Rebuild and recovery of a dead tank
- Thread starter jason2459
- Start date
jason2459
Well-known member
Don't know other then all the pods seem to love it. I had a huge amount of isopods(munnid)/amphipods/copepods pretty quickly in the DT. Don't think I've ever had this many before. Very noticeable. Only big difference between this time and last time I had this tank setup is the RUGF. I've always had the HOB refugium. I'm very surprised with the amount I have with how new the tank is so I have to go with the RUGF being the main attributer. That reminds me I should clean out the two little pumps feeding the RUGF.
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Paul B
Premium Member
If you look closely they are probably all smiling. Pods love RUGFs because they can live all the way to the glass bottom of the tank. Thay love the flow.
They also like to poke fun at the unfortunate pods in tanks without UGFs where they have to live on the surface and use sunscreen and all that
jason2459
Well-known member
Yeah, I did notice a few smiling as they were putting on their sunscreen and sunglasses to make a little trip to the beach up top of the gravel. Of course I also see lots of smiling faces from the fish when they discover the tourists and help them on their way. Seems like every single fish in there likes to eat at least one of the types of pods I notice. Even the blenny seems to like a little meaty snake of the isopods. I'll still hold off on the mandarin until I get an anemone and some corals going. I really would like to test both of those out.
I see no ich spots left on the angel tonight. I'm pretty sure it was brought on by stress or at least allowed it to take hold. I'll still watch out for any signs of it on her or any other fish. So, either she's not as stressed anymore, the garlic I've been soaking the meaty foods in helped, or the most obvious reason is the RUGF cures Ich.
I see no ich spots left on the angel tonight. I'm pretty sure it was brought on by stress or at least allowed it to take hold. I'll still watch out for any signs of it on her or any other fish. So, either she's not as stressed anymore, the garlic I've been soaking the meaty foods in helped, or the most obvious reason is the RUGF cures Ich.
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Aquarist007
New member
Good show with the rugf
I had a pair of banner fish that were fresh off the boat--they both got ich but the other fish in the tank never had a sign of it. It was definetly stress in this case.
This was a real goof on my part---fresh off the boat fish into an existing tank--what the heck was I on that day:blown:
jason2459
Well-known member
Yeah, I always quarantine ALL my fish. I throw them in the tank with a shirt with a big "A" on it so everyone avoids them. (Wow, that's an old time reference. Paul B might get it since he's so old. Maybe even Waterkeeper.)
Well, if you do show any signs of ich just put on a snorkel and jump in your tank. The RUGF will take right care of it for you.
jason2459
Well-known member
Turned the skimmer on today as the pH levels in the tank have steadily dropped. Was at 7.71 tonight. Could be because of two factors. One is the skimmer is not aerating the water and the other is the refugium with the macro algae is not flowing into the main tank which is another oxygen supply. I'm still dosing melafix and pimafix which I think has really helped a lot with the spots on the Angel and has come a long way to getting healed up. Down side is that they make the skimmer foam up REALLY badly. So, I just have it overflowing right into the refugium. So, basically it's just aerating and moving water through the refugium now. Useless as a skimmer.
Looks like at least two of the million little nerite eggs survived. I now have two little nerites that I know I didn't add any that small. Pretty cool. They have been kind of ****ed off about the dosing of all these things lately but they are still alive but not laying eggs anywhere like they were.
Since turning off the skimmer/refugium it looks like the copepod population has multiplied back there by x 9392939293492394932492399239294923492394929010010020099394993999
Now that I turned the skimmer back on my display glass is absolutely covered in copepods. Can't wait for the angel to get 100% again so I can start getting some more stuff in the tank.
Looks like at least two of the million little nerite eggs survived. I now have two little nerites that I know I didn't add any that small. Pretty cool. They have been kind of ****ed off about the dosing of all these things lately but they are still alive but not laying eggs anywhere like they were.
Since turning off the skimmer/refugium it looks like the copepod population has multiplied back there by x 9392939293492394932492399239294923492394929010010020099394993999
Now that I turned the skimmer back on my display glass is absolutely covered in copepods. Can't wait for the angel to get 100% again so I can start getting some more stuff in the tank.
jason2459
Well-known member
Maybe the noise kept them awake at night
:lol:
I already had a ton of pods. Now I believe I have way to many. I almost need to get that mandarin now to keep this population in check. I've never seen such a thing. The YWG is happy as he's the only fish that eats the copepods right now it seems. The angel and cardinals like the isopods and the clowns like the amphipods. Haven't seen any one but the YWG eat the copepods.
jason2459
Well-known member
Jason, how are Bonnie & Clyde
Doing great and fully teamed up now. Wherever the tiger is digging the YWG is there watching. Wife has a lot of fun watching the tiger landscape and relandscape constantly. It can be very comical to watch. Looks like he's gotten into the habit of putting shells over his holes at night. And he is surprisingly good at being picky and choosing just the right sized shell to fit over the hole.
When I have too many Pods, I put them out by the curb and they get picked up to be recycled.
:idea: That's it!! I have to give them a call to pick up a few pods for me!
jason2459
Well-known member
Got video of the Tiger Pistol and the YWG hard at work. Or at least the pistol hard at work while the YWG supervises. You can see the different shells around. All but the one in the very front is covering a hole. He was about to grab the one in front but the flame angel came by and told them to take a break.
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jason2459
Well-known member
Couple days now since the skimmer/fuge combo has been back on and the pH is back up to 8.09. I'm done dosing anything for now and will watch and wait. Will do a water change this weekend.
I picked up a used reefkeeper lite. It's just the base unit, temp probe, and a single 4 outlet strip. Did have the system interface so if I want to do a firmware upgrade I'll have to get one of those I guess. Got a good deal on it and using it to run my heater and lights. Have it programmed to turn the heater on at 78 with a .1 deviation as was recommended on digital aquatics website in there user manual for the unit. Also have the unit set to turn off two of the lights if the temp hits 84 and sound an alarm if the temp hits 86. Not sure if those are good numbers or if I should bump them down another degree? It's really easy to program and pleased with it so far.
I guess it can do a lot more stuff and can monitor and control pH, ORP, Temp, Salinity, Wave maker, ATO, custom Sensors... etc. Of course each piece costs more money but is nice that it is so modular and you can put together just what you need. Only thing is the lite version is limited to four major modules and supports all modules but the one that would give it network capabilities with a built in web server.
I picked up a used reefkeeper lite. It's just the base unit, temp probe, and a single 4 outlet strip. Did have the system interface so if I want to do a firmware upgrade I'll have to get one of those I guess. Got a good deal on it and using it to run my heater and lights. Have it programmed to turn the heater on at 78 with a .1 deviation as was recommended on digital aquatics website in there user manual for the unit. Also have the unit set to turn off two of the lights if the temp hits 84 and sound an alarm if the temp hits 86. Not sure if those are good numbers or if I should bump them down another degree? It's really easy to program and pleased with it so far.
I guess it can do a lot more stuff and can monitor and control pH, ORP, Temp, Salinity, Wave maker, ATO, custom Sensors... etc. Of course each piece costs more money but is nice that it is so modular and you can put together just what you need. Only thing is the lite version is limited to four major modules and supports all modules but the one that would give it network capabilities with a built in web server.
Aquarist007
New member
If you have lots of dough go for it however the only thing I monitor on my system is salinity when I do a water change. Temp fluctuates as I am sure pH alk mag and calcium do but my system goes on just fine.
jason2459
Well-known member
Wish I had the money for all that. I'm a like a little CUC scavenger and wait for really good deals in the used market and take other people's scraps. There seems to be a lot of controllers out there right now in the used market. Mostly the previous generation of what has just come out but there's also been a few of the newest generation of controllers to hit the used market as well. I see there's a reefkeeper lite basic package in the used forum here that hasn't looks to be still new for $88. I got my setup for $45, it was fully used and didn't have the SID to do firmware updates. The person that had it got a reefkeeper Elite v2.
If I did get anything extra for it would probably be the SL2 module with a salinity probe. Unless I found other modules really cheap. I already have the handheld pH and ORP probe.
Paul B
Premium Member
I was cleaning out some cabinets last night and found some test kits. One was still in it's wooden box. I figured I would test for nitrate, pH, phosphates, calcium etc. But most of the stuff in the kits looked like peanut butter and I could not get it out of the bottle so I just figure I will make up the test results and throw the kits out. I can test the temperature though, I have a big brass temperature guage that was on my old boiler, it has a brass tube with a copper bulb on the end. I incased the bulb in plastic and that has been hanging in my tank for about ten years. Maybe thats why I don't get ich in there :dance:
You can see it here, looks like 80 degrees
You can see it here, looks like 80 degrees
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jason2459
Well-known member
That's awesome! Love the boiler temp gauge. Also, I love that skimmer. If I ever get time again to do extra projects I would definitely get into making a skimmer. I've been researching all different types of them now and how they work. Very intresting stuff, at least to me.
I just posted this in another thread but wanted to update my little on going log here. ...
here's the latest thing I've done with this skimmer. I just picked up a surface skimmer as an open item at an LFS so I have no idea what brand it is but I have seen it at marine depot and DFS. $5 for it and thought it couldn't hurt to try it out.
So far it's much better then my original contraption that I made out of my old SS65's bubble trap. Before I had a small film around around the modified bubble trap and would grow and shrink in size. Since putting this new surface skimmer in I see absolutely no film what so ever. I have it dialed to where it just starts sucking in water off the surface. So, it's taking in most of the water from the bottom but definitely enough from the surface to remove any and all traces of surface film. Dialing it in to much towards pulling surface water makes the pump get erratic. I believe it's because it starts sucking in air as well. This surface skimmer the way it's dialed in right now is dead silent. My lighting fans are still nosier then the skimmer as well. Old attempt at surface skimming setup is in the video above.
I plan on playing around with replacing all tubing with some vinyl tubing or something. Right now it's a flex tubing like you can pick up at a hardware store for a washing machine drain and the flex tubing shoved into it that came with the surface skimmer. If you do look for the flex tubing there seems to be at least two sizes I've seen and I got the smaller size. I believe about 3/4in or smaller. The bigger size is definitely bigger then 3/4in.
I just posted this in another thread but wanted to update my little on going log here. ...
here's the latest thing I've done with this skimmer. I just picked up a surface skimmer as an open item at an LFS so I have no idea what brand it is but I have seen it at marine depot and DFS. $5 for it and thought it couldn't hurt to try it out.
So far it's much better then my original contraption that I made out of my old SS65's bubble trap. Before I had a small film around around the modified bubble trap and would grow and shrink in size. Since putting this new surface skimmer in I see absolutely no film what so ever. I have it dialed to where it just starts sucking in water off the surface. So, it's taking in most of the water from the bottom but definitely enough from the surface to remove any and all traces of surface film. Dialing it in to much towards pulling surface water makes the pump get erratic. I believe it's because it starts sucking in air as well. This surface skimmer the way it's dialed in right now is dead silent. My lighting fans are still nosier then the skimmer as well. Old attempt at surface skimming setup is in the video above.
I plan on playing around with replacing all tubing with some vinyl tubing or something. Right now it's a flex tubing like you can pick up at a hardware store for a washing machine drain and the flex tubing shoved into it that came with the surface skimmer. If you do look for the flex tubing there seems to be at least two sizes I've seen and I got the smaller size. I believe about 3/4in or smaller. The bigger size is definitely bigger then 3/4in.
