Blacknifes 50g Battle of SPS learning

[blacknife]

the sps that survived.. are brown.. but showing good PE again.. perhaps things are looking up.

on the downside... my display looks good, the few bits of nascence algaee are disappearing slowly.

the Fuge/fragtank is a cyano factory.

things are being remodelled this weekend.. the fugue used to be my sump.. but it would not fit in the old tank stand.. it does fit in the new tanks stand.. i do not know why i did not move it there when i changed tanks.

stuff in fugue will be temporally rehomed for the night.

sump is off right now.. internet distracted me

moving the fugue to the sump.. thus saving me buying a new pump for the return since i have been runing off an underpowered powerhead.

also rehoming many of the softies. t ruing to sell a few or just start a nano again.

one question about chemical warfare, do any of you avid sps keepers have lots of Zoa's and pally's in the same water column or should they be rehomed to the softie tank too?

[blacknife]

Everything looks happy after the last rearrange. SPS in the frag tank are growing <for once> and starting to color up. SPS in the display are growing but do not have as much PE as the ones in the frag tank.

the only thing i am not happy with is how much sand my female maroon is kicking up.

I want to get some SPS to replace the ones that died but i need to wait a paycheck or 2.

[blacknife]

Shut down the Frag rescue tank last night and put everything back into the display. I left the frag tank plumbed in but until there is enough in my tank to justify running a 250w MH light on the frag tank i might as well save my money for an extra frag or 2 a month. Perhaps if my 40b does not sell I will start re drilling that for a bean overflow and put that up instead of the 20 for a frag tank or perhaps FOWLR.

I glued everything into hopefully good spots and left a few small well weighted frags just on the sanded.

My 2 across that survived have more color then they have had since i got them, hopefully they stay that way under the t5h0. I tried to put them fairly high because they were very high under the MH in the frag tank.

I am having issues with the TLF reactor for pellets. one side keeps sticking and turning color's against the wall no many times a day i try to give the reactor a shake. I guess this means i need to get a new reactor in the next few months or perhaps switch to zeo just to give it a try.

[blacknife]

rare update.

well the tank budget is pretty tight lately but things are slowly looking better. i decided to try one of those new mj1200 for flow to free up a smaller pH to put in the frag tank

the ball joint contraption they use will not even hold the pump up so i tried the suckies which have held smaller mj's for longtime in my tanks.

moved a few rocks around to make sure no corals were in the direct flow.
check this morning everything looks good

come home and bam.. the thing fell off the glass sometime today and made one of the milli's i got a month ago half flow dead.

oh well

oh yeah im running the frag tank again. i moved all the lps and zoa's to the lower 2 shelves, left the mandarin in there and put sps bits on the top shelf if they look like they need some McHalide loving. not giving up but frustrated at my lights things in the frag tank look ok when i try to put them in the display some of them really slow down growth. one of the accro's that keeps getting color in the frag tank gets bleached looking in the display.
Might have to prioritize getting some new lights at some point, like those clone oddeseey mh/t5 combos or DIY some led's up.

the frags i got from dez a month ago or so are all still holding their basic colors, though a little less vibrant and still have PE though slowly seeming to be less.

alk was low last night 6.5. slowly bringing it up.. i guess that could make the corals bleach out a bit too eh?
meh.. trying to stay on top of things better but i do not know if much progress is being made

[blacknife]

how is it when im home for supper.. before getting called out everything is working good.. go do 4 hours of storm chasing, come home and the tank is making funny noise and water is all over the floor but no signs of a leak


currently tired as hell but watching for a leak before i let myself even think about relaxing enough to fall asleep

[mr_alberta]

The power probably went out and when it came back on it overflowed your skimmer because the sump had filled up.

[blacknife]

figured it out... was using a filter sock while I was making mess in the tank, don't usually run one. it was below the lip of the sump but not by much. left it in there for a few days and pouf got all clogged up and drained 15 gallons on the floor.

Had a micro bubble problem just after that, after much frustration. I was ready to rip my plumbing apart and re do it. Problem being there is no valve between the sump and the pump<whoops bad jon> realized the screen on the bulkhead was plugged causing the pump to have extra suction on the bulkhead and plumbing.. or possibly to cavitate. cleaned screen problem gone.

On the weekend I empty'ed the frag tank contents back into the display. frag tank is running with just the sun coral in it right now. regular feedings of the sun coral+ 250w 14k bulb was making lots of algae. now having a minor algae attack in the display. but i had another reason to do it i will soon be tying the 40b that i cant sell in instead of the 20g frag tank i have. took the 40b apart on sunday because i want to redo the overflow. cracked the mirrored background while pulling it off.. oh well. i did not realize it was 2 thin pieces of glass and was putting uneven presure on them. single overflow 40b will be turned into herby, and the whole tank will be resealed. Not sure if i want to turn it into a frag tank or fowlr/ lps tank.

since the day of the flood i have not had my skimmer dialled back in either it keeps overflowing the bubbles all over the place.. i keep turning it down a little every day thinking it looks good then get home from work to find bubbles everywhere again.

SPS are slowly growing but brown with heavy green tint when they should not be green. I think the sun coral has to go away. I have a second mp10 and zeo reactor on the way so I was kind of hoping to wait till after I get those started before I give up on the sun coral and give it away to someone that can save it.

with the regular feedings the last week or so the polyps all come out but they are much smaller than they used to be.

I got a small starfish to keep the wife happy a few weeks ago too.. she really wanted it even though I lectured the hell out of her and told her it should not go in but it makes her happy and my son likes it too. Was told its a red chocolate chip, and thats kind of what it looks like but i can not find pictures of one on the net that looks exactly the same.