New Years resolution number one

[Gordonious]

This coming year I am going to redo all the electrical work for my reef system to make it safer and be a lot more careful when it comes to all this salt water and electricity. I also think I am ordering two batteries for some old battery back ups I have laying around. I will be bugging some of you who have messed with electricity in larger systems soon for help.

Tonight I almost got my girl friend and my self shocked and set house on fire. Changing the way I run my electrical cords was one of the things I keep saying I am going to do and was probably one of the things I was going to get to this next month. (I know “a day late and a dollar short” right?)

Who else has made moronic mistakes when it comes to electricity and salt water?

 

[ronert]

does a new year resolution made on 12/31 qualify as a "new years" resolution?

 

[Gordonious]

New Years resolution number one
This coming year I am going to redo all the electrical work for my reef system to make it safer and be a lot more careful when it comes to all this salt water and electricity. I also think I am ordering two batteries for some old battery back ups I have laying around. I will be bugging some of you who have messed with electricity in larger systems soon for help.

Tonight I almost got my girl friend and my self shocked and set house on fire. Changing the way I run my electrical cords was one of the things I keep saying I am going to do and was probably one of the things I was going to get to this next month. (I know “a day late and a dollar short” right?)

Who else has made moronic mistakes when it comes to electricity and salt water?





Better?

 

[wds21921]

LOL the worst thing I did was in my freshwater tank when I fed my Oscars Balogny, yes they actually ate it but boy did it make a mess in the water later.
Because of the nitrates/nitrates in packaged meat I wouldn't suggest this lol. They do however love earthworms and do very well in growth on them as a staple.

 

[firecrackerbob]

good resolution...
I need to do the same- I came home last month to a nasty "fried electronics" smell in my house and knew right away that it was my salt tank. a leak of unknown origin was dripping on one of my powerstrips and sizzling away. it was hot as hell when i got to it, who knows what would have happened after another hour or two... I spent many hours around Xmas getting trying to get my tank in order before leaving on a 11 day vacation....
Needless to say my tank and my houses well being came to mind occasiaonally while i was gone-- glad and surprised to say that no major incedents appeared to happen, but I agree some extra safety measures would be good...

I think my resolution this year will be to spend a little less time on my tank to be honest... ive spent alot of time the last few months battleing an algea outbreak that started last summer... I thought I had started to get it under controll, but I came home to a fuzzy green messs.... I think im gonna just gonna let the tank be for now, or at least untill i figure out another course of action to remediate my green machine...
Eric

 

[Gordonious]

Eric I don't know if I may have missed some threads on this topic before but I have three questions: are you using RO/DI, how long are your lights on, and have you looked at the food you feed to see if they contain any phosphates/how much are you feeding. This year I plan to spend just as much time on my tanks because I know it is something that makes me happy.

Jon

 

[kaptken]

drips on power strips are very bad. they do start a lot of fires. I fasten mine to a piece of plywood, screwed in and tie wrap the cord to the board. that way i havea power panel with 3 or 4 strips in a row. then mount it off to the side of the tank so that it wont get splashed and all the cords coming and going to them have slack loops in them so that salt water cant run down to the strips.

on some smaller tanks, i have a couple strips screwed into the 2 x 4 inside and under the stand top. all my home made stands have full flat tops. so spills would run off the edge.

 

[firecrackerbob]

Hi Jon
no formal thread going thanks though. As I mentioned, this all started last summer while i was away on another vacation for a week and a half or so... I figured it was early enough in the summer that I didnt need to leave the AC on- big mistake, semi cooked my tank.... many of hte snails and some soft corals ate it, im guessing releaising alot of nutrients into the system....by the time I was able to do a water change, i think the damage was done...

I use RO/DI, have shortened my lighting to ~10hrs, and feed my anenomy 1/2 a silverside a week along with a little bit of mysis. other than that, the inhabitants( 1 damsel, crabs and cleaner shrimp) are on thier own to find food...

i have gone to great lengths over the last few months to try and knock out any variable I can think of-- i siphoned out all my sand and replaced it, done numerous water changes, baught more snails and hermits, have been running rowa phos and filter pads, checked my TDS and phosphates out of my RODI, built and installed a 20g refugium, and keep my ph above 8.4...... a strange thing is though that even though i have a ton of algea, my snails keep dieing!?

my hair algea problem was receding somewhat before i left on this trip, but my skimmer stopped skimming during the trip and my ph fell into the high 7s or low eights as well, so im assuming that is the major culprit for this outbreak anyway... i came home and pulled about a pound of hair algea and grape culerpa clumps from my tank!!!

I may upgrade my skimmer to see if that helps out... Im about out of ideas though and the whole thing has become a source of frustration rather than joy at this point.... on a bright side tho all of my corals made it during my vacation and actually colored up nicely from the extra supplements I dosed before leaving!

Any ideas on what im missing??
thanks!
Eric

 

[Gordonious]

Have you checked many of the other levels in your tank? Ca, Mg, Nitrates? What temperature do you try to keep the tank at?

One of my friends would suggest something like an algae blenny, but my opinion on those is they are good farms just spreading things around. We still need to find the source and then the hermits and such will just help it keep it down.

Do we know what type of algae?

One thing you could try, especially since you have a fuge and not a large bio load, would be to remove the LR one by one. Make sure you pluck off the hermits and snails and then do a fresh water dip, let the rock dry, then pour boiling fresh water on it, and let it dry. Pull one rock out at a time over the course of a week, then add them back again over the course of a week. This should put a serious dent in your algae problem. Keep in mind though you just killed off all the good stuff as well and we still need to find the root of the problem.

Seems as if you've made a big effort on your own and given it some time. Right now I would put a post in two or three rooms on RC and try putting a thread on talkingreef.com.(I would suggest other forums as well, but according to RC rules no other forums are aloud to exist.) You put a lot of work into the tank to be left with what you have. Make a call out for help and maybe someone can find what is going on. Sorry I can’t be more help.

Jon

 

[wds21921]

Eric, try cutting back your lights to only 5 hours per day for at least a few weeks.

I had a recent outbreak of the same type algae (or at least VERY similar) to what Ken has. By simply cutting back the duration of my lights the algae has almost completely eliminated itself. It's taken about 4-5 weeks but the results are well worth it and none of my corals or fish suffered for it.

 

[kaptken]

uuuhhhh?? I don't think it's the same stuff i have had.. mine grows with tank lights off for a month too. algea problems can only be a combination of phospate and nitrate problems. you have to remove one of them. both would be better.

 

[firecrackerbob]

hi guys,
well, my parameters are a bit out of whack right now coming back from vacation, but ive been running at about 400ppm Ca, 4.2 alk, 1300ppm Mg, ph 8.4, and no detect on the phosphates or nitrates... tank temp is usually a bit higher than I would like around 80-82-- Ive been meaning to try Kens heater calibration method for a while now...obviously, the nitrates and phosphates are 0 since all of the hair algea, culerpa, and cheto are soaking it up and growing like crazy....

Ive thought about doing some rock baking as Jon mentioned, but I consider it a last resort and would bet it would just grow back eventually.... I think I would rather just upgrade my whole system to a setup where I could put in a foxface and some other cool looking plant eaters... still kickng around this option, but I dont really have the time or cash to invest right now..... plus I dont think that it would really adress the underlying issue...

I think I will try to cut back the lights to see if that helps to kill of the hair algea in the display, hopefully the nutrients will get soaked up by culerpa in the fuge....unfortunetly, I think this might be a bit of a waiting game. Im about 90% positive that im not putting a large mount of nutrients( food, water, otherwise?) so it has to be nutrients that are already in the tank from my crash and from the way i had been running my system prior to the crash... if its possible, im thinking my rock is pretty much saturated with nutrients and it will just be a matter of time untill it works its way out and is absorbed by some type of filtration or plant life... im gonna jsut try and skimm as much as I can out, and encourage the cheto growth as much as possible.... time will tell i guess

Once I let the green grow back in a couple of weeks ill try and post some pics-- maybe a better path forward could be determined with clearer identification of the culprit??
I think once I get my parameters back in line the hair algea will start receed again, but the culerpa is another story- that stuff seems to grow no matter what. its better than the hair, but would still like to see it minimized in the display... i also wish i could figure out why my snails keep dying!! gotta be enough food, maybe a predator in the tank?? green emerald crabs?

Any other ideas are always appreciated!
Thanks
Eric

 

[kaptken]

all My tanks crashed 3 years back when hurricane Issabel knocked my power out for 5 days. lots of nutrients from dead corals, and bacteria crash in sand and rock. so i set up some fuges for a year to clean them up. I used a fine southdown sand for a 5 inch DSB and grew lots of calerpa on it with fuge lights on 24/7. and it did clean up the tanks. then i had to tear down the fuges because the mud had become overloaded with nutrients and smelled real bad of sulfides. but it really helped. it does take time. DSB'S are sponges.