Jerone's 155 gallon reef tank
- Thread starter jbfloor
- Start date
jbfloor
Member
Well, here's something interesting:
I had been concerned about this hermit for a while. He wasn't moving much and he seemed to have trouble molting. Then, finally, after about a week he managed to get close to the front of the tank. In the evening under blue lights he showed... or should I say, they showed.
It looks like two hermits are sharing the same shell. In the picture you can see two right claws and a mix of eyes and antennae. Both sets of claws, arms etc.. are moving separately. It is definitely not a molt.
I'm not sure what to do about this. The mangled legs show that the hermits have trouble molting and I'm sure they also have trouble eating. They both occupy the shell and cannot fight each other inside. The best thing I could think of is to put another empty shell right next to this one and hope one of them will make the leap.
Anyone ever seen this before?
I had been concerned about this hermit for a while. He wasn't moving much and he seemed to have trouble molting. Then, finally, after about a week he managed to get close to the front of the tank. In the evening under blue lights he showed... or should I say, they showed.
It looks like two hermits are sharing the same shell. In the picture you can see two right claws and a mix of eyes and antennae. Both sets of claws, arms etc.. are moving separately. It is definitely not a molt.
I'm not sure what to do about this. The mangled legs show that the hermits have trouble molting and I'm sure they also have trouble eating. They both occupy the shell and cannot fight each other inside. The best thing I could think of is to put another empty shell right next to this one and hope one of them will make the leap.
Anyone ever seen this before?
scuzy
Active member
The old:
And the new:
Sump/Refugium is a Trigger Systems Tide36, about 50% more volume as the old one and, as you can see, I can easily reach the massive 7" filter socks.
I got rid of the sand in the refugium and am just running live rock in it. On the far right are two PhosBan reactors. One with GFO and one with Carbon.
LED lighting for refugium is on the way.
Nice sump. I recently restarted my whole tank after losing battle with bryopsis. I remember when I started my 220 I copied your setup. Glad everything is looking great. I would suggest trying out those marine pure blocks in your sump it'll be lot better than just live rocks in the sump.
jbfloor
Member
Upgraded the refugium pump from an Eheim Compact+ 3000 (793gph) to a Rio 32HF (1920gph). With head losses, tank still turns over at least 10x per hour.
Also:
The female clown got sick with something and died a couple of months ago. I'm hoping that the remaining (male) clown will accept this juvenile and become female.
I am also going to make one last attempt at keeping a Copperband. He is doing well so far, but won't be allowed out of QT until it shows aggressive eating.
Also:
The female clown got sick with something and died a couple of months ago. I'm hoping that the remaining (male) clown will accept this juvenile and become female.
I am also going to make one last attempt at keeping a Copperband. He is doing well so far, but won't be allowed out of QT until it shows aggressive eating.
jbfloor
Member
Thanks. Those blocks do look interesting, though my nitrates are testing 0.00, so I don't know if I need them.
jbfloor
Member
The copperband picked at some of my "Rod's Original Blend" but would not eat much at all. I ordered some live brine shrimp from DrFosters and was happy to see it started chasing after it immediately. It still only eats small amounts and is still being finicky, but at least it's eating something.
jbfloor
Member
The copperband has eaten at least 200 live brine shrimp in the last couple of days and is now viciously picking at the feeding pipette whenever I stick it in the QT tank.
I tricked her into eating frozen mysis, by combining the mysis with the live brine and having a frozen mysis stick out the pipette tail first so it looks like a worm.
So help me God, I'm going to make this Copperband survive.. even if it kills me.
I tricked her into eating frozen mysis, by combining the mysis with the live brine and having a frozen mysis stick out the pipette tail first so it looks like a worm.
So help me God, I'm going to make this Copperband survive.. even if it kills me.
jbfloor
Member
Copperband was promoted to the display tank. She is now vigurously eating frozen mysis, so I am hopeful she will be fine now.
Not a great picture, but it shows how the larger clown that was already in the tank immediately adopted the new, smaller clown. No fights, nothing.. Best of friends within five minutes.
Not a great picture, but it shows how the larger clown that was already in the tank immediately adopted the new, smaller clown. No fights, nothing.. Best of friends within five minutes.
jbfloor
Member
A little trick I use to allow the Copperband to eat in peace in the display tank:
Get a small pillbox, drill a couple of holes in the cap. Weight it down with a coral plug and put a cube of mysis inside. In my case the mysis cube barely fits, so I put it in while frozen and it slowly starts releasing. The Copperband is the only fish able to get inside the box through the holes.
Get a small pillbox, drill a couple of holes in the cap. Weight it down with a coral plug and put a cube of mysis inside. In my case the mysis cube barely fits, so I put it in while frozen and it slowly starts releasing. The Copperband is the only fish able to get inside the box through the holes.
jbfloor
Member
This is a long overdue update on this tank.
Over the last two years I neglected this tank for a variety of reasons, one being that I experienced a rather meteoric rise at the company I was working for, which meant 10-12 hour workdays and lots of travel, and the other being a relentless issue with white gunk and algea. I have since left that company (as I became more and more convinced the my boss (the CEO) was a psychopath) and have gone back to a more normal work week.
I came very close to giving up on the tank and storing it in the garage for future use or selling it. Especially when my lights started failing, as I did not have the time or energy to fix them. The main issue with this tank location from the beginning has been access. There is not way to get to the back of the tank, so when the lights failed I would have to dismantle all the light wiring to be able to track down where the failure was (it turned out one of the connectors in the back had corroded through). So, for several months the only 1/4 of the lights were running.
Imagine my surprise when I finally took the lighting rig apart and made a quick test fix and I noticed that the tank had never been more colorful. Obviously any SPS had died, but the mushrooms loved it and even some LPS flourished. Better yet, all the white gunk had completely disappeared and algea was limited to tiny patches. Water tests showed that KH, CA and Mg were somewhat low, but Nitrates and Phosphates were close to undetectable.. In other words, the tank was still in good shape.
So, with the money earned from psycho-boss, I decided to treat myself to a present. I wanted a simple lighting system with a single wire for power and wireless control for the rest. I quickly settled on the Corona system from RapidLed as I have been a customer of RapidLed for years and their customer service is second to none. Also, they are almost half the price of the Radeons.
Just a reminder of what the previous lights looked like:
And the new lights. Note that the middle light is not working yet. The Corona works through the FishBit app and this unit is not able to register to the app. I have a ticket into RapidLed and FishBit to make sure this unit is registered to me.
I spent several hours racking my brain about how to mount these new lights. The Corona's come with a hanging kit only, which is not something I use. I came up with a kind of adapter plate from the Corona directly to my canopy which meant taking some strips of aluminum and drilling holes in the right locations. Then, as I was taking apart the old light rig, it struck me. I wanted to keep the rail system I made for the previous lights, so why not build a hanging scaffold to rest the Corona's on? So, that's what I ended up doing. It is very simple, very cheap and easy to adjust. If the screws end up rusting, I'll just replace them in less than five minutes.
Here's a close up:
The rail allows me to move the lights back and forth whenever needed and the lights are simply resting on the aluminum strips (which is actually strips of Carpet Trim).
On a side note.. The previous lighting rig can easily be repaired and used on another tank. All that is broken is a couple of wires have to be re-soldered and some of the LED's need to be glued back to the heat sink. I'm thinking about selling it or trading it for some frags.
Over the last two years I neglected this tank for a variety of reasons, one being that I experienced a rather meteoric rise at the company I was working for, which meant 10-12 hour workdays and lots of travel, and the other being a relentless issue with white gunk and algea. I have since left that company (as I became more and more convinced the my boss (the CEO) was a psychopath) and have gone back to a more normal work week.
I came very close to giving up on the tank and storing it in the garage for future use or selling it. Especially when my lights started failing, as I did not have the time or energy to fix them. The main issue with this tank location from the beginning has been access. There is not way to get to the back of the tank, so when the lights failed I would have to dismantle all the light wiring to be able to track down where the failure was (it turned out one of the connectors in the back had corroded through). So, for several months the only 1/4 of the lights were running.
Imagine my surprise when I finally took the lighting rig apart and made a quick test fix and I noticed that the tank had never been more colorful. Obviously any SPS had died, but the mushrooms loved it and even some LPS flourished. Better yet, all the white gunk had completely disappeared and algea was limited to tiny patches. Water tests showed that KH, CA and Mg were somewhat low, but Nitrates and Phosphates were close to undetectable.. In other words, the tank was still in good shape.
So, with the money earned from psycho-boss, I decided to treat myself to a present. I wanted a simple lighting system with a single wire for power and wireless control for the rest. I quickly settled on the Corona system from RapidLed as I have been a customer of RapidLed for years and their customer service is second to none. Also, they are almost half the price of the Radeons.
Just a reminder of what the previous lights looked like:
And the new lights. Note that the middle light is not working yet. The Corona works through the FishBit app and this unit is not able to register to the app. I have a ticket into RapidLed and FishBit to make sure this unit is registered to me.
I spent several hours racking my brain about how to mount these new lights. The Corona's come with a hanging kit only, which is not something I use. I came up with a kind of adapter plate from the Corona directly to my canopy which meant taking some strips of aluminum and drilling holes in the right locations. Then, as I was taking apart the old light rig, it struck me. I wanted to keep the rail system I made for the previous lights, so why not build a hanging scaffold to rest the Corona's on? So, that's what I ended up doing. It is very simple, very cheap and easy to adjust. If the screws end up rusting, I'll just replace them in less than five minutes.
Here's a close up:
The rail allows me to move the lights back and forth whenever needed and the lights are simply resting on the aluminum strips (which is actually strips of Carpet Trim).
On a side note.. The previous lighting rig can easily be repaired and used on another tank. All that is broken is a couple of wires have to be re-soldered and some of the LED's need to be glued back to the heat sink. I'm thinking about selling it or trading it for some frags.
jbfloor
Member
As expected, the RapidLed response was fast and it got fixed this morning before 9 AM.
All lights are now up and running. Currently they are on the Fiji schedule with peak hour at 3:30. I've set the peak intensities as follows:
Moonlight: 25%
Blue: 60%
Violet: 80%
White: 45%
Red: 25%
Green: 25%
As you can see, the mushrooms are everywhere! If you are in the Bay Area and would like a frag, let me know and you can pick some up. If you have something to swap (like a piece of birdsnest for example), even better.
Will take better pictures when I get the good camera back.
All lights are now up and running. Currently they are on the Fiji schedule with peak hour at 3:30. I've set the peak intensities as follows:
Moonlight: 25%
Blue: 60%
Violet: 80%
White: 45%
Red: 25%
Green: 25%
As you can see, the mushrooms are everywhere! If you are in the Bay Area and would like a frag, let me know and you can pick some up. If you have something to swap (like a piece of birdsnest for example), even better.
Will take better pictures when I get the good camera back.
scuzy
Active member
This is a long overdue update on this tank.
Over the last two years I neglected this tank for a variety of reasons, one being that I experienced a rather meteoric rise at the company I was working for, which meant 10-12 hour workdays and lots of travel, and the other being a relentless issue with white gunk and algea. I have since left that company (as I became more and more convinced the my boss (the CEO) was a psychopath) and have gone back to a more normal work week.
I came very close to giving up on the tank and storing it in the garage for future use or selling it. Especially when my lights started failing, as I did not have the time or energy to fix them. The main issue with this tank location from the beginning has been access. There is not way to get to the back of the tank, so when the lights failed I would have to dismantle all the light wiring to be able to track down where the failure was (it turned out one of the connectors in the back had corroded through). So, for several months the only 1/4 of the lights were running.
Imagine my surprise when I finally took the lighting rig apart and made a quick test fix and I noticed that the tank had never been more colorful. Obviously any SPS had died, but the mushrooms loved it and even some LPS flourished. Better yet, all the white gunk had completely disappeared and algea was limited to tiny patches. Water tests showed that KH, CA and Mg were somewhat low, but Nitrates and Phosphates were close to undetectable.. In other words, the tank was still in good shape.
So, with the money earned from psycho-boss, I decided to treat myself to a present. I wanted a simple lighting system with a single wire for power and wireless control for the rest. I quickly settled on the Corona system from RapidLed as I have been a customer of RapidLed for years and their customer service is second to none. Also, they are almost half the price of the Radeons.
Just a reminder of what the previous lights looked like:
And the new lights. Note that the middle light is not working yet. The Corona works through the FishBit app and this unit is not able to register to the app. I have a ticket into RapidLed and FishBit to make sure this unit is registered to me.
I spent several hours racking my brain about how to mount these new lights. The Corona's come with a hanging kit only, which is not something I use. I came up with a kind of adapter plate from the Corona directly to my canopy which meant taking some strips of aluminum and drilling holes in the right locations. Then, as I was taking apart the old light rig, it struck me. I wanted to keep the rail system I made for the previous lights, so why not build a hanging scaffold to rest the Corona's on? So, that's what I ended up doing. It is very simple, very cheap and easy to adjust. If the screws end up rusting, I'll just replace them in less than five minutes.
Here's a close up:
The rail allows me to move the lights back and forth whenever needed and the lights are simply resting on the aluminum strips (which is actually strips of Carpet Trim).
On a side note.. The previous lighting rig can easily be repaired and used on another tank. All that is broken is a couple of wires have to be re-soldered and some of the LED's need to be glued back to the heat sink. I'm thinking about selling it or trading it for some frags.
Shouldn't you secure the lights just one you don't want it falling into the tank?
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro
reefster828
New member
Hey Jbfloor,
Just want you to know you have an awesome tank and it has given me much inspiration for a 125g I'm currently setting up.
I know you mentioned this before somewhere, but I didn't pay enough attention to it when I first saw it and now can't find it again. What camera and lens do you use? Any macro equipment or just a regular lens? Any light filter on the lens?
Just want you to know you have an awesome tank and it has given me much inspiration for a 125g I'm currently setting up.
I know you mentioned this before somewhere, but I didn't pay enough attention to it when I first saw it and now can't find it again. What camera and lens do you use? Any macro equipment or just a regular lens? Any light filter on the lens?
jbfloor
Member
Thx Reefster
Currently I am using a Canon EOS 70D which is actually newer than the one I posted earlier. That was a EOS 6D. I used that standard kit-lens at the time. I was a bit hesitant at the time to shell out $800 for a good macro, so I never bought one. I wanted the EF100mm 2.8f Canon lens... and now I see a used one available for $450... hmm.. tempting.
Currently I am using a Canon EOS 70D which is actually newer than the one I posted earlier. That was a EOS 6D. I used that standard kit-lens at the time. I was a bit hesitant at the time to shell out $800 for a good macro, so I never bought one. I wanted the EF100mm 2.8f Canon lens... and now I see a used one available for $450... hmm.. tempting.
jbfloor
Member
Another long overdue update.
This tank is about to be broken down. For a good reason though, because I am moving across the country to a much bigger house with much more room, cheaper electricity and (free) well water.
I have not yet decided whether I will sell the tank or have it shipped to the new house with the rest of our stuff. The new house will be done in early June (it's being constructed) so I have some time to decide.
If anyone in the Bay Area is interested in offering a price for the tank and cabinet, feel free to PM me. Pick-ups only, I will not ship this anywhere else other than my own new home. Only the bare tank and cabinet will be available, I am keeping the sump and all equipment.
I have found homes for some of the fish, but have some left available to pick-up.
1x Yellow-Eye Kole Tang (the O.G. of the tank, over seven years old)
2x Clown Fish (1 is O.G.)
3x Royal Gramma (1 is O.G., other are younger)
1x Skunk cleaner shrimp
Various snails
I also have tons of live rock, mostly with three types of mushrooms. Bright green, blue and Red Peppermint.
I will create posts in the For Sale forum as well, but want to give people who were following this build first-dibs
I will also launch a new thread with a new build once I am moved in. I have found the perfect spot for the tank and a full fish room with easy water access and drains.
This tank is about to be broken down. For a good reason though, because I am moving across the country to a much bigger house with much more room, cheaper electricity and (free) well water.
I have not yet decided whether I will sell the tank or have it shipped to the new house with the rest of our stuff. The new house will be done in early June (it's being constructed) so I have some time to decide.
If anyone in the Bay Area is interested in offering a price for the tank and cabinet, feel free to PM me. Pick-ups only, I will not ship this anywhere else other than my own new home. Only the bare tank and cabinet will be available, I am keeping the sump and all equipment.
I have found homes for some of the fish, but have some left available to pick-up.
1x Yellow-Eye Kole Tang (the O.G. of the tank, over seven years old)
2x Clown Fish (1 is O.G.)
3x Royal Gramma (1 is O.G., other are younger)
1x Skunk cleaner shrimp
Various snails
I also have tons of live rock, mostly with three types of mushrooms. Bright green, blue and Red Peppermint.
I will create posts in the For Sale forum as well, but want to give people who were following this build first-dibs
I will also launch a new thread with a new build once I am moved in. I have found the perfect spot for the tank and a full fish room with easy water access and drains.
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