Blacknifes 50g Battle of SPS learning

[blacknife]

Potassium chloride came in the mail today, time to start swinging my potassium back into line. Only faith i have in the kz potassium test is....
fresh RC water... tests low end of the scale <250 or so)
tank water tests low end of the scale <250 or so>

tank water with one quarter teaspoon of KCL tests... off the chart

heh so I guess dose the tank a teaspoon or 2 a day until it stops looking potassium deficient.

on a booo hooo note.. my darth mauls decided to up and melt on friday... they came from that first haul of blue words new supplier, looked good and were multiplying till a couple weeks ago, then closed up while i was picking algae off the plug. stayed closed till last week when i moved them to a lower light area then they shrank off the face of the planet. oh well ill f ind more someday

[blacknife]

Skimmer finally crapped out. the shaft for the impeller cracked just above the magnet. skimmer replacement is still waiting on me finding a half decent job.

oh well I all ready pulled out the hob remora pro out, weak tea is better than no tea.

On the other hand if anyone has a skimmer for loan or cheap It would probably make my sps happy.

[fishytime]

Originally Posted by blacknife

Skimmer finally crapped out. the shaft for the impeller cracked just above the magnet. skimmer replacement is still waiting on me finding a half decent job.

oh well I all ready pulled out the hob remora pro out, weak tea is better than no tea.

On the other hand if anyone has a skimmer for loan or cheap It would probably make my sps happy.

I have a Bubble King SM 300 not being used ATM, but I doubt it would fit in your sump.......or your display for that matter

[blacknife]

I do have lots of glass sitting here, i will just make a new sump... or not lol thanks for the offer

[blacknife]

so i pulled the old workhorse 7 out of the fixture i put the radium in and the 2 pc bulbs were just sitting there doing nothing.. they are a 454 and a 50/50,uvl with internal reflectors.. I just draped them over the glass to see how i like them with the radium and i think they might stay.

that is until i get some end caps and new t5 bulbs to put in instead.

I need to clean up the old pc reflectors and re bend them a bit for t-5s as well.

my only wonder... with these 1-1.5 year old bulbs will my sps color up more or brown out more? I guess just try it for a few weeks and see eh?

sure whats another 192W of electricity/light seeping into my tank going to do... heh break the wallet?

[blacknife]

so the GF likes wrasses..... 55g sps tank... 65g fowlr+zoanthids..+lps


are my tanks even big enough 55 has a dottyback, scopas, target manderin, and lawnmower... 65 has a pair of gold stripe maroons and a ssb-dsb


want to try some nicer looking wrasses... more googling will follow once the current beer goggles are off.. but.. will anything from bwa upcomming hawian order fit in my tank.. preferably a pair, but will run anything that might work past the powers that be.

I have googled most of the wrasses on that order before but ...... right now while the lights are out i am more concerned with what might make the tank more interesting...

also considering something for algae control for the 65.. either another tang, or blenny, but i am worried if i have to recombine everything into a single larger tank at a later date THAT EVERYONONE .. dammed caps.. .has a chance of getting along..

I am not ruling out moving the dottyback either to the frag tank or to the lfs for bait.. as it has allready beat up a few potential additions including a mcoskers that is in my frag tank that might like to have other friends instead...


...

[blacknife]

My corals have a major hate on me right now.

the day of fragfest.. my control for one of my mp10s fell in the tank. not replaced yet.

that day i picked up a used calcium reactor.. played with it for a few weeks and thought it got stabalized, stopeed testing for a week or so as i was busy with work, corals look funny, so i test.. alk is higher than usual(169@hanna) which is high for zeo, so i turn off the co2 for a few days.

in those few days my kind of noisy skimmer <skimz 161 with es2800> gets really noisy and stops skimming, or even pumping more than a trickle of water.

then yesterday i realized that all powerheads but my one mp10 that still works were turned off for 2-3 days as they are on the same powerbar as the skimmer.... and i was really frustrated at the skimmer and forgot to turn them on.

come today and i come home and my skimmer is moved from where it was<outside the tank to outside the tank> and for some reason there is a puddle of water under it. the pieces of controller for my mp10 that does not work is not on the shelf beside the tank any more but is now in the bottom of my tank. after some yelling and invasion by mom my 5yo admits to playing with the skimmer and says the cat knocked the controller in. the cat was the suspect for the contrller all along but the fact my kid blames the cat makes me wonder if it was him heh.

my corals that were just starting to look nice again after the tank crack back in the spring summer are all looking like crap.. some are bleached some have burnt tips.. algaee that was almost under control is growing.. and .. i .... just ... want.... a bigger tank that is worth skinning in and building cabinets/cubpoards for that will keep cats/kids out..

[daplatapus]

Ugh, sorry dude. Sounds like a bad run. I feel for ya.

[blacknife]

added victim to my list.

1x250w radium bulb. approx one month use. was going to be switched out in the next month or so for the year old bulb currently on the tank.

it was 7 feet in the air on my shelf by the tank, currently housing all my fish stuff that needs to be kept away from the kids. a few weeks ago the gf moved the cat tree beside the shelf and i guess it took till today for the cat to try to climb up there, perhaps he thought it would be an easy jump into the kitty pool from there..

perhaps the frag tank will be moving to led's sooner than i thought.


on a side note.. any store in Ed carry radiums?


got my calcium reactor stabalized again, and did a 30% wc on the weekend.. coral stn/alkburn/random death appears to have slowed down. hopefully things only get better or i will be going FOWLR for a while. sick of seeing the $$ turn white and throw flesh off in the tank..

Hah on a related/similar note I not sure i want to add any fish right now even though some nice ones are comming in, and i was contemplating some wrasses off BWA's hawiian order.

[blacknife]

damit another possible vicim of cat,child, equipment age.. my other mp10 controller fell into the water while i was gone. I thought i had all the cords done tied to the pegboard its on good enough that they would not touch but noo.. it was apparently just hanging in enough to get a little water in the housing but there is a big fried black mark up the middle of it, a little scary it could have started a tank side fire.

this weekends project.. to skin the tank area, making it cat and child proof, wether it looks sexy or not.

I also have not tested my levels yet but someone/thing pulled the feed tube to my calcium reactor out of the water so who knows how long that has been overloading itself<no controller yet doh>


it is obvious which corals are going to pull through and still look good and which are all ready done or probably not going to make it from all these adventures.

all my t5-s are past due for change.. sitting about 11 months right now but I'm going to stretch it out and either go led or upgrade to a more modular MH system<pendants of some kind> I am sick of these 2 little tanks tied together i want something that fills the same space 6-8 feet, unfortunately that wont be in the budget till after christmas unless something falls into my lap.