Dave’s 90g learning-curve glass room experiment

[redfishbluefish]

David, I’m assuming your 37 is ppt (parts per thousand), and if that is the case, it converts to 1.028 sg (specific gravity). I used THIS conversion website and also want to point out that they do not mention temperature. Temperature is important in specific gravity measurements, and I believe this website is using 60F. To point out temperature effects on specific gravity, here’s examples of saltwater made at 35 ppt and the corresponding specific gravity measurements at 60, 70 and 80 degrees:

At 60 degrees F
35 ppt = 1.026 S.G.

At 70 degrees F
35 ppt = 1.025 S.G.

At 80 degrees F
35 ppt = 1.023 S.G.

 

[fatoldsun]

Thanks Paul. It's actually Salinity mS not PPM. It's the weird scale Pinpoint uses for their monitor. Here's the chhttp://www.americanmarineusa.com/salinityconversion.htmlart if your curious.

 

[redfishbluefish]

Oops! My mistake. I probably should have realized that a Pinpoint meter would be measuring conductivity. I’m not familiar with this specific meter, but they should have included the conversion right in the software/hardware to give you sg. Thanks for the education.

 

[fatoldsun]

Yep it bothered me that it's not sg. Always referencing the conversion chart - especially with the hypo. At least I know when it's back on the DT just keep it at 53=1.0259. Not sure anyone needs that degree of specificity.

 

[fatoldsun]

Well after much ado, today was Tang(s) moving day. The blue hippo and tomini were the first to leave the comfort of their QT home that they've shared for the last 8-9 weeks. All told if I include the previous owners times on his word it's more like 14+ weeks. Anyway I put them in after lights out and the clown showed very little interest. The yellow tang was - understandably - agitated but I hope will get over it soon. I'm planning to wait a week for the Singapore and the foxface and damsel will have a new home Friday. That leaves 4 saltwater mollies. Anyone? Any takers?

 

[fatoldsun]

Lost one of the Tangs yesterday - RIP Thomas

but the tale must go on. As the tank goes, the Singapore, who was the last holdout (other than the mollies) in the QT moved up a week after the tangs. up until yesterday's loss everyone seemed happy and eating. unfortunately, part of what the Singapore was eating where my very small zoa frags. They have been relocated off their rocks and into a makeshift frag-rack/cage until I decide which has to go, the zoas or the angel. so far the angel has left my hammer and the boring green zoas and palys alone (although I still put them in the cage instead of waiting for a problem)
In other news, I have what I need to get my Kalk reactor up and running so that will be coming soon, I hope.

Also, my tank has been on the stand since late spring and not a week has passed without my wife pleading with me to make doors. Well, here they are. Still need to be stained but I hung them before the crew is here for turkey tomorrow....

In pieces (don't look too carefully, the goal for this amateur was "visually correct"

　

 

[downbeach]

Looks great Dave, nicely done.

 

[redfishbluefish]

As a fellow woodworker, I’m impressed!

Tongue and groove paneled doors! Very nice.

I’m still trying to get the Living Room and Dining Room painted before Thanksgiving. It ain’t happening….but don’t tell my wife.

 

[fatoldsun]

As a fellow woodworker, I’m impressed!

Tongue and groove paneled doors! Very nice.

I’m still trying to get the Living Room and Dining Room painted before Thanksgiving. It ain’t happening….but don’t tell my wife.

Hobbyist Paul... Hobbyist
but hey thanks. And yes my wife thinks they'll be sanded and stained before tomorrow. But somehow I'm still expected to do the bulk of the cooking for 22 people and after hearing a load of noise outside I went to investigate only to find that our main is broken so PS no water until sometime after 1 AM. I was the lucky one who asked tho and I told a handful of neighbors via text so we could fill bathtubs and pitchers. Not sure what everyone else is doing.

 

[fatoldsun]

It’s been a while for an update so here goes – Im splitting this up into 3 posts – not sure if that’s necessary but this will be a lot of pictures to open in one post….

I’ll start with the stand progress (since that’s where I left off more or less) – finally all finished – with the base (I’m still thinking about building a hood of some sort but I think that will go along with a lighting upgrade so that’s gonna be a while)
The color looks better (more even) without the sun glare and the POS iPhone camera

The other equipment change at this point is a Kalk reactor – this is an AquaMedic and I have more details on the setup over in the equipment conversation …
This is how it looks when the kalk is first added (did my first change yesterday and

…and after some settling

…finally, a close up of the sock

-It seems to be helping - I have been having trouble with pH probes so I haven’t been as on top of that as I’d have liked – just using a nutrafin test periodically and it seems to be at about 8.4- 8.6 which is higher than where I was pre-kalk. But….. (drum roll) calcium is closer to 410 now and I was consistently at 370 - I “dosed” some brightwell elemental for about 2 weeks before putting the kalk on line. The best tell tale is the coralline growth I’m seeing. It’s easiest to monitor abd chronicle on my plastic overflow. Just starting on the back glass – I can still count those blooms though…

 

[fatoldsun]

Ok – now for some fun stuff.
Downbeach donated some montipora to my cause (THANKS!!! Jim)

Green-purple rim cap

Red/Orange cap

And…, orange digitata

I’ve seen some signs of growth on the green-purple cap and the digitata. The Red orange cap seems a bit stalled but patience is a virtue, right?

Other Reef news – I got a blue-tipped staghorn frag from r2reyzer (THANKS!!! Ray) looks like it’s already started to show growth in the nubs….
Here are a couple shots just after it was added

…and after about 2 weeks

For those who have followed along - I added some fish last fall – a Singapore angel seemed to show some interest in my zoa and paly frags – I set up a frag-fuge and things seems to do well but the algae was a problem because there was no CUC access

Well I moved them and the good news is the Singapore seems disinterested but the bad news is they have remained closed for about 2 weeks
A not so happy paly

and one of the zoas, the green apples

Gratuitous artsy shot hammer at night

 

[fatoldsun]

And for the last of the updates, I picked up 2 new additions – they are currently in my temp QT (a 10g – my 29g long sprung a leak – I need to wait for some warmer weather to reseal that)

A shot of the hippo in it’

The happy family

A shot of the anemones after a split and some growth

A whole tank shot

…and a short video (please excuse the pedophile-like heavy breathing and the background coughing- I have 2 4 years olds and in case you were unsure, they carry germs - right back to the house and deposit them so there’s one sick child and one stuffed-up and sick dad that you hear….
http://i1231.photobucket.com/albums/ee503/dzipin/decd0fe7.mp4

 

[howze01]

I know the feeling with the zoas, I seem to be losing all mine for some reason. Even a couple Palys are sarting to look bad.

 

[onefish2fish]

are you going to put that clown with your goldstripe? idk how well thats going to work out.

 

[fatoldsun]

are you going to put that clown with your goldstripe? idk how well thats going to work out.

not sure how that will go - the backup plan is to move the perc down to my sump/fuge if they really don't get along. I just need to come up with a cover - that will allow for all the tubes and such - eggcrate I guess. Anyway, I'm sure it would be happy enough down there and if I could add the right lighting and could move one of the RBTAs I'm sure I could even add a "proper friend" but in teh meantime I'm hoping that the goldstripe is ok with a little species-mixing and digs his ethnicity...

 

[fatoldsun]

wow - I REALLY need a better camera (or maybe something other than a cell phone) - those are some blury pictures

 

[fatoldsun]

I can’t pass up on a sale – I guess – Of course I’m still flipping back and forth. Petco has their $1/gallon sale running (where was this when I got the 40b for the sump?) and I thought I would take advantage. I have a setup in my basement for an ATO reservoir and 1-2 QTs Well the thought was one fish QT/med tank and one coral QT/frag tank. The ATO is a 10g. I use about 1.5-2 g of top off a day so the reservoir lasts about 5-6 days. Also, I was using a 30g that I picked up from a member and it served me well for about 5-6 months before it sprung a small leak. I picked up 2 new fish so it was decision time – repair the 30, run with a 10g I had laying around or get something new. I liked the size of the 30 – it luckily fit well in a spot made for a 10 (with minor mods) so that was the benchmark. Well I was using the 10 and feeling rather guilty about its size and it’s been too cold to properly strip and rebuild the 30 so along comes the sale. 30s aren’t included in the sale but a 29 is – it was only 2” taller so I went with one of those and a 20g-long to replace the ATO reservoir. That 2” seems to be more impactful than I had thought. Looks like I will be taking that back this weekend and using the 20 long instead. Still beats the 10 I guess. And it will be better for future stuff because it’s far more accessible if I need to reach in – here’s a shot with the 10s in place.

I’ll add one later with the 29 and then the 20. As for the ATO – I will get either a 20 high or a 15. I think the 20 high may be a bit too tall for the spot – for occasional cleaning etc….

While doing all of this last night, I had 2 problems. I have a 6-line in the QT at the moment. I was preparing to move it (and a small perc) to a bucket so I could break down the 10 and set up the 29 and I removed the 10’s lid. I then started wiping out the inside of the 29 and when I wasn’t looking the 6-line went surfing. I found it a few minutes later – seemingly dead. I had no idea it wasn’t in the tank – just saw it lying on the floor, looking dry and dead. I dropped it into the bucket which was already set up with an air-stone and sadly went to report the mishap to my wife. Back to the basement and it’s wiggling around – then swimming upside down. After about an hour it seemed to be much better and was still alive this morning. My fingers are still crossed - I knew they were jumpers but this thing cleared a half empty 10 which means it had to go about 4-5” above the surface not to “fall” back into the tank. Guess I’ll have to be WAY more careful when I downsize to the 20L tonight.

The final weird thing was with my ATO. I hadn’t started with that part of the project – swapping one tank a night is enough for me. When I went down to the basement this morning to check the status of the 6-line I noticed that the water in the reservoir was milky – this could mean only one thing – the kalk reactor had back-siphoned into the reservoir. Sure enough the reactor was half empty. Not fully empty though. So I don’t know if the check valve failed (I have two john guest check valves from BRS inline before and after the reactor so no system water goes back to the reactor and no kalk water goes back down to the basement reservoir) If it failed I would have thought it would have emptied the reactor so I guess it was just a little stuck. That side should only see RO/Di FW and I didn’t think there was a risk - looks like I’ll be adding a second as an additional failsafe. At least the worst that happens is that the reservoir needs to be cleaned but no flood risk since the reactor only holds about 2g and unless the reservoir is totally full that would not be enough to cause a problem. Now is the system backed up and all the checks failed I’d be up you know who’s creek….

 

[fatoldsun]

Just an update – here’s the new set-up compliments of the PETCO $1/gallon sale – I have a 20L as the QT and a 20H as my ATO reservoir. The only change is that I added a small Rio pump to the reservoir to keeps things moving around in there. The old 10g I used would get a ton of stuff settled on the bottom - I imagine just the dust in the basement finding its way in and settling to the bottom. This way I hope it will be out of sight, out of mind.

This was the setup of the QT with a 29 – the 30L isn’t offered as part of the deal – bummer b/c a 30L is what I had in there before - the tank that sprung the leak. Anyway, this was too tall – too difficult to get my hands in there for cleaning, catching fish, etc…so cleaned it up and back to PETCO to swap for the 20L

Other updates – I was given a couple finger leather frags from falconut at the Jan meeting hosted by downbeach – thanks guys!

They are all doing well – not sure how long I can keep that rubber band in the tank but I finally gave in and more securely banded it on – and then glued the rubble piece down – I kept finding it knocked down on the sand bed or slipped out of the rubber band. The last straw – it came off the rock and then someone (maybe the brittle star) decided to move it into the lair in the rockwork – what a pain getting that out – I wasn’t letting it slip away again

I was given this montipora cap frag from downbeach about 2 months ago. It hasn’t grown and now is showing signs of bleaching – any thoughts. I have to test - haven’t done it in a couple weeks but everything else is ok – I have a green monti cap – got it the same day, it’s mounted on the same rock and is doing very nicely. Also have a blue tipped staghorn that a I got a couple weeks later that’s showing nice growth at the same depth. Oh and I use a kalk reactor and I recently started dosing some vinegar to help with a bit of a pH spike.

 

[fatoldsun]

Food adventure

I finally got around to making a batch of food. I had an idea of what I wanted to do and there are definitely things I learned from this experience. I picked up some fish this summer and the guy I bought them from made his own food. When I heard this I was excited thinking his husbandry skills must be top notch. Given the condition of his tank and the fish themselves, I must say I was generally unimpressed but nonetheless, I knew the fish he had would eat what he’d made up and he offered it as he wasn’t going to use it any more. That lasted me for about 6 months using it intermittently about twice a week and using new life spectrum pellets and or freeze dried brine shrimp for the other feedings. I took some suggestions from his recipe and other stuff I’ve experimented with along the way
I used a shrimp heavy recipe:
1 blister pack of Spirulina brine shrimp,
1 PE mysis shrimp,
1 small (maybe 8 oz – forgot to look) of frozen “San Francisco Bay brand” krill
3 large frozen shrimp (fortunately my wife’s not a fan of shellfish so no complaints about sharing with the fish)
2/3 of a head of garlic
3 sheets of nori from the Asian market – the pouch I have should last a good long time for the algae clamp/holder.
2 sheets of what is essentially nori from the LFS – I think ocean nutrition - it’s a red variety

Into the blender when went the 3 shrimp, chopped up, the garlic all pushed through a press, all the nori, crumbled up, the defrosted (and rinsed) krill a couple pulses with some RO/Di to help liquefy and then back into a bowl with the unblended remaining mysis and spirulina. Then everything was spread back into the blister packs to be frozen in 1 serving portions.

I rinsed the bowl and blender, etc with some RO/Di and, well, let’s say the fish ate well last night. They all seemed happy with the treat. Oh, I also fend a sliver of raw shrimp to each of the RBTAs - they seemed pleased with that. I think the clown took a lot of the other stuff I added in to the nems also – she likes to take care of them and makes sure they are well fed.

-In terms of things I might do differently next time – definitely take all of the blister food out of the packs frozen and then defrost in a bowl. Getting the stuff out thawed with that foil was a PITA. Also I had to clean the foil off since I intended to reuse the packs as freezer trays.
-I think the food processer might have been better than the blender.
-I think I may had some of the New Life Spectrum pellets to the mix so some of the added vitamins then mix in would be in the recipe
-I think I will add 1-2 more ingredients – namely a chowder clam or two and a piece of squid (an excuse to make calamari and a pot of chowder – yum)

 

[fatoldsun]

An update was long overdue. Guessing I’ll need to split this up a bit so this may be multiple posts. Work’s been busy and well, probably too busy for me to get through this now but hey, adversity builds character and if I didn’t have to try and sneak this in, I wouldn’t appreciate it. Besides, doing an update from work is still easier than trying to wrestle the laptop away from the misses…

I tried a DIY project using some magnets I picked up from BRS. I liked the idea of the frag-mags that are sold (forget the name but if you’ve ever looked, these are the disks that appear to be a rock like material with the magnet inside) I read enough stories of the iron rusting that I decided to avoid them. I did get the magnets from the same manufacturer but they are plastic coated and the coating seems durable, Who knows what it looked like inside that porous plug. So to make my own, I bought some rock rubble from BRS. I got a hold of this stuff – JB WaterWeld

It worked well – I even used some in the tank directly to mount a few things. It dries under water in about 5 minutes
Anyway, here’s the “build”

And here’s one in use – I used a hole that was in the rock and made it bigger with the dremmel – not sure I like the angle that it has my cap on so it may get switched

…and a profile shot

I saved the magnets from my MP40 wetsides that were rebuilt and used them (broken in quarters) for the “outside the tank magnet. They are not visible on the back of my tank so no need to use the “pretty” expensive one.

I also used the same materials to make myself a mag-frag rack…

…and the profile