meh.. nothing spectacular going on. still have the slime/sludge algee.

grabbed some biopelets on the drive home last night.. started them up today. got a new phosphate test kit yesterday too. elos, tested higher than 0, but lower than 1 could not decide if it was lighter or darker than the .5 . At least thats better than the no change ever i used to get with my last kit. Still need a new nitrate test kit since that one keeps testing at 0 too.
last dosage of prodibio goes in tomorrow, ill have to see if things kick up a little extra with the pellets in there and decide if i will stick with that or not.

Corals are looking .. so so.. most of my lps are thriving. zoo's are mostly doing ok<i see some more than others> sps frags .. some are holding their color still and some are looking worse. I will try to take a few pictures this afternoon since i have time today.

the dreaded phone call.
 

so its night 2 of working on the road "temporarily" till there is work in my area again and bam call from the wife


"there is water all over the floor and i don't know where its coming from."

<yelling and screaming from both partys ensues>


turns out my largest hermit crab somehow got past the pad that covers the over flow and decided to try to crawl into the return and block it off completely.

this tank has scared me before with its single return.

so i guess i am on the market for a new tank. I have a 75 lined up in calgary that is 36x18x24 so will fit right where this 40b is. i wanted to keep the 40 plumbed in but i think it will have to be re-drilled for safety if i do that. problem is i don't go to calgary often.

also gonna have to get the girlfriend to somehow pay more attention to what i do to the tank. i had her all talked through how to make it do good for the week to 10 days ill be gone this time but that did not include another bought of water all over the floor. this happened a few weeks after getting this tank originally.

The salinity is down a little 1.021 from 1.026 but i think she can handle slowly brining that back up. I think that was the first time she checked that ever.

ugh

at least i don't have to make an emergency drive the 3 hours home and three hours back to work.

sorry to hear about your issues, though on your new tank install a beananimal overflow...three drains off of a coast to coast overflow. the thing is amazing and runs mega quiet. google it and you will see for yourself :)

also in your display you may want to consider a float switch to turn off the return once the display water gets over a certain height. Safety first my friend :)

I am familiar and a fan of the bean, might not be on this next tank but perhaps the one after.

never thought of a float switch on the return. will have to hook that up asap heh

that.. and water on floor switches and other great controller options ..

must make money to spend it on fish tank... ... ...

hah, Not home yet but the GF told me that I have 2 healthy looking, same size as they looked GBTA now.

That thing has been in the tank 3 weeks and already split? she must be feeding it lots.

She also said all the lps are looking really good and the sps look about the same as when I headed out, Guess I should stop worrying about the tank so much:twised:

Plunked in an MP10 today.. dam i wish i could have afforded one earlier heh.

Everything in the tank is looking pretty good. noticed one fatality though.. the PPE i got that was starting to open up before i left disappeared.. the frag got hermit knocked over and the gf did not notice or even know it was there.

oh well. I pulled the frag rack and put scattered the sps around a bit. I will have to keep an eye on the bubble tip's if they decide to move around to much the frags will have to go back in the rack. I will try to get some update pics soon. some of my sps are starting to color up a bit more than before, so i am guessing the pellets are doing a little something something. either that or i feed more than she does.

No new pictures yet but lots of change.. heh

got bored today.. .. drilled an old 20g i had around.. bought some plumbing... played around

not what i intend to do, but.. now i got a 20g.. with a 250wmh and the mp10.. with a little rock, and most of my sps frags that have been dragging along.. plumed into the 40 that i put all the old korrilas back into.

so 20g sps tank.. hopefully the sps will do better with even more flow and don't get to shocked from change in light. none of the big crabs or other coral harasses got moved into the 20.

my 14g cube is still running but is now back in the dark, it was starting to look good with that 250 running on it the last few weeks but it will be maintained as a q-tank for now, pulled the few corals i had out and the one crab and snail i could see so it can stay that way till its needed.

I still need to suck a bit more black-nasty sand out of the 40 but i need more water for changes i guess i should have got the bigger brute than i got heh.

if everyone opens back up ill take some pics.

Egad's I am bad with the pics and posts lately, perhaps because I am unhappy with the tank.

got a couple new fish and corals over the holiday sales, everyone made it and is settled in.

still having problems with my sps but they are growing and coloring up.

haven't tested MG in forever because one of the vials was missing, finally found it today and.. .. wow.. I think thats why my sps are not growing. I was adding some liquid MG once a week or so without testing <but probably not enough> and it ran out a week or 2 ago. and i kept forgetting to buy some when i was at any store.. heh.. off to the stores i go mg of 5-600 doesn't grow corals well from what i hear.

OoO the other misadventure of the tank.

while looking at how to set up some temporary extra circuits for my tank until i move or the basement is finished realizing that 1 of the 2 circuits the tank is plugged into already is an Against code added in plug off the feed for the furnace.

but really its ok to have near maximum rated draw going to your tanks and hope everything works out every time the furnace turns on.

something missing from my basement today...


and i like it

the sound of this system roaring and gurgling away is all gone.

curently picking little bits of life out of the sand before i get rid of it.


everything has been crammed into my 50g and looks a lot better in there.

I was going to tweak this thing out to be quiet while everything is in the other tank but i think i will just get rid of everything and save up for the next big thing.

Oh the decisions.. the old stand fits right behind the new tank.. and the 50g sump even has a hole predrilled near the top when i wanted to make it a refugieum to my old sump..

50g refugieum should have enough pods to keep a tank full forever eh?


good thing i have to drain it to move it up there gives me an hour to think about it.

Just when i thought i was ready to go to bed...
barely touched the tank and got a full 120 zap... mmM fun..
grabbed my greeny potential tester, that can usually just pick out the hot wire in a 2 conductor wire and my whole tank lights it up.. oh well start unplugging things i guess

somehow the cord for a powerhead got a nic in it and that was underwater... ugh. at least now i can sleep.

the tank still has 24-28 volts induced voltage from everything else.

one question for the electrically inclined.

if you are running off multiple GFCI

should your ground probe tie to all the gfci's?

ugh..
my sps frags are not taking the move well. I am guessing there is a mini cycle going on I'll test later this after noon..

lost 3 frags allready. a couple others are having some tissue loss but not as bad as the ones that are gone. the acro's that are not dead are browning out when they were showing color before.

all the LPS look fine.

did a 10 gallon water change so i could fill the barrel back up.

almost ready to give up on SPS until i can have a tank dedicated to them.

last week before i changed the tank over i added way to much magnesium because of old test kit i guess.

was trying to change a little water a day to lower that.

2 more frags down.. boo
4 acro's left all looking brown and no polyp extension
all but one monti's left, looking mostly healthy
1 pocci still holding on with barely any PE


MG 1800
cal 460
alk 9.5 dkh
Po4 between 0 and .05 as usual
nitrates... undetectable as usual.

cheato is still healthy green in the new fugue but the caulpurla<sp> is looking worse for the wear. im beat i get up in a few hours not doing anything about it tonight.

water change barrel is not quite up to spec tonight. hopefully tomorrow i can do a big change.

all in all im pretty ****ed off at things right now all my sps frags were looking pretty good 2 weeks ago.. grrr.

and my bio pellets are clumping on the MJ 1200. they never clumped when i had them on the old return pump

found a few .. random items in my sump.. guess its time to skirt the tank to protect from 3 year olds.. not sure if these were part of my problem.

<tweezers and 4-5 super worms that should be fed to the gekos>

culpurla totally melted and disappeared

I have the MH light that was on my 20 gallon over the fugue /frag rack but only on a couple hours a day.. with a cfl on about 12 hours a day. should i pull my brown and barely holding on acro's out from under the t-5 and put them back under the MH they were used to before the tank swap? The MH does spill over into the main tank and is on during what would be noon for the lighting hours im running


or just leave them where they are.. upper half under 6 bulb fixture and hope for the best?

the sps that survived.. are brown.. but showing good PE again.. perhaps things are looking up.

on the downside... my display looks good, the few bits of nascence algaee are disappearing slowly.

the Fuge/fragtank is a cyano factory.

things are being remodelled this weekend.. the fugue used to be my sump.. but it would not fit in the old tank stand.. it does fit in the new tanks stand.. i do not know why i did not move it there when i changed tanks.

stuff in fugue will be temporally rehomed for the night.

sump is off right now.. internet distracted me

moving the fugue to the sump.. thus saving me buying a new pump for the return since i have been runing off an underpowered powerhead.

also rehoming many of the softies. t ruing to sell a few or just start a nano again.

one question about chemical warfare, do any of you avid sps keepers have lots of Zoa's and pally's in the same water column or should they be rehomed to the softie tank too?

Everything looks happy after the last rearrange. SPS in the frag tank are growing <for once> and starting to color up. SPS in the display are growing but do not have as much PE as the ones in the frag tank.

the only thing i am not happy with is how much sand my female maroon is kicking up.

I want to get some SPS to replace the ones that died but i need to wait a paycheck or 2.

Shut down the Frag rescue tank last night and put everything back into the display. I left the frag tank plumbed in but until there is enough in my tank to justify running a 250w MH light on the frag tank i might as well save my money for an extra frag or 2 a month. Perhaps if my 40b does not sell I will start re drilling that for a bean overflow and put that up instead of the 20 for a frag tank or perhaps FOWLR.

I glued everything into hopefully good spots and left a few small well weighted frags just on the sanded.

My 2 across that survived have more color then they have had since i got them, hopefully they stay that way under the t5h0. I tried to put them fairly high because they were very high under the MH in the frag tank.

I am having issues with the TLF reactor for pellets. one side keeps sticking and turning color's against the wall no many times a day i try to give the reactor a shake. I guess this means i need to get a new reactor in the next few months or perhaps switch to zeo just to give it a try.

epic fail.. new mj1200
 

rare update.

well the tank budget is pretty tight lately but things are slowly looking better. i decided to try one of those new mj1200 for flow to free up a smaller pH to put in the frag tank

the ball joint contraption they use will not even hold the pump up so i tried the suckies which have held smaller mj's for longtime in my tanks.

moved a few rocks around to make sure no corals were in the direct flow.
check this morning everything looks good

come home and bam.. the thing fell off the glass sometime today and made one of the milli's i got a month ago half flow dead.

oh well

oh yeah im running the frag tank again. i moved all the lps and zoa's to the lower 2 shelves, left the mandarin in there and put sps bits on the top shelf if they look like they need some McHalide loving. not giving up but frustrated at my lights things in the frag tank look ok when i try to put them in the display some of them really slow down growth. one of the accro's that keeps getting color in the frag tank gets bleached looking in the display.
Might have to prioritize getting some new lights at some point, like those clone oddeseey mh/t5 combos or DIY some led's up.

the frags i got from dez a month ago or so are all still holding their basic colors, though a little less vibrant and still have PE though slowly seeming to be less.

alk was low last night 6.5. slowly bringing it up.. i guess that could make the corals bleach out a bit too eh?
meh.. trying to stay on top of things better but i do not know if much progress is being made

how is it when im home for supper.. before getting called out everything is working good.. go do 4 hours of storm chasing, come home and the tank is making funny noise and water is all over the floor but no signs of a leak


currently tired as hell but watching for a leak before i let myself even think about relaxing enough to fall asleep

The power probably went out and when it came back on it overflowed your skimmer because the sump had filled up.

figured it out... was using a filter sock while I was making mess in the tank, don't usually run one. it was below the lip of the sump but not by much. left it in there for a few days and pouf got all clogged up and drained 15 gallons on the floor.

Had a micro bubble problem just after that, after much frustration. I was ready to rip my plumbing apart and re do it. Problem being there is no valve between the sump and the pump<whoops bad jon> realized the screen on the bulkhead was plugged causing the pump to have extra suction on the bulkhead and plumbing.. or possibly to cavitate. cleaned screen problem gone.

On the weekend I empty'ed the frag tank contents back into the display. frag tank is running with just the sun coral in it right now. regular feedings of the sun coral+ 250w 14k bulb was making lots of algae. now having a minor algae attack in the display. but i had another reason to do it i will soon be tying the 40b that i cant sell in instead of the 20g frag tank i have. took the 40b apart on sunday because i want to redo the overflow. cracked the mirrored background while pulling it off.. oh well. i did not realize it was 2 thin pieces of glass and was putting uneven presure on them. single overflow 40b will be turned into herby, and the whole tank will be resealed. Not sure if i want to turn it into a frag tank or fowlr/ lps tank.

since the day of the flood i have not had my skimmer dialled back in either it keeps overflowing the bubbles all over the place.. i keep turning it down a little every day thinking it looks good then get home from work to find bubbles everywhere again.

SPS are slowly growing but brown with heavy green tint when they should not be green. I think the sun coral has to go away. I have a second mp10 and zeo reactor on the way so I was kind of hoping to wait till after I get those started before I give up on the sun coral and give it away to someone that can save it.

with the regular feedings the last week or so the polyps all come out but they are much smaller than they used to be.

I got a small starfish to keep the wife happy a few weeks ago too.. she really wanted it even though I lectured the hell out of her and told her it should not go in but it makes her happy and my son likes it too. Was told its a red chocolate chip, and thats kind of what it looks like but i can not find pictures of one on the net that looks exactly the same.

Um........chocolate chips are not reef safe:wink:

thats what the attached tank is for ... ... Gf Adds


whatever it is i have been watching it and it has not munched anything... yet

I got my zeovit reactor but it does not fit through the space into my sump.. doh. I have really wanted to redo my sump for a while though so i guess its time to DIY something up, jump on one that fits if it pops up here or get one built.

if i could find a tank with a 36x16 footprint to start with diy would be nice and easy, and keep it mostly under the stand.

I pulled my pellets out the other night when trying to get the zeo reactor in.. they are all bunched up again anways and i am sick of them. i also shut down my carbon reactor and forgot to turn it back on.

now a few days later my bali slimer has polyps where i have not seen polyps in months.

heh.



might be the second mp10wes running with the first one instead of that beast of a prop mj1200 though.

Hahaha Labour day.. the day you make more work foryourself then you planned on.
 

did a waterchange this morning.. nothing out of the ordinary it all went good, just filled up my ato last night so it was nice and full.

mindlessly plugged my ato back in after i got the water change water all leveled out.


look down a few minutes later to see the skimmer overflowing.. try to fix skimmer and realize the sump is almost overflowing... wonder WTF

I mindlessly plugged my ato pump into the wall instead of the ato unit.

so after perfectly matching my salinity and temp and doing a nice change i now have huge salinity drop. besides the 10 gallons left in the barel i just used i am also out of salt.. hehe hehe i needed an excuse to go into edmonton today anyways.

eeeeek! how many gallons of RO did you pump in?

hah leave the rock alone,



in the steady war against apistasia infiltraitors attempts were made to move full live rocks with sps frags and mini colonys to the 20g frag tank.

now the frag tank looks like a full on sps reef with fully loaded micro frag rack. the main tank looks empty with rock only going half up, and .. i dont know what to think of any of it.. why cant those dammed peppermints learn to stay in the main tank when i put them in there instead of going sump surfing.

I have also decided i do not like the look of my t5s on my main tank, beside the mh on the frag tank, still undecided on leds, but no upgradess till long after this next chittlin pops out next week.

"Why is the dead fish on the floor daddy"

What fish buddy

"The dead one from in the rock on the floor"

Mmmmm dried blennie yum yum

Sigh

phosphates 0.00 by hanna.. .wtf thats a first...


must be all that dammed algaee that grew last week.

FTS
 

I figured I should put these here as well as the fts thread so i can find them easier later.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...s/DSC_4118.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...s/DSC_4119.jpg

Might have to take a few close ups if the kids give me time after supper.

I have a sump sitting around ready to replace the one i cant stand, and glass cut silicone removed from the 40b in the garage, just have to reseal it to put it in place of the 20.

I still want to upgrade to a bigger tank but christmas has ruined that plan for a few months.

I hooked up a small fuge a few weeks ago and the light leaks out all night i think thats where all the bright green algee on the underside of the rocks on the main tank is comming from but i will probably just rearange everything when i have the new sump in so it can keep doing that for now.

Pulled my fuge offline yesterday as per zeo forum advice, halved the cheato and threw it into a 20g tank i am cycliing for a holding tank for whatever when i do the tank rearangement<swap out the sump and swap the 20 g for a 40b>, but I am also debating temporary downsizing. squishing everything into the 55, selling any lps that i am not digging getting rid of some of the fish clutter, and getting a bigger tank. My plans for the tank are so scattered its not funny heh.

I did notice one thing today though. Both my maricultiured acros that did have crabs still have crabs, but one frag/mini colony that has been in my tank 2 years and never had a crab now has a crab, that doesn't look like one ive seen yet, but is a typical acro crab looking guy.

colors are looking good, had lots of film algae yesterday after the cheato was pulled but today is about normal. I just figured by now that the cheato should be not growing but instead its been growing like crazy lately possibly competing with the zeo, only one way to find out. hopefully nothing crazy happens.

my skimmer which was doing a good job for a month or more is being finiky again.. which does not make me happy. might be the next big upgrade if i don't get a bigger tank.. and will need to be upgraded for a bigger tank anyways.

anyways, the little one is crying so this is enough of an update.

Nice stuff......great persistence and hard work. It's going to pay off for sure.

Potassium chloride came in the mail today, time to start swinging my potassium back into line. Only faith i have in the kz potassium test is....
fresh RC water... tests low end of the scale <250 or so)
tank water tests low end of the scale <250 or so>

tank water with one quarter teaspoon of KCL tests... off the chart

heh so I guess dose the tank a teaspoon or 2 a day until it stops looking potassium deficient.

on a booo hooo note.. my darth mauls decided to up and melt on friday... they came from that first haul of blue words new supplier, looked good and were multiplying till a couple weeks ago, then closed up while i was picking algae off the plug. stayed closed till last week when i moved them to a lower light area then they shrank off the face of the planet. oh well ill f ind more someday

attempt 1 at resealing the 40b = fail. overflow leaks from the bottom, oh well rip it apart and start from scratch, perhaps i will even take the panes apart this time just for practice for the next project.

hair algae on the frag racks:
-1 to hydrogen peroxide nuking zoas:snipersm:

+1 to pulling the whole rack from the mandarin/frag tank to the display hoping the snails might help. Having the evil large blue hermit crawl up 6 inches of glass to get to it, immediately throw all frags not on plugs off, tossing them into the waiting sps below that now have burns on them heh. then watching him sit on the rack for a week straight decimating all the algae. I think he has a couple more days work to have it spic and span then i think he just earned himself a spot to go clean up the other tank.


who would have thought.. the evil bastard that i have wanted to get rid of so many times would be such a good little worker if given a chance heh. I don't even mind the frag tossing, 2 emeralds, 2 smaller hermits and numerous snails in the other tank wont keep a dent in it:laluot_32:, but sneaky hermit takes the prize:third:.

on a different note, things are looking good, nutrients are still low even with no fuge, corals are coloring up ever slightly more, possibly due to the getting the potassium built up a slowly. :rainbow1:

cleaning glass for resealing tanks?
 

tonights project... clean the 40b a second time for resealing.

almost debating taking it right apart just for giggles instead of just the inside beads. so lots of the silicone <well not lots but more than one would like in a water containing device> just peeled right off. Inadequate prep of the old glass? I think i cleaned with vinegar but might not have, guess acetone is the thing to use to prep the glass to not have it fall apart?