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]

attempt 1 at resealing the 40b = fail. overflow leaks from the bottom, oh well rip it apart and start from scratch, perhaps i will even take the panes apart this time just for practice for the next project.

[blacknife]

hair algae on the frag racks:
-1 to hydrogen peroxide nuking zoas

+1 to pulling the whole rack from the mandarin/frag tank to the display hoping the snails might help. Having the evil large blue hermit crawl up 6 inches of glass to get to it, immediately throw all frags not on plugs off, tossing them into the waiting sps below that now have burns on them heh. then watching him sit on the rack for a week straight decimating all the algae. I think he has a couple more days work to have it spic and span then i think he just earned himself a spot to go clean up the other tank.


who would have thought.. the evil bastard that i have wanted to get rid of so many times would be such a good little worker if given a chance heh. I don't even mind the frag tossing, 2 emeralds, 2 smaller hermits and numerous snails in the other tank wont keep a dent in it, but sneaky hermit takes the prize.

on a different note, things are looking good, nutrients are still low even with no fuge, corals are coloring up ever slightly more, possibly due to the getting the potassium built up a slowly.

[blacknife]

tonights project... clean the 40b a second time for resealing.

almost debating taking it right apart just for giggles instead of just the inside beads. so lots of the silicone <well not lots but more than one would like in a water containing device> just peeled right off. Inadequate prep of the old glass? I think i cleaned with vinegar but might not have, guess acetone is the thing to use to prep the glass to not have it fall apart?

[TaioneReefer]

on the right of the duncan coral, what kind of corals are those?

[blacknife]

quick fts from the phone



there are fish in there they just chose that moment to hide heh.

Might not be a new skimmer either, as of today I have lots of time to play in the tank.

[blacknife]

I have been trying to be productive while on this vacation.. er week of unemployment some projects that have been on hold for months are getting done. hah got this sump/tank from Kal at the fragfest without knowing it was him. did the baffles and resealed it 2 or 3 times before i got it right < i think that was around christmas> I started isolating the mandarin/frag tank sometime this afternoon. an hour or so ago things got back to full running everything back in place.

I used to have my rock in the first chamber, but I could not get in and clean it. There was lots of nasty goo in there. This go round the rock is on a pvc/eggcrate cage so if i ever need to clean out detritus I can just lift the rock out quick and suck away. there is also a new mj1200 in there to keep things stirred up, though that might get downsized when i tie the 40 in.

The last sump also had a baffle fail and eventually i just removed it, with no valve between the pump and the sump, it meant draining all the water out to do maintenance, that issue is resolved.




Here is my old sump just for nastiness sake:

It was too high, I could barely get anything in under the stand let alone clean much in there. I forget what i had the hole in there for, I think it was when i had it as a live rock refugeium before its sump life but when I started running zeo i had to bust a piece out to get the reactor in. my arms were regularly getting scraped on the rough edges. it might get rebuilt into something else for frankentank or perhaps just cut up for glass.

Just need a few more plumbing pieces for the 40 and another batch or 2 of water and the 40 will sit where the 20 now is. I think it will be bare bottom fragugieum, the 20 will be moved below the 40 and be turned into FOWLR Mandarin paradise, or let him go to a new home and just remove the 20. He/she is pretty skinny right now, the wrasse outcompetes for food and i have not been feeding the LPS much in attempt to get the SPS to grow.

All In all I wish I could take all these tanks and magically turn them into one but thats not happening for a while.


I just remembered one of the reasons I decided I had to get on this sump move is as I was trying to clean the barely working skimmer one more time over the weekend I lost one of the rubber bearings/bushings under the sump. I just now remembered seeing it as I was cleaning up under the sump and totally forgetting about it.. I wonder where it went. Oh well new skimmer as soon as I am working again anyway.


Ohh one more thing.. my white worms are now white worms amidst thousands of little bugs.. ugh.. dammed unsterile basement. I will try to start a couple new cultures out of the one culture i have and pull individual worms out and hope the bugs don't spread.

[reefwars]

Originally Posted by blacknife

tonights project... clean the 40b a second time for resealing.

almost debating taking it right apart just for giggles instead of just the inside beads. so lots of the silicone <well not lots but more than one would like in a water containing device> just peeled right off. Inadequate prep of the old glass? I think i cleaned with vinegar but might not have, guess acetone is the thing to use to prep the glass to not have it fall apart?

yes acetone/alcohol will clean it, do it just before siliconing

[blacknife]

Ugh, got home from work yesterday and most of my sps are bleaching out, did 15 gal or so water change without even bothering to test anything last night, come home today and the bleaching is no worse, no better.. pe is crap.. lps appear unafected and new clam is toast. ugh.. prepping more water for change.

the night before the problem i rearanged the powerheads a little bit, and used the bottom of the jar of my zeo coral snow, everything else was normal looking.....wtf.