Couple nighttime PE

[Delphinus]

Yeah, I think back to the time you first posted your wicked nice tank setup and I thought, "no way does this guy have little kids." And then you go and tell me that you do.

My little guy is 2.5 and I cannot do a thing to the tanks that he doesn't want to help with. He rolls my nori onto the nori sticks, he feeds the tank and yesterday he absolutely had to help me acclimate my two newest additions (two juvy flame angel's).

Of course, at this age, they absolutely feed off their parents and if they see you working at something you enjoy, it cannot be helped that some of it would rub off on them. Kudos to you my friend for sticking with things even when it got trying with the dinos (believe you me, I don't know what I'd do if I got dinos in my tanks now that I have wee one(s) running about).

I still maintain I can't get a lot done in terms of the building my basement part because...well .. if I swing a hammer, someone else has to swing one too... and.. I'm just not ready for a 2.5 year old swinging a hammer around about a half dozen glass boxes ...

[niloc16]

acclimating new additions is the most fun with the kids, my son is 3.5 and daughter is 1.5 and both of them hover over the buckets talking to the new additions. i guess they think it helps when they say, "its ok, you'll have new friends soon". the hardest part for me having them around is when i'm up my ladder doing stuff in the tank the 2 of them feel they HAVE to climb the ladder as well. next thing i know one is pushing the other over the side and i have to grab onto them while holding the frag in place to glue and then i have water running down my armpit and i lose the frag anyway into the sand, they are screaming at each other and then i have to send them away. and it starts all over again

blaster - i dont know exactly one thing that did the dinos in. the final draw was an 8 day blackout with about 4 hours in between of light. looking back on that, the blackout is why i lost most of stuff because there was so much dino's and such a huge die off they polluted the tank and wiped everything out and i was not running alot of carbon or chemipure at the time to help absorb it. but all together i did a ton of stuff with the blackout being the most effective. here is a list if you guys havent read it yet of all that i did

replaced all ro/di filters twice
extra water changes
less water changes
shutoff CA reactor
cleaned all pumps and adjusted flow patterns
reduced feeding to every 3 or 4 days (poor cleaner shrimps suffered from this and became fish food)
chemi clean (which did nothing for it at all except kill off a clam)
tested any type of water associated with the tank.
replaced MH bulbs
reduced photoperiod
major sandbed syphoning (more then usual)
trochus snails (very very bad idea because the dinos killed them all in about a week, another great waste of money)
couple bottles of jack daniels for myself
blackout for 8 days. i had only planned on a blackout of about 3 or 4 but i kept checking the dinos and it took a full 8 days for it to be completely gone.

then a week later there was small spot on the sandbed again and a tiny bit on the back wall. i syphoned the sandbed area and now it hasnt returned and on the back wall the dinos went away on their own.

[michika]

Very cute photos! I am amused by the lounge pants!

[niloc16]

michika you werent suppose to look at the pants remember

[niloc16]

i forgot to mention this too. not that i recommend blackouts but after that length of time with no light and now i think its been about a week and a half maybe 2 weeks now with lights on, i'm getting wicked growth out the sps and even ones that are slow growers. maybe i should black out the tank every couple months to get some growth spurts

[hillbillyreefer]

Not sure what it is about kids and reef tanks but they sure love 'em. Mine are 1.5 and 4 years, they spend hours looking for new stuff in the tanks. They pretty much ignore the fresh tanks. The 4 year old was super mad the other day cause she couldn't help pull algae. I finally had to get a rock out of the small fuge and let her clean it. The 1.5 year old loves to help with water changes, meaning pull the hose out of the jug while I'm busy syphoning. Oh well it's all good fun.

Hope the tank keeps coming along Colin. Looks pretty incredible compared to my GHA factory.

Brad

[niloc16]

i agree brad. when company comes over my son has to tell them the names of the fish (real names not made up ones) and what is coral and what is liverock. then he points out snails, starfish, crabs, algae (which i wish he didnt). its pretty cool

[michika]

Originally Posted by niloc16

michika you werent suppose to look at the pants remember

Can't help it They just draw your eyes in

[Snappy]

Collin, I must have missed the thread about this. What happened?

[niloc16]

yeah greg i lost in total about a instant ocean bucket of corals over the past month or so. for 2 months i was battling dinoflagellates that got really really bad. i tried everything and finally when i blacked out the tank it was the final draw and it killed the dinos but they in turn took out tons of $ in corals by polluting the tank. i only have 2 frogspawns (half of their heads died too) that are recovering, all other lps gone and a lot of sps gone. not fun i tell ya