Blacknifes 50g Battle of SPS learning

leducreef · #1 01-05-2010, 10:32 PM

looks great man i have some frag epoxy and some egg crate if you want it

blacknife · #2 01-07-2010, 09:17 PM

so things went great till today

girl goes downstairs and there is water all over

troubleshooting ith her over the phone was terrible..

she got it all back working but we found no problem
so i told her to keep an eye on it

2 hours later she has not looked at it.. so i remind her

water is everywhere again and i STILL dont know the problem

im shut down from cold weather today anyways i might as well drive the three hours home to see what is wrong

banditpowdercoat · #3 01-07-2010, 09:24 PM

Crap, sorry to hear, hope its simple fix

blacknife · #4 01-08-2010, 04:19 AM

did not drive home.. so far its holding out. at least its in an unfinished basement now. I just hope it doesnt crap out again and then not get looked at for a day or 2 heh

blacknife · #5 01-11-2010, 11:34 PM

Made the 3 hour trek home last night and then 3 hours back to work this morning.

The bad news: a few corals look rough. One of the brownoporia frags I put in a few weeks ago is gone. One of the clowns had a couple flecks of what looks like ick. Slight diatom bloom in the low flow areas.

The good news: everything else looks in awesome shape. the girl did a good job containing the mess and getting everything but the sump up and running again.

i got the sump back up to working temp tested the water and got it working again. I ran it full out for a bit and the leak did not appear. Not wanting the gf to deal with any more bs for the tank I then cranked it down so its just a nice low steady flow though the overflows till i can get home and check it out more this weekend.

so far so good.

blacknife · #6 01-16-2010, 11:34 PM

Found the tanks first victim today.

the overflow has been backed up for 2 days, but i have had a very busy day including traveling around the countryside for job interviews. Basicaly i saw it was plugged up, assumed a snail was in it or something and just throttled the pump back so more drains into the sump.

today i went to modify the returns, as i allready planed to do and found my lawnmower blenny jammed in the return pipe, the plumbing previously had had a small rigid pipe into it for venting. My lmb had gotten into the overflow then sucked into the hole and stuck on the vent tubing so he could not swim out or get dumped into the sump.

Now both tanks have durso style vents so if anyone falls in they will get sucked straight to the sump. the other advantage to this is now the main tank's return has no problem taking the full GPH of the return pump. It will never have to do this as some is going to the second tank and a small amount returning to the sump. I did run it at full speed for about 15 mins and the water would not even rise an inch over the overflow.

The gf is sad that was her favorite fish. was one of my favorite too.

no more fish untill i get some kind of grating on the overflow though.

blacknife · #7 03-04-2010, 05:29 AM

New peave

after not testing the tank for a while

testing it only to find everything is near perfect.

I am working in Leduc again so the tank gets little bits of maintenance regularly. and it shows.. everything is looking better. HA is still not beat but diminishing.

thinking about a couple new fish.. dunno what yet.

I want to drill my 33 and pull it beside the system and join it in instead of just having it be the fresh water purifying tank. must get hole saw one of these trips.

I want to upgrade my lights as well, and add real lights to the fifteen. tank is mixed reef so far, would like to try a bit more sps.

for the 40 b i was thinking a combo mh/t5ho unit but im undecided as to get 1x250 or 2x150 for the metal halides... any ideas?

and for the 15 with intents to go into some kind of frag tank would a 70w mh or 4 bulb t5ho cut it?

I had an excuse to run into Edmonton this evening, for some reason thought it was Thursday.. rushed in to try to get to bwa and ma before they close just to look.

mwhahaha did i feel silly when i saw they were closed and remembered its only Wednesday

blacknife · #8 03-25-2010, 12:31 AM

Sad story and funny story.

I got a royal gamma and a red spotted blenny at BWA last week.

first night my dottyback was picking on the gamma so i put them lights out and they left each other alone.

lights come on an hour or two before i get home from work, when i get home the gamma is in an open area of the tank .. with a couple little nipps but looks ok... i watch them lots and the dotty seems to be leaving it alone all the time.

come home from work the next day and it has a few more chunks out so i put him in the 15gallon.

come home the next day and its dead and half eaten by the sandmonsters allready.

so then yesterday i cant see the red spotted blenny at feeding time.. thought nothing of it he might be hidden, go down to feed them today and he is not seen again

check the overflow,

check the sump.

watch the tank for like 15 mins

look at the frags in the 15.. and low and behold there he is

there is no way he could have jumped across because the canopy blocks it.

my only guess is he went up the shared return line and got spat out into the small tank.

I think he looks skinny i think he might stay there for a few days till he gets plumped up