Blacknifes 50g Battle of SPS learning

[blacknife]

Killed a few birds with one stone today.

at least there were no more fish involved.

problem 1: Christmas tree coral :shrinking like crazy.
Problem 2: HOB refugueum that i had nothing to do since i went sump-less
problem 3: lots of hoses and extra power-head in the sump for Phosphate remover+carbon reactor.
problem 4: Cyano and problem algae in the fugue/sortie tank.


solution 1: Isolate non-photosynthetic coral and increase feeding since its not getting enough in the DT.

Solution 2: use HOB fugue to put the coral in.

Solution 3: Plumb the reactors and the HOB off the return, thus freeing up power-heads.

Solution 4: Re-organize freed up power-heads so there is more flow in the tank and the Fugue, hopefully curing the cyano.


So now I guess its time to sit back and see how things work out. The HOB has a small powerhead and heater in it, and I will probably get some more LR rubble. I will try to give it lots of little feedings and the extras can slowly drip out into the system.

I got a few frags from Dez's fragapoloza last week so far all but one look good. Superman monti is starting to brown a little but i kind of expected that.

I have my eyes on new lights for the dt in the very near future.

When that happens i am thinking seriously about modifying the stand, plumbing my old 33 into the system where the 15g fugue is, and putting the fugue above the 2 tanks just as a fugue instead of a fugue/softie/beginner frag tank. Might have to rename it Frankentanks but that's ok because its sitting in my unfinished basement.


To add to the madness the girlfriends sister gave the gf a 50 gallon tank.. which is now full of Fresh water, she plans to start easy, i keep telling her it should be salt so she can have the seahorses shes all ways wanted but she doesn't need extra babies right now with our second one coming out next Monday.

[blacknife]

Baby is out, came out early, brought on by food poisioning or something from some bad fish.

I picked up a 38tall with hopes of redoing the sump for my system.

turns out i forgot to take into account the black trim when deciding it would fit in the stand the glass is 12" the opening in the stand is 12" the trim takes up an extra 1/4" on each side. doh

so I have a new vision

There is room enough room between the DT and the wall and then to the door to the mancave that i could put the 40 there, with only a couple inches overlap in the corner. draining to my 33 as a LRR at the same height, and tied to the 20 gallon sump from the main tank.

i can probably push the tank back towards the wall so there is no overlap, Just have to wait till i have the sump off to drill and drain off most of the water quickly.

Just have to draw up a quick sketch of the stand to figure out how much wood i need, and wait till i have hole saws and the guts to drill.

Tank would be FOwlr or perhaps low light, preadatory reef with the PC lights that are currently on the 40.

the sump should then be able to handle the drainage from all three tanks, and there will be lots more room to play in.

[blacknife]

Got glass hole saw..

got crazy

decided to go with the added sump water,

made a "stand" to put the new refugieum the same hight as my sump.

lined up and marked holes.

drilled the empty tank..

Making a new big batch of water to fill it up.

tomorrows project.. drain and clean the sump then drill it and re-pumb everything that needs re-plumbing.

I think i will attempt to make some of the rock for in there, i will see how that goes. but for now it can just be extra water for stability.

[blacknife]

All projects got derailed by going on a week of storm callout down south the next day.

Came back and my new/used lights were in the post office. 6 bulb nova extreme. they look great and i swear i can see growth on some of the sps after a week of having them.

15g addon is on lights off and all it is housing is the tube anenome, gorilla crab, and a hermit. it had the softies, some lr and the cheato in it with standard flourescents but it seemed to just want to grow cyano and diatoms. the sandbed is black in it and i am not sure what to do. might just take it offline, rebuild the stand and put one of the bigger tanks there. might just leave things the same.

Main tank looks good same small little patches of HA but its not spreading at all and i can deal with that. If the "easier" sps that are in there keep doing good i might have to try a couple little harder ones.

I want to setup the other tanks as either an addon or separate. I was thinking all the low light corals could go in the other tank. I would like the ease of having a common sump but wondering if the long term health of some of the hard corals would be better if i left the softies in a separate tank instead of just using carbon.

[TheKid]

You are really dedicated, good job!

[blacknife]

Down to one tank.

Failure of the day....


looking at the plumbing of the return from the 15 gallon.. thought i put a union in it when i put the tank together after the flooding incidents of a few months ago. barely touched the plumbing... cracked the tank.

I was looking to move it so i could put the 40 tall beside the 40 breeder and leave the 15 a fuge.. but now.. i just have the 40 b. and room to build everything.


on a side note took my kid on a tour today to all the fishstores. all i got were 2 acro frags and some salt.


playing with everything to get the rock from the 15 back in the 40 messed my flow up and i cant find a spot to make my alveoporia happy. everything else is settled in and normalizing.



that sand in the 15 was pretty rank. it was nothing like that when i moved the 33 into the 40 and split the sand between the 2 i wonder why it ripened up so fast.

[blacknife]

i took a pic of milli that has stringy stuff on it, found a different way to use the camera to get good macro shots.. decided to go back and take more pictures only to discover the mj1200 fell off its suction cups and fell on some stuff and sprayed sand everywhere..


yay fun times..