Taqpol's 120g All In Stand Reef Build! (Pics)

[Taqpol]

Yeah, my flatworms are starting to become a problem. I was planning on using Levasole (a common pig dewormer) along with this guys methods:

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?threadid=1379099

To totally eradicate them from my tank, but I've been having major torubles finding levasole (levamisole) online. Everyone seems to be indefinitely back ordered.

A few minutes after I dropped the mandarins in the tank I saw the male pick off a flatworm and then spit it out. I haven't been able to watch close enough recently to see if he's actually tried to eat more of them, but I did get the spotted mandarins on the off chance that one of them would eat flatworms.

 

[Tswifty]

Nice Mandarins. I really like the spotted guys, but they never have them in stock around here. I'll probably also pick one up eventually, but now I'll just be copying you. :lol:

Sorry to hear about the Flatworms... that sucks. I really don't have many in the tank anymore, but still do have to siphon a few small piles of them out once a week. I'm thinking of trying the FW Exit bomb where you just leave the treatment in there for a week without running carbon, then perform a water change at the end of the week... but am a little nervous to do so. If I do end up "dropping the bomb" I'll let you know how it works out.

Great pictures... looks like you are really getting a handle on the new camera.

 

[Taqpol]

YOU copy ME??


It took me forever to find this picture but I think the comparison is somewhat striking:

My Reef:

Someone else's 90g reef:

 

[Tswifty]

Had to borrow this from Marc...

That's great, I never realized how similar our tanks looked. :lol:

 

[sdc19982002]

Have you tried tractor suppply company. Dont know if you have one there, but here i'm pretty sure they stock levamisole.

 

[Taqpol]

Well, after playing around with mine for an hour I can officially say that I do not like calcium reactors. I am having serious issues setting a consistent bubble rate (Its either a full on stream of bubbles or a slow trickle that eventually comes to a stop). I think my regulator might be bad, but those little guys are expensive and I've never really liked calcium reactors before.

After looking at Will16's thread (whose picture is on the cover of this months RK magazine, for those who don't know!) and Tswifty's current decision to switch over to the "balling method" I think i am going to do the same thing as it appears to be a cheap, safe, easy, and accurate way to control calcium and alkalinity in a reef environment that easily scales up or down depending on your tanks load. It basically involves dosing specific amount of two part solution (which I plan to get from Bulk Reef Supply) automatically using dosing pumps on some sort of timer.

Two part recipe:
http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2006-02/rhf/index.php

Aquamedic Reef Doser Twin:
http://www.saltycritter.com/dosing-pumps/aqua-medic-dosing-pumps.htm

 

[kudora]

i would get the dosers from BRS instead of the aquamedic ones.
a starter kit from BRS and either the pumps for the gallon containers(if your doing manually) or i went with the slim gallon containers, they dont take much room at all.

 

[Taqpol]

Yeah, some people don't like the aquamedic dosers but the only really annoying thing that i read is that they do not restart after a power outage (they keep your programming, but you have to turn them back on). I thought about picking up a pair of the drews dosers as they would cost slightly less then the aquamedic twin, my only problem is that they would need to be controlled by my Reef Keeper 2 and I only have one slot left, two if I combine some of my lighting schedules. I could do it with two power slots but I was really hoping to leave one free so that I could reig up a device that dosed kalkwasser ATO if pH was below 8.3 and normal water if it was above 8.3.

Anybody know of a good electronic timer that can control two outlets based on the time of the day down to the seconds and retain their programming in a power outage? With something like that I will use the drews dosers but I was really hoping to order this stuff today.

 

[Taqpol]

Gah! Right when I decided that the higher quality of the drews dosers was worth buying seperate electronic timers both of BRS dosers are out of stock! Guess I'll try dosing two part by hand for now...

 

[kudora]

yeah that happend to me when i wanted to order them i got up on a sunday morning saw they were there, got some breakfest then went back to order them, bam they were gone, i was able to order them a couple of days later.

 

[Taqpol]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=15635605#post15635605 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Taqpol

Sad Update..... I woke up to find my female mandarin dead. The male, who has always been extremely submissive and hid was right next to her and something (possibly CUC) had chewed off a portion of her lower tail. There are no visible signs of what caused the death, and she is very fat. I'm wondering if I should try and do an autopsy to look for a parasite or something. Is there anything you can tell me or some good reading to do on mandarins?

 

[Taqpol]

Post mortem pics....

Top Down:

Side. You can see the chewed on tail.

Mouth parts were extended, don't know if thats normal.

Underside.

 

[Taqpol]

Also, this is the last picture I took of the mandarin on 9/10/2009. I had to photoshop the levels a bit to get a halfway decent picture, but its mainly here to show that any fin damage occured within two days before death or after death.

 

[OwNeD162]

Sucks to hear about the mandarin ... I'm interested to see if anyone can spot something wrong with the post-mortem pics...

 

[Western_reefer]

Tank is lookin good!


Sorry to hear about mandarin.

 

[Zestay]

do the autopsy.

 

[Taqpol]

After consulting with a few people I decided to not even bother with an autopsy. I wouldn't even know what to look for...

 

[Taqpol]

I google image searched "Christmas Wrasse" today (along with a mystery wrasse or a malanurus wrasse, its fish I'm thinking about adding) and came across this reefkeeping magazine ToTM article I somehow missed:

http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2008-04/totm/index.php

Basically, its an AMAZING work of DIY work. The author (Joseph Weatherson) also won ToTM back in 2005 and that article is worth a read, as well.

 

[Tswifty]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=15718331#post15718331 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Taqpol
I google image searched "Christmas Wrasse" today (along with a mystery wrasse or a malanurus wrasse, its fish I'm thinking about adding)

All are very nice looking additions. The Melanurus and Christmas Wrasse have the added benefit of clearing out unwanted pests, while the Mystery Wrasse is just so darn pretty to look at... but won't do anything for pest control.

 

[Taqpol]

Well, I dosed my tank with salifert flatworm exit at 6:00, and now I feel like things have finally settled down enough that I can finally write about whats happening...


From a very trusted source who has done this process on multiple peoples tanks I was advised to use double the recommended dose of Salifert (I have actually heard a lot of people suggest this). After siphoning flatworms out of my tank and into a mesh filter bag into the sump for over an hour (until very few flatworms were visible) I changed the carbon in my TLF reactor and dosed 3 cap fulls of flatworm exit, enough for 240 gallons. I sat on my computer to write about the process, looked over my shoulder, and saw that the tank was FILLED with little red specks. The flatworm exit also immediately shut down polyp extension on all of my corals. Even with siphoning/netting out as many dead flatworms as i can my water has still taken on a sick yellow tinge . I am running my carbon reactor with as much carbon as i can fit in it and i already have a 20 gallon water change lined up for once things settle down.

I should have some crazy pictures up at some point in time, but I sure hope this works out....