Asylumdown's 275 Tank build

[asylumdown]

Time for an update!

tank has had a mild case of the dinos for the past month or so. It's not severe enough that anyone but me would notice it, though it did 'bloom' a little the first week of february. I had a mild heart attack at that, since I left on February 8th for 17 days for my wedding in California, but sometimes the best action is no action. My roommates took incredible care of my tank while I was gone, and while there are still dines there if you look hard enough, a change in Phos media and a thorough cleaning of the skimmer cup when I got home seems to be knocking them out altogether now. I looked at the dinos under my new microscope; I posted this in the main room, but for posterities sake, here's the pics:

1


4


While I was away, this guy (the tusk fish):


Attacked this guy (the flame wrasse):
and killed him. My roommate fed a frozen clam as a treat and the tusk and the wrasse got in a fight over it. The tusk won. I'm going to go to a bait shop this weekend to pick up some barbless hooks and see if I can't fish the tusk out of the tank. He's spent every day since I got home chasing all the other fish. I'm going to need to think hard on what I want to replace them with.

I went back and found all my FTS since I put the tank together, and I thought it would be cool to see them in one spot together. I think I've probably posted some before, but it's a cool progression

March 30, 2012 - before water:


APril 15, 2012 - Cycling


June 21, 2012 - first fish (may they RIP) and first corals. Also first signs of algae problems


August 25th -All fish removed from tank due to ich outbreak. The capture required a total break down of rock and re-scaping. Never-will-I-ever not QT fish again. One of my radions also died (hence the dark spot)


September 10 - With the fish getting hypo in the sump and the plumbing diverted away from the display, no nutrient export of any kind happened in the display tank for 5 full weeks. This was the start of something awful.


October 30, 2012 - Right around the time hypo failed (the ich came back) and I moved the fish out of the sump to a separate QT tank, something I should have done in the first place. This is what 5 weeks of no nutrient export, no algae grazing, and continued feeding will do to a tank. Coral growth utterly shut down at this point.