Seans 75 gallon Moneypit!
- Thread starter swk
- Start date
Steve Ruddy
New member
I like #1 and the clam the best. Clams can be tough as they always seem to be moving a bit. They look dark to me though. I'll bring my spectrometer over and we can calibrate your monitor and I'll show you how to process for good exposure without blown highlights. Great start, can't wait to see more.
swk
New member
Ocean avanue13
New member
Love those Rastas!!
swk
New member
They could have been yours! They are long gone. Only fleshy thing in my reef are my 2 maxima clams lol
Lilmatty5dimes
New member
Great tank. Everything looks great. I love the acro on the top of post #94 along with that clan.
swk
New member
MrineLfRlz
Active member
updates?
swk
New member
Update time! And boy has alot happened..... first some current shots:
All were shot via DSLR and edited in Adobe lightroom. Adjustments were limited to WB and adding some saturation to bring colors closer to true life.
Photos were taken about 30 min ago.
Now, on to the news.....
The tank was a few days away from a complete crash. Starting in march I started having problems with the occasional piece. I chalked it up to typical sps behavior and went about my business. Over the course of the summer things started getting worse, and worse and worse. Alk demand was dropping and at one point I practically turned the thing off. I lost a few decent sized tenius colonies, and things overall were looking ragged. I lost 2 shrimp, an anthias, and my gold maxima.
In the beginning I went through all the possibilities, sent off triton testing, did water changes, etc... All parameters were fairly well in line. I found that my ATO optical eye was rusting and thougt "Ah ha" Thats it! I rejoiced by buying a pretty pricey pack from Adam @ Battlecorals.
While I was waiting for my pack to heal and be shipped, things really took a dive again. The miyagi tort that is close to volleyball sized, looked on the verge of total collapse. I asked adam to wait a bit more. Throughout this time, things were following a pretty regular pattern...
Alk demand would plummet
Do a waterchange
Alk demand would spike
over the course of 2 weeks, alk demand would plummet again
Obviously this screamed contamination but I just couldn't figure it out. Flashback to about june when Adam tells me "Check all your vortech pumps. They're infamous for rusting" I agreed but didn't follow through. In a night of introspection, I was toying with the idea of just pulling the plug. If SPS are THIS touchy, I didn't want to deal with it, were my thoughts. Suddenly I remembered Adams advice and started pulling anything with a magnet off the tank. What I found was this....
All were shot via DSLR and edited in Adobe lightroom. Adjustments were limited to WB and adding some saturation to bring colors closer to true life.
Photos were taken about 30 min ago.
Now, on to the news.....
The tank was a few days away from a complete crash. Starting in march I started having problems with the occasional piece. I chalked it up to typical sps behavior and went about my business. Over the course of the summer things started getting worse, and worse and worse. Alk demand was dropping and at one point I practically turned the thing off. I lost a few decent sized tenius colonies, and things overall were looking ragged. I lost 2 shrimp, an anthias, and my gold maxima.
In the beginning I went through all the possibilities, sent off triton testing, did water changes, etc... All parameters were fairly well in line. I found that my ATO optical eye was rusting and thougt "Ah ha" Thats it! I rejoiced by buying a pretty pricey pack from Adam @ Battlecorals.
While I was waiting for my pack to heal and be shipped, things really took a dive again. The miyagi tort that is close to volleyball sized, looked on the verge of total collapse. I asked adam to wait a bit more. Throughout this time, things were following a pretty regular pattern...
Alk demand would plummet
Do a waterchange
Alk demand would spike
over the course of 2 weeks, alk demand would plummet again
Obviously this screamed contamination but I just couldn't figure it out. Flashback to about june when Adam tells me "Check all your vortech pumps. They're infamous for rusting" I agreed but didn't follow through. In a night of introspection, I was toying with the idea of just pulling the plug. If SPS are THIS touchy, I didn't want to deal with it, were my thoughts. Suddenly I remembered Adams advice and started pulling anything with a magnet off the tank. What I found was this....
swk
New member
Seans 75 gallon Moneypit!
My vortech from 2009 had turned into this. I opened it up and it smelled like a rusty marine motor oil pan lol. It was insane.
I obviously removed it promptly and proceeded to do 4 30% water changes over the course of a week. Things perked up immediately. Most pieces made a full recovery, but my poor miyagi tort that took the biggest hit during this all, is still struggling and started STN on one spot last week.
All in all it was a great learning experience and I'm amazed at the fact that anything could've survived in there. Also amazing were the results of a triton test that was done during the midst of this all. Showed aluminum a bit high, THATS IT. Had I taken Adams advice when he gave it, as opposed to months later, things would be better.
I have since replaced all the flow with 2 mp40qd and a single mp10wes on the back wall. I am running ESL NTM and am quite happy with it. I am over the gyres in general.
Anyhow, that's it and that's why the growth is crappy, as you can see. If you have any questions Fire away and I'll answer any and all that I can. Thanks for reading!!!
My vortech from 2009 had turned into this. I opened it up and it smelled like a rusty marine motor oil pan lol. It was insane.
I obviously removed it promptly and proceeded to do 4 30% water changes over the course of a week. Things perked up immediately. Most pieces made a full recovery, but my poor miyagi tort that took the biggest hit during this all, is still struggling and started STN on one spot last week.
All in all it was a great learning experience and I'm amazed at the fact that anything could've survived in there. Also amazing were the results of a triton test that was done during the midst of this all. Showed aluminum a bit high, THATS IT. Had I taken Adams advice when he gave it, as opposed to months later, things would be better.
I have since replaced all the flow with 2 mp40qd and a single mp10wes on the back wall. I am running ESL NTM and am quite happy with it. I am over the gyres in general.
Anyhow, that's it and that's why the growth is crappy, as you can see. If you have any questions Fire away and I'll answer any and all that I can. Thanks for reading!!!
swk
New member
Thanks Connor. I still need to come down and check out your system sometime. I've been working in tiburon for the past month but I've just been SO slammed....
We are about a month post removing the rusty vortech. Stuff was really looking terrible. My SSC was literally a brown turd lol...
swk
New member
Lol. Adam is so nice. He didn't rub my nose in it at all. No "I told you so" or nothing...
For reference mine was one controller past the 1st release. I think all the magnets are sealed
swk
New member
Seans 75 gallon Moneypit!
Right?! What's 600 on flow? Nothing in the reefing world...my wife would kill if she only knew..... only one of the vortech pumps needed replacement but I was really getting sick of the gyres. Namely the lack of true control and the need to clean them so often at the expense of decent flow.
Thanks. I'm hoping in a month or 2 colors and growth will be back on track and this hiccup will be long forgotten. I received some really rare and special pieces from Adam that I'm really excited to see grow up. Going to be fun!!!
Right?! What's 600 on flow? Nothing in the reefing world...my wife would kill if she only knew..... only one of the vortech pumps needed replacement but I was really getting sick of the gyres. Namely the lack of true control and the need to clean them so often at the expense of decent flow.
Thanks. I'm hoping in a month or 2 colors and growth will be back on track and this hiccup will be long forgotten. I received some really rare and special pieces from Adam that I'm really excited to see grow up. Going to be fun!!!
swk
New member
Thank you!
I agree regarding the mature form of colonies. You don't get to see this without adequately random flow, and more importantly, leaving the damn things alone and not cutting every branch you can to sell frags lol.
swk
New member
Just realized that I never answered your questions. So sorry about that.
The porthole is nice. Sadly with 2 small
Kids, a business, training, life etc...the pics I've posted are the one and only time I've used that damn thing lol....
I do vacuum whatever parts of the sandbed I can reach during waterchanges. My freshwater roots cannot be changed apparently. My next tank will likely not have sand.
