Gofor's 60"L X 30"W X 24"T LeeMar Upgrade

[TheFishTeen]

Hahaha... good catch!

I actually did switch it out before I started running the water. Thanks for looking out though!

-Chad

Great! Rookie mistake, but obviously you know better. Happy reefing!

 

[gofor100]

Great! Rookie mistake, but obviously you know better. Happy reefing!

Haha... yeah, first time I've actually used a check valve before (actually the first time that I've plumbed such a large tank), but luckily it was taken care of before any damage was done.

Thanks,

Chad

 

[bullitr]

Looks good chad

 

[gofor100]

Looks good chad

Thanks Lawrence!

 

[gofor100]

It's been a while since my last update... so here you go.

Small Algae Issue: been dealing with an increased growth of some algae mostly on the rocks (a little on the sand) and it looks very similar to pictures I've seen of dinoflagellates, but I'm kind of confused because I didn't think that dinos would come in a new tank. It's brown in color and stringy/not as "snotty" as some dino pics I've seen but still slimy looking (doesn't look like cyano though since it's not growing in a mat or anything) and accumulates some bubbles (which doesn't mean that it's dino, but is one of its characteristics- maybe calothrix???). So, initially, I thought that it might just be part of the cycle, but it slowly got worse. Finally, this last weekend, I decided to take some action (other than the increased WC's and wet skimming I'd been doing before) after double-checking that my params were in check- which they were- I started dosing Hydrogen Peroxide yesterday. I'm also runnning GFO and Carbon through media reactors. Any other thoughts are welcome. I might also increase my CUC in the meantime... Here's the best pic I have for reference...

Stand Moving Along Slowly: been working on the stand on and off (mostly off) over the last couple of weeks and made some progress, but nothing to get excited about. Jeff has been busy, and on the weekends he's not busy, I seem to have plans. The good news is everything is sanded, now we just need to cut the rest of the doors, frame them with the molding, insert the magnets that will hold the doors in place, and stain everything... so close, yet so far... hahaha.

Here's some before/after shots of one of the doors...

And here's all of the doors sanded and waiting to be cut...

Other than that, my fish in QT are scheduled to make into the DT this weekend, so I'm pretty excited about that!

Any comments/suggestions on the above issues/updates are welcome!

Thanks,

Chad

 

[gofor100]

Hey Guys,

So this weekend was a pretty constructive weekend...

> Thursday: stopped by Jeff's place to cut out the doors for the stand/canopy. Now all I have to do is stain/seal everything, and install it. Also got some more of my CUC (mainly conches, nerite snails, and some chitons) to ward off the algae growing on my rocks.

> Friday: Did some more things to fight the algae (changed the carbon and GFO, and did a water change sucking up some of the algae I could get). But here's where the fun starts...

I gave my Yellow Wrasse some new friends!

First, there's the Potter's Angel (actually got a few decent pics considering I was just using my iPhone)

Then there's the Starry Blenny just chillin' in one of thousands of holes...

Then the McCosker's Flasher Wrasse (who initially was a little shy, but has come out more each day)

And finally the Flame Wrasse! He seems to be best of friends with the Yellow Wrasse...

I restocked my QT on Saturday, so I'll see how everything does this week and probably post some pics later on.

Thanks,

Chad

 

[gofor100]

Alright,

So a fun weekend update this time around... went to MAX and brought some stuff home at pretty good deals.

Here's what I got...

Red Planet and Purple Styo from Age...

Oregon Blue Tort and Pearlberry from Fins and Critters (part of their buy two get one free deal on Sun), and the Setosa from a local reefer...

Also got a Miami Hurricane (from a local reefer) and a Superman Warcoral (from Fins and Critters)...

And finally the Jawbreaker mushroom (just a baby and a horrible pic, but got a great deal and it almost hurts my eyes when looking directly at it)...

Only went on Sunday to see if I could get some steals, and came back with some pretty good stuff. All in all, pretty happy with what I got.

-Chad

 

[gofor100]

Now for a "not-so-fun" weekend update (kind of)...

As you can see in the pics above (these were taken before cleaning the tank), I've still got algae, BUT I was able to do a larger water change on Sunday and dedicated the whole time to siphoning the stuff off of the rocks. It seems to be coming off a lot easier, so I think my persistence is paying off. We'll see if it grows back, but I plan to do another larger water change later this week, again siphoning the stuff off of the rock I couldn't get to this last time around and parts of the sandbed.

Here's a few pics of what the tank looked like right after the cleaning...

Thanks,

Chad

 

[gofor100]

tagging along

Welcome aboard! :wavehand:

-Chad

 

[gofor100]

Alright... made some progress this weekend!

First things first... got an update on the stand/canopy.

A problem I encountered though (rookie mistake) was when I was applying a two-part epoxy to the inner part of the stand late last week, I let it dry face down, which led to some of the epoxy puddling and drying on the face of the stand/canopy (which looked horrible)!!! So, Saturday, after the stand and canopy were already stained, I decided the only way I could be truly happy with the finished product was to re-sand and re-stain the face of the stand/canopy.

So here's the progress made...

Got started on the Stand and Canopy after finishing up all of the doors...

Then stained the trim I'll be using on the doors...

Hopefully sometime this week Jeff and I will be installing the hardware and putting on the trim so that I can put a final coat of polyurethane on the stand so we can install this thing.

-Chad

 

[gofor100]

Also picked up some frags from Steve Garrett (Garrett's Acropolis)... a local frag guy in Southern Cal who has a system entirely outside and lit by good ole natural sunlight.

Here's my favorite... the Blue Sapphire Milli.

Then there's Garrett's Blue-tipped Subulata...

The GARF Bonsai...

And Garrett's Carduus...

iPhone pics don't really do them justice, but within minutes of going in, they were showing great PE and as you can see are pretty good sized frags.

I also got this Rainbow Stylo from him several weeks back and it's looking great...

A kind of strange side-story... when I got to Steve's, I heard some loud popping noises, and thought to myself, "That kind of sounds like gunfire", then when I met up with Steve I asked him if some kids were setting off fireworks or something, and he said that for some reason there was a "Civil War re-enactment" in the park by his house... pretty strange but whatever.

-Chad

 

[gofor100]

As you can see in the frag pics, I still have that algae/cyano/whatever it is, BUT it doesn't seem to be doing any worse AND all of the corals seem to be doing great (great color/PE/noticeable growth).

So this last weekend I decided to do some more things to combat it and hopefully get rid of it sooner rather than later...

> Scrubbed the rock with a brush, then siphoned out a lot of the algae floating around in the water column
> Attached a filter sock to the output of my overflow so that when I turned the pumps back on, most of the loose algae crap would get caught in the sock
> Changed out my Carbon and GFO and continue to run GFO at roughly double the dose

The one slight set-back I had was when I cleaned my skimmer pump and skimmer body, I may have cleaned a little too well because my skimmer is overflowing. So I'll just keep it running and see if it gets better in a couple of days.

Here are a few pics of the tank after cleaning it up a bit...

I plan on continuing the scrub/siphon/sock routine the next couple of weeks, so we'll see how it goes. So far it's looking good, but I'd be interested to see if the stuff comes back. Also, I've noticed my Potter's seems more interested in picking at the rocks now that the longer growth isn't everywhere. So hopefully the Potter and the Blenny will help this along.

I guess we'll see...

-Chad

 

[gofor100]

Oh, and I almost forgot to post a really good score... got this browned out Strawberry Shortcake (another coral that I lost in the tank transfer) for only $10.

You can't really see it in the pic, but I can already see pink at the tips of the corallites and a green base coming back after only a week in my tank.

Thanks for looking!

-Chad

 

[gofor100]

Over the weekend I introduced some more fish that have been waiting patiently in the QT, but that was just last night, so I'll try to get some pics of them tonight sometime.

The main reason for my post though is I FINALLY got a decent picture of my Potter's Angel (granted it was still with my iPhone) sharing the frame with my Flame Wrasse, who is now eating EVERYTHING I put in the tank... far removed from the days of his hunger strike.

The lines are a little more purple/lavender in person, but this picture shows the crazy detail in all of his zebra stripes...

'Course, no big surprise he's also the king of the tank right now, and when I introduced the new fish he was the first one to "welcome" them. Nothing dramatic, but I just turned off the lights a little early, and this morning everyone was swimming together peacefully.

-Chad

 

[gofor100]

Alright... so even though I'm probably just talking to myself here (hahaha), I was able to take some updated pics of the tank last night.

It's definitely coming along and the algae is slowly but surely going away. Although, now it seems there is some brown film algae in spots, but I'd much rather deal with that, and I think that is in part because my skimmer was going nuts each time I scrubbed the rock and I was basically unable to keep the collection cup on because it would overflow in a matter of seconds.

Now the skimmer is somewhat back to normal (although still overproducing even with it being wide open- I think this will correct itself after a few more days), so I'm able to get some of the crap out of the water, and hopefully combat any excess nutrients/particulate matter. I'll also continue to scrub as long as there are signs of the stringy stuff, so we'll see how long it takes, but it seems like its on the road to recovery.

Thanks for looking!

-Chad

 

[gofor100]

Also, if you looked closely at the pics above, you may have spotted some new additions to the tank...

In all, I added 3 fish from the QT- a Yellow Longnose Butterfly (trying to fatten this guy up a little more), what I believe is a juvenile Melanurus Wrasse (although it has a third eye-spot towards the front of its dorsal fin, so not sure), and a Neon Blue Goby.

Here's the Longnose...

And here's the wrasse...

The goby is a difficult little bugger to get a pic of, but he's doing good and I've already noticed him cleaning some of the fish in the tank... or at least trying.

With the QT empty, I actually took advantage of a little business trip out to Pasadena yesterday, and stopped by some LFS's that I haven't been to (Vivid and Age of Aquariums) which were both really nice. The bummer is neither had any fish I was looking for... but one LFS that I'm pretty familiar with did (a Blue Jaw Trigger). For now, he's pretty shy (although I just put him in yesterday afternoon), so we'll see how he's doing tonight when I get home. I still might add one or two other fish in there with him, but that all depends on if any shipments come in that have what I'm looking for.

Thanks again for looking,

Chad

 

[gofor100]

No real updates as of now. The Blue Jaw trigger is doing well in QT and I might be out on the hunt for more fish to put in the QT tonight or tomorrow.

But for the heck of it, here's some more pics of my Potter's Angel...

Hope everyone has a great weekend!

-Chad

 

[gofor100]

So, some good news... it looks like I'm definitely getting a handle on the algae issue. Been very consistent on how I attack it (weekly scrubbings of the rock, then placing a filter sock on my overflow pipes in the sump, and sucking up whatever I can when doing the water change immediately after, along with weekly changes of the Carbon AND GFO). Still some small patches that I'll continue to attack, but it seems to be getting better every week.

Here's a Full Tank Shot I took yesterday...

And some fish shots...

Here's the Butterfly... getting fatter by the day.

The Halichoeres wrasse (probably a Melanurus or something similar)...

And then my Flame Wrasse chillin' on the right side of my tank...

And another pic of him riding the current...

So not only is the algae going away (or at least seems to be), I went out on a search Friday to some LFS's after work, and came back with some fish that I've had my eye out for...

More pics to come soon,

Chad

 

[gofor100]

Double Post...

 

[gofor100]

Now for the fun part... the new fish!

I'd mentioned before that I got a Blue Jaw Trigger last week (Tuesday)... he'd been hiding in his PVC pipe for the remainder of the week (although eating very well). Here's his favorite PVC pipe...

So I figured I would stop by and get him some friends, maybe enticing him to come out more (which actually worked- he comes out consistently for feeding time and some other times throughout the day).

First I found a Blue Flasher Wrasse... actually a very pretty (and cheap) flasher and not the typical orange coloration you usually find with most of the flashers. It has a nice purple/magenta look with some reds. Here's some crappy QT pics...

Also got a Bangaii Cardinalfish... always loved their unique look and figured it would be a cool fish to have (never had one before).

The last fish I got was almost a no brainer... I've ALWAYS loved this fish, but knew how difficult they can be. I have to be honest, my success (although short-term so far) with my Potter's Angel boosted my confidence a little, and the fact that I've done so much research on these fish and have observed them while diving with them dozens of times, boosts my confidence just a little more (although I am by no means confident at this point, I'm just slightly optimistic I have a better chance than some). So I decided that if I found a fairly small to medium one that was eating, I would pick it up immediately... as luck would have it, I stopped by Tongs in Fountain Valley (where I got all of the other fish in QT except the Bangaii) and saw two in one of their larger tanks. Both of them looked really good, one slightly larger than the other, and apparently they had just got them in earlier that week (since I didn't see them when I picked up the Blue Jaw Trigger earlier that same week).

So they passed the eye-test, now was the time to see if they were actually eating... in went the frozen food and BOTH of them were eating. So I decided to take the plunge and get the smaller of the two (probably about 4-inches in length).

Here is my new Moorish Idol within an hour of putting it in the QT...

Immediately after taking that photo, I wanted to see if any of the fish would eat, and, to my surprise, the only one that did was the Moorish Idol! Although it would only eat the frozen brine shrimp I had put in (I also put in some Mysis), it seemed like it was making up for lost time because it was eating pretty good.

On Sunday, I wanted to see if it would eat anything else, so I put a clip of Nori (soaked in garlic) and a slice of scallop (also soaked in garlic) rubberbanded to a rock, and it seemed to pick at both, although it was difficult to see if it actually ingested anything. Although once the Nori pieces were floating in the water column, I did notice it eating those pieces, so I'm kind of assuming that it is ingesting at least some of the Nori.

Here are some shots I got of it cruising the QT over the weekend...

And my favorite pic so far...

I know the success rate with these guys are not great, but I hope that by getting one that is eating, and quarantining in a relatively larger tank (60 gallons) with some live rock from my prior set-up will help with any success.

My plan is to continue feeding 3 to 4 times a day (once in the morning before work, then 2-3 times after I get home from work), while also clipping some Nori and rubberbanding a small scallop piece to a rock every morning (removing them when I get home and do a small waterchange to pick up any pieces floating around or sitting on the bottom). Once I can get it to eat more than just Brine (although vitamin-enriched, still not ideal) on a regular basis, I'll begin treatment with Cupramine but very slowly and probably at the lowest recommended effective dosage (around .40 instead of .50).

Wish me luck and thanks for looking,

Chad