Getting back in--- deep

[BigDave]

I don't typically quarantine.

None of the fish I've lost was due to illness. Even if I quarantined, a lot of the fish that died were in the tank longer than I would have quarantined for.

The fish I've lost were mostly due to bad choices on my part. The cleaner wrasse harrased most of the fish that died and killed them. The matted filefish never ate. The Dragon goby seemed to only eat what he could catch and slowly got skinny.

The 3 fish I have right now are some of the first ones I bought almost a year ago now. The engineering goby is getting quite large and is starting to venture out to eat when I feed instead of just grabbing what he can. The bi-color blennie no longer hides and changes colors when I walk up to the tank. The Citrinis goby (first fish I bought) is a little pig and will eat everything I let it.

 

[BigDave]

After waiting over a month since the last death and letting things stable a bit more, I added some new stock over the weekend.

I picked up a flame angle and a sand-sifting star. The engineering goby is getting larger and has now taken up residence under two of the main rocks instead of just the first one. I'm not sure if he would start harassing any other gobies in the tank, so I'm not sure if I'll try adding any more gobies.

The flame looked very healthy in the store and is out and about already.

Just a few more fish and then I'll be done stocking.

 

[BigDave]

It's been a few months since the last update. The tank is still going well. Coraline is starting to take off, so I need to start scraping the glass instead of just hitting it with the mag float. The GSP are spreading again and one of my mushrooms split.

It's really odd, but it seems like when the GSP is doing well, the zoas don't, and when the zoa's are doing well, the GSP doesn't.

The temps started dropping again, so I had to make some quick changes to the water storage outside. I finally got a second pump installed on the fresh water tank in a closed loop to keep water circulating in it. It was 40º outside when I started working on it, so I threw it together pretty quickly. I'll be making a quick arduino setup with a relay for turning the pumps on/off when the air gets below freezing. Right now I have to manually run outside and turn the pumps on.

Nothing else on the tank itself has changed. I still haven't finished the Kalk reactor, and I still want to replace the skimmer with a better one.

Mostly just enjoying watching the fish grow. Here's some quick pics and a video of the starfish turning itself over and another video of a feeding time:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e3hEuETmyo4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rCKW0twbgHQ

 

[BigDave]

Had the first outage due to the Automated Aquarium this last week.

The relay for the heaters stopped working. I got an email that the temperature in the tank had dipped below 75 degrees. I got home from work to a tank that was at 74 degrees. I did some quick troubleshooting. Then I ran an extension chord from a close-by wall outlet and plugged the heaters straight into the wall.

I ordered a new relay board and on Sunday spent 15 minutes swapping the bad board with the new one.

Now I have a 'bad' 8 channel board that I can take my time replacing just the relay on it.

I was thinking about picking up a third heater, setting it's temp to 75 degrees and plugging it straight into the wall. That way if the relay dies again, it will keep it from dipping too low. Since my controller is set to come on at 76, this heater should never run except if the relay dies again.

Honestly, the 74 degrees wasn't too bad.

I took some pics, but there's nothing to really look at. It's jus a sainsmart relay board sitting in an electrical box.

No livestock was lost due to the chillier temps.

 

[callsign4223]

IME, colder is easier on the livestock than hotter. From what I've seen in my tank and from shipping livestock, they can sustain a 10 degree drop a lot better than a 10 degree rise

 

[BigDave]

My closed loop pump developed a weird squeal a month or so ago. It was intermittent and would happen for a few seconds and then stop for half an hour or so. I figured it was a seal or bearing going out.

Last night I finally got around to taking a look at the pump really closely. I noticed a lot of build-up of salt between the pump housing and the motor around the shaft. I turned the pump off and took a knife to it. I managed to knock all of the build-up off.

Turned the pump back on and the sound is gone.

I also have sand stuck in the ocean's motions again. I adjusted some of the plumbing to keep the water flow throughout the whole tank and am waiting for this weekend to take it down for a cleaning again.

I'm thinking that this time I'll redo some of the plumbing on the back of the tank. Having the ocean's motions sitting horizontal isn't working too well and it's a royal pain when trying to service it. I'm going to extend the 1.5" pipe going to it and move it so that it's up above the back of the tank. Then the smaller runs will be shorter. That's the idea at least. We'll see how it actually goes once I start running the pipes. I'll need to figure out how to brace the pipe going up the back of the tank. I don't think it will support the weight of the ocean's motions on its own.

 

[BigDave]

Spent a lot of time on the tank yesterday.

I replumbed the Ocean's Motions so that it's easier to remove for maintenance. It's now mounted at the top of the tank with shorter runs to the water.

 

[BigDave]

And a picture of the new plumbing.

 

[BigDave]

Minor updates...

One of the motors on the storage had a crack in the impeller housing. I didn't notice this when I first installed it (got it used), but it's been wasting water for a few weeks now. Probably about 10 gallons a month or so. I was dump and hard-plumbed the pump.

I don't really want to tear into the plumbing to add unions at this point, so I used some silicone, some rubber gasket material, and a pipe clamp and made a bandage for it. I'll get around to replacing the pump housing and replumbing everything at some point.

On the tank itself, I ordered a new skimmer. I went with the Reef Octopus 150-S. It will hopefully be here before this weekend so I can get it installed.

I've started working on a 3 doser setup controlled by a ESP8266. I'm hoping to put a web front end on it where I can put the frequency and amount to dose each one and let it run. It will use NTP time to get the time of day during start up so I don't have to worry about power outages. Once I get it tested out in the garage I'll switch over to dosing the BRS chemicals. I need to start testing parameters again more and start watching things.

 

[BigDave]

Upggrayed!!

Sent from my VS987 using Tapatalk

 

[bigtank]

Skimmer looks legit. Back when I set up my first tank almost 18 years ago, there were all kinds of skimmers available. Now it seems like needle wheel is pretty much the way to go.

 

[BigDave]

Skimmer looks legit. Back when I set up my first tank almost 18 years ago, there were all kinds of skimmers available. Now it seems like needle wheel is pretty much the way to go.

It's the 152-S. If I read all the notes on it correctly, it should be a little larger than my current bio load. BRS says it's good up to a 200 lightly loaded. I'm currently running a lightly loaded 120+30 gallon sump.

It's still breaking in, but it's already pulling some good tea out. It's doing better than the Aqua-C HOB I had in the sump prior (which I knew was undersized but it's all I had).

 

[BigDave]

Things change.

The wife and I are looking at moving this summer. We put our house on the market on Monday. For the time being, I have shut down the tank and moved all the equipment to the garage.

I'm hoping to set it back up at the new house. I'd like to take that time to upgrade the recirc pump to a dc pump and replace the lights with LEDs. We'll see how it goes.