Isn't that a lot more work?
- Thread starter Dustin07
- Start date
thank you! I'm starting to feel closer to the comfort zone as we get into standard routines with tank maintenance again. all of @Timfish 's advice regarding the macro reactor has been on my mind for months. As we went through the nasty portion of this cycle I did briefly fire up the reactor again on a very limited basis, only from Midnight till 6am for a few days. My nitrates plummeted to basically zero again. I was a little bit in a panic mode because despite running the Dr Tims, I was getting a pretty bad breakout to the point that the water was getting cloudy so I was looking for anything to help polish the water.
At that point I cut my reactor back to only 1 hour a day, from midnight to 1am. Again, With @Timfish 's words of wisdom/caution still in my mind, I did it anyways. Nitrates = 0. Yikes! Finally I just completely disconnected it, I guess I had to learn on my own, 3 times, before I was capable of just taking the advice given to me....
Long story short, I am really only running the 2 socks and the skimmer right now. I'm not even sure the skimmer provides much value, it was collecting a lot more muck in the old tank although my bioload is about 50% what it was before. I haven't decided long term what i'm going to do, but I do know I still prefer the reef mat over the socks.
Fish seem good, the Hippo Tang (really my pride and joy ) is eating like a little piggy again. She's not hiding, the fish school with her and follow her around to see where the next adventure is, ha.
So this week one of my 50w lights was a bit finicky. I've many many times been playing around with these lights as it seems like I always have ONE that will shut off. I think the power supply was overheating but the question on my mind is whether the light is bad or the power supply. so I switched the power supply between two lights and now a different light is acting finicky. So I think I have narrowed it down because the common denominator here is that one bad power supply. Took me forever to figure that out cause all in all over the years I have collected 3 x 90w and 2 x 50w and I have not been good about keeping them attached to their respective power supplies.
I seriously was starting to think I had to replace one of my lights entirely and was even talking to some folks on marketplace about it. I'll be ecstatic if I can longterm fix this issue with a new $25 box and not a new $300-500 light fixture...
I seriously was starting to think I had to replace one of my lights entirely and was even talking to some folks on marketplace about it. I'll be ecstatic if I can longterm fix this issue with a new $25 box and not a new $300-500 light fixture...
fun day today! wife texted me at like 9 to let me know power was out in ALL of town. so logged into reefbeat and inkbird and yes, everything was down. 10am I had an ISO management meeting but I was checking the local utility's X account for updates and sure enough, still down.
10:30 am I decide to just head home for an early lunch and plug the jackery into the return pump and heater to get by until power comes back on.
I was worried because I semi-irresponsibly over filled the sump last night when doing top off (I don't have my ATO setup yet, undecided on how I want it). and I was concerned there could be water on my floor, ruining the new cabinet wood, etc.
I get home and the sump is about 1/2" from the top. holy crap that was close. water temp is good, fish look perfectly happy despite water level being down about 1" in the DT.
I plug in the jackery to the WHOLE system thinking I'll hit my power supply and turn off individual stuff (like lights) after I know its working.
Immediately the tank lights come on, the return pump comes on, the neros come on. my living room lights come on, our electronic dart board in the other room comes on, my tv comes on
Like I literally plugged my tank into the battery backup the second all of our power was restored
but my wife also ran home cause her office decide to shut down for a few hours until power came back on so I got to feed the fish and have a little lunch date with her. That was pretty cool.
10:30 am I decide to just head home for an early lunch and plug the jackery into the return pump and heater to get by until power comes back on.
I was worried because I semi-irresponsibly over filled the sump last night when doing top off (I don't have my ATO setup yet, undecided on how I want it). and I was concerned there could be water on my floor, ruining the new cabinet wood, etc.
I get home and the sump is about 1/2" from the top. holy crap that was close. water temp is good, fish look perfectly happy despite water level being down about 1" in the DT.
I plug in the jackery to the WHOLE system thinking I'll hit my power supply and turn off individual stuff (like lights) after I know its working.
Immediately the tank lights come on, the return pump comes on, the neros come on. my living room lights come on, our electronic dart board in the other room comes on, my tv comes on
Like I literally plugged my tank into the battery backup the second all of our power was restored
but my wife also ran home cause her office decide to shut down for a few hours until power came back on so I got to feed the fish and have a little lunch date with her. That was pretty cool.
Never had or heard of any issues with them. Their personalities are a fun addition to a tank.
My wife and I got a puppy on Thursday, so our nights of sleep came to an end on Friday. She's a purebred mutt. Dad was a blue healer and mom a half heeler/half border collie. so even though she wasn't a fortune ($$$) we decided to spend less on our planned fish date Saturday. Unfortunately, we still over spent a bit. I really think I got a fair price though. My LFS sold the Powder and the Sailfin to me for $50-60ea. so now as far as show piece fish go, we have the Hippo, and these two. which make it feel like the most grown up tank I've ever had, lol.
I'll try to get better pictures of them later....
everything on my new zoa garden is doing well and showing new polyps already. I'm quickly becoming a believer in the value of aquacultured specimens!!
as you can see, this guy has his work cut out. I added 4 or 5 Turbos, astreas, cerith, and tronches to help him and they've done a fantastic job of cleaning the green.
This was sold to me as a Grimmace Acro. I've never had an acro before but wanted to try. not sure what you guys think about it, but I think it's already grown 20% in like 2-3 weeks that I've had it. I've done some reading about how some times acros only open up at night and I have noticed that if I check the tank at very very early like 4:30-5am the tiny polyps are open and seem healthy but I don't really see a lot during daylight hours.
Currently feeding the whole tank live phyto, thats about it other than dosing some occasional reef fusion mostly just to use it up (2 part). I have some reef nutrition roe that I shoot near the neros so it creates a snow flurry of eggs everywhere that the tanks eat. My hippo still prefers pellet food, but since adding the other new fish this weekend they seem to have taught her the value of my algae sheets FINALLY.
The thicker glass is harder to clean because the magnet on my flipper isn't really strong enough. so I need to figure that out, and a better algae clip long term. but so far things are going well.
I'll try to get better pictures of them later....
everything on my new zoa garden is doing well and showing new polyps already. I'm quickly becoming a believer in the value of aquacultured specimens!!
as you can see, this guy has his work cut out. I added 4 or 5 Turbos, astreas, cerith, and tronches to help him and they've done a fantastic job of cleaning the green.
This was sold to me as a Grimmace Acro. I've never had an acro before but wanted to try. not sure what you guys think about it, but I think it's already grown 20% in like 2-3 weeks that I've had it. I've done some reading about how some times acros only open up at night and I have noticed that if I check the tank at very very early like 4:30-5am the tiny polyps are open and seem healthy but I don't really see a lot during daylight hours.
Currently feeding the whole tank live phyto, thats about it other than dosing some occasional reef fusion mostly just to use it up (2 part). I have some reef nutrition roe that I shoot near the neros so it creates a snow flurry of eggs everywhere that the tanks eat. My hippo still prefers pellet food, but since adding the other new fish this weekend they seem to have taught her the value of my algae sheets FINALLY.
The thicker glass is harder to clean because the magnet on my flipper isn't really strong enough. so I need to figure that out, and a better algae clip long term. but so far things are going well.
Oh yeah, I added a small BTA this weekend too. It disapeared by the next day. I found tiny 1/4" sized pink/green things that looked like BTA tentacles (2 of them) on opposite sides of the tank. I can't for the life of me figure out if it somehow got shredded and spread around the tank or what.
Maybe got caught in a powerhead?
it looks like he exploded so that makes the most sense, but it means a nem the size of a 50 cent peice crawled up the wall overnight about 30"+ from where he was originally placed. not at all impossible, but dang. what a bummer. I had such a beautiful BTA in my last tank and I have just had horrible success with them since. I have those two clowns now and I had hoped to get them to host on a nem before my other corals grow enough to become inviting for them but.... just having the worst luck now.
not a lot of updates on the tank this week. but if you guys have advice on some varied foods for tangs I'd love to hear it. I've heard of people soaking food in garlic before but I've never done that. I'd like to fatten my sailfin up a little bit.
I had a guy on the eshopps group recommend this hygger cleaner because the glass on my new M100 is too thick for the magnet on my flipper to be very effective. Amazon had same day delivery lol. so I asked the question at like 7am and had my new cleaner on my porch when I got home from work. it works great!
I haven't yet figured out how I want to plumb the reefmat into the system yet but I'm getting closer to developing an idea and getting tired of washing socks, haha. I'd pull the socks completely right now and just let it go with LR but they help with the current plumbing setup to sorta silence the water flow. so I'm going to have to tinker with the plumbing regardless...
I had a guy on the eshopps group recommend this hygger cleaner because the glass on my new M100 is too thick for the magnet on my flipper to be very effective. Amazon had same day delivery lol. so I asked the question at like 7am and had my new cleaner on my porch when I got home from work. it works great!
I haven't yet figured out how I want to plumb the reefmat into the system yet but I'm getting closer to developing an idea and getting tired of washing socks, haha. I'd pull the socks completely right now and just let it go with LR but they help with the current plumbing setup to sorta silence the water flow. so I'm going to have to tinker with the plumbing regardless...
oh and the local gal I know who is only running aquacultured has a fraggable White Walker ready finally so I told her I'm committed to a small frag. these are a really pretty zoa. Everything I have bought from her, and I mean everything, has been healthy and growing.
I'm seeing a little white spot on my acro that is similar to this thread from way back in 2009. if you guys saw this today, what would you think with 16 years of experience since then?
that might explain why I'm rarely seeing polyp extension... bummer.
I read a big log on AEFW's where the guy used Betadine with great success. I could get some, but I've also read the Revive might do it, which I have in stock now so I'll give that a go.
after dealing with a lot of user error, I finally got my hinges aligned and all the new doors correctly hung on the cabinet. so the tank looks far better finally, lol.
My zoas all seem to be doing really well:
we drove 70 minutes to do the fish store circuit this weekend as an anniversary date and this guy I picked up from a fellow who actually lives in my home town, but was doing the same fish store circuit (LOL) so I met him in the parking lot outside one of the stores for a quick drugdeal, haha.
neither of us know what this one is called, the colors are similiar (but different) from utter chaos, but the tentacles are flufffy and soft like a GMK. so I'm excited to see it grow and have a colony of them.
This was a frag I had in my 4g nano, I'm happy to have a bunch of old frags like this from our original reef that I'm able to seed our new tank with for nostalgia:
Our anniversary present to ourselves was a couple more "show" fish. we added a Scopas and I finally got my Foxface Rabbit fish. He spent about 30 minutes in camo-mode, then went full yellow and started nibbling my nori sheets. He and the scopas are a bonded pair so I'm glad I got them together because my sailfin immediately went into bully mode and started whipping the scopas with his tail. my foxface came out of hidding and started putting himself between the two of them.
At some point when I wasn't watching, I assume the sailfin attempted to whip the foxface because he now has a small tear in the middle of his fin, although I think it will heal. What I noticed was the next day, no more fighting. So I think the sailfin has been put in his place, lol.
I also picked up a new nori magnetic clamp. it's the two little fishies brand and works fantastic. no more having to soak my arms elbow deep to add a little algae to the tank. I'm running my old DIY lid intended for the redsea at the moment because I realized that Foxface is the fastest fish in my tank and he could EASILY jump it.
I'm leaning towards a new DIY kit, rather than the very expensive Kraken lids, so that I can modify it around an auto feeder etc.
Lastly, a bottle of AB+ arrived Saturday that I've started dosing my tank with. I have found myself in the same predicament with this tank that I had with my last tank. Low calcium. so I'll probably try chasing that number again soon.
My zoas all seem to be doing really well:
we drove 70 minutes to do the fish store circuit this weekend as an anniversary date and this guy I picked up from a fellow who actually lives in my home town, but was doing the same fish store circuit (LOL) so I met him in the parking lot outside one of the stores for a quick drugdeal, haha.
neither of us know what this one is called, the colors are similiar (but different) from utter chaos, but the tentacles are flufffy and soft like a GMK. so I'm excited to see it grow and have a colony of them.
This was a frag I had in my 4g nano, I'm happy to have a bunch of old frags like this from our original reef that I'm able to seed our new tank with for nostalgia:
Our anniversary present to ourselves was a couple more "show" fish. we added a Scopas and I finally got my Foxface Rabbit fish. He spent about 30 minutes in camo-mode, then went full yellow and started nibbling my nori sheets. He and the scopas are a bonded pair so I'm glad I got them together because my sailfin immediately went into bully mode and started whipping the scopas with his tail. my foxface came out of hidding and started putting himself between the two of them.
At some point when I wasn't watching, I assume the sailfin attempted to whip the foxface because he now has a small tear in the middle of his fin, although I think it will heal. What I noticed was the next day, no more fighting. So I think the sailfin has been put in his place, lol.
I also picked up a new nori magnetic clamp. it's the two little fishies brand and works fantastic. no more having to soak my arms elbow deep to add a little algae to the tank. I'm running my old DIY lid intended for the redsea at the moment because I realized that Foxface is the fastest fish in my tank and he could EASILY jump it.
I'm leaning towards a new DIY kit, rather than the very expensive Kraken lids, so that I can modify it around an auto feeder etc.
Lastly, a bottle of AB+ arrived Saturday that I've started dosing my tank with. I have found myself in the same predicament with this tank that I had with my last tank. Low calcium. so I'll probably try chasing that number again soon.
Nice progression, also this thread is just a reminder of how addictive this hobby is, I'm impressed you were able to stay away from it for 10 years, all it took was a 10gallon gold fish tank it sounds like
Looks like the current tank is coming a long great! Also congrats on taking on the challenge of trying an Acropora. Yours looks to be a valida or nana, leaning towards valida as the radial corallites aren't as uniform in size as they are on nana's, both of which don't have super big/ long polyps, esp during the day.
Like @griss said, inspecting for acro eating flatworm bites/ scars is wise and a must with any new acro curious if you had a chance to do that? IME valida is one of AEFW favorite species to feed on
The scars they leave behind look like little white poka dots.
Instead of doing a PVP / betadine dip or Revive - (which Revive is great for softies/ LPS but is quite stressful to Acropora)
Id recommend sourcing some food/USP grade potassium chloride, it's very safe and the least stress inducing dip for Acropora Bulk supplements is a trusted brand, dissolve 1tblsp/ 16g in 1 gallon of aquarium water and dip with light basting for 7min, if there are FW present you will see them come off pretty quickly.
Look forward to seeing how the acro works out for you, SPS corals are so rewarding to keep and watch grow.
Looks like the current tank is coming a long great! Also congrats on taking on the challenge of trying an Acropora. Yours looks to be a valida or nana, leaning towards valida as the radial corallites aren't as uniform in size as they are on nana's, both of which don't have super big/ long polyps, esp during the day.
Like @griss said, inspecting for acro eating flatworm bites/ scars is wise and a must with any new acro curious if you had a chance to do that? IME valida is one of AEFW favorite species to feed on
The scars they leave behind look like little white poka dots.
Instead of doing a PVP / betadine dip or Revive - (which Revive is great for softies/ LPS but is quite stressful to Acropora)
Id recommend sourcing some food/USP grade potassium chloride, it's very safe and the least stress inducing dip for Acropora Bulk supplements is a trusted brand, dissolve 1tblsp/ 16g in 1 gallon of aquarium water and dip with light basting for 7min, if there are FW present you will see them come off pretty quickly.
Look forward to seeing how the acro works out for you, SPS corals are so rewarding to keep and watch grow.
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