Randy's 180G Reef-Photo Journal

[melev]

Just change the prefilters at 6 months. Their job is to protect the membrane, and you don't want to wait until they are clogged or spent.

 

[rdmpe]

Went to the LFS today and picked up some cool stuff!

5" Fijian Blue Linckia (Linckia laevigata) I know, these can be problematic. I've been drip acclimating it for 3 hours so far, probably going to be another two at least...
stock photo

3" 8 Line Wrasse (Pseudocheilinus octotaenia) which will hopefully eat some flatworms!
stock photo

Snowflake blenny (Salarias ramosus) aka Starry Blenny stock photo

Two skunk cleaner shrimp, I wanted some shrimp in the tank since I had to remove the camelbacks I had a while back. I think they're interesting to watch. Maybe they'll clean the wrasse? stock photo

Red and White Coco Worm (Protula bispiralis), really cool but not as fabulous as the one in this stock photo

red lobo brain coral, this was another small freebie! stock photo

bag of cheato - I already had some that was a somewhat thick and curly variety. This new stuff is much thinner and is less curly (and it was free )

I also got a free stalk of some kind of macro algae. I'm trying to figure out what it's called, don't know yet...

And finally . . . a bucket of Tropic Marin salt

My wallet is a lot lighter !

 

[rdmpe]

Well, I did something pretty stupid!

I think when I was doing the calcium tests last night, and I was getting readings of 500+, I had forgotten to add one of the components to the test solution!

I just tested alk and calcium prior to tonight's dose, and I got
Alk 9.0/3.2
Ca 400

So I can dose equal parts :lol:

 

[melev]

Yet another problem solved. Something about Saturdays....

 

[tgunn]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=6881936#post6881936 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by rdmpe
I also have the carbon on a tee of the ro filter, so my drinking water goes from the RO to the carbon, and my aquarium water goes from the RO to the DI. The pressure tank is right after the RO filter, so it will force the water through the carbon or DI, depending on which valve is gets opened.

So do you just visually look at your prefilters? You found that if you let them go too long your RO water tds goes up? I was wondering about that. I have no idea if my prefilters are clogged or fine

Okay, that's how I had it set up too.

For my first pre-filter I can just look in the clear housing I got:

However, for the other two I just take them off every now and then and look down the center of the cartridge. The ones I use have a paper wrapping on the inside that's normally white so I can easily see how much junk is built up in there... However, I think the BEST indication is your RO TDS reading. Keep in mind that you want to measure just the RO itself; the RO after that carbon post filter will have a much higher TDS (at least it did for me) than the plain RO... My RO is normally 1-2 TDS. Once my prefilters start getting clogged up it starts to creep to around 6-8 TDS and then I know it's really time to change them.

My first prefilter I change more often than some just because it seems we have lots of sediment in our water..

Tyler

 

[tgunn]

Randy,

Looks like lots of nice new goodies! I love the tube worms, they're so cool to look at. I ended up getting a whole bunch of them for free in my chaeto clump from the LFS originally. :lol: Too bad I also got a bunch of free aptasia.

Nice fish choices. You'll have to take some pics of them once they're settled in..

Heh, oops on the Ca test hey? I think we've all done that before.. I am still using cheapie Hagen Ca test kits (I'm going to move to Salifert once I use these up) and I once mixed up the #1 and #3 reagant bottles when testing. I was wondering why I couldn't ever get a reading.

Tyler

 

[rdmpe]

OK, I got a few pictures today... So here are a few things I added to the tank yesterday evening...

Here is the 1.5" Snowflake Blenny, this little guy is tough to get a picture of. He's very dark color with white spots all over, I never managed to get more than a poor-to-fair picture today... Very interesting little fish.

And the Eight Line Wrasse, about 3". When I got a good lock at this guy this morning under the Halides, man did he look great! He? She? I really don't know... Anyway, really nice and hopefully will help me take care of the flatworms that I've seen. I've only seen a few, and hopefully with the wrasse and siphoning, I can take care of them without FWE. You can also see a stalk of "shaving brush" macro algae that Marcye tossed into the mix...

Next is the red and white Coco Worm...

And the small Red Lobo ...

I still haven't managed to get a decent picture of the Skunk Cleaner Shrimp or the Blue Linckia. I have some really good sized caves and they're all staying mostly out of sight today.

 

[tgunn]

Randy,
Great new additions! I love the Blenny..

That's cool macroalgae. Are you going to let it grow in your display? I think it'll look pretty cool to have a little bit of plant life in there. I've been thinking it would be cool to have something like that in mine, but I'd want to chose a macro that doesn't spread at all. How's that one for spreading?

Great coco-worm too! How big is it roughly?

Tyler

 

[good one]

good choice with the eight line!! gorgeous fish!!! let me know if you see it pickin at the fw?? I thought only the six line, but i don't see why not right??

 

[rdmpe]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=6891664#post6891664 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by tgunn
Randy,
Great new additions! I love the Blenny..

That's cool macroalgae. Are you going to let it grow in your display? I think it'll look pretty cool to have a little bit of plant life in there. I've been thinking it would be cool to have something like that in mine, but I'd want to chose a macro that doesn't spread at all. How's that one for spreading?

Great coco-worm too! How big is it roughly?

Tyler

This macro grows in very well defined brushes in the sand, so I don't see it getting out of control the way caulerpa or other macro could. However, it does anchor itself in the sand and sends out runnders under the sand to make new brushes. So I have to seriously think about whether or not I want it to spread much. Because removing it will disturb the DSB to some extent. But from what I've seen and read, it doesn't go crazy and will be easy to keep under control.

The coco worm's crown is about 1.5" across. Believe it or not, the coco worm was the most expensive of those critters!

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=6892840#post6892840 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by good one
good choice with the eight line!! gorgeous fish!!! let me know if you see it pickin at the fw?? I thought only the six line, but i don't see why not right??

I haven't seen it picking at the FW yet, but haven't watched it much except for the first day. Hopefully after work I'll have a chance to look for FW and see what else is going on. I didn't get home last night until 11PM so didn't really see the tank much at all yesterday.




Bad news - I don't think the Blue Linckia is going to make it. To acclimate, I dripped it for about 5 hours, occasionally dipping water out to keep the total level about even. I put him in the tank late Sunday night. On Monday morning he had crawled to a different rock pile and went into a cave so I couldn't get a good look at him. But this morning he is out on the sand bed and doesn't look good. He's got a couple of spots and what looks like a long tear in his covering on one leg. I think this is a classic case that he is not going to make it. Very dissappointing, but I did had my reservations about this guy when I bought him. I've read plenty to know that they are tough to get through the transition to a tank.

 

[rdmpe]

True Perc or False Perc

True Perc or False Perc

True Percula or False Percula? I can't tell the difference from photos on the web!

 

[gkarshens]

I am pretty sure that is a false. Most trues I have seen have more black, especially between the front 2 stripes.

 

[Airman]

I like your blenny. I have a lawn mower blenny that kill one of my fishes. I call him "Hopper" from the movie "Bug's Life". He is agressive but I like him.

 

[Ddddrgnfly]

too tired to read it all right now. Will finish later. Lookin good though

 

[rdmpe]

Gabriel- I'll take a closer look at the black on the true and false percs to see if I can confirm that. Thanks for the tip.

Airman - that blenny definitely has some personality! I haven't seen much aggressivness other than at feeding time. When I feed, the blenny gets out there with the clown and gramma and really goes after the mysis. But still hasn't gone after the other fish as far as I know. Also, it's spots seem to be a little more blue than when I first got it. I need to try to get some better pictures of it.

Ddddd - Feel free to comment on the parts you do get to read!

 

[rdmpe]

Busy Busy Busy, unfortunately not so much with the tank as other things. But I have made some progress. I picked up about 30 lbs of nice LR from another RC member. I thought it was going be enough to finish up the last LR island, but it didn't quite finish it off. I think I need another 10 lb or so to finish covering the plumbing ...

I had to take the eight line wrasse back to Marcye at Sea In The City for some treatment. She normally likes to keep fish in the store for at least several days to make sure they're eating and doing OK. But I was too impatient and wanted to take it home sooner. Well, it started showing signs of some sort of infection. I thought it was ick but she says it isn't ick. She thinks it is bacterial and so is doing an antibiotic on it for 10 days... So anyway, I'm looking forward to getting it back. Hopefully it will be doing well.

After buying a bunch of not-good-reef-critters from a different LFS (not Sea In The City) I had to take them back. Mainly two Camelback Shrimp and a Horseshoe Crab. So I used the store credit to get a small Red Linckia, it's about 3" across and really pretty. They have had it in the store for 3-4 weeks so I think it was doing pretty well there. I dripped it for about 7 hours before putting it in the tank about midnight. It is looking fine this morning, hopefully it will do well. It's crawling around down in the rock so I don't have any pictures of it yet.

The Blue Linckia seemed to have hurt itself in the first few days it was here. It had a scary looking gash down one leg and a couple of other spots that didn't look too good. But now it is healing well. It looks much better so I think it is going to recover fine.

You can see the healing areas in these pictures.

And here is the latest full tank animation...

 

[Kreeger1]

I give the linkia another month or so, they just don't live well in our tanks. If they were exposed to air thats another sure way to kill them IMO
Erik

 

[bandedangel]

tag along

 

[charles6299]

looks good

 

[rdmpe]

Yeah I've read a lot of posts about linckias not doing well. But then I know someone who had one for 6 years. So I think it can be done. Not sure if I'll be able to do it or not but I like them so much I really wanted to try to keep one (of course, now I have two )

I think the air thing is a myth. I have personally seen linckias exposed to air at low tide on the reefs off Tavarua Island in Fiji. In any case, I just quickly lifted it from the bucket to the tank.