Blacknifes 50g Battle of SPS learning

[blacknife]

Everything is still growing and doing ok.
sps are growing and.. showing hints of colour but not not really colouring up.

im not sure if it has only been since i got my new lights or if it has been longer, but all my zoo's and some of my lps have been looking fairly washed out lately. looked through some of my old pictures last night and was affirmed of that. I know need to put new lights in my newer fixture but i don't think that would cause this. New lights are waiting till I'm working again.

what do i need to do to get some color back in my zoo's?

[blacknife]

Hah off all summer and no updates.
Fish come and go.. corals do good then do bad.

not sure what i had for fish before but im down to the 2 clowns, dottyback and a yellow line goby it is staying this way for now, work is to unstable dead fish make me to sad. all my blennies have either jumped or found their way into pumps.. the fish i have have not committed suicide yet so ill keep it that way as long as possible.

I'm back to work so this means 2 things.. more money for the tank.. back to less time. oh well keep trying to automate things more.

replaced half my lights a few weeks ago the rest today.

as well IO got some prodiobio<sp> to try out.
I have been battling with a mix of diatoms/cyano. most trays it looks like diatoms but some days it gets little red patches here and there, dust off the rocks and suck what i can out and call it good.
I think i need to look at getting an ro unit soon to make this problem go away for good but who knows.


Some of my spas are having a real battle.. my alk got low a few months ago.. or something else was bugging them and the birdsnests' and one of the pocks has been fighting back to life since.

the milli i got from dez ages ago finally pinked up.. i assume its a rose milli of some kind because.. i pretty much gave up on it having any color other than brown. the couple arco frags i have are slowly looking more like when i got them,


I was going to take some shots tonight to throw in for good luck but the reefbooster food made everything to cloudy for now.

I still want to add a bit more rock to the sump but i have not find the right rock at the right price yet.. base rock.. used live rock i don't care just need the right stuff.

on another note i found a small 12ish gallon classic cube<has stainless frame around it to boot. i was going to use it for mixing but instead i put a small hob filter on it .. one picee of rock.. and a few days later some of my softies. plans are to get a couple more nice pieces of rocks for it and put softies/mushrooms/ what not in it.. but right now i just watch all the pods run around on the rock doing their thing with no predators.

[blacknife]

I THINK there is less algaee growing all over the place. not sure.. perhaps the prodibio stuff is doing something.


Made some aggrocreete rocks today too. I will have to see how they look tomorrow perhaps i will make more perhaps i wont. if they are ugly they can go in the sump if they turned out good they can go in the tank.<after curing of course>


I had to spend quite some time rinsing out my old sand in a bucket that has just been sitting there it was black as black. kind of makes me think against ever doing a remote dsb bucket, after lots of rinsing almost all the black was gone and just using that sand for shaping anyways for now, had all new stuff for the aggrocrete. would having some flow over that much gravelactualy keep it from getting black?


My one other thought from the day.. i did the rock in a nice flat rubber maid container, but looking at it it would be perfect for a dsb, almost thinking building a rack above the sump for one of these and some mangroves... but one project at a time.

[blacknife]

Dammit, I am in calgary, wanted to grab a few things from other canreefers and visit some stores but have no time.. oh well.. next trip i guess.

[blacknife]

Did some de-constuction today... 15g wc with an attempt to suck up as much black nasty pockets of sand as possible.

got about 2/3 of the sand i can get to without moving the rocks around.

the new water felt a little cool compared to the tank water even though the thermometers read the same so i called it quits at that. try more in a couple days.


I changed my GFO and carbon over the weekend then came home on sunday <with a few frags from the lfs heh> to find my one milli that used to look at least kind of healthy bleaching/rtn from the tips.

assumed this was from the gfo and turned the flow to the GFO and carbon down to a trickle. The rtn has slowed down not sure if its done though. I hope that was the problem. that was the last thing i wanted to see when brining more SPS home to play with.

At the same time i chilled out the little frag tank i have been trying to make in my room, its still runing just in the dark till i can get real lights for it, the daylight cfl's that were over it were barely keeping the softies and zoo's alive. I think i might empty it drill it than tie it in to the main tank and get some real lights for it. as frag tank or larger fugue.. either one is needed heh

enough late night rambling i think changing all that water made me tipsy

[blacknife]

HOB dsb is dead. i tried moving it to the sump. turned it on.. thought it was flowing good.. looked away for a few mins and came back to wet floor.

anyone want a HOB refugium? it doesn't usually flood just have to be careful when you start it up that you get all the air out heh. price free

it was running .. i think over a month and the sand looked clean except for a little black stint right at the start by the top lip. I did use used but well washed sand mix of Crushed and fine.

the cheato tank is not doing much i think i will go get some fresh fine aragonite sand and put it in there and run the 5g half+full of sand and leave the cheato on top.

got some coral snow today too. put my prodibio dosages in early in the am.. put the coral snow in before shutting down the pumps cuz the dsb was going goofy.

left the pumps off for a bit.. and everything is covered in sliminess.. like the algaee/cyano that is there but different heh oh well i think its clearing up.

I only have a couple weeks of prodibio kicking around i think i am going to drop to just the digest and tp and supplement with the coral snow.

the reefbooster is what makes my protien skimmer gum out and not do much for a couple days after i guess there is to much fatty acids or something in it for my skimmer