Greg's 75g

[WarDog]

Duct tape is a pretty useless long term solution. Glad to see you upgraded to the aluminum tape!

[gregzz4]

I recently modded my skimmer a 'bit'

I found I wasn't getting enough air into it, so I reamed out the venturi air nipple
The OD is 3/8" and the ID was kinda tiny, so I removed 1/3rd of the material to get the ID to around 11/32. I'm not comfortable going any larger as the material was starting to look a bit pale and I was risking a sidewall blowout, or an all-out split
IF you do this, do it by hand. Using a drill in plastic tubing this size will surely break something, or hurt you

But what's the point in doing this if the muffler has the same issue ?
I thought about reaming out the muffler pipes, but they're too long to risk breaking them, so I just removed it completely
I've always run it fully open, so am baffled why I didn't bypass it years ago

With the muffler removed I now run a 3/8" ID airline directly from the venturi to the filter outside my window
I'm getting more NOG than I've ever seen from this unit, and it's still silent thanks to my window Mod

Muffler be damned and hello fresh air for pH

[Bblinks]

I want some pictures..........

[The Guy]

Originally Posted by WarDog

Duct tape is a pretty useless long term solution. Glad to see you upgraded to the aluminum tape!

Ya! it's good for everything except duct work, aluminum tape is the way to go forsure.
Nice job there Greg! your room is looking more like Nassau every time I see it.
LMAO!!! just kidding looks good.

[gregzz4]

Sorry guys, all I have for you right now is this crappy FTS
I'm pretty busy with 'things' so any closeups will have to wait ... especially since I'm battling GHA

Rich, I'm sure you'll recognise a bunch of your critters
LMK if you need some frags when your new tank is going

[gregzz4]

I broke down and added a bunch of dwarf blue-legged hermies
I haven't wanted shells all over my tank since I started, but now I'm 'releasing the hounds'

Maybe I bought too many, but I put 36 in my setup - I can always trade them if they run out of food

Our Melanurus, Hunter (who still lives up to his name), spent hours trying to make a meal out of any hermie he could
Thankfully they're too fast for him and all he did was frustrate himself, and throw a few shells around
He's starting to give up and re-focus his efforts on the LR etc

Hopefully this new army will help me with my GHA issue, and provide us some entertainment in the meantime

[Slyguy00]

A 3 day blackout would take care of your hair algae problem. Personally ill be using that method anytime i have a major algae outbreak. Works great

[gregzz4]

Originally Posted by Slyguy00

A 3 day blackout would take care of your hair algae problem. Personally ill be using that method anytime i have a major algae outbreak. Works great

I did a 3-day this last weekend
It helped some, but no eradication
It temporarily shut down the cyano and diatoms, and weakened the GHA enough for me to clean a lot of it up

Tonight I added a Sea Hare and the little bunny/cow is going nuts scouring the algae away right down to the LR

I still have a lot of work to do to clean things up and keep it clean, plus I still have no idea where this outbreak came from in the first place ...

I'm gonna blame the maintenance guy for not basting the rocks enough , and allowing the sand to get a bit 'layered'

I'm pretty sure it's not my bioload or feeding habits, but have cut the feedings down a bit in the meantime to allow me a reprieve

[gregzz4]

2 sea hares later (both died ) and the GHA battle plan was changed
Food had already been cut back, GFO has been cut back to decrease added Fe, lighting has been changed, maintenance increased
With the GFO cut back from 225ml/month to 100ml I've seen no increase in GHA. I can't say for sure it's helped, but it hasn't hurt at all. Thanks for the post Mindy I'll most likely keep cutting it back in the near future as things become more manageable
Now I've increased the lighting again and the GHA isn't coming on nearly as strong
I was only running a total of 1800 watts over 10 hours
Now I'm running 2160 and plan on increasing it to about 2500 watts
If you think about a 10 hour cycle, that's only a 250 watt bulb. Doesn't seem like much for my reef. Even over an 8 hour cycle, 2500 watts is only a hair over 300 watts. Many reefers with a tank my size run a pair of 250 MHs and in Brad's case a pair of 400s for I think 8 hours
That means he's running 6400 watts/day compared to my current 2160

Any cyano is long gone, and the GHA is much more manageable now
All corals have recovered from my over-use of peroxide
I'm considering using MB7 regularly in the DT

On to the QT ...

I bought a bunch of fish and they are in quarantine
I went to J&L to pick up one, and left with eight
So pretty
I'll have to do some careful introductions to the DT as I got a wife for both our Solar and Lubbok's wrasses
There's also a Yellow Tang, a Male Lyretail Anthias and 4 little girls for him to boss around

I plan on getting some better toys for the critters to hide in, but for the next couple days they'll have to make do with plumbing parts

All are eating frozen, and the tang loves nori bits
Some are also eating pellets ... just have to get them all doing the same
I haven't had them long enough to evaluate whether or not they'll get Prazi or Hypo

Some really crappy pics for y'all