Sam's Oceanic 120

[projectsWithSam]

ORD Aquatics is awesome! They honored their guarantee. They mentioned the fish was in their shop for a week before I got it so no idea why he kicked. I had egg crate between the two fish so it wasn't aggression.
I got a Bi Color to replace. She is doing great.

climatizing for about 2 hours now. Salinity...

 

[projectsWithSam]

9/9/2022
BiColor still doing great at lights out. The Tang and Yellow Angel largely ignoring her now that shes behind the egg crate.

~1/3rd of a 29 gallon tank.

2022-09-09 10:02 PM	Alkalinity	12.3
2022-09-09 10:05 PM	Calcium	490
2022-09-09 10:08 PM	Magnesium	1425

Lowered the kalk dosing to 60ml/hour on peak pH hours. Its been very stable, just high...
I don't know why the kalk stirrer kalk seems to work so much better then when I was doing it out of jugs... It comes out of the stirrer clear so I know its not the slurry..

 

[projectsWithSam]

9/10/2022

My daughter is managing the QT process. She has conducted attendance.

 

[projectsWithSam]

9/10/2022

@Projects with Sam
Are the corals growing fast with the higher alkalinity? I don’t have the guts to go that high in my tank lol.
My alk is only 8dkh.

sometimes the guts are thrust upon you! When I installed my DIY Kalk reactor I accidentally spilled a bunch of Kalkwasser slurry in my sump; The Ph went up to 8.35 from 8.11; I quickly dumped in about 12oz of soda water and 100ml vinegar to bring it down again.
So that raised the alk a bit but also the kalk stirrer kalk is way more potent... dropped my dosing from 90ml/hr to 70ml/hr to stay level; there was some lag in my adjustments thus the high alk. I'm trying to get it down slowly.

the corals that are not paused are growing fast; I've been all over the place though so there are a lot of stalled frags.
edit ** Though, I look back at my alk measurements and I guess its been steadily rising since early August.

---

2022-09-10 9:58 PM	Alkalinity	12.3
2022-09-10 10:01 PM	Calcium	485
2022-09-10 10:04 PM	Magnesium	1335

*most of the measurements are at 10pmish right after lights out.
Dropping more hourly dosing down to 60ml/hr
I agree 10+ is too high for my comfort level.
stirrer was added the 5th-6th.

 

[projectsWithSam]

9/11/2022
Timmy accidentally bit me when I was hand feeding him today. it didn't hurt too much. didn't draw blood. was more of a scrape. It surprised him as much as it did me. The Larger of the Blue Hippo Tangs ate from my hand today too which was cool. I think he realized yesterday that he was theoretically the tank boss after Timmy now.

 

[projectsWithSam]

9/12/2022
I have no idea what is going on. I've changed over 40 gallons of water @10dkh and my tanks dkh went from 12.3 to 12.5. I've re-measured both numbers... lowered my kalk dosing to 50ml/hr.

Over the weekend:
Setup DIY overflow for the QT tank so I can do two auto water changes at once.

Added second tier to the 'off the Timmy menu tank' (but the clam attached to the egg crate not a frag :/)

Installed saltwater mixing bucket water tap and float switch:


Weird gloop from heated tank water with no flow:


FTS:


Caught a chromis in the clear trap... no 6-line yet though.

 

[griss]

Did you figure out the high Alk issue?

 

[projectsWithSam]

9/13/22
clam moved! I think he is still on the plastic... rest lookin ok too.

Fish in QT are doing great! I tried introducing the two angelfish... went wonderfully... divider back up.

I hope these are baby nasarius snails. I got two from a Petco way back when. Came down one morning a week or two later and the tank was all cloudy in the morning. It cleared up and I was hoping they spawned...
or a bunch of flatworms hitched in on the clam... all the flatworm images I've seen have two little tails at the end; these are rounded.

 

[projectsWithSam]

9/13/22
Corals! seem ok despite the astronomical alk... just fed bbs and reef chili

 

[projectsWithSam]

9/15/22
kalk dosing at 20ml/hr.... put some to 10ml/hr...
lowered kalk stirrer to 5 seconds of stir every 53 minutes. kalk continues to come out clear.
dunno why consumption seems low... I see the corals growing... my pH taking a hit...

My in-laws on got me the partner membership swag for my birthday... Was Wacky Wednesday after all!

Just ordered a new tube to use for MKII kalk stirrer.

 

[projectsWithSam]

2022-09-15 9:39 PM	Alkalinity	12
2022-09-15 9:42 PM	Calcium	480
2022-09-15 9:47 PM	Magnesium	1395

Thank goodness! starting to see the alk drop!
Good day today!
Figured out and got some AWS configs done on a webpage I'm working on.
Got a new variation of Hammer Coral @ $5/head - I got 3 frags (5 heads) of it.
Finally went to Blue Line Coral and picked up a frag I won at auction (early August). It got nuked in-house and they gave me a $20 credit for a different coral and they gave me a deal on a nice sps frag.
Showed them some of the sock holders I'm printing and the kalk stirrer and they're interested in selling my stuff on consignment for store credit or cash. I left them with two sock holders.
And I sold a sock holder and a doser mount on eBay earlier this week and got those shipped out.
and I got a $100 New Ender 3 Pro - now I need to sell that much 3D stuff...

My softer side.

 

[projectsWithSam]

9/16/22
Alk dropping too fast now... I'll be increasing kalk during the photoperiod and giving a little manual booster dose now.

any changes are going to be slow.

 

[projectsWithSam]

9/18/22
So far so good. Slowly lowering the alk. nothing seems distressed; everything seems to be rebounding.

 

[projectsWithSam]

9/19/22 excerpts from conversations:

I plan to carve Hanna test kit holders out of fancy wood on my cnc and stain/urethane them to be really nice...
subtractive manufacturing is way faster.

I used the 3D printer to make the CNC router:

MultiBot CNC v2 by reality_boy

This take two on my mostly 3D printed CNC Router. This was heavily inspired by Nikodem Bartnik's DIY Dremel CNC, however all parts are original designs by me.https://www.instructables.com/id/DIY-3D-Printed-Dremel-CNC/You can find Laser accessories for this project...

www.thingiverse.com

I designed wire management for it:

MultiBotCNCv2 Wire Management v1 by ProjectsWithSam

Wire Management with integrated Arduino case for the MultiBot CNC v2 by Reality_boy.The metal bar is from the hardware store. 1" x 1/8th inch aluminum flat bar. It is used to support both the x and y axis cable-chains.Everything is mounted with M3 screws similar to those needed for the...

www.thingiverse.com

and did 10 videos about building it.

 

[griss]

@projectsWithSam you disappeared on us for a while. Glad you’re back.

 

[projectsWithSam]

Thanks griss! always had the tabs open just been busy and havent clicked on them! I feel I need to get current on the build page... A lot has happened in my fish room since then and its taking a lot of will power to not spill the beans early... I want to keep it linear.

 

[projectsWithSam]

9/25/22
Gave up!
Taking the traps out. killer stays. promoted the fish from QT today! My daughter loves catching them.
moved the following to DT - (in my DIY acclimation box):
Yellow Angel
BiColor Angel
Bluespotted Watchman Goby (He has gotten a lot more yellow in QT)
Yellow Wrasse
Blue Eyed Cole Tang
Flame Hawkfish
sharknose cleaner goby


Timmy will charge the other angels from time to time but the most aggression I've seen is from the female clown!

I'm pretty amazed the Hippo Tangs didn't even bat an eye to the Cole Tang. I've heard they can be really mean.

FYI:
The DIY acclimation box didn't work for the wrasse or the watchman goby.
Some of the QT fish have been in for over a month and a half.

 

[projectsWithSam]

9/25/22
Another Timmy feeding video!

https://www.reef2reef.com/attachments/timmyfeeding-092522-gif.2841115/

He periodically circles back and rubs his fins along my hand. It was quite unnerving the first time he did it because I thought he was going to spike me. Turns out its quite pleasant and I think its a sort of greeting because he does it whenever I feed him. Sometimes when I'm rearranging my corals he comes over and does it too. Could be a dominance thing too I suppose.
I was thinking of putting the watchman in the exile tank because its graveled; maybe if I have to fish him out of the overflow...

(I am limited on filesize here so cannot upload some of my larger gif movies)

 

[projectsWithSam]

9/28/22
alk has slowly trended down enough. Went back on the offensive... increased kalk dosing to try to stay in the 9-0 range.

Just trying to get stuff organized. My In-Laws left after a great weekend. My kids are missing them and acting out a little. The fish are chilling...

I noticed my Mandarin goby is missing a lot of tail but I never see him being bothered; I'll need to keep an eye on him.
The Bristletooth tang is not even noticed by the hippo tangs. did I get the most mellow Hippo Tangs out there?
Timmy and the other Angelfish seem fine.
The food cubes I made have waaaay too much gelatin in them so they really stay together; the fish have a game called steal the food cube now... Its pretty fun to watch; they swim all around carrying the food cube and kind of nomming on it as they go. Most of the fish play; I am surprised to see the algae blenny and the clownfish taking turns swiping the cube from the tangs and angelfish... I'll get a video tomorrow.

 

[projectsWithSam]

9/29/22

https://www.reef2reef.com/attachments/stealthefoodcube-092922-gif.2845819/

Steel the food cube!