Nice new fish there Trina! Hope you have better luck than I did with the watanabei. After I got them I dug a little deeper reading on them, and they are pretty hard to keep alive the first couple months. Males are worse than females. I lost a pair of them in QT a while back after they were initially eating great. Such a nice looking fish though. Will look great in your big tank.

I hope so!!

Exciting news - I have an egg... a cuddlefish egg!!! No idea if it will hatch, but from the size of the egg, when it does hatch, it should be a fairly decent size. Kinda cool though!

What! Reallyy?!! That's wicked I have always wanted a cuttlefish to raise, where did you come across the egg? Great looking fish btw, I have always wanted a boxfish but I'm afraid to put them into the reef.

Really nice angel Trina. And that Aussie brain you got looks exactly like mine. They just glow with intensity! Mine ate a piece of mysis tonight which was kinda cool.

Got it at RC!! In the back tanks I was asking about the grape looking things in tank, turned out they were cuttlefish eggs!

Is the aussie brain the green one?! haha I am not sure what some of them are... haven't finished reading my "Aquarium Corals; Selection, Husbandry, and Natural History" text yet... Still on the fish health book. That green one looks prety cool when its feeder tentacles come out tho! I give it some mysis every once in awhile too.

30G springs "a leak"
 

Oh holy crap!! My 30G blew up tonight at about 6pm. What a disaster haha. I was sitting on the couch in the living room and heard this SHHHHHHH, so I yelled at Marcellus to see what the hell is was doing. Then the dog ran into the office, I followed and I see water... Holy eff!! Then I really yelled at Marcellus and had him hold the side of the tank that had come apart and ran downstairs to get a long piece of hose then threw in the water pump into the tank and pumped the rest of the water out of the tank into sink. I left a couple inches for the fish and whatever to keep alive while we cleaned up the water. It amazing how fast that thing drained... 10G or so out in seconds. Then I hauled the live rock, fish and corals and dumped er in the 90G. Sucks losing this tank, because it was so cute, but the corals, I have to admit... look way more awesome in the 90G lighting than under my T5's!! Just brilliant. Fish, shrimp, and anemones all seem to be surviving. SPS are protesting in their usual way, but I am sure everyone will have settled down by tomorrow.

I'll do a water change and redo the carbon this weekend to keep everyone happy.

Other updates..

*Watanabe jumped... sucks, and there goes $100 yay
*1 blue chromis MIA, and 1 blue chromis found a new home (fish store)
*I major suck at quarantining... the spotted boxfish must have had a spot of ick, good luck finding that, and my tank has ich again. This will be super awesome catching all these fish in a much larger tank, which is also packed with live rock... Since its a jumbled hodge podge, I'll just take all the LR out when I want to catch them and medicate them AGAIN.
* Cuddlefish egg hatched while I was on holidays, haven't seen him since. Probably died as the tanks were on auto fish feeders.
* ATO's rule the friggen school magne!! LOVE THESE THINGS
* I also have my automated fish feeder still going once a day... nice alleviation from multiple daily feedings. So they now get a mid day pellet feeding, and I feed them their frozen plankton in the evenings.


And I watched Finding Nemo the other day, I think I like the movie even more now that I have my own mini reef.

Sorry to read the bad news Trina that's brutal. So a seam just went on the tank randomly? That's terrifying. I guess say a little prayer of thanks it wasn't the 90g! Good luck with the recovery...

Everybody survived, corals included with the exception of two birdsnest frags, still have three others so its all okay.

The 90 is a jumble of rocks right now though, I am not entirely looking forward to re-landscaping!!! I need a plan of sorts to stack the rocks in some fashion that is aesthetically favourable, but haven't come up with anything yet. If you have any winning ideas please feel free to pass along! Drawings would be preferable, the tank measures 4' x 18" or something like that. :lol: You'll get an amazing prize if you win, how does a 3D marine fish bookmark sound?!! Awesome, I know.

Fish are all doing good. Oh, I got a new fish today, a stellar looking Lubbocks Fairy Wrasse. Very bright pink.

I think I've already mentioned this, but I love love love my lighting system, its a metal halide / fluorescent / LED combo. My corals look way more bright and are growing way faster too, instead of under just T5's. My anemone's also like this lighting system better too.

That tank crash SUCKED though, I actually considered getting out of the hobby entirely. I am over it now though. And back!! hiyeee!!!

Oh come on now. You like...throw yourself off the side of mountains buckled into a bicycle and stuff. We know you're up for a challenge. There should be nothing that fits into a 90g that's capable of defeating you!

Glad to hear most things made it. Toss a blindfold on and start moving rocks until it works lol.

bazinga!

Alright its been awhile! I have been harrassed by Brett to update this! haha

90G is still up and running! Had a bout of unhappiness when my protein skimmer decided to not work for awhile. Its back working again, as of tonight actually! I bought a new impeller for it, but I think it was just a simple matter of the airline being clogged... :lol:

I am looking forward to the tank looking pretty again. Still haven't done my aquascaping... lol I will tackle that beast soon!

Had an issue while I was away in Orlando... And then the protein skimmer decided to overflow rather dramatically this morning... The tank is getting shut down. I wish I had more time / money to get everything set up properly - like a sump etc. But, it just isn't going to happen for awhile, so this tank is going to get taken down until I am able to have the time to take care of a tank properly.

So, I have some stuff for sale. Will post later on.

Will sell live rocks / fish first of course.

Oh no!.....sorry to hear Trina:sad:

Aww that sucks. Best of luck with real life tho and hopefully you're back in the game soon =)

sorry to hear that as well.

Too much fun with those hamster balls I guess. :)

After moving stuff around to dismantle easier, I had a massive change of heart. I also found a really large and dead mexican turbo snail... which was not helping matters, but seredipitous.

Anyways, this is embarrassing considering the very small amount of elapsed time... but... I change my mind. LOL There is no way I can sell my aquarium. Even though it is a lot of work right now with my schedule, I would miss it too much. :redface:

Here's the deal though, I obviously need a better set up. And need some help at it - don't understand sumps etc. So, I'll save my pennies and work towards a "tank upgrade" which is proper and without floods.

I'll be talking to a few of you... who I know have massive aquariums on expensive flooring... :wink:

Game on!

You can't 'come back' without pictures. Even of the dead mexican...anything!

No pickcha's, no pickcha's!!

Algae outbreak central!

Here's the plan of action:
* Get rid of mechanical filtration system! (or put something else in it?? I remember Doug mentioning that its best to put crushed rock in these, and I said that I would clean my filters once per week - that didn't happen)
* Try out a GFO reactor
* Try a mangrove
* Replace water system filters
* Massive water change with rock "hair cut"
* Only frozen food, and less of it.

Wow I suck at this reef thang right now lol

Comments encouraged on my plan!! I feel like I have no idea what I am doing anymore lol Old tank syndrome... complete.

PS. I don't have a sump YET. Going to work with Jay soonish to build a new fancy tank.


If someone does suggest putting rocks in mechanical filtration system rather than the foam pads, please advise on how to break up said rocks.... I've tried using a hammer, and it didn't work out how I had hoped.

Trina,

In my opinion, I would not go with mangrove because i don't think it is worth it for couple reasonss

1) You need to run lots of them to export nutrient. For heavy stock, i think you need like 1 per gallon. Lots of ppl say 1 per 10 gallon but with my reef setup, i found I need way way more. I took them off after using them for one year because pellets was much easier and more efficient. I prefer Cheato over them

2) They consumes lots of Mg so you will need to dose Mg regularly to keep your Calc and Alk stable.
3) you need to trim of the leaves to prevent it falling into your sump

Why not using chaeto instead of mangrove?


Just my 2 cents

Ohh, okay, ya I would like to keep things as simple as possible.

So maybe stick with the GFO reactor, and throw in some chaeto.

I think I was going to get some from Levi last summer, but had scheduling issues... Maybe I should check with him again.

Thanks for the advice!

i can cut you some free chaeto if you need

Welcome to ghetto reefing 101, im saving my pennies for a none hang-on tank, but there are a few other things in life more pressing right now, but im running two hang-on 110s, a psk100h skimmer and my tank is looking good, if I can do it, I know you can. If you need ghetto advice, I can hand that out, its free!

i hate hang-on skimmer because it creates micro bubble. Best way is to setup just like how Kien does with his tank lol

My tank produces hardly any micro bubble problems, its very nice actually to have that change.. hang on skimmers getting better all the time.

The skimmer is okay, it makes some bubbles but they dissapate fairly well in this little buckets lined with foam that the water falls into.

I have a mechanical filtration system that is like a box that sits under the tank. It works REALLY well, the problem is that I don't, and it gets clogged with crap and throws the nitrates / phosphates right back into the aquarium. The algae are all for this system, but we are at war, so I don't care what they think.

Ohhh and yes, I would love free Chaeto!!!!

Thank you!! :lol:

Alright so:

*New filters for the RODI are ordered! Actually getting them for free, my dad needs a bunch for his systems so I hopped on that order haha
*Mechanical filtration system is off the system
*Reactor with GFO ordered!

Now... to wait... till it arrives! Hurry up BRS!!! I love all the video clips they have telling you how things work.

Interestingly, I checked the City of Calgary website for water content and their Nitrite / Nitrate levels are anywhere between 0.01 to 10ppm. They didn't report phosphate.

I had another snail die, the "regular" turbo snail. I have a snail pandemic, and everyone else has a clam pandemic. My clam is fine! But I haven't added anything to my tank for quite awhile, so didn't catch "the bug" or whatevers going on.

Really looking forward to having a cute tank again and filling it up with some more sweet corals!!

And im sure we are all looking forward to some awesome photos of a happy tank

My ole fixture looks great on your tank, very nice indeed.