Building Big Bertha: 800G
- Thread starter bbrantley
- Start date
20 20,
I's say its dinoflagellates as well. I've been fighting them too. If I blow the stringy stuff off with a powerhead, my skimmer catches a lot of it. I have heard that breaking up your light cycle throws their reproduction off, or actually leaving your lights off for a few days.
Jonathan, just won an epic battle with them. Maybe he'll recap.
I would have thought that the huge skimmer would have more than taken care of any nutrient spike from overfeeding. (?)
Ben, I'd just drill a drain hole in the base of that skimmer and tap it for a drain valve. Or, use a Uniseal for a 1/2" drain valve.
Those are incredible zoas!! Thanks for the updates!
I's say its dinoflagellates as well. I've been fighting them too. If I blow the stringy stuff off with a powerhead, my skimmer catches a lot of it. I have heard that breaking up your light cycle throws their reproduction off, or actually leaving your lights off for a few days.
Jonathan, just won an epic battle with them. Maybe he'll recap.
I would have thought that the huge skimmer would have more than taken care of any nutrient spike from overfeeding. (?)
Ben, I'd just drill a drain hole in the base of that skimmer and tap it for a drain valve. Or, use a Uniseal for a 1/2" drain valve.
Those are incredible zoas!! Thanks for the updates!
jnarowe
New member
Recap:
Got 'em BAD! I think a series of events led up to the dino explosion including but not limited to the Summer heat wave raising the tank temp to 82F - 83F on consecutive days, killing off about 50 Mexican Turbos. That then fouled the water enough to start killing off about 5000+ small snails. It just got worse and worse.
What I did and maybe not exactly in the right chronological order:
1. lots of water changes;
2. lots of blowing them off;
3. lowered light period;
4. sugar dosing;
5. Lights out for 3 days
6. started 1 hour nap in middle of light cycle (which I still have);
7. Stopped doing water changes;
8. raised pH
9. ran skimmer very wet.
10. All Gone.
I may have missed something. I have a horrible memory, but I know that somewehre I have posted this recap at least once before.
Got 'em BAD! I think a series of events led up to the dino explosion including but not limited to the Summer heat wave raising the tank temp to 82F - 83F on consecutive days, killing off about 50 Mexican Turbos. That then fouled the water enough to start killing off about 5000+ small snails. It just got worse and worse.
What I did and maybe not exactly in the right chronological order:
1. lots of water changes;
2. lots of blowing them off;
3. lowered light period;
4. sugar dosing;
5. Lights out for 3 days
6. started 1 hour nap in middle of light cycle (which I still have);
7. Stopped doing water changes;
8. raised pH
9. ran skimmer very wet.
10. All Gone.
I may have missed something. I have a horrible memory, but I know that somewehre I have posted this recap at least once before.
"Umm fish?"
Premium Member
Thanks for having us, Ben! Thank your bride for me, too.
I didn't take any FT shots ('cause I'm pretty bad at them), but I got a funny one of one of your tangs:
I didn't take any FT shots ('cause I'm pretty bad at them), but I got a funny one of one of your tangs:
Thanks everyone from RMRC who stopped by to check out Bertha. We had a fun time hanging out! (And special thanks to the folks who just _gave_ me frags. How cool!)
The tank was still looking reasonably clean and peaceful tonight, so I took some of the famous Full Tank Shots. There are two, since there are two viewing panels. I will only post one tonight, and then I will let the beggars and grovelers flock to the thread and request more FTSes before I post the second one.
Since it's been a while since an update, I have some interesting
other tidbits to report on as well.
First of all, I used an auto-feeder on Bertha for the first time
over the holidays. I have had an Eheim rotating feeder since the
days of our FW tank five years ago, and I dug it out because both
we and our normal house-sitter were going to be gone for a 12-day
span... and I felt like that was a little too long of a span to
have the fish go without food.
I hooked it up and made up a mixture of flake and pellet food (the
only things I feed them anyway) to test it out. I'm glad I did,
because I discovered that only the chromis know how to eat flake off
the surface of the water. I always submerge the flakes, and the
tangs and firefish are used to finding it in the water column. The
feeder, of course, just plops the food onto the top, where 30 seconds
later it is sucked over the overflow and skimmed out of the system.
Booo.
I ended up going exclusively with Spectrum pellet food for the
holidays, figuring that would tide them over. (All of the fish eat
the pellets.)
Anyway, we got back to an empty feeder (which meant that WAY more
pellets were fed than necessary) and a fresh algae bloom. Yay! The
algae bloom subsided within a week, fortunately, but I was left with
one yellow tang that seemed ununsually docile. She mostly stayed in
one corner of the tank for the whole week. The first few days she
would eat flake food if it came right in front of her -- but no
aggressive seeking-out of the food like normal. I was worried, but I
saw no aggression (nor signs of aggression) and she looked perfectly
healthy. I expected to see some visual indications of sickness, but
alas, nothing.
I left for a business trip the following Monday, and my wife called to
inform me on Tuesday that she found "Yolanda" floating in the tank.
This was Bertha's first real casualty (I don't count the ones that
came in DOA or nearly so because of shipping issues), so it was sad.
More to come on the tang situation. Yolanda's untimely demise formed
the basis for Chapter Two of this saga.
Ben
The tank was still looking reasonably clean and peaceful tonight, so I took some of the famous Full Tank Shots. There are two, since there are two viewing panels. I will only post one tonight, and then I will let the beggars and grovelers flock to the thread and request more FTSes before I post the second one.
Since it's been a while since an update, I have some interesting
other tidbits to report on as well.
First of all, I used an auto-feeder on Bertha for the first time
over the holidays. I have had an Eheim rotating feeder since the
days of our FW tank five years ago, and I dug it out because both
we and our normal house-sitter were going to be gone for a 12-day
span... and I felt like that was a little too long of a span to
have the fish go without food.
I hooked it up and made up a mixture of flake and pellet food (the
only things I feed them anyway) to test it out. I'm glad I did,
because I discovered that only the chromis know how to eat flake off
the surface of the water.
I always submerge the flakes, and thetangs and firefish are used to finding it in the water column. The
feeder, of course, just plops the food onto the top, where 30 seconds
later it is sucked over the overflow and skimmed out of the system.
Booo.
I ended up going exclusively with Spectrum pellet food for the
holidays, figuring that would tide them over. (All of the fish eat
the pellets.)
Anyway, we got back to an empty feeder (which meant that WAY more
pellets were fed than necessary) and a fresh algae bloom. Yay! The
algae bloom subsided within a week, fortunately, but I was left with
one yellow tang that seemed ununsually docile. She mostly stayed in
one corner of the tank for the whole week. The first few days she
would eat flake food if it came right in front of her -- but no
aggressive seeking-out of the food like normal. I was worried, but I
saw no aggression (nor signs of aggression) and she looked perfectly
healthy. I expected to see some visual indications of sickness, but
alas, nothing.
I left for a business trip the following Monday, and my wife called to
inform me on Tuesday that she found "Yolanda" floating in the tank.
This was Bertha's first real casualty (I don't count the ones thatcame in DOA or nearly so because of shipping issues), so it was sad.
More to come on the tang situation. Yolanda's untimely demise formed
the basis for Chapter Two of this saga.
Ben
chris wright
In Memoriam
Sorry to hear of your loss Ben. I'm afraid of going away for more than a weekend for that very reason.
Good to hear that the rest of the system is going good though. Looking forward to the next pic:lol:
Good to hear that the rest of the system is going good though. Looking forward to the next pic:lol:
cbui2
Premium Member
sorry to hear about Yolanda, and i myself have quit a few of those fatalities. i am afraid of leaving too for that particular reason, but luckily i will have my neighbor come baby sit them for me. Side Full Tank Shot is fine for now, how many purple and yellow you have again?
Thanks, everyone, for the condolences.
It's time to pick up where I left off yesterday with the tang debacle.
Shortly after Yolanda died, I started observing aggression amongst the tangs in the tank. It was only a week later that another yellow tang was spending time in the front corner of the tank! I began to fear that perhaps this was how Yolanda succumbed to not eating, though I was pleased to see that the next "victim" was gladly eating food when added to the tank. After a few days of observing attacks left and right, I added a 3 foot section of egg crate to the tank in an attempt to at least change up the topology a little bit. I hoped that it would calm things down a little bit.
In the meantime, I made efforts to watch the tank more frequently and throughout the day. I observed the cornered yellow tang doing a great job of fighting off her assaulters, but she was clearly hungry and eventually would not be able to sustain that level of output. Not to mention that I observed a scar and lots of shredded fins. I was very close to getting desperate and trying to figure out a way to trap her and stick her in the sump ... not an easy proposition in a small tank, much less this big one!
I observed both purple and the one other yellow tang acting as aggressors. Eventually I also saw purple-on-purple aggression and yellow-on-purple as well. Last week, I left for three days on the road with some concern as to what might happen while I was gone. My original theory was that perhaps reducing the yellow tang count to two just set this war in motion... and that perhaps I would "have" to lose another one before stability was reached. (This got me looking at ordering another yellow tang to bring the count back to three, too.)
The great news is that, somehow, everything settled down in the three days I was gone. I guess I should just leave every time there is a problem? When I returned, the fish were back to normal grazing, swimming together, and the occasional tweaking and theatrics that I expect to see with a bundle of tangs. The only thing I can think is that maybe there just needed to be a reordering of the aggression hierarchy in the tank, and maybe all that bickering was what they needed to figure it out. Thoughts?
The other good news is that I'm going to add more tangs anyway. I have three more yellows coming tomorrow morning (that will make it 5 yellow vs. 4 purple) as well as a brown-barred goby (someone at the meeting this weekend recommended it for cleaning up sand!) and 25 more chromis. You may recall that my last shipment of chromis arrived pretty much DOA due to cold. The weather has been pretty predictable here over the last week, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed that this order will be more of a success.
Next time I post, I will introduce you to my new solution for powerheads for large/thick tanks. It is almost complete.
Ben
It's time to pick up where I left off yesterday with the tang debacle.
Shortly after Yolanda died, I started observing aggression amongst the tangs in the tank. It was only a week later that another yellow tang was spending time in the front corner of the tank! I began to fear that perhaps this was how Yolanda succumbed to not eating, though I was pleased to see that the next "victim" was gladly eating food when added to the tank. After a few days of observing attacks left and right, I added a 3 foot section of egg crate to the tank in an attempt to at least change up the topology a little bit. I hoped that it would calm things down a little bit.
In the meantime, I made efforts to watch the tank more frequently and throughout the day. I observed the cornered yellow tang doing a great job of fighting off her assaulters, but she was clearly hungry and eventually would not be able to sustain that level of output. Not to mention that I observed a scar and lots of shredded fins. I was very close to getting desperate and trying to figure out a way to trap her and stick her in the sump ... not an easy proposition in a small tank, much less this big one!
I observed both purple and the one other yellow tang acting as aggressors. Eventually I also saw purple-on-purple aggression and yellow-on-purple as well. Last week, I left for three days on the road with some concern as to what might happen while I was gone. My original theory was that perhaps reducing the yellow tang count to two just set this war in motion... and that perhaps I would "have" to lose another one before stability was reached. (This got me looking at ordering another yellow tang to bring the count back to three, too.)
The great news is that, somehow, everything settled down in the three days I was gone. I guess I should just leave every time there is a problem?
When I returned, the fish were back to normal grazing, swimming together, and the occasional tweaking and theatrics that I expect to see with a bundle of tangs. The only thing I can think is that maybe there just needed to be a reordering of the aggression hierarchy in the tank, and maybe all that bickering was what they needed to figure it out. Thoughts?The other good news is that I'm going to add more tangs anyway. I have three more yellows coming tomorrow morning (that will make it 5 yellow vs. 4 purple) as well as a brown-barred goby (someone at the meeting this weekend recommended it for cleaning up sand!) and 25 more chromis. You may recall that my last shipment of chromis arrived pretty much DOA due to cold. The weather has been pretty predictable here over the last week, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed that this order will be more of a success.
Next time I post, I will introduce you to my new solution for powerheads for large/thick tanks. It is almost complete.
Ben
jnarowe
New member
Ben,
I have had the exact same thing happen twice. One purple and one yellow picking on another yellow to the point that the victim was trapped in a crevace for days on end. It got really skinny I I had come to the conclusion that it would die of starvation.
Then one day I guess it got tired of starving and came out to eat. Within a couple more days it was back with the pack like nothing had happened.
Can't wait to see your PH solution!!!
I have had the exact same thing happen twice. One purple and one yellow picking on another yellow to the point that the victim was trapped in a crevace for days on end. It got really skinny I I had come to the conclusion that it would die of starvation.
Then one day I guess it got tired of starving and came out to eat. Within a couple more days it was back with the pack like nothing had happened.
Can't wait to see your PH solution!!!
Well,
After some Adventures With Fedex this morning, since they delivered my package held-for-pickup to the wrong station and then moved it to another station while I was driving to the (wrong) station, I'm happy to report that all 25 chromis, 3 tangs, and 1 goby made it home in good condition. Unlike last time, when the box was not packaged with enough heat and insulation, this time it came in great condition (two deflated bags had lost half their water, but the fish seemed okay with it) and still warm. Everyone drip-acclimated and aerated for a few hours, and then it was off to the tank.
The goby (as yet unnamed, but Kathy will come up with something) immediately began munching on sand, which is fun to watch. The chromis immediately joined up with their 11 brethren (all of whom are twice their size after eating like pigs for six or eight months) and began swarming all over the tank. Even the tangs did pretty well this time, not resorting to jumpiness and twitchiness. One of them spent the remaining hour of lights-on time swimming directly into the powerhead! I killed the lights plenty early so everyone would chill out a little bit, because I started to see weird things like one of the veteran chromis (chromii?) trying to defend its "territory" (which it never cared about before) from a giant tang. Oh well.
I mentioned I would reveal my new solution for powerheads for large tanks. Let me offer a brief new solution for powerheads for large tanks. Let me offer a brief explanatory background: there is currently no powerhead solution for large (thick) acrylic tanks on the market. I know that sounds hard to believe; I thought so, too!
What about that new-fangled Vortech? Well, ignoring the fact that it's still pretty early-adopter, and regardless of the fact that it seems like a great idea in theory, they don't have a version that induces motion through more than 0.75 inches of material.
Well, how about the Tunze? My old standby's, but the problem is that their magnets are also only good for thinner tanks: officially, one-half inch. I used to use their magnets on my 0.75-inch tank, and they worked marginally but okay. On my 1-inch version, they just barely hang on... enough that I really can't count on them to stay; they don't create enough friction with the tank wall to prevent the whole assembly from sliding down to the ground.
How about forgoing the magnetic mounts and using rigid? Well, the rigid mounts are pretty crappy. They also depend upon having a ledge or edge to clip on to, and that ledge can't be more than a few inches from the vertical wall, AND that ledge can't be very thick.
All of these solutions work well for 97% of the tanks out there, but they are basically useless for ones like mine.
So I've been running Bertha with one hacked-up Tunze 6200 (don't ask me how I have it mounted) and the return from my sump. That's still 5000+ gallons/hour, but you can do the math on flow -- it's plenty for keep the tank reasonably clean and the fish happy, but not nearly enough for corals. In fact, I can't really legitimately get ready to put in corals until I have a much more robust flow system.
After countless hours spent pestering the nice people at Tunze and Ecotech Marine to try to pressure them into making something for people like me, I finally gave up and went to one of my new Best Friends in the aquarium trade: Rick at Mighty Magnets. Rick makes excellent scraper magnet kits, complete with a bunch of different levels of scraping substrates. I shipped him one of my Tunzes plus the magnetic mounts and asked him to please make me something that would:
a) hold one of these powerheads firmly through 1.25 inches of material b) be black and therefore visually melt into the black wall of my tank c) be compatible with the Tunze mounting mechanism d) be able to be placed side-by-side on the wall in case I want to locate several powerheads very close together
The great news is that he has built my solutions (I ordered 6 of them, since that's about how many Tunzes I think I'll need) and they are already in the mail to me this week! I can't wait to unbox them and start snapping Tunzes to the wall like I was setting up a thin-walled glass tank. I will take pictures and share the results with you soon.
By the way, a few of you may feel like asking, "what about a closed loop, Ben?" Feel free to do so.
Ben
After some Adventures With Fedex this morning, since they delivered my package held-for-pickup to the wrong station and then moved it to another station while I was driving to the (wrong) station, I'm happy to report that all 25 chromis, 3 tangs, and 1 goby made it home in good condition. Unlike last time, when the box was not packaged with enough heat and insulation, this time it came in great condition (two deflated bags had lost half their water, but the fish seemed okay with it) and still warm. Everyone drip-acclimated and aerated for a few hours, and then it was off to the tank.
The goby (as yet unnamed, but Kathy will come up with something) immediately began munching on sand, which is fun to watch. The chromis immediately joined up with their 11 brethren (all of whom are twice their size after eating like pigs for six or eight months) and began swarming all over the tank. Even the tangs did pretty well this time, not resorting to jumpiness and twitchiness. One of them spent the remaining hour of lights-on time swimming directly into the powerhead! I killed the lights plenty early so everyone would chill out a little bit, because I started to see weird things like one of the veteran chromis (chromii?) trying to defend its "territory" (which it never cared about before) from a giant tang. Oh well.
I mentioned I would reveal my new solution for powerheads for large tanks. Let me offer a brief new solution for powerheads for large tanks. Let me offer a brief explanatory background: there is currently no powerhead solution for large (thick) acrylic tanks on the market. I know that sounds hard to believe; I thought so, too!
What about that new-fangled Vortech? Well, ignoring the fact that it's still pretty early-adopter, and regardless of the fact that it seems like a great idea in theory, they don't have a version that induces motion through more than 0.75 inches of material.
Well, how about the Tunze? My old standby's, but the problem is that their magnets are also only good for thinner tanks: officially, one-half inch. I used to use their magnets on my 0.75-inch tank, and they worked marginally but okay. On my 1-inch version, they just barely hang on... enough that I really can't count on them to stay; they don't create enough friction with the tank wall to prevent the whole assembly from sliding down to the ground.
How about forgoing the magnetic mounts and using rigid? Well, the rigid mounts are pretty crappy. They also depend upon having a ledge or edge to clip on to, and that ledge can't be more than a few inches from the vertical wall, AND that ledge can't be very thick.
All of these solutions work well for 97% of the tanks out there, but they are basically useless for ones like mine.
So I've been running Bertha with one hacked-up Tunze 6200 (don't ask me how I have it mounted) and the return from my sump. That's still 5000+ gallons/hour, but you can do the math on flow -- it's plenty for keep the tank reasonably clean and the fish happy, but not nearly enough for corals. In fact, I can't really legitimately get ready to put in corals until I have a much more robust flow system.
After countless hours spent pestering the nice people at Tunze and Ecotech Marine to try to pressure them into making something for people like me, I finally gave up and went to one of my new Best Friends in the aquarium trade: Rick at Mighty Magnets. Rick makes excellent scraper magnet kits, complete with a bunch of different levels of scraping substrates. I shipped him one of my Tunzes plus the magnetic mounts and asked him to please make me something that would:
a) hold one of these powerheads firmly through 1.25 inches of material b) be black and therefore visually melt into the black wall of my tank c) be compatible with the Tunze mounting mechanism d) be able to be placed side-by-side on the wall in case I want to locate several powerheads very close together
The great news is that he has built my solutions (I ordered 6 of them, since that's about how many Tunzes I think I'll need) and they are already in the mail to me this week! I can't wait to unbox them and start snapping Tunzes to the wall like I was setting up a thin-walled glass tank. I will take pictures and share the results with you soon.
By the way, a few of you may feel like asking, "what about a closed loop, Ben?" Feel free to do so.
Ben
