The inwall 380 starfire reborn

[Sparkss]

Well, we realized that we hadn't seen the potters wrasse for a day or so Monday evening. I found his body Tuesday morning wedged in the rocks in a place where I still cannot get to it *sigh*.

So far the one T5 across the front is not doing what we had hoped for. It is fine for a dawn/dusk light for the tank but I just don't see it working out long term as a source of light for the corals underneath it. It may be reflector orientation, lamp proximity to the water line, one 5' bulb versus two 3' ones, I just don't know. The current configuration is 1 5' ATI Blueplus T5 run off of an IceCap 660 (I have a second lamp hooked up so that we could assess the single T5 up front and still be able to get it to fire off of the IC ballast). We are using an SLS Tek II reflector (IIRC the brand/model). The bulb sits about 9" off of the water (with the rest of our lighting in the MH lighting rack). The corals that I am trying to light are 8" - 10" below the water line. I had thought this would be fine since people with T5 lights 4" off of the water light tanks down to 20" for SPS. Maybe it has to do with the height off of the water impacting the PAR below the water's surface ? Or a single bulb like that just doesn't put out enough light to make a dent ? (how many do we need to use to supplement ? sheesh ). I am taking more of a "light the corlas/rockwork, not the tank" approach and have ordered another 3' set (SLR, bulbe, endcaps, etc). If I can get to it I will try to get the lighting to where we want it this weekend.

Aside from that we ordered an AquaSurf this afternoon and are going to try our hands at modding our Vortec drivers. We were planning to buy the WWDs anyways, and this way is about half the price with more control and functionality. I also need to build the firmware update cable for our non-serial port AC Jr, but that shouldn't be a big deal, and I think I already have all of the parts to do that piece of it here anyways.

That about sums it up so far. Hopefully we will have some happy news after this weekend (if/when our projects have been completed).

Oh, and we are trying to sell our pocci colonies, a sale which seems to be moving along well enough. Then a little re-negotiation of the corals withing our tank, but nothing major

 

[jnarowe]

Bummer about the Potters. I wonder what happened? I had two Nasos die on me for no apparent reason within a week of introduction. I guess that is just a fish I cannot keep.

 

[Sparkss]

Potters are notoriously fragile. But even with that being said, with all of the extra steps we wnet through to ensure as smooth and short a shipping experience as possible, and they still don't survive . They seem to be one fish that we simply cannot keep either. But it is one that we will try again, probably towards the first of next year to give everything a chance to settle in before we give it another go.

 

[mrcrab]

That sucks Tom and I know how you feel. I had a beautiful, big, fat goldflake angel in QT that I lost Saturday. Didn't eat the first couple of days and then was eating like a pig for over a week suddenly came down with what I think was a bacterial infection, cloudy eyes and fins degrading. Was treating it with amoxicylin (sp) but it didn't make it.

 

[Sparkss]

Damn.. that definitely trumps a pair of potters. Those goldflake angels aren't cheap, IIRC. I am sorry to hear that you lost him. With the Potters we have sort of steeled ourselves against the possibility of losing them. We have kept multiple leopards and other, even harder to keep fish (like our red tailed tamarin or pair of mandarins). These Potters Leopards are just tough to get past the shipping "stage". Although I am suspicious about this last death since it was eating well and was not being bullied that I saw, so I am not sure what took it down

 

[jnarowe]

What about buying them locally? Got to be a few coming into Bay Area shops right?

 

[Sparkss]

few and far between. I tried for 6 months to find one locally and finally gave up. I know of some that have found them locally, but I think they just happened to luck into them. After many weeks of calling LFS to see if they got any in and/or when their next shipment was due in (and if any might be on it), I just got too frustrated. They ship so poorly I can only guess that most LFS don't like dealing with them

 

[chris wright]

G'day Tom,

I'm t5's on my tank and love the light they put out. I would lower yours as I think that at 9" you will lose the effect.

I've got mainly LPS and softies, and just added my first sps frag. The existing corals love these lights. Mine are about 4" inches of the water and I've had no problems with lighting the areas I want light.

cheers

Chris

 

[jnarowe]

Hey Tom, just a thought, that you may have already had, but I "order" fish from my LFS. When you find one that you trust, you tell them what you want and have them do the legwork. Once they verify that they have your fish on the way, you meet the shipment when it comes in.

 

[Sparkss]

Chris
Due to structural issues we cannot easily lower the T5s to where they apparently need to be. Due to our mesh top and other items lowering the lamps would restrict/remove ready access to the tank. Our two most aparent options are to either lower the bulbs or raise the corals. Neither of which are really feasible at this time . We are exploring other options and are very much open to suggestion

Jonathan
the downsides to that are that they likely have the fish in transit longer than when we order them ourselves. And the LFS would charge us 4X more than we pay when we order them ourselves, and without any addedd guarantees or benefits . When we order them we basically do same day shipping out of Hawaii. The collector puts them on the plan that morning (or the previous evening for a morning pickup by us) and I meet the shipment at the airport and head straight home to start acclimating them.

 

[jnarowe]

BUT, you would know that it survived the trip...I understand what you are saying, but getting them alive after the plane ride is at least something.

 

[Sparkss]

We have never had one arrive DOA, although that is always a possibilty . They all failed to acclimate to the new tank and perished within a day or so, which is what the leopards are known for . It was found to typically be due to the damaging of their mouths, either in transit, or in holding at the originating facility (when they try to "bury" themselves in sand that isn't there). Once that happens they can't/won't forage and eat. Other causes are general stress over the shipping leading to eventual death.

 

[jnarowe]

that is very discouraging. didn't Sanjay get one a couple of months ago? I wonder how his is doing? What's interesting is that I see them locally occassionally.

 

[Sparkss]

leopards locally, sure, Potters leopards specifically ?, possible but unlikely.

Sanjay got in a Blue Star and Black leopard, IIRC. There are multiple places to get the Blue Star leopards locally. I even had an opportunity to get a pair of them two weekends ago, but declined since I knew we were having another go at the Potters. Just as with any fish species there are many different of each kind, all with their various nuances (like some angels are relatively reef safe while others are most definitely not). Potters leopard wrasses just happen to be one of the fish that we really want to keep, we love it's markings and coloration out of all of the leopard wrasses. (our red tailed tamarin is not a true leopard, it just shares the body shape and diet with them). The Potters just also happen to be one of the more delicate of the leopards. Once they get established they are usually pretty hardy fish (from what we hear). We just need to get past that 1 month mark with them (or one week mark *sigh* ).

Before we try again we will be trapping out the ornate wrasse and either selling him and replacing him with a new, smaller one, or just keep our current one in the fuge for a month while the Potters get good and established (and well recovered from shipping).

 

[spazz]

sorry to hear about the lepord wrasse. there a very hard one to ship. if you order any more of them have them ship them with sand in the bag. it will really help alot. they dont try and burrow into the bag the entire time there in transit. that is the big problem. they wear them selves out trying to burrow into the bag and they use up most of the oxygen and show up in very poor shape. clean sand is all they need to be happy while in transit. then there chances of survival go up by 50% or more.
so what is the verdict on the skimmer???? is it finally doing is job properly???? what kind of skimmate are you producing with the added bio load???? the tank looks better in the pics.

 

[Sparkss]

After adjusting the skimmer, return pump and sump the tank cleared up significantly. I got majorly sidetracked with work and finally got around to cleaning the skimmer cup a couple of days ago and wow was that some seriously nasty stuff in there. Even with an active drain and wet skimming there was some "sludge" that "stuck around" and boy did it stink !! We did have some weird event just recently where the skimmer overflowed. There is always a chance of the water level changing dramatically when gravity feeding. I checked everything and it doesn't appear to be anything to do with the drain from the skimmer back to the sump (and the gate valve on the output pipe was/is wide open). And the flow was draining to the sump just fine (Taht I could see), so I suspect maybe the return pump itself fluctuated (which we have seen happen from time to time). The event itself was minor and I didn't even really notice any salinty change from it. I have been watching it closely and have not seen any recurrences of it. Scott had mentioned some time ago that several other people had reported voltage fluctuations causing their return pumps to pump at different rates, which can have the exact same affect as what we saw. If it happens again I will break out the kill-o-watt meter and compare the readings against what I noted back when we first set it up.

I will say that before the new body arrived we had some minor cyano in the corners and on one wall near the powerhead. A week after the new body as in place and adjusted and there is not any sign at all of the cyano (and I never touched, syphoned or cleaned it myself). So I would definitely say that it made a difference !!

 

[jnarowe]

Nice report Tom. I wonder about the over-skimming. Mine does it occassionally, but I have always just suspected that it was related to salinity or lack of oils in the skimmer. Mine is an entirely different design from the Volcano, but I also feed via gravity from my overflow, and when I adjust the flow down, it stops the over-skimming. I think I have the effluent gate valve wide open, but I will check on that.

The discussion of electrical current is interesting. Our electrical supply is far from consistent, so maybe there is some truth to that. The strange thing is that when I installed Penductors, my net flow through the overflow went down quite a bit, and I had to choke a drain to get enough water to the skimmer. BUT, this change in water flow did not affect skimming performance.

 

[spazz]

there is alot of fluctuation in the power grid. it gets worse in bigger cities. NYVP had that problem really bad with his system. the only wayto cure it was to put a ups on his main pump to control the voltage and hz of the power going to the main pump. this made the voltage stable and steady tothe pump and he doesent have any skimmer flooding problems any more. the other way to cure that problem is to install a auto shut down system into the cup. when the skimmate gets too high inthe skimmer cup it shuts down the main skimmer pump. this makes a cubic foot of water heaver in the skimmer and forces more out of the output pipe per minute.
im glad to hear that the skimmer is ding its thing and your getting the sludge out.

 

[jnarowe]

I HAD to install an air pump shutdown by doing a FV in the collection bucket. Too many floods. That is a good suggestion to put a UPS on the return pump. I think I have 12 of those already in the house!

 

[spazz]

you have to have a ups with a voltage regulator in it so the voltage will stay constant all the time. im not sure which one that NYVP has for his system but it does not alow voltage spikes or drops in the line power. it will regulate it to allways be 120 volts.