my turn - 525

[Lightsluvr]

News?

News?

Anything new on your tank? Status of anthias? I was considering adding several anthias in lieu of chromis to give a schooling look... but if they "disappear" like the chromis - may have to re-think that choice...

LL

 

[porthios]

guess it's time for an update..

i have officially abandoned the open top and hanging lights. i had a bunch of jumpers and resigned myself to having a hood. i've had a mock version up there for a few months and i like it so i'll go ahead and build one of those as well when i uh, finish the stand..

i played around with ca/alk/mg dosing quite a bit in the past few months. got a little careless in the process and had a few spikes and drops that killed a couple of my acro frags.

the soda ash that i used for a while was really quite dirty and even foamed a bit as i mixed it up. i'm not convinced that wasn't a good part of the problem as well. i've switched to baked baking soda which is mixing up super clean. all's stable now and things look pretty good atm.

thanks all..

 

[porthios]

ah, remembered something else..

this discussion led me to abandon my rubbermaid brutes in favor of a couple of these..

this was done the same time as the switch away from the soda ash..

 

[DanW]

Jason, just read through your thread and man am I jealous. Fantastic tank size and I really covet the fish room. I wish that I had the space to house all of the stuff that you have. Anyway regarding adding a hood how about adding a screen instead? Use the ¼" netting and you're good to go. Keep the updates coming"¦:thumbsup:

 

[robot2222]

tank looks great ........was the macro alge you had growing in the tank just for the begining . did you tranplant into fuge ?

 

[porthios]

thanks dan. i really dig it. i wish i had some of your colonies so i guess that just about makes us even .

i thought about a screen actually. if i were to have another tank built i'd probably have them cut a rabbit around the inside of the euro bracing to hold one. that might look pretty tight.

honestly though, the hood gives me more room to get in and work around the tank than hanging a rack. i couldn't come up with an aesthetic way to allow the rack to slide out of my way so i was kind of forced to work under it and there wasn't much room. because the tank's so wide, i can easily slide a hood to one side or the other and have all the room i need to get around.

it's also nice to eliminate the glare of a hanging rack.

robot - ty

the macro in the tank is still there, it's popped up in a couple more places around the display as well. i plan to keep it attractively pruned assuming none of the coming livestock does it for me. i did transplant some to the macro tank as well but i've had some real cyano problems in there (better than the display ) and it's not what i would call thriving.

i'm still considering it part of the new tank algae cycle but if it's still around at the new year i'll look at it a bit harder.

thanks guys for the comments and suggestions.

 

[porthios]

got a gorgeous new pbt today. here's the current fish list..

powder blue tang
kole tang
sailfin tang
bellus angel
1m/3f anthias
2 oscellaris clownfish
bluespot jawfish
royal gramma

i may or may not still look for a nice white cheek tang.

 

[D' kingfisher]

good luck on your new addition

 

[porthios]

getting that pbt to eat was pretty tough. threw every food i could get at it. it picked at the rocks constantly but there wasn't much for it to eat. it's been about two weeks and he'd been looking pretty rough since day 4-5..

suddenly today he's eating pellets, flake, mysis, etc..

dork

 

[stylolvr]

Congrats! Hopefully it is a sign that all is well in PBT-land. Boy, they can be finicky!

 

[DanW]

Jason, How do all of your tangs get along? I've always liked PBTs but have been hesitant to try one because of thier rep as being difficult and Ich magnets.

 

[porthios]

yeah, he definitely had me worried.

the three tangs get along pretty well so far. i added the pbt last as they have a rep for being more than a little aggressive. there was some posturing when i first put him in. the kole tang seems to give any new comers a hard time but the pbt held his own and they seem fine for now.

pbt and kole are about 5" now, the sailfin's about 4". all still pretty small.

 

[porthios]

the pbt is eating like a pig now. not shy at all about grabbing scraps from the others .

in an effort to challenge myself, i plugged my lm3 into the wrong outlet and overdosed kalk. the outlet on my da rke is controlled by ph but this one.. not so much.

the inevitable kalk storm ensued and ph shot up to about 8.75. i jammed to the store to get some soda water but when i returned found it to be about 8.15.

i've seen it drop back a bit (.1-.2) after precipitating before but not .6. kind of surprised me..

that was 3 days ago and nothing seems to have been bothered by it yet..

 

[DanW]

doh! I hate when that happens. Hope it doesn't hurt any of your livestock.

 

[d-man]

some new fts are needed

 

[porthios]

just got back from a week down in cabo san lucas. looks like i didn't get the dosing dialed like i'd hoped before i left. my mom was checking on the house every couple of days and said the tank kalk stormed about halfway into my trip.

levels today were
s/34
kh/100ppm
ca/200ppm
mg/1250ppm

everything looks fine atm but damn. bad time to have to go on a vacation tank wise..

least there was no water on the floor.

 

[porthios]

thought this was a fun pic of my 75g refugium..

 

[Leonardo_]

Woow, that's a full grown refugium Do you keep any critters in there?

Leonardo

 

[porthios]

yeah, the pump running my ats shut down while i was gone and the refugium took off a bit ..

ceriths, turbos, astreas, nerites, a fighting conch. there are actually two euphyllia colonies and a montipora digitata colony hidden in there. think that's about it..

 

[marekt]

love the size of tank