3 month update:
Left Side
Middle
Right Side
Side Shot
Full Tank Shot (FTS)
New Frag Tank - you can see some of the red algae I've been fighting in here
New Frag tank - I have some of the monti-mix frags going
New Frag Tank
Updated Basement equipment shot
New Ranco Heater Controller that I built from scratch for $75 total.
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Additions:
-1 juvenile scopas tang (getting along quite well)
-1 Rose Bubble Tip Anemone (picked him up for $100)
-1 pajama cardinal fish (buddy of my bangaii cardinal)
-1 pistol shrimp (for the watchman goby, but I see neither)
-20 small peppermint shrimp (never seen again, aptasia still persists)
-12-16 true turbo snails
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Losses:
-2 giga clams (sold - not enough room in tank!)
-2 mushrooms (blew away somewhere w/in 24 hrs, GRRrrr!)
-2 small SPS colonies RTN'd, unknown reasons
-50% of one of my large green montipora RTN'd overnight, dunno why
-2 neon gobies dissapeared (probably in the sump somewhere)
-1 small pink feather duster (died before it was in my tank I think)
-1 blue starfish (I'm done trying starfishes, they keep dying on me even w/ slow acclimations)
*I noticed most of my losses are due to things falling down or getting lost in my giant tank, or frags may get stung by eachother or aptasia?
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Equipment changes:
-additon of a frag tank, 2-39W ATI bulbs run by a cheap hellolights setup. The setup grows frags out quite nicely, and my frag tank is quickly overflowing.
-Construction of a heater controller using a $60 ranco controller. Took me about $75 total to build the device. This is saving me a TON of energy (as many of my heaters failed, and several would turn on when they should not, driving my temperature to 80-82F!)
-I still alternate with ATI blue plus and blue specials (14K & 20K's) (1-white:2-blue) and changed bulbs recently, I change when they go down from 900lux to 500-400 lux zone.
-Sulfur reactor placed inside sump because of annoying small leak, still finicky, still annoying to tweak, but it helps my nitrates.
-Now dosing Vodka (9ml/day currently), been doing this two months, no change in nitrate yet, being slow and persistent. I'll give up at 6 month point if nothing changes.
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Paramaters:
8-9 dkh alk
425-450ppm calc
8.2-8.4 ph
1250-1350ppm mg
2.5-5ppm nitrate (still fighting to get to 0)
79-80F steady
1.025sg salinity
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The achilles tang project:
-Fat, active and healthy.
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Solved Problems:
-red hair algae in refugium destroyed via turbo snails
-red lettuce type algae, dissapeared
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Persisting Problems:
-APTASIA, lemon juice injection and 20 peppermint shrimp later, still rampant... I miss you copperband butterfly... come back... but don't eat my duster or zoas. Considering a different type of butterfly, but none sound safe?!
-urchins knocking over frags on occassion only to be lost in the abyss afterward
-red hair algae in frag tank
-Dinoflagellates, may be coming back, not sure yet
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Future Additions:
*tank is too full!
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Plans:
-start selling frags soon!
-buy a good underwater olypmus camera for frag selling?
-setup a small 5-2.5G office tank (softies/no fish or FOWLR)
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Notes:
-pulling out about 1 gallon of dark skimmate/week
-LED tank was attached to the sump for a few months, did a good job of keeping SPS frags alive, but they did not grow as fast as the T5 non overdrive cheapo light. I took this LED tank down and put it away, it's too much of a pain for me to keep w/ this system.
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Observations
*My SPS are growing so fast that it's actually kind of annoying now. I have to prune bi-weekly MINIMUM. Otherwise they start touching and killing eachother. Pruning is an exercise in frustration. Many of the times when I go to clip a branch, the ENTIRE mother colony will fall off the rock or snap at the base. This is a serious problem I have yet to solve, because attaching a 10" frag is not an easy task... I don't know how to do it basically, so I just have to kind of wedge them in and hope they attach. I broke several gorgeous colonies doing this the other week.
*The clarki clown and hippo tang have taken to digging large holes in the substrate by wiggling their tails... I have no idea why, but I stopped filling them back in.
*There is a cave where some fish go to be cleaned by the cleaner shrimp, the hippo tang digs the cave deeper for him.
*The clarki clown has dual citizenship between the rose/green bubble tipped anemones.
*I moved the green BTA to the right side of the tank to put the more colorful rose in the middle. I had to tear part of the foot of the anemone to get it off. Both halves recovered and now I have two. One in the frag tank and one in the display. Wiered, I thought for sure the tiny chunk I ripped off and literally threw into the frag tank would die... guess not.
