Rebuild and recovery of a dead tank

[jason2459]

thanks for the recap Jason.

No problem. I didn't think anyone was paying attention still. :rollface:


Some updates:

The male mandarin is still going after the pellets and the female turning her nose up to them. Typical picky females... :bigeyes:

I found the cure to hair algae!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! cyano... It is smothering the hair algae. Did my first major water change today and will test po4 tomorrow.

I have totally ****ed off my clowns. I finally cleaned off that little orange speck on the glass that they were hosting. They actually attacked the mag float tonight.

The blasto is looking really good and swells up big time. The duncan seems to be a bit bigger already as well. The torch actually seems to have shrunk a little. I tried to take pictures of the blasto and I just can not seem to get a good picture of them. I don't know why but they are always coming out blurry. Really wish I had a manual focus. I'll try again tomorrow. I moved the torch to a little higher spot with a little less flow. We'll see how that goes.

 

[jason2459]

For those that missed the clown fish video of them hosting the little orange speck on the glass I'm reposting it below. They've been doing this for at least 4 weeks now I believe.

Skimmate is still looking about the same consistency.

My clownfish however are totally out of touch with reality now since they lost their best bud, the bicolor blenny. They are trying to host a speck. Yes, a speck. There is a tiny orange speck on the glass and for over a day now they have been hosting it. :crazy1: I have been running my magfloat around it.



<embed width="440" height="420" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" src="http://v6.tinypic.com/player.swf?file=2hwmsxt&s=6"><br><font size="1"><a href="http://tinypic.com/player.php?v=2hwmsxt&s=6">Original Video</a> - More videos at <a href="http://tinypic.com">TinyPic</a></font>

 

[Aquarist007]

For those that missed the clown fish video of them hosting the little orange speck on the glass I'm reposting it below. They've been doing this for at least 4 weeks now I believe.

could be one of the reasons why they are called clowns:spin1::dance::spin1:

 

[jason2459]

Found something that may be causing an issue with having cyano? Not sure if iron from a rusty magnet would help spur on cyano or not? I had a magnet clip holding my ATO line to the tank. The inside part apparently broke it's seems and the magnet is completely swollen and rusted. Took that out last night and we'll see what happens now. I'm sure it wasn't good to have that in there.

 

[jason2459]

Well, doing the really large water change yesterday put a dent in the po4. It's at 1.0 right now according to the ever so accurate API test kit. Will do another really large water change tomorrow night again and do another test the next night after that. Nitrates are back to 0.

Temp: 80.2
PH: 8.02
ORP: 225
po4: 1.0
Nitrates: 0

Finally got a couple decent shots of the blastomusa. I just love the colors of this coral. The pictures still doesn't do it justice.

Duncan looking good so far too:

The torch just doesn't seem as full or colorful as when I first got it:

Interesting the picture makes it look better then it looks in person and washed out the colors on the duncan. :lol: The center discs on the duncan are a very vivid green.

 

[jason2459]

Here's a couple more pics I took tonight with a nice little discovery.

The duncan looks like it has two more heads coming in. At least that what I'm assuming this is:

The blasto seems to really like pellets. I have been target feeding it every few days.

 

[blrrobinson21]

Its lookin good Jason. Do you feed your duncan corals at all?

 

[jason2459]

Its lookin good Jason. Do you feed your duncan corals at all?

The duncan and torch seem to be pretty good at catching food floating by and seem to not be picky. So, I haven't really spot fed them at all. The blasto just really isn't equipped to grab anything efficiently, at least I don't think so.

 

[Aquarist007]

Found something that may be causing an issue with having cyano? Not sure if iron from a rusty magnet would help spur on cyano or not? I had a magnet clip holding my ATO line to the tank. The inside part apparently broke it's seems and the magnet is completely swollen and rusted. Took that out last night and we'll see what happens now. I'm sure it wasn't good to have that in there.

cyano is caused by an increase in nitrates and phosphates in combination with not enough flow. Since you are adressing your phosphates your cyano should die out if you increase the flow to that area

 

[Aquarist007]

The torch just doesn't seem as full or colorful as when I first got it:

Interesting the picture makes it look better then it looks in person and washed out the colors on the duncan. :lol: The center discs on the duncan are a very vivid green.

The torch does not look like it is getting enough flow

The blastos look great

 

[jason2459]

cyano is caused by an increase in nitrates and phosphates in combination with not enough flow. Since you are adressing your phosphates your cyano should die out if you increase the flow to that area

Unfortunately, the cyano pretty much just grows everywhere there's light. Substrate and all the rocks. I've got over 3000gph of flow in the tank so I'd be really scared to increase that. Just got done with another rather large water change again last night and basted everything off again. We'll see how much comes back and where the phosphates are tonight.

 

[jason2459]

The torch does not look like it is getting enough flow

The blastos look great

Thanks, I'll try and move it again where there's some type of moderate flow. I had it in a high flow area initially and it didn't seem to like it there.

 

[Onyx97]

I'm thinking about getting a SRO Extreme also the LX 1000S for my 55. I'm currently using a Remora and it's time to upgrade. Good info about the skimmer keep it coming...

 

[thebkramer]

OMG..I love the video of the clowns. That is hilarious! :lol:

You have some gorgeous corals! The blastoma is pretty, I wish the vivid green didn't get washed out in the pic. I love pics of corals!
You have one beautiful mystery wrasse! Does your sharknose ever get to clean him? My fish won't let my sharknose anywhere near them
Again..gorgeous tenants you have! Keep the pics coming!

P.S. do mind me asking what kind of camera you are using??

 

[jason2459]

I'm thinking about getting a SRO Extreme also the LX 1000S for my 55. I'm currently using a Remora and it's time to upgrade. Good info about the skimmer keep it coming...

Thanks. I think you'd be happy with the lx-1000s for the 55. The pump seems to be matched up to the body pretty well. The 2000 is really over kill I think. The bb2000 pump is a little on the loud side since I do have it sitting in my small living room but bearable.

I'm still getting a small amount of microbubbles which to me is okay but I know some people it would drive them up crazy having a single one in the tank. I haven't done any modifications or anything like that to try and reduce them though. I'm sure something could be done.

The skimmate is getting thicker and I might be able to start lowering the collection cup but probably not by much. I really think this skimmer's body would be perfect for a pump somewhere between the bb1000 and the bb2000. But is just keeping up with the bb2000's water and air flow which is an amazing amount.

OMG..I love the video of the clowns. That is hilarious! :lol:

You have some gorgeous corals! The blastoma is pretty, I wish the vivid green didn't get washed out in the pic. I love pics of corals!
You have one beautiful mystery wrasse! Does your sharknose ever get to clean him? My fish won't let my sharknose anywhere near them
Again..gorgeous tenants you have! Keep the pics coming!

P.S. do mind me asking what kind of camera you are using??

Thanks, those clowns are 100% clowns. The are now moving around trying to find something to host them. It's always interesting to see what they pick. The sharknose gobies are awesome. I can't wait to get them in the tank. The wrasses pay absolutely no attention to them but haven't seen them wait for the the gobies to catch up either. The mystery wrasse is getting a little less shy now and the colors are getting more pronounced and the white stripes are going away. One more week to go.

QT SUCKS!! but I guess worth it once you've already gone through getting rid of ich and fluke out of your tank... :uzi:

I'm using a fujifilm fine pix Z33 WP. It's better then the other point'n shoot we had. It's 10MP, macro setting, and better white balance support. So, it's taking much better pictures but still would be really nice to have a manual focus on those really close up shots. It's also water proof which is good for when we take our kid to the pool and water parks. :bounce1:

 

[thebkramer]

lol...your wrasse won't wait for the gobies. I like that.
My sharknose (named cheeky monkey) is hilarious. I feel for him though. He is constantly trying to latch on to someone with no luck. Its like the 5 yr old boy chasing the 7 yr old girl on the playground trying to get a kiss!!! (with no luck...of course)

Make sure you post pics when you finally release them from jail!!!

 

[jason2459]

lol...your wrasse won't wait for the gobies. I like that.
My sharknose (named cheeky monkey) is hilarious. I feel for him though. He is constantly trying to latch on to someone with no luck. Its like the 5 yr old boy chasing the 7 yr old girl on the playground trying to get a kiss!!! (with no luck...of course)

Make sure you post pics when you finally release them from jail!!!

:lol:

I definitely will be taking lots more pictures of them.

Phosphates are down to .5 now after three rather large water changes. Still pretty high but MUCH better then before. I did probably somewhere between 15-20g water change each time. I'm switching back to the normal 1-2g changes a day. Also, the last two changes were with straight forward Instant Ocean and I'm very pleased to say the skimmer didn't go nutso with the water change like it was doing with Reef Crystals. Don't know if it's a combination of something in the Reef Crystals and/or the high amounts of air draw because I didn't have this problem before with previous skimmers. I think I'm going to ask in the Chemistry section...

 

[jason2459]

Recorded all the Life episodes and watching Fish right now. Pretty amazing footage they got. I suggest everyone see it.

I was going to get a picture of the collection cup last night but got busy with many other things. So, here's about 4 days worth instead of the normal 3 I've been doing. Getting thick and nasty!

 

[jason2459]

Thought it would be interesting to line up the progress of breaking in on the skimmate.

First 12 hours worth

First 24 hours worth

2nd week 3 days worth

1.5 months in 4 days worth

 

[thebkramer]

:eek1:

Wow thats some uck-e stuff!!

The Life series is AMAZING!!! I haven't had a chance to watch the fish episode yet, but its on my DVR waiting for me.