Greg's 75g

[SeaHorse_Fanatic]

Love the aquascaping Gregg. Give your wife a big high five for us.

[lastlight]

Rock work looks great Greg nice to see you're so close to adding some life to your system.

[fishytime]

Its alive!!!!.....the scape does indeed look spiffy........

[gregzz4]

Aw shucks Thanks everybody
Anthony I'll let Donna know you like it

[gregzz4]

After bringing some critters home from J&L and testing their water, I've decided to drop my Sg from 1.026 to 1.024
I'll keep it there for now as I feel it will be easier to acclimate critters to a lower Sg as opposed to a higher level
So, with that said, and after over an hour of dripping ..... ( I trippled their bag water )

I added 2 Astrea snails and 1 Red Scarlet hermit tonight
I know, I didn't want hermits in the tank ( or all the shells ), but, well, we'll see ....

Before acclimating, one of the snails had a green shell.
When I put them in the tank, the green shell was clean
They separated after about 1/2 hour and are milling about nicely

The hermit immediately started in on some guck on his rock. He kept at it for over a 1/2 hour. I think he's full and now taking a break, but here he is busy at work

Pics suck as I don't have a super-duper camera and the main lights were off





After some food I am going to add salt to the QT I just finished flow testing and will also add some to the NSW tank that is now up to temp

Tomorrow will be a 15% WC for the DT and maybe some new fishies into the QT after a trip to J&L
Plus, depending on the wife, we may end up with some corals too
Hell, we may even find some time tomorrow or Monday to hit OA as well

[Enigma]

Very nice!

[gregzz4]

Thanks Shelley

Got tied up yesterday and did nothing

Just completed my first WC
I did 15% and now the skimmer is functioning normally again. I got a great tip from Kenny. It looks like either some leftover glueing guck, or the new sand, or both was/were the issue
I'm hoping my pH will come back up now as it dropped from 8.13 to 8.0 after I turned the skimmer off. I'm not worried about it right now, just making an observation

I split the chaeto into 2 balls - one on each side of the overflow and both are tumbling nicely

After this post I'm going to get the GFO running
I'll probably leave the carbon reactor empty for now

The QT is functioning nicely;
No leaks, stable Sg temp etc

I'm going to try to get the wife to J&L tomorrow to see what peaks her interest

[gregzz4]

I just brought home another 57lbs of LR
When I'm ready it'll go in the sump. Whatever won't fit will go in the QT
I'm going to give it a quick RO dip and put it in a rubbermaid for a couple days to see where it's at

I'm not going to cure it, unless I get some heavy readings over the next days. It was in the seller's tubs long enough and now's the time to have a tank cycle anyway
Obviously I'm going to get a cycle with it, but I agree with everyone that I didn't have anywhere close to enough @ 15lbs

[gregzz4]

I'm waiting for the rubbermaid water to warm up, so .... more pics

The GFO is running. I moved both reactor outlet lines so they go through the socks and maybe some will even get into the skimmer. There's still all the room I need to easily change the socks too



Here's one of the kinds of sponge that survived the cooking - the white ball that looks like an urchin



And today I spotted some mushrooms that I thought were only coralline
They are purple in this pic. Looks like about 8 or so
Bad, bad picture

[gregzz4]

I'm really happy with the LR I bought from TaioneReefer. He let me pick through two different tubs and his smaller SW tank. Lots and lots of coralline, lots of Tonga, lots of nice shaped base pieces too and it's light, porous rock. Great guy. Thanks Kevin

If you're lookin' for LR, you'd best contact him soon. He still has a lot of great pieces left - some huge ones too

http://www.canreef.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=85705

I filled my rubbermaid and then had to 'scape the 20g QT too 'cause I bought way too much for one rubbermaid !!!
Looks like I can't buy any fish this week now until I get the rock out of the QT. But that's OK as now there may be some seeding going on in the AC50
Later, probably this coming weekend, I'll put as much as I can in the sump and decide what to risk in the QT

So far there are loads of micro brittles, and some asterinas, amphipods, tube worms/feather thingys, mushrooms, some sponges and also a bunch of some kind of polyps spread out
Also lots and lots of coralline

I gave everything a quick RO dip and managed to pull out what was left of some live Fireworms that he missed. No biggie - it's LR so it's expected
No crabs to be found and, unfortunately, no bristle worms. Ce La Vie

Great find - way more life than the LR I got from the LFS that someone traded in

I transfered a few micro brittles to the DT but I'll leave the Asterinas for now

So, as I stated earlier today, I'll watch the rubbermaid LR this week and if there's no spikes and no PO4, I'll load up the sump.
The wife already has her eye on a couple small pieces to add to the DT as well

And, 'cause Photobucket seems to be endless ...

The rock is not green, it's just my camera