Slakkers 58RR - Continued

awesome thread man, def tagging along, good luck with it all!!!!

Welcome aboard! Thanks for the kind words!

Congratz on your tank. I hope your dragonet keeps leting you feed her. Good luck

She's been pigging out on the spirulina enriched mysis, I just have to feed her, she won't eat it out of the water column or off the sand. I can't believe how such a small fish can eat so much!! She will be fat in no time! :lolspin:
 
Ok, So I couldn't get the Aqua-C EV-150 to perform. My brother got it for free, and I'm tired of fighting with it. Maybe there's something wrong with it. I need a consistent producing, GOOD skimmer that I can count on. I'm hoping I picked a good one. I read a lot of great reviews, the price is right, and the footprint fits in my sump.

I just placed an order for a 2010 Reef Octopus 4 cone skimmer! :bounce3::lolspin::bounce2:
 

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Phyto culture is coming along nicely! I used my culture of DT's to prove out the procedure, but dumped it and started over when my starter cultures from Fl Aqua farms arrived.

Started on 5/3 water was clear
Tetraselmis culture today:
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New Skimmer!!

New Skimmer!!

Ok, so here it is!

The NEW 2010 Reef Octopus NW-110-65208 with the New Pinwheel!:bounce1:

Out of the box it went together extremely easy. I'm impressed with the build quality. The skimmer is quality plastic, it feels solid but weighs about half what my Aqua-C did!

GOODBYE 65 WATT MAG7 HEATING UP MY TANK!! :uzi:

Hellooooo 18watt OTP-1000

Quite an improvement I would say!

Assembled
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In the sump she goes!
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This is SIGNIFICANTLY quieter than the AquaC, the spray induction sounded like a constant wooshing...all I get from this is the fizzing like a freshly opened beer! (speaking of that....)

This thing makes some really nice micro-bubbles and if I closed the adjustment I could easily have foam flowing over the cup already (something I never could manage with the Aqua-C)

I set the bubbles about to the neck and we'll see how it goes as it breaks in!
 
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And a quick glimpse of the beer that made it all possible.

A frosty cold Maibock, the first real sign of spring in Wisconsin, Brewed right here in Madison by Captial Brewery!

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Cheers!:beer:
 
VERY pleased with the skimmer so far. With the MAG-7 my tank was getting up to 83.4 near the end of the metal halide cycle.

With the new octopus skimmer my tank never goes above 80.5 - WIN!

Not only that the adjustment is great, in 10" of water I have it mostly closed, but it produces a lot of micro bubbles and I no longer stare at it wondering when the foam head will start.

I started off skimming a bit wet, and I'm dialing it back to get that nice dark goo...will post pictures and Qty. of skimmate when I have it dialed in!
 
The Ebili Angel is a little brat. I rolled the dice and lost on this one. He was devouring pocilipora, and nipping at the acros to the point that I lost all polyp extension.

He started biting at my zoanthid skirts too. Ignored blastos and frogspawn.

Completely ignored the kenya tree and polyps in the QT tank. Go figure.

He's back in the 14g Biocube QT tank, but it's a barebottom tank now. I'm trying to sell him...wish me luck!
 
So the new skimmer is fantastic! I found it very easy to assemble, and adjust. I've been running it for a while now and I never have to adjust it. It doesn't lose the foam head every time I stick my hand in the tank or look at the tank like my Aqua-C did.

Here's about 3 days worth of skim:
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I also picked up some more SPS frags! I wish my camera would capture the colors better, believe it or not this is under the Hamilton14k with the actinics on. This little point and shoot just doesn't handle aquarium shots very well. Here they are!

There's a tricolor secale, metallic mille, an ultimate stag, a red planet, pink lemonade, and a nice ORA blue acro. I'm excited to watch these grow out! Good polyp extension so far!
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You from washington? I miss home!

Ahh..no....they don't make real beer in Washington. Sorry, Capital Brewery is from Madison, Wisconsin.

On a related note, it's baseball day for me, off to Miller Park! Good friends, Beer Brats, cold Miller beer and tailgate games! Woohoo, go Brewers!!!

:beer:
 
So it's been two months since the female Mandarin was added to my reef. She has filled out quite a bit and appears happy and healthy, getting fatter every day! She now eats mysis from the rocks, I just squirt a small pile out of the pipette and she eats it all up...I just have to keep the clowns and shrimp distracted while she eats!

I love how you can hear the *POP* of their mouths when they hit food. I've never heard anything like it...do other fish do that?!?

Pictures to follow!
 
Here's some new pics!

Mandarin looking happy, getting fatter every day!
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Shot of the middle section of the tank...couldn't get a good FTS. I need to figure out how to set the camera correctly. Ugly frag rack, but full of really nice frags!
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Green Birdsnest frag, growing nicely!
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Frogspawn
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This is a neon yellow candy cane, it is NOT green but the camera couldn't seem to pick up the real color.
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Had some cyano issues....dosed the Magnesium portion of my 2-part and the cyano disappeared overnight!

Wooohoo! :celeb3:

I have a friend who's a photographer coming over on Wednesday for a photo shoot of the tank. Assuming she's got the right lense I should have some awesome shots to share!
 
New Bulbs!!

New Bulbs!!

I just got my order from HelloLights!

1x 175w 14k Hamilton (same as previous, was time to replace!)
2x 39w T5 ATI Blue+ (replaced some generic actinic 03)

I can't believe how much of a difference the ATI Blue+ bulbs make! They draw the flourescence of the corals out SO MUCH more! I am seeing reds and pinks that I never saw before, and the green frogspawn is entirely metallic looking. I did some research and found they had the highest PAR value, so it seemed like a no brainer.

I highly recommend the ATI Blue+ to anyone looking for better actinics. They are also visibly brighter.

:beer:
 
Power Outage! Grrrr

Power Outage! Grrrr

Well my power went out when I was at work....I figure it was down at least 3-4 hours.

The great news: My battery backup UPS works great, my two Tunze powerheads were running the entire time the power was out. Incredible timing...I just installed the UPS last weekend! Everything in the display looks great!

The bad news: I lost Royal Gramma that I had in my QT tank...he was recovering from some issue, I'm not sure what, but he had just started eating again and was no longer swimming sideways as much. I hate losing fish...I thought for sure he was going to recover. Had he been healthy he may have survived.

More good news: The Midas Blenny that was in the same QT tank looks like he's doing ok!
 
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