My 65 Gallon Mixed Reef

[biggles]

Yep i've never once used anything but NSW since being in the hobby. Those bloody containers are what i first filled the tank with and have held all the water be it salt or RO ever since. I fill 6 of them when i make RO and the good one i bought about 6 months back so only one seventh the RO water was actually clean. I might test a drum for phos tomorrow before i empty them and bin the lot.
Btw i cover the container hole whilst filling with RO and never leave RO uncovered, it absorbs crap easy being so clean like a big toxin sponge lol. I'm a tad worried things have gone too far or the rock will be full of whatever shouldn't be there. When i think back to the cheapo RO unit i used to use i only made 2 drums at a time because it was fast (not actually cleaning water makes it fast) so the water wasn't left in the containers for long periods. Upgrading to a good quality RO unit actually made things worse.........

So there you have it, as always it's not my fault at all................. :worried:

I put 2 bags of carbon in and i'm going to get some salt water to do a few changes and see what happens i guess.

 

[Bello]

That HAS to be it!!! Since you've had them for so long, its very possible that they've degraded, damn plastics!!!

You're getting NSW this time around for the WC's? I'm curious, how do your LFS get NSW? Do they filter it at their store? Or are you just bloody lucky enough that the damn water is pristine anyhow?

BTW, our friend who keeps insisting that he has a tank, has sneakily posted pics of someone else's tank, and is passing it off as his own (Bello ducks and runs, as Sahin chases him with a Bazooka )

 

[biggles]

The LFS all use a guy with a huge tanker truck that fills from the ocean. I think i'll give NSW away and start using artificial as the closest store charges $7-50 per 25L drum filled - what a joke. I'm more likely to do regular changes if i don't have to lug heavy drums in and out of the ute and house not to mention the 20 min drive each way.
When i lived near the beach i used to collect my own water off the beach - it was bloody cold in winter wading out to fill drums lol.

 

[Fishy 1]

BTW, our friend who keeps insisting that he has a tank, has sneakily posted pics of someone else's tank, and is passing it off as his own (Bello ducks and runs, as Sahin chases him with a Bazooka )

Hahahahahahaha lol I could see that happening too

 

[Fishy 1]

The LFS all use a guy with a huge tanker truck that fills from the ocean. I think i'll give NSW away and start using artificial as the closest store charges $7-50 per 25L drum filled - what a joke. I'm more likely to do regular changes if i don't have to lug heavy drums in and out of the ute and house not to mention the 20 min drive each way.
When i lived near the beach i used to collect my own water off the beach - it was bloody cold in winter wading out to fill drums lol.

I'm also lucky to live right on the water and when I need to do a change I just fire up the lawnmower and trailer, load the containers and head the 150m to the water(I check to see when the tide is on the rise) I'm a lucky bastard I know

 

[biggles]

BTW, our friend who keeps insisting that he has a tank, has sneakily posted pics of someone else's tank, and is passing it off as his own (Bello ducks and runs, as Sahin chases him with a Bazooka )

Due to the high concentration of RC ego driven wankers present in the SPS forum i don't generally go there much lol. I have noticed the dramatic shift back to simple and proven SPS keeping methods in the last 6 months rather than all the garbage being proffered when i first joined RC so that's a good thing.
I need to catch up on what you guys have been up to on your journals, you know i hate it when mates acros look better than mine so be prepared for some jealous venting boys.........

I'm also lucky to live right on the water and when I need to do a change I just fire up the lawnmower and trailer, load the containers and head the 150m to the water(I check to see when the tide is on the rise) I'm a lucky bastard I know

I never had a problem collecting my own water so go for it mate. Every now and then a yuppy wanker walking his equally yuppy dog would ask me if i was legally allowed to be taking water from the ocean - seriously it actually happened a couple of times. One guy even threatened to call the police but that was in relation to my threat to beat him to death with a dead dolphin if he didn't *$%# off. I don't like tree hugging greenies...........

I just ordered a 22kg bucket of the salt you use Bello plus a bottle of reef sex as per your advice lol. I better read up on how to make the stuff up - that actually means YOU better tell me how to do it, you guys know how i like to be spoon fed info lol.

Lots of stuff is losing more tissue today but sh*t happens and at some point i'll get things turned around. Explains why the 2 drums of salt water i had sitting for a month and then used for a water change caused a bad reaction the other day rather than helping. Lots and lots of water changes coming up with water i can trust.

 

[biggles]

Due to numerous requests i will share the procedure i used as a 7 year old to traumatise my 9 year old brother for life - a poor test specimen if ever there was one i might add. :reading:

Having recently moved into a new house my father had kept one of the wooden removalist shipping boxes that they used in the old days. The ones made of thin ply with steel strapping around the edges - solid and definitely child escape proof. Cardboard boxes are unsuitable for the procedure as they can collapse when you sit on them and the tears of a screaming sibling can soften the cardboard making escape possible.

First thing was to confiscate the box from my 5 year old sister who was using it as a doll tea house - what a joke ! I then grabbed my glow in the dark plastic ring which apparently gave you super powers at night - this little toy was crucial to getting the subject being sperimented on to actually enter the testing cube. I called my brother out the back and asked him to sit on the grass and hold the ring while i placed the box over him to make it dark. He didn't have a glow ring and i kept mine hidden so he couldn't contaminate it with nerd germs so he although suspicious of my motives the call of the one true ring was enough to sway him. He sat down clutching the precious and allowed me to tip the box over him.

Now obviously i sat on the box immediately and within about 30 seconds all hell broke loose under me as the test subject realised he'd been duped. It was noisy and very bumpy atop that box for a number of minutes but eventually the screaming and thrashing stopped and all i heard was a quiet whimpering. Not being cruel i very quietly climbed off the box and was about to lift it off the broken test subject when he uttered the words that caused a sudden escalation in the trauma input within the box.

" I broke your ring........"

That's right he actually sobbed that he'd broken MY glow in the dark super powers ring !

I quickly grabbed a hand full of grass and lifted the edge of the box and threw it inside whilst yelling "SPIDERS !"
Back on top of the box in a flash and the first portion of the speriment seemed mild in comparison to the heightened terror now being experienced by mr 'i broke your ring' and the grass spiders he thought were in there with him.
The speriment was terminated about 4-5 minutes later by my mom who had come looking for me after my sister dobbed about the lame doll house being taken off her. Neither of her shoes hit me as i ran for the back fence and the last thing i saw was her lifting the box off my brother - what a sad little creature he was, all curled up on the grass in a pile of tear soaked snot and dribble.
Mom gave MY ring to him as punishment along with a couple of hard whacks on my bum which was the price you paid for carrying out cutting edge speriments. The precious was returned to me a day later after my brother was informed of the consequences that would result to his toys if it wasn't.

I get the claustrophobia and fear of darkness bit but the most perplexing aspect of the entire speriment is why isn't he also afraid of spiders !

Raft stag is going big time now

Another raft stag going from the base up and into the branches now

Another SSC bites the dust

The two small bits of echi on the raft are still holding in there for now, check out the little baby snail just to the left of the putty.

 

[Fishy 1]

Hahahahahahaha Biggles that was one of the funniest things I have ever read(fishy rolling on the floor laughing and crying tears of joy) I still don't see how it was your fault that you traumatized your brother you were doing a cutting edge experiment and you got in trouble :facepalm:. If anything you were doing him a favor by toughening him up (scared of spiders and the dark:facepalm: )

 

[Fishy 1]

Hey Biggles, Sahin, bello and anyone else I've just started a new thread "your fav fish and worst fish" do you think you could be so kind as to add your thoughts to that would be great
Kind regards Fishy

 

[mower16]

hey biggles where do you get your 20k radium lamps from in aus??

 

[Bello]

That was a hilarious story , though I can't believe he broke the "precious". Picturing Gollum while reading this story, is too bloody funny.

It's interesting that he didn't end up wary of spiders. Perhaps, you may have missed some variable in the speriment (could put real spiders), nevertheless, think he's up for a retry, in the interest of science, obviously? ........ hahahahahahaha...poor guy

Waiting to hear about the WC's with the Red Sea. That's one product I can swear by in terms of reliability, in any case, I already know I'm being blamed :lol:. Don't know if the ReefSex is actually necessary though. It hasn't really made a big difference in my case, I think. But I haven't really tested enough TBH.

Collecting NSW does sound a bit expensive, though if you lived near the sea, should be fun. Did you have any interesting encounters with reef life while collecting? No, not talking about nasty old men and their dogs

Fishy, yeah you're a lucky bastard :furious:. Any interesting reef life in the ocean nearby? I think a nice local biotope would be pretty cool

 

[sahin]

Due to the high concentration of RC ego driven wankers present in the SPS forum i don't generally go there much lol. I have noticed the dramatic shift back to simple and proven SPS keeping methods in the last 6 months rather than all the garbage being proffered when i first joined RC so that's a good thing.
I need to catch up on what you guys have been up to on your journals, you know i hate it when mates acros look better than mine so be prepared for some jealous venting boys.........

Cant believe that word is allowed by the filter...I guess its not used by the Americans as much... Call someone on a London street with that word and I guarantee you will earn yourself punch in the face or worse. :lol:

Anyway, yes, I have noticed a change in stance in respect of SPS corals and feeding and nutrient levels. I am also sure that this thread and your SPS feeding experiment thread has a lot to do with that change. I will admit that I have taken on board so much that I have learnt from you mate.

I never had a problem collecting my own water so go for it mate. Every now and then a yuppy wanker walking his equally yuppy dog would ask me if i was legally allowed to be taking water from the ocean - seriously it actually happened a couple of times. One guy even threatened to call the police but that was in relation to my threat to beat him to death with a dead dolphin if he didn't *$%# off. I don't like tree hugging greenies...........

Beat him to death with a dead Dolphin. :lol:

I just ordered a 22kg bucket of the salt you use Bello plus a bottle of reef sex as per your advice lol. I better read up on how to make the stuff up - that actually means YOU better tell me how to do it, you guys know how i like to be spoon fed info lol.

As USUAL that Bello is a SNEAKY reefer, never told me about the bottle of reef sex he is dosing into his tanks...Did you see the massive Setosa colony he has been hiding? :headwally:

As Bello states, I have heard from high placed sources in the industry that the D&D H2Ocean and RedSea salts are produced from the same location/factory. I've been using the D&D H2Ocean for MANY years now (previously used ReefCrystals but it now costs twice as much), so Bello's recommendation is a VERY good one. These two salts are the most reliable I've come across in a long time. I've used Kent, TMC Pro Reef etc, but they all have one issue or another.

The story about your brother is too funny mate. Thanks for the laugh. :lol:

Raft stag is going big time now

Another raft stag going from the base up and into the branches now

Another SSC bites the dust

The two small bits of echi on the raft are still holding in there for now, check out the little baby snail just to the left of the putty.

You know how much I love the SSC...makes me sad seeing the deaths...

At least you have a few branches of the Echinata left. Fingers crossed they do alright.

Just watched that video and mate, I can see lots of nice acros biting the dust...

Anyway, keep us entertained (with childhood stories etc) and posted regarding the progress of the tank.

 

[Fishy 1]

That was a hilarious story , though I can't believe he broke the "precious". Picturing Gollum while reading this story, is too bloody funny.

It's interesting that he didn't end up wary of spiders. Perhaps, you may have missed some variable in the speriment (could put real spiders), nevertheless, think he's up for a retry, in the interest of science, obviously? ........ hahahahahahaha...poor guy

Waiting to hear about the WC's with the Red Sea. That's one product I can swear by in terms of reliability, in any case, I already know I'm being blamed :lol:. Don't know if the ReefSex is actually necessary though. It hasn't really made a big difference in my case, I think. But I haven't really tested enough TBH.

Collecting NSW does sound a bit expensive, though if you lived near the sea, should be fun. Did you have any interesting encounters with reef life while collecting? No, not talking about nasty old men and their dogs

Fishy, yeah you're a lucky bastard :furious:. Any interesting reef life in the ocean nearby? I think a nice local biotope would be pretty cool

Bello if I could have a big tank say 500gl I would stock it with fish from down here. I do quite a lot of spearfishing and diving and the marine life is jaw dropping. Everyone talks about tropical fish, but down here the colours here just as good. This is an old wife fish and when I'm diving there are thousands of them following me, you can't eat them though so there safe

.
We also have alot of these electric blue damsels that I have never seen in any shop. We also have some slightly bigger biteys around

it keeps the diving interesting

 

[Fishy 1]

Biggles if that guy with the dog threatens you again just release him into the water it will solve the problem (its ideal to have a big shark handy at this point)

 

[Fishy 1]

Is your corals tissue loss slowing or stopped yet mate?

 

[Bello]

Sahin, I've got about 3 more similar sized pieces of Setosa, you just have to send someone to pick it up .....Made it sound soooo easy didn't I?

Fishy, there seem to be sooo many awesome endemic damsels around Australia, jealous!! Many of these I've never seen before, or even heard about. And damn, if you're already diving etc, I'd be sooo tempted. Are there any laws in place to prohibit collecting for personal use?

I'd guess it'll take at least a month for biggles to recover from this, no matter how swift your actions in correcting things are, nature takes her own time

 

[biggles]

As USUAL that Bello is a SNEAKY reefer, never told me about the bottle of reef sex he is dosing into his tanks...Did you see the massive Setosa colony he has been hiding? :headwally:

Unlike someone who hid an entire tank full of nice acros............... yes i did see that bloody Setosa Bello hid away, he's a great friend but has disgusting SPS morals so i don't believe a word he says when it comes to what stuff he has in his tanks. You're under suspicion too btw............ i'm watching both you guys in case you slip up and reveal a hidden acro purchase........ :reading:

Biggles if that guy with the dog threatens you again just release him into the water it will solve the problem (its ideal to have a big shark handy at this point)

Western Australia is where the sharks eat lots of people Fishy, WA beaches are basically the all you can eat bistro of the white pointer world.......... i do however see some very nice acros from WA reefs for sale sometimes so obviously the surfers are doing a good job keeping the white pointers occupied so the collectors can get some cool SPS without being eaten on the way up.
I don't want to do the WA tourism thing any disservice but you all now i'm not averse to doing highly risky stuff that quite often resulted in injuries and still does but i ain't ever swimming off a WA beach.......... and while on on the subject of places in Aus that have animals that eat tourists lets quickly cover up north. Salt water crocodiles swim in the ocean and onto beaches, not to mention wherever the hell else they feel like including beautiful waterways frequented by holiday makers.

Here's a heads up to everyone - if you go somewhere that has signs like this then you went to the wrong bloody place on your holidays and just because you went a mile up river from that sign doesn't mean you can now have a swim................. the notion that being drunk will protect you from being croc chowder when swimming at night has so far proven to be untrue despite several tests being performed by tourists. More data will be commng i'm sure so let's not make any rash conclusions about whether a marinade of alcohol is preferred over plain tourist dishes by prehistoric monsters still alive today..... i think the bottom pic really makes things as clear as possible for anyone from any country.

Anyway that's enough of the free tourist promotion i'm doing for Aus - Y'all come on down now, Ya Hear ! Bloody govt should be paying me for helping out with promoting Aus tourism.

I need to duck out for an hour but when i return i'll tell you what happened today when i finally received the refractometer solution i ordered from a US lab supply place. Here's a hint - the solution is 1.02476 but my refractometer said it was 1.0280................ My tank water tested 1.0260 until i calibrated the #%$^@ refractometer...........

 

[Fishy 1]

Sahin, I've got about 3 more similar sized pieces of Setosa, you just have to send someone to pick it up .....Made it sound soooo easy didn't I?

Fishy, there seem to be sooo many awesome endemic damsels around Australia, jealous!! Many of these I've never seen before, or even heard about. And damn, if you're already diving etc, I'd be sooo tempted. Are there any laws in place to prohibit collecting for personal use?

I'd guess it'll take at least a month for biggles to recover from this, no matter how swift your actions in correcting things are, nature takes her own time

Hahahaha poor Sahin lol you sure made it sound so easy for him lol

Yeh bello there are stacks of little damsels that are stunning around here, but unfortunately there are lots of laws to stop you from taking fish

I know bello I'm really trying to turn Biggles around but like you said nature takes her time lol I don't think that's what you mean

 

[Fishy 1]

Hahahaha Biggles yes there are lots of bitters here. By the way it is safe to swim off Perth now because all the whites are in the bay right in front of my house now!!!! There are five of them swimming around with one being 5.3m and another being 5.5m both are tagged and have set of receivers almost everyday on the main beach. But no tourists have been eaten yet so if you want to see a white I can hook you up with one

 

[Bello]

Alright, so if I understand this correctly, all I have to do to "help" a person I erm' dislike, is to,

Send them on an all expense paid surfer trip to WA, where Fishy can take over, and show 'em the local "beneath the waves" sights?

Or, alternatively a week long camping trip in the wild with tamed/circus performer type salties?

Ok, now where's my list?