normal.
one coral doing very well is actually a carnation coral. They are typically very hard to keep, but the coral has been inflated 24/7 for the last 2 weeks. We will see how it progresses.
I also started tidying up my sump room a bit. Still a mess, but here are some photos of it as well as a bunch of the display.
