Greg's 75g

[gregzz4]

Things are lookin' up

Diatoms started a couple days ago, so the cycle isn't stalled. Nothing out of control to speak of, just some here and there. I wonder if all the snail poo has re-started the cycle - hmm ...
All DT params are great. Nothing to measure except a trace of NO3

Last night we started seeing copepods all over the glass and now they are visible daytime too. This makes me happy. They must have come from the chaeto

We now have 5 astreas, 12 margaritas and 4 red scarlet hermits. All are busy cleaning the rock and giving us something to watch.
I installed the red moonlights today, on a 1 hour timer, so we can watch stuff after the lights go out

Waiting to put the new LR in ... probably this weekend
I won't say the rock is ready by any means, but now is the time to mess the tank up
Today's readings, in 9g of water, are NH3 0, NO2 0, NO3 1+ and PO4 1-2 ish

I don't want to wait another month or 3 curing the rock in a tub, so into the system it goes

And something funny to me ...
I turned my back on the DT for about 5 mins, after watching the hermits for awhile. I come back and one of the dudes has gone from the extreme left rock pile to the extreme right one. He's pickin' away at another hermit, they get quite close for a min or two, then he leaves. The other hermit carried on afterwards, so no harm.
He had gone down the tower of rock, across 3 feet of sand, up another tower of rock and straight to another hermit.
Only conclusion I come to is mating

[fishytime]

Originally Posted by gregzz4

And something funny to me ...
I turned my back on the DT for about 5 mins, after watching the hermits for awhile. I come back and one of the dudes has gone from the extreme left rock pile to the extreme right one. He's pickin' away at another hermit, they get quite close for a min or two, then he leaves. The other hermit carried on afterwards, so no harm.
He had gone down the tower of rock, across 3 feet of sand, up another tower of rock and straight to another hermit.
Only conclusion I come to is mating

my guess would be, attempted shell-jacking.....hermits are somewhat criminal

[lastlight]

exciting times when those pods start taking off (or appearing at all). it's amazing how long you can sit and watch them when you're in that phase of a build.

i've got hawk eyes for seeing little things in my tank and i have not seen a pod in ages during lights on. the wrasses are masters of the hunt.

[gregzz4]

Originally Posted by lastlight

exciting times when those pods start taking off (or appearing at all). it's amazing how long you can sit and watch them when you're in that phase of a build.

i've got hawk eyes for seeing little things in my tank and i have not seen a pod in ages during lights on. the wrasses are masters of the hunt.

I know once we start adding hunters they'll disappear, but it's nice to know there's some food about

[gregzz4]

With any luck, Saturday will be "add more LR to the system" day

I can't add most of the new rock until the wife picks through it to put some pieces in the DT

I may start adding some to the sump as I know which ones I don't want in the DT, but I can't get too carried away yet

Hard to not just do it on my own but I like her opinion

It's been said recently on someones else's build ....
Happy wife ... happy life

[lastlight]

You're going to keep rock in your sump as well then? I used to but wow did it ever collect debris no matter how well I stirred the sump up with flow.

[gregzz4]

Ya, I know it's going to be a big problem, but thanks for the warning. I see myself having to clean out the drain section of the sump weekly for the next year or so ... whoooppeeee

Thing is, I couldn't find any LR worth buying back in Feb.
You'll recall when I found the aiptasia ... that was the rock I bought back then
I cured it for months and, by the time we were ready to fill the tank, all we had was 14# of LR and a bunch of base that we had already scaped. I didn't want to ruin the cured rock with more, uncured, so, well ....

I thought we could wait for the base rock to mature, but now I don't want to do that

I'm seeing I need a lot more LR than we started with and I don't want to ruin our original scape. Plus, I'm not going through the epoxy thing again. That crap messed everything up

So, I'm left with filling the sump for a year or so until the system matures

[Enigma]

Originally Posted by gregzz4

Hard to not just do it on my own but I like her opinion

It's been said recently on someones else's build ....
Happy wife ... happy life

Your wife appears to have pretty good taste (at least with the scape . . . Which looks great). All of my guy's taste is in his mouth.

You're build, with spouse involvement, is going to turn out much better than mine.

[gregzz4]

Oh don't say that
I'm sure that, once you two make your minds up about your background, you will have an awesome 40 long

But thanks for the encouragement

I only hope it goes well enough regarding the parameters

[gregzz4]

Originally Posted by fishytime

my guess would be, attempted shell-jacking.....hermits are somewhat criminal

That's what I thought at first, and the attacker was quite a bit larger, but nothing came of it
There are lots of similar shells at the base of both rock piles
I guess when you want that particular one, you're gonna go for it