Project 150!!

[Dudester]

Well, as promised, I found this thread and just finished reading everything. You've been through a lot in the past 8 months, especially recently. It's nice to climb aboard when things are moving in the right direction.

One cautionary note regarding the external overflow: be sure to stay on top of it. It the airline tubing to the Aqualifter becomes clogged with algae it may lose the siphon and the tank could overflow. This happened to me on my former 30g tank while I was away on vacation. I ended up changing the tubing every month or so, and I cleared out the 'nipple' where the airline tubing connects to the overflow with a toothpick or straightened paper clip every 5-7 days or so. You'll also want to use the prefilter for the Aqualifter and change it every couple of months with a new one (very cheap).

Nice anemones, by the way!

 

[maxxII]

Thanks for the kind words. The anemones are nice when they dont wander about the tank...

I've been a follower of your office system for awhile now.

Thanks for the heads up about the CPR overflow. I hadnt thought of the airline tubing getting clogged. I wonder if the black airline tubing would block enough light to stop algae from growing?

I'll definately keep an eye on it. But I dont have to worry about overflowing the tank. The overflow feeds the 20H from the 120. Water drains from the 20H to the sump. The only way I'm going to overflow the 20H is if the drain itself gets clogged. There is no pump feeding the 20, its all gravity.

Nick

 

[Dudester]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=11254990#post11254990 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by maxxII
I wonder if the black airline tubing would block enough light to stop algae from growing?

I'm sure it would block light at least to some degree, but probably not enough to completely halt the growth of algae. The green Eheim flexible tubing that I use has some algae growing inside, and it's not even under any intense lighting. I had considered wrapping the Aqualifter's airline tubing with black electrical tape, but then I felt like I couldn't visually monitor any blockages that were occuring inside. I was truly paranoid about this and it almost ruined the enjoyment of that tank for me. In actuality, once you become accustomed to the CPR overflow, you'll know when the siphon suction becomes weakened. If you look in the section where the water passes from the tank directly into the overflow (through the black mesh screen) you'll see a ton of bubbles descending down into the first chamber of the overflow. As it loses its strength, you'll begin to notice less bubbles, because the water won't be sucked into the overflow as forcefully. That's the point where you should take measures to either replace the tubing, unclog the tubing and/or nipple, or replace the prefilter. I grew GSP on my overflow box which looked cool, but it obstructed my view of the bubbles and I eventually scraped them off. You'll get a feel for it, just check it every time you walk past the tank. At least flooding won't be an issue for you.

Thanks for following my office tank thread. I have a thread for my new home tank as well. I'd love to get your comments if you have the inclination or the time (gratuitous plug, so distasteful).

 

[maxxII]

11-27-07

Got the new fish in today.

The Regal is smaller than my other one was..by about an inch. The Tomini is almost the same size as the Regal, and is significantly larger than the Purple tang. That of course didnt stop the Purple from trying be the tough guy in the QT. It was kinda cute to watch....looked like 6 year old trying to ball up and get burly on a couple of teenagers...they just ignored him and let him through his little temper tantrums while they checked things out.

The Regal did not eat mysis when I put some in the tank. The Tomini and the Purple did though. I did see the Regal nibble once at some Nori on the clip, and also a couple of times at the broccoli I later placed in the tank.

The Regal is pretty thick bodied, so its eating something. The full belly might be why the Regal wasnt too concerned about food. Time will tell.

I'm really thinking of doing Formalin dips on all three fish and get them out of hyposalinity. The Purple tang and the Regal will survive fine in hyposalinity, (as long as the Regal eats), but the Tomini might be a problem. They need to eat micro algae off of rocks and the sides of the tank.....and hyposalinity keeps algae from growing. By raising salinity to a normal level, I can transfer smaller liverocks from my sump to the QT for the Tomini to munch on. Also, the bacteria from the liverock will aid in keeping parameters stable and handle ammonia.

Nick

 

[Pkelley228]

Sorry to hear about all the problems Nick, but you always were one for the dramatics. If you need any help with anything let me know. I would like to come by and check out the new set up anyway.
Pat

 

[maxxII]

Hey Pat....

I could have seriously done w/o the drama this time around.
I'm on midnights right now...but I switch to days in a week. Gimme a call sometime after 2 pm...we'll get together.

The Regal is happily eating pellets, (Spectrum and Ocean Nutrition Formula 1 & 2), and also goes after the Ocean Nutrition Angel Formula, but completely ignores both broccoli and Nori...does eat mysis and some other meaty foods too...

I wish it ate the broccoli and Nori too...I dont like the idea feeding all that phosphate loaded stuff if I can help it....I think I'm gonna try and see if soaking Nori and broccoli in garlic will help that out any. I doubt it, but I've got nothing to lose by trying..

Took a couple of pics of the fish in QT

The glass is reeaaallly dirty and has all the funk you see on it....

Theses photos arent for artistic appreciation, more just to show size comparison of the fish.

The Ritteri that caused all of this mess hasnt made up its mind if its going to make it or not. It expelled alot of Zooxanthellae after being shredded, and has deflated for the last few days...but it does still inflate overnight. I'm thinking its expelling of zoox from the stress made it much more sensative to light, and that is why it deflates after a couple of hours......again, time will tell..

Here is a pic I took on 11-26-07, three days after it got ahold of the maxijet....you can see all along the left side of the anemone where it got shredded....

Hope it pulls through.....

Nick

 

[Pkelley228]

Just started nights here. Off the next two though. Let me know

 

[jnarowe]

Looks like it might make it. Typically IME if they are going to go, the decline is very rapid. It looks like this one is fighting back. Have you given it anything to eat?

 

[maxxII]

I fed it the day I took this photo....and it started deflating the next day. I havent fed it since. Feeding them when they are weak can cause stress....

It stays inflated for about 5 hours or so, (10 hour photo period) and then deflates....

Nick

 

[Cprowler]

Sounds like it's fighting hard to pull through. I have my fingers crossed.

 

[Cprowler]

How's your Nem doing?

 

[maxxII]

01-02-08

Sorry about the long break in between posts....holidays, work, being sick, blah, blah, blah.....

Anyway,
The new Ritteri is still alive, amazingly enough. Its severely bleached, and the tentacles are not sticky. It also wont attach to anything. Its currently in an eggcrate "box" inside the tank, to still get light and flow, and not be blown around the tank. Thats the bad side of things with the anemone...

The good side is that it ate a small piece of raw shrimp today, its mouth has been tight, no more slack jaw/imminent death look, and its regrowing tentacles in the shredded area. They look like little nubbins for the moment, but will no doubt regrow to normal tentacles over time. I'm just glad it ate to be honest. That gives me hope that it will survive. If it continues to eat, then it should be fine. Even though its bleached, its not deflating and wilting away from the light.

I bought a small Convict Tang, Acanthurus triostegus, from Clayton Pet Emporium the other day. Its smaller than the Purple Tang, at about the size of a quarter. The purple is now a little larger than a silver dollar, but has the attitude of a much larger fish. So the Convict went straight into the 120. Convict's arent the sexiest fish out there, but he is kinda cute, (in a kinda baby basset hound kinda way), and they are the most docile of all Acanthurus tangs. They will get beaten up by almost everything else out there, so its good to get them in first if your interested in getting one at all. When I was a kid in Hawaii, we would catch them fishing with hook and line and eat them. Pretty good if you grill em right.

I have no intentions of eating this little guy, I just want him to munch on algae. Hopefully between him and the purple, one of them will take a liking to the halimeda algae I have in the 120...

I just changed out all my RO/DI filters including the membrane on top. It was the one that came with the RO unit originally, some 4 years ago. I've been going through filters fairly quickly lately, and I want to see if that slows the process down, I'm willing to bet it does.

Anyway, thats about it for now.

Nick

 

[maxxII]

3-6-08

Need to take some pics to update this thread and bring it back to life....
Quick run down of things....

Had some issues with the calcium reactor. I have a Geo 612. The problems were not actually with the reactor, but were actually a couple of things happening at once. The effluent line from the reactor fed to a 15 inch clear 1/8th inch rigid airline tube. This tube slowly got clogged with algae inside since it was exposed to the sump light. This decreased flow through the tube and consequently through the reactor. Since the flowrate through the reactor was slowed, Co2 built up inside the reactor, and basically shut it down. After I cleaned everything out, I determined the Co2 tank was running out, and needed to be replaced. Cant remember the exact date I replaced it last...but I'm guessing it was about 6 months ago or so. I have recorded it this time around in the little hardbound blue note book I keep where I log tank parameters, Reactor settings, water changes etc....

Speaking of parameters, here's where they sit today:

Dkh 10.75
Ca 470
Mg 1500
Salinity 1.028
Temp 80F

I want to bring the Dkh up to about 12 or so, so I have been playing with the reactor settings to get there. The reactor is currently running at 30 Co2 bubbles per minute, and 12 ml of effluent per minute. The Dkh of the effluent is at 47.2, and the calcium level of the effluent is 820. All Dkh/Ca/Mg tests done with Salifert test kits.

I ordered a second pair of Tunze Streams today. Got another pair of 6000's from www.socaltropicalfish.com . The 6000's and the 6100's were discontinued by Tunze last year to make way for the new 6101. The 6101 uses less power than the 6100 (36w vs 45w) and moves more water. However, this is also significantly more expensive than the 6000. I bought my original 6000's for about $259 each. I bought these two today for $209.99 each, and shipping was free. They are supposed to arrive on 03-12-08. I'm looking forward to having them in the tank as I plan to replace the Maxi-mods with them and will be able to control the tanks flow better.
Thats my story and I'm sticking to it.

I bought a juvenile P. asfur angel on 01-22-08. I was in a LFS and saw it hiding in the corner of one of their tanks. I initially thought it was a p. chrsyrus juvenile, and the LFS said thats what it had been sold to them as. It had a nasty case of ich, but it was still curious, and ate mysis when they put it in tank. The store manager agreed to sell it to me very cheaply since he wasnt sure it was going to make it and he thought it had a better than average chance with me. He agreed to give me a refund if the fish didnt survive 48 hours.

The angel was given a formalin bath for 1 hour, and placed in a 10 gallon hyposaline qt, (salinity was at 1.009). The angel was given 2 more formalin baths in the following weeks, and was ID's by both Boomer and Copps as a juvi Asfur angel. I was still very happy since I like that species of angel as well. The juveniles of both the Chrysurus and the Asfur angel both look very similar when that small, and this fish about 1.25 inches nose to tail. It did very well in QT and ate pretty much everything I threw in the tank...pellets, Nori, mysis, Angel Formula from Ocean Nutrition....

I moved it over to the 120 today, expecting to see a little bit of tension from the Regal Angel or the Convict tang. There was an absolutely amazing display of indifference towards the little Asfur Angel from the Regal Angel and the Convict tang. Neither one of them were remotely bothered by the newcommer. They looked at it curiously for a few seconds then went on about their business...

I need to take more pics of it, but so far the only pics I have are when it was in QT. Here ya go. They are far from great, and to make matters worse, there was alot of crap on the glass of the QT:

This is a 1 inch pvc 45 degree elbow he/she is swimming into...

These photo's were taken 02-01-08...
Its swimming around much more confidantly in the 120 than it was in the 10 gallon Qt. So I expect to be able to take some better pics here soon..

Nick

 

[maxxII]

Weird...didnt intend to violate the user agreement, and didnt realize things had changed from the last time I posted something like that. The URL for the place I ordered the Streams from has been removed. For the record, I dont work for the place that I bought them from, nor do I have any commercial, family, or friend type connections to them. I wont post the URL up again, but those that are interested can look on Ebay for Tunze Streams, then check the vendor's website for further information. The Streams were cheaper from the vendor's website. I hope that doesnt violate the user's agreement. To any mods who may be following, my intent was only to pass on information about a good deal for some pricey equipment to fellow reefers. If this post violates the user agreement, please feel free to remove it.

Nick

 

[jnarowe]

Well Nick, the pics aren't showing either...FWIW, the rules seem to be changing. Too bad for us!

 

[maxxII]

pics are showing up for me Jonathan, but they're far from great....

I'll try to take some more this weekend. I'm back on dayshift now so I can actually get things done.

Nick

 

[DrBDC]

I might have ordered a 6000 from the same place a couple days ago. Great to see some updates. Must mean less thugs needed put in time out.

 

[jnarowe]

It's because RF is down.

 

[maxxII]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=12032257#post12032257 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by DrBDC
I might have ordered a 6000 from the same place a couple days ago. Great to see some updates. Must mean less thugs needed put in time out.

Nope, just as busy as ever...just getting less sleep.


Jonathan,
RF is back up as far as I can tell.....

Nick

 

[maxxII]

Took some more pictures tonight. Dont have time to edit them, upload them, and post them before I go to bed tonight. I'll put some up tomorrow.

Latest parameters:

Dkh 11.5
Ca 465
Mg 1500
Reactor was running at 28 bpm and 11.4 ml/min
Effluent Dkh 42.56
Effluent Ca 650

The previous reading of 820 was due to a math error on my part. When corrected, it came out to 620.

I'm still wanting to bump up my Dkh, so I increased the effluent rate to 23 ml/min. I will test the levels again tomorrow and see where they are at.

Nick