Rebuild and recovery of a dead tank

Got the camera fixed as you can see above so I took a few quick snapshots of my fishies while I was working on the skimmer.

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You can see in this last picture what the poor Angel has kind of gone through. Those grayish patches were white and some black and now healing. Much better looking then she was but not 100% yet.

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Here's another one. That little patch above the eye was the original spot (fluke) that I noticed before and started the downward spiral into HLLE(the patch below the eye) and Ich. Much better then it was.

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Jason, my homemade surface skimmer is something like that, most of the water enters from the bottom but some enters from the surface. I have found that horizontal slots at the top of the surface skimmer work better than those vertical cuts because the surface film gets stuck trying to get through a verticle cut. The horizontal slots are about 3/16" so the small pipefish don't get through but it removes all of the surface film. It all goes into my skimmer and from there into the algae trough.
 
Interesting about the horizontal slots. I like that the actual surface skimming component floats up and down with the water level. So, I can do a small water change and not have to stop the skimmer now. I like to blow everything off with the baster and get siphoned out or skimmed out.

Going to call up my LFG and see if he'll QT the dwarf angel. Ich showed up again I think it was Wednesday or Thursday. I tried out this stuff called Ich Attack and all it's done is give my tank a break out of cyano. I guess it's 100% natural = organic = turn into phosphates and nitrates = cyano.

If the angel keeps getting stressed out like this I'm afraid she just wont recover with out a true full QT. She's still eating good so that's good. I'd rather get her and my tank back to normal though and at this point I think my best option for this is to pull her out and get into a full QT.
 
Paul B said:
Jason, my homemade surface skimmer is something like that, most of the water enters from the bottom but some enters from the surface. I have found that horizontal slots at the top of the surface skimmer work better than those vertical cuts because the surface film gets stuck trying to get through a verticle cut. The horizontal slots are about 3/16" so the small pipefish don't get through but it removes all of the surface film. It all goes into my skimmer and from there into the algae trough.
Click to expand...

that's an interesting concept---can you post a picture of it?
 
I guess I can but I need to get my camera, walk over to the tank, lift the front wall, put the picture on Photobucket then copy it here. Just imagine a horizontal slot on the top of a surface skimmer.
Oh, Ok, I will take a picture.
 
I actually cleaned out the HOB refugium yesterday as it was just slimmed over with cyano. Had a few rocks with aptasia on it and put them in my main DT. Crazy right? Well, as I was hoping all signs of aptasia were gone by the morning. The peppermints in my tank really love that stuff. I put the rocks back into the refug. this morning all nice and cleaned off. There are still a couple aptasia stuck to the sides of the fug so I'm sure the rocks will get some more on them as they multiply. I'm sure the group of peppermints will like another treat like that again later. I got some polyfilter to help clean out the water after all the dosing of crap over the past month and a half. It fit right in the area in my refug. where there used to be bioballs and is used to trap most of the bubbles from the skimmer now. Curious to see what color it will change to.

I'm also going three days lights out for the main tank. Lights have already been off for Saturday and Sunday. The substrate is already completely clear of cyano and most of the rocks as well.

Ozonizer is not working. Red Sea is sending me a new one.
 
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Looks like I just got myself a pair of Koralia 4's!! That was totally am impulse buy but got both with shipping for around what one would be. Says that they are still new in box and never touched water so think I got a pretty darn good deal. Will take out the mj1200(surface agitation) and the three seio's. Then play around with the koralia's to see how it compares. Would be nice to have just two powerheads in there instead of four. We'll see if they are to obtrusive or not though. I figure if they don't work out I can resell them and get most my money back.

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1733142
 
I have two of these and they have made me very happy (I used to a Koralia 1 and a koralia 2 and I switched them out for two 4s.)

No problems- a little noisy at turn on. I bet you will be pleased :)
 
If they don't work out for you, I will take one :) I have been bouncing back and forth between a 3 or a 4 for my 75. RC wont let me post in FS forums yet because of the 90 day thing. I have Pay Pal and I am an avid eBayer, so if you could keep me posted I would appreciate it.
 
Thanks for the inputs. Biggest concern I'll have is if they look to big once I get them in the tank. One of the reasons I originally bought the SEIO's as they are a little more compact (at least on paper they are.)

Will keep you posted Saltylifelove. Good to see you posting in here now. :)
 
<img src="/images/welcome.gif" width="500" height="62"><br><b><i><big><big>To Reef Central</b></i></big></big>

Well, welcome to this thread at least. :dance:

Actually, I just wanted to try the [ welcome ] tag out since I've never actually done it before.
 
OK Jason, sense I really don't feel like making my own thread, here is a picture of the 75. Water still blurry from buffer and we had just put the school of chromis in (so far so good) Anyway, please do not judge me by my aquascaping ;) I really don't like it, and hopefully when we get the other 20lbs of LR from the other tank it will make a difference. I will share more once things look a little better :)

2ef85ab51d0c__1257180587000.jpg
 
jason2459 said:
<img src="/images/welcome.gif" width="500" height="62"><br><b><i><big><big>To Reef Central</b></i></big></big>

Well, welcome to this thread at least. :dance:

Actually, I just wanted to try the [ welcome ] tag out since I've never actually done it before.
Click to expand...

then try this one

<img src="/images/welcome.gif" width="500" height="62"><br><b><i><big><big>To Jason's Thread</b></i></big></big>
 
Well, tank had a spike...and levels were back down and good today except pH was 7.8 LFS said add buffer and builder to get pH up and he said instead of adding my tanks mates from the 20L first that we may want to make sure cycle is over with the chromis instead

and yes I listened to my LFS :eek1:
 
SaltLifeLove said:
Well, tank had a spike...and levels were back down and good today except pH was 7.8 LFS said add buffer and builder to get pH up and he said instead of adding my tanks mates from the 20L first that we may want to make sure cycle is over with the chromis instead

and yes I listened to my LFS :eek1:
Click to expand...


your lfs should not have told you to use anything on a cycling tank. The buffer system just like other systems is still trying to stablilize itself.
Most of the time low pH readings are more a factor of gas exchange in the tank.
As carbon dioxide rises the pH inversely lowers. Sometimes increasing flow across the surface of the tank and keeping it uncovered(like glass tops) is all you need.
 
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