Our 375g reef tank build & fish room

edandsandy said:
Well I decided to have a WAR against the diatom & cayno pest.
today I went to the LFS and picked up
40 snails
2 sea cucumber
1 tuxedo urchin

I hope this will help along with the water change outs.
Click to expand...

Were any of those snails Turbos? That's what is making a dent in our algae and cyano...

Of course they also displace any coral that is not well-anchored...

LL
 
No they are Astraea snails. I placed about 8 Mexican Turbo snails in the tank for the GHA. Our cuc is under sized for this tank.
Ed dosent mind if I spend $100 on a piece of coral, he just FREAKS out if I spend $100 buck on crabs & snails, I don't know why, they are just as important.


I tried to leave the MH off for a couple of days and that has helped with the cyano.
I am turning them back on today for a couple of hours, and see what happens.
If all is good, then I will add 1 hour each day.


I broke out the pressure washer and blasted the socks, WOW I didn't realize they were so bad, we clean them about every 3-4 days. But the pressure washer really got them clean. while I was in a tank cleaning mode, I took out all 4 Tunze's and gave them a good vinegar and water bath as well. After a good rinsing, I decided to rearrange them, thinking just maybe, i needed to change the water movement. I used to have 2 on each end of the tank, I placed 2 on the back and 1 on each end.
Placed the controller on Pulse, and the water has obviously taken on a new movement. I like it for now.
I also did a 20% water change out. Needless to say I probably spent 6 hours on the tank yesterday. Ed went to Orlando yesterday. YES, I accomplished all this without Ed. :lol:

Last night Ed and I enjoyed a few drinks in front of the tank, enjoying the fruits of my labor
 
Last edited:
How do you (routinely) clean your socks?

We put ours in the front-loading washing machine with regular chlorine bleach...

LL
 
On this tank, we just rinse them out with a garden hose. We have good pressure from the garden hose.

I used to run them thru the washer. I just don't like the smell the socks leave behind in the washer. Yes, I rinse the socks twice while washing, then I run a cycle with just bleach.

I think I like the pressure washer better, I let them soak in bleach water for a little while, then hit them with the pressure washer.
 
It's soon going to be time for me to hit the inside of my 65G saltwater mixing barrel with the pressure washer... all that Reef Crystals are turning it a little murky on the inside...:idea:

LL
 
Lightsluvr said:
It's soon going to be time for me to hit the inside of my 65G saltwater mixing barrel with the pressure washer... all that Reef Crystals are turning it a little murky on the inside...:idea:

LL
Click to expand...

I know exactly what you are saying about RC.
The water tanks are easy to clean out, my niece and I did that over the summer.
 
Lightsluvr said:
It's soon going to be time for me to hit the inside of my 65G saltwater mixing barrel with the pressure washer... all that Reef Crystals are turning it a little murky on the inside...:idea:

LL
Click to expand...

I had the same problem. Switched to Oceanic and it's a clean as can be. Also no undissolved residue.
 
Jack and Coke was a popular drink when IO was in my early 20s. Bit too much like indian firewater though. For whisky I'll take a Scottish or Irish malt straight with ice over Jack/Jim anyday. :p

Can't imagine drinking it straight. The coke is their purely to mask the flavour. :D

These days I'm into vodka and coke. Handy, since I'm dosing vodka these days. Dose daily in the tank and weekly down the hatch. ;)
 
Bax said:
Good scotch ... one cube :D
Click to expand...

My wife and I were on vacation in Scotland a few years back and were staying at a country hotel who's bar had around 75 single malt scotches. I'm not a scotch drinker (I prefer Bourbon) but we were sitting in the lounge after dinner and this gentleman who happened to be a magistrate who's circuit included the area where we were staying (Inverness) struck up a conversation. He was a big scotch drinker and ordered a round for me. It was a great drink and afterwards I found out it was $70 for one glass. :eek2: No ice allowed though. :rollface:
 
WOW, has the time passed so fast again!
A lot has been happening with the home life, 4 grand children keep us busy! :crazy1:

The tank is doing very well,
the cayno is gone, :celeb3:
the GHA is almost completely gone:bounce1:
and the CUC keeps getting larger and larger.
Ed has finally accepted spending $100 on a CUC is a good thing.

We had some STN on a few pieces and lost 1 colony while we were on vacation in the keys... Our daughter in law called us and said a piece had a few white branches on it, we said, OK, well how bad is it? not bad she said, just a little bit on the branches, by the time we got home, the colony was completely GONE!..... :eek2:
We were sad, :(
but what can we do! We still have no idea what could have happened. Maybe some salt creep fell on it???

I will try and snap a few pictures in a couple of days...
 
very happy to hear it's come around for you sandy. to what do you attribute the cyano disappearing? anything specific in the cuc? the blackout periods?
 
porthios said:
very happy to hear it's come around for you sandy. to what do you attribute the cyano disappearing? anything specific in the cuc? the blackout periods?
Click to expand...

Thanks porthios,
We completed several water changes while siphoning the top layer of sand,
that helped but didn't solve the problem, we noticed the bubbles appeared the worst when the MH were on, so we did turn the MH off for a few days and only ran the T5's for a few hours a day and increased the CUC.
So I think it was a combination of everything we tried.
I really like how the sea cucumber are keeping the sand clean. We can usually see 2 or 3 out of the 4 we put in there.
The tuxedo urchin didn't survive, I am not sure if he was healthy when we purchased him, his spikes were not protruding very much. I guess that was a sign he was not healthy, maybe?
Maybe it was the tank just going through its final cycle period as well.
We still have a little diatom in the tank, but at this point that too seems to be just part of the tank going through the final cycle as well.
 
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