SneakyPete
I see you
Hello all,
I have a confession to make. My tank has fallen into complete anarchy :eek2:. Due to some personal issues, I was unable to properly take care of my tank for the lion's share of last year. I'm hoping that this thread can be an inspiration to others who have also let their reef slip and so that you too can know, you can come back from it.
So without further ado, the horror show that is my aquarium. 40 B, 29g sump. External overflow. 2x hydor korolia 750s. Reef octopus skimmer. Tek 6 bulb light (I usually only run 2 bulbs though, corals seemed to bleach when I would run all 6).
:thumbdown:
As you can see, every square inch of rock is covered in algae. The back, the sides, and usually the front are completely covered in algae. The sand is, of course, covered in algae. I am literally scared to do parameter tests, but will be doing so after this post goes up. Most of my coral is dead, the only things to survive have to be darn near super hero leveled. The zoas an the right and the trumpet have survived pretty well. The kenya tress has seen better days, but I think i can pull it out. All of my designer zoas, dead. Montis, dead. Frogspawn, dead. Fish are doing good though.
The first thing I need to do though, is to build a plan for how I'm going to pull out of this tailspin. It's easy to say "Do daily water changes" but that doesn't really address the problem I had. So the question becomes, what did I like and hate about keeping the aquarium.
My likes are easy, I liked watching things grow. I remember my clowns when they were very small in my 20g QT and seeing them now large and in charge is awesome. That zoa colony was only 10 heads when I got it, and now its huge. That trumpet was only 2, now it has 16. Watching things change and adapt was interesteing. I could watch the fish interact with one another every day. Now my algae filled tank sickens me to look at. I'm so ashamed.
My dislikes are pretty easy to pick out too. The obvious one is "I hate cleaning my tank", but that isn't true at all. I actually enjoyed the act of pulling water (and the goop of the tank) out of my tank. All of the other parts revolving around that I despise. I dislike the fact that I do everything with 5 gallon buckets. Every time I want to do a water change, I have to draw up 4 gallons of water off my RO/DI (there's 2 hours), wait a day for my salt to mix, and then the pumping it back into my tank using an aqualifter... kill me now. The waiting was aweful. I also hate that I've flooded out
The other thing I dislike about the tank is the amount of noise. I thought i'd get used to it, but I never have.
So here's my gameplan to get this tank back on task and hopefully get back to a point where I can add some new corals or even show somebody the tank. But I could use some help with figuring out some of the parts that I need.
1) Fix my ro di problem.
I'm going tomorrow to a town an hour away to find a Brute trash can. If they don't have one, I'll drive to Fargo... I really hope they have one somewhere there.
If I have 32 gallons of water on hand, I should be able to cut the large amounts of wait time down. I'm also going to buy a float valve from BRS so I don't have another flood.
2) Fix my water change problem.
here's the part that I need some help with. I don't think a 4 gallon water change per week is enough. I'd like to do double that, but I don't have the equipment to mix 2 buckets. So my options are, I think, to either buy another powerhead to mix a second bucket, or to get a bigger container for mixing saltwater. What do you all use for mixing your saltwater in controlled amounts? I think a 10g capacity would probably be ideal for my uses...
I also need to buy a pump to transfer the water from the bucket and into the sump. Does anybody have a decent but not expensive suggestion for that? Waiting for the aqualifter cannot continue :headwally:.
3) Fix my noise issue.
Here's another part where I'm looking for some assistance. My current overflow is a single drain overflow. I want to buy a dual drain and set it up herbie style. I've come to the conclusion that there are like 2 overflows that would work for me. The Eshoppes PF-1000 or the RLSS OV50 (http://www.saltysupply.com/RLSS-OV50-Hang-on-Dual-Overflow-Box-700gph-p/h2o1175.htm). I'm leaning to the OV50 as I like the kind of overflow that you can keep an aqualifter attached to. But I'm open to other ideas here or other options.
The second part is my return pump. I currently have a MAG7 and it is incredibly noisy. I can hear it in the next room over, and can't deal with it any more. I was thinking a similar pump to the mag 7 would be an eheim compact+ 3000 http://www.amazon.com/EHEIM-Compact...TF8&qid=1393636575&sr=8-1&keywords=eheim+3000 but I'm not 100% sure that will work with the 5 or so feet of vertical from my sump to my DT.
The Mag will go into my RO/DI water bucket above.
Note that my return pump Ts off and also runs my refugium. I did it in a weird way that I would not do again, but I don't want to replace my sump.
Until I can get all my stuff together, I'm going to start doing daily water changes at 3.5-4 gallons a pop here to get my parameters within check.
I plan to keep this thread up to date with the status of my tank as it recovers. Let the healing begin. Parameters to follow either today or tomorrow morning. They won't be pretty...
Edit:
Do test kits go bad? Both my nitrate and phosphate levels read zero. The phosphate one I did twice, once with an API kit and again with my hanna checker. Zero on both. So either the kits are bad, or my tank is so algae ridden that it has reach equalibrium with the nitrate and phosphate production...
I have a confession to make. My tank has fallen into complete anarchy :eek2:. Due to some personal issues, I was unable to properly take care of my tank for the lion's share of last year. I'm hoping that this thread can be an inspiration to others who have also let their reef slip and so that you too can know, you can come back from it.
So without further ado, the horror show that is my aquarium. 40 B, 29g sump. External overflow. 2x hydor korolia 750s. Reef octopus skimmer. Tek 6 bulb light (I usually only run 2 bulbs though, corals seemed to bleach when I would run all 6).
:thumbdown:
As you can see, every square inch of rock is covered in algae. The back, the sides, and usually the front are completely covered in algae. The sand is, of course, covered in algae. I am literally scared to do parameter tests, but will be doing so after this post goes up. Most of my coral is dead, the only things to survive have to be darn near super hero leveled. The zoas an the right and the trumpet have survived pretty well. The kenya tress has seen better days, but I think i can pull it out. All of my designer zoas, dead. Montis, dead. Frogspawn, dead. Fish are doing good though.
The first thing I need to do though, is to build a plan for how I'm going to pull out of this tailspin. It's easy to say "Do daily water changes" but that doesn't really address the problem I had. So the question becomes, what did I like and hate about keeping the aquarium.
My likes are easy, I liked watching things grow. I remember my clowns when they were very small in my 20g QT and seeing them now large and in charge is awesome. That zoa colony was only 10 heads when I got it, and now its huge. That trumpet was only 2, now it has 16. Watching things change and adapt was interesteing. I could watch the fish interact with one another every day. Now my algae filled tank sickens me to look at. I'm so ashamed.
My dislikes are pretty easy to pick out too. The obvious one is "I hate cleaning my tank", but that isn't true at all. I actually enjoyed the act of pulling water (and the goop of the tank) out of my tank. All of the other parts revolving around that I despise. I dislike the fact that I do everything with 5 gallon buckets. Every time I want to do a water change, I have to draw up 4 gallons of water off my RO/DI (there's 2 hours), wait a day for my salt to mix, and then the pumping it back into my tank using an aqualifter... kill me now. The waiting was aweful. I also hate that I've flooded out
The other thing I dislike about the tank is the amount of noise. I thought i'd get used to it, but I never have.
So here's my gameplan to get this tank back on task and hopefully get back to a point where I can add some new corals or even show somebody the tank. But I could use some help with figuring out some of the parts that I need.
1) Fix my ro di problem.
I'm going tomorrow to a town an hour away to find a Brute trash can. If they don't have one, I'll drive to Fargo... I really hope they have one somewhere there.
If I have 32 gallons of water on hand, I should be able to cut the large amounts of wait time down. I'm also going to buy a float valve from BRS so I don't have another flood.
2) Fix my water change problem.
here's the part that I need some help with. I don't think a 4 gallon water change per week is enough. I'd like to do double that, but I don't have the equipment to mix 2 buckets. So my options are, I think, to either buy another powerhead to mix a second bucket, or to get a bigger container for mixing saltwater. What do you all use for mixing your saltwater in controlled amounts? I think a 10g capacity would probably be ideal for my uses...
I also need to buy a pump to transfer the water from the bucket and into the sump. Does anybody have a decent but not expensive suggestion for that? Waiting for the aqualifter cannot continue :headwally:.
3) Fix my noise issue.
Here's another part where I'm looking for some assistance. My current overflow is a single drain overflow. I want to buy a dual drain and set it up herbie style. I've come to the conclusion that there are like 2 overflows that would work for me. The Eshoppes PF-1000 or the RLSS OV50 (http://www.saltysupply.com/RLSS-OV50-Hang-on-Dual-Overflow-Box-700gph-p/h2o1175.htm). I'm leaning to the OV50 as I like the kind of overflow that you can keep an aqualifter attached to. But I'm open to other ideas here or other options.
The second part is my return pump. I currently have a MAG7 and it is incredibly noisy. I can hear it in the next room over, and can't deal with it any more. I was thinking a similar pump to the mag 7 would be an eheim compact+ 3000 http://www.amazon.com/EHEIM-Compact...TF8&qid=1393636575&sr=8-1&keywords=eheim+3000 but I'm not 100% sure that will work with the 5 or so feet of vertical from my sump to my DT.
The Mag will go into my RO/DI water bucket above.
Note that my return pump Ts off and also runs my refugium. I did it in a weird way that I would not do again, but I don't want to replace my sump.
Until I can get all my stuff together, I'm going to start doing daily water changes at 3.5-4 gallons a pop here to get my parameters within check.
I plan to keep this thread up to date with the status of my tank as it recovers. Let the healing begin. Parameters to follow either today or tomorrow morning. They won't be pretty...
Edit:
Do test kits go bad? Both my nitrate and phosphate levels read zero. The phosphate one I did twice, once with an API kit and again with my hanna checker. Zero on both. So either the kits are bad, or my tank is so algae ridden that it has reach equalibrium with the nitrate and phosphate production...
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