lastlight's 209

[b09u5]

Welcome back! Looking great!

[Skimmerking]

[lastlight]

Wow my journal is still on page one of this sub-forum without a new post in months. Wow wow lol.

Figured I'd throw an fts in here so I have something to compare to down the road. My algae battles with this tank were soul-crushing but things are much better these days. I can tell I'm finally getting to that point where everything's sorta deciding it can start growing. The coral figures maybe you've earned some satisfaction. Most frags are still teeny but it's great to see the growth starting to pickup. I still don't have much in the way of SPS... going to see how my easy pieces do for a while longer before going much deeper down that rabbit hole.

Currently running 8 rows of T5 with just a strip of DIY adhesive-backed LEDs down the middle for a bit of day and evening light. I plan to add something with a strong blue pop in the future. Maybe the Reef Brite Lumilite etc.

[chizerbunoi]

looks great. I'm sure it's a great pleasure to your family. Do you still have the leopard wrasse?

[lastlight]

Originally Posted by chizerbunoi

looks great. I'm sure it's a great pleasure to your family. Do you still have the leopard wrasse?

Thanks! The leopard died about a month ago sadly. I think it was about 7 years old. My naso also just up and stopped eating shortly after. Went from pig to nothing overnight and a day later was gone. Very strange and everyone else is doing great.

[gregzz4]

I did a re-start back in July 2019 so I hear ya about new tank issues. Still going through stages right now.

Real shame to hear about your fish losses. I also had a couple unexplained ones last fall - both long-term resident wrasses. I'm no longer adding garlic power to their frozen foods. No other ideas about what happened as they were sudden losses as yours were.

[FishyFishy!]

My favorite fish!!!! Glad to see she's looking good!

Tank looks good too. Love the cabinetry.

[WarDog]

Originally Posted by lastlight

Just incredible! I still can't get over how many builds you've done.

[lastlight]

Thanks guys. Yeah cutting that tank apart was a learning experience. I recall it went pretty fast once we got the guitar string going!

I actually like going back through old builds for fun sometimes which is why I've made sure all the pics remain on my server. I'm a lot more patient / easy-going with things now which is both good and bad. It makes for fewer and less exciting updates since I'm really not adding or doing much besides letting things grow (the first year of this one didn't really see the kind of growth I'd have expected). If I still had a macro lens and I was spending more on corals like I used to I'd prob be more on top of making some sort of update more regularly.

I have been busy removing all the sand the past month or so. My orange shoulder loves to eat sand then crap it all over my corals and some don't like that too much. I'm being really OCD too and I've been siphoning it out almost nightly for the past month to see if I can truly get it all. I siphon into a mesh bag hanging in a 5g bucket. That bucket then has a small pump putting water back into my sump before the filter sock. In this way I can siphon/turkey baste/siphon sand for hours without having to shut anything down. It's the last 1% which is mostly sand fines that is keeping me busy right now but I am determined! After I blast a few more grains out from under or inside a rock the tang tries to eat it. He follows me around for the whole process it's quite funny.

[lastlight]

Alright I tried a tiny bit harder to make these phone shots a bit sexier but... they are what they are lol.