kien's 150g Room Divider Mixed Reef & Stuff

[kien]

This week marks the official completion of our post flood reconstruction renovations. Last month we finished up the kitchen which was a huge milestone, but we were not quite done yet. The flooded kitchen also ended up flooding the room beneath it in our basement which was our spare room/exercise room. We lost the entire room, exercise equipment (treadmill, spinning bike, weights, electronics, etc) *sadface*

Well, this week we finished up reconstructing that room and had our new treadmill delivered. This means we are officially back to pre-flood "normal". This is a huge relief and means I have a whole lot more time on my hands now. YAY!

For anyone interested that cares, this is how our kitchen ended up.





Now, you may think that this isn't exactly reef/tank related, but actually it kinda is. In the background here you can see the tank.



Reflecting back on the past year I am reminded of how throughout this entire ordeal, the tank has remained a focal point of not only our house, but our lives. Everything that we did had to somewhat revolve around the tank. For example, the cleanup contractors had to make sure to turn on the breaker for the tank if they had turned it off. When we had to redo the entire floor we simply laied flooring around the tank instead of disturbing it in any way. I'm sure the fish enjoyed the two days of nail gunning.

Remarkably, the tank has come out somewhat unscathed. So we've been hit by two floods now, neither of which was the actual tank itself. The first one was the great Calgary flood of 2013 (was it?), and the great kitchen flood of 2015. Clearly my prayer reactor is doing its thing! I highly recommend that everyone invest in one.

[kien]

This past year also marks the 6th year for this tank. Time sure flies when you're having fun. Marching onward and upward. Or, just keep swimming, just keep swimming

[SeaHorse_Fanatic]

Kien,

Your tank is truly spectacular and worthy of Tank of the Month honours every month. It blows any tank I've ever owned or set up right out of the water. I love your new kitchen too. Looks great. Amazing job and hopefully things don't come in THREES

Anthony

[Wretch]

Beautiful. Something to aspire to. Nice tank as well

[SeaHorse_Fanatic]

Originally Posted by kien

Kien,

How long have you had the Red Flowerpot coral? I'm guessing you would recommend placing it on the sandbed, as opposed to on the rock work closer to the lights? Do you feed it? Any special additives? Just a very spectacular red goniopora you have there and I'm Mad Jelly.

Thanks,

Anthony

[kien]

Originally Posted by SeaHorse_Fanatic

Kien,

How long have you had the Red Flowerpot coral? I'm guessing you would recommend placing it on the sandbed, as opposed to on the rock work closer to the lights? Do you feed it? Any special additives? Just a very spectacular red goniopora you have there and I'm Mad Jelly.

Thanks,

Anthony

Hey Anthony! I've had that goni for about 5 years now. Got it off ZoaElite actually, and he had it for some time before me, so it's pretty hardy, for a Goni. I do not feed it or do anything special. Over the years I have learned that it doesn't like high flow or high light so I keep it in medium to low flow and medium to low light. The lower the flow and the lower the light (but not total darkness) the longer its polyps reach out. Where it sits down it is kinda shaded from the Halides and mostly just gets T5 lighting it. Aside from that, it's just pure luck I think. I am no goni expert by any stretch of the imagination :-)

[kien]

Well, it looks like the tank has managed to turn around since the December incident (with the crashed Profilux Controller). It took a few months but things have stabilized, colour has returned, growth is happening and all-in-all the tank seems to be back in its groove.

I had a few questions about the crapped out controller.. in the end, I ended up giving it away. I tried to diagnose it but I really couldn't get it to stabilize. After debugging it (factory reset, unplugging and plugging stuff back into it, etc) I did manage to get it to run for a period of time (a few hours) but it just kept rebooting itself and not starting up properly for no apparently reason. I finally decided to ditch all my Profilux stuff and went with just timers for my lights and a Ranco temperature controller for my heater(s), and a standalone doser. I did try to contact GHL customer support and the rep said they wouldn't bother to try and fix it as it wasn't worth it. I was, "better off buying a new one." Gee, thanks guys! Seriously though, no thanks.

Anyway.. here are some pics courtesy of my new underwater camera (Olympus TG-4) that I bought for a recent trip to Cancun (for spring break).

[kien]

[FishyFishy!]

Lookin good Kiener!!!

Love that blasto colony.

[kien]