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Inherited 90
- Thread starter redfishbluefish
- Start date
Congrats Paul, very nice frags.I was fortunate enough to be a big winner at this month's NJRC meeting. Here are the pieces I picked up. Sorry for the quality, it's my little point-n-shoot camera, and this is right after a dip in Bayer and fresh water.
1. Unknow Zoa from Ultimate Corals....sorry, it's so PO'ed from being dipped, can't begin to tell what it is.
2. Favia from Ultimate Corals
3. Montipora (Jedi Mind Trick) from Ultimate Corals
4. Chili Pepper Montipora from Matte
5. War Coral form Matte
6. Lime Pocillopora form unknown donator.
Now I need to find a spot to put these guys in my tank.
Carbon Dioxide Precipitating my Calc Solution
So I went to top off my calc container today and as I begin to dump in fresh solution, I see a milky white precipitate getting kicked up. My holding containers for alk and calc are one gallon cereal containers with wide mouth openings. Here's a picture of the stuff after I dumped it into a clear mug:
The solutions I've made up in sealed plastic jugs are still nice and clear. I've been topping off this container for about a year and a half to two years and really never took note of what was going on inside the container. I'm figuring carbon dioxide from the air was playing with the calcium chloride to form calcium carbonate.
CaCl2 + CO2 + H20 -------> CaCO3 + 2 HCl
With this container open to the atmosphere, I guess I'll just have to clean it out every so often. I'll now keep a better eye on when this starts to show up.
Has anyone else seen this?
So I went to top off my calc container today and as I begin to dump in fresh solution, I see a milky white precipitate getting kicked up. My holding containers for alk and calc are one gallon cereal containers with wide mouth openings. Here's a picture of the stuff after I dumped it into a clear mug:
The solutions I've made up in sealed plastic jugs are still nice and clear. I've been topping off this container for about a year and a half to two years and really never took note of what was going on inside the container. I'm figuring carbon dioxide from the air was playing with the calcium chloride to form calcium carbonate.
CaCl2 + CO2 + H20 -------> CaCO3 + 2 HCl
With this container open to the atmosphere, I guess I'll just have to clean it out every so often. I'll now keep a better eye on when this starts to show up.
Has anyone else seen this?
That's pretty interesting Paul. I manually dose as of now so I don't have dosing containers to refill and notice anything like this. Unfortunately the chemistry is a bit over my head in those terms. Should have paid more attention in highschool...lol or even college for that matter. Will or would the end result of calcium carbonate have any ill effects if dosed like it was calcium chloride?
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
John, just to be clear, mine are covered as well. Originally used one gallon juice jugs, but refilling them was difficult through the small opening in the top. These cereal containers have that wide door-like opening, making refilling very easy.
The precipitation of the calcium to calcium carbonate in the container will lower the amount of calcium available to your tank. Calcium carbonate at tank pH will never resolubilize. Granted, this amount will not be that large, where it makes a significant difference, but it's still happening. The testing I do and slight adjustments to dosing will account for any losses due to precipitation.
I used to use four old vingar gallon jugs for this purpose, two in use and two in waiting, and when I needed to refill them I just switched them out. I did, however have an issue with the sediment building up in my 5 gal. ATO bucket, and was working on a CO2 scrubber "breather" for the lid before I broke the tank down.
Anything and everything is possible. If you bounce a ball on a brick wall, eventually all the molecules in the ball will be going in the same direction as the wall, and the ball will pass right through the wall. However, the likelyhood is extremely slim (with the ball and the wall, and the problem being Prestone Driveway Heat.)
Calcium Chloride, to the best of my knowledge, is only manufacturered by Occidental (in the US). It is hard for me to believe there is any difference between what is being put into ice melt product and also sold to BRS. If you look at the MSDS sheets on both, they are the same.
In addition, I am also very confident in the chemistry I supplied above. It makes perfect sense, and works chemically, to see that the addition of carbon dioxide would cause for the reaction with calcium chloride to produce insoluble calcium carbonate. If someone has BRS calcium choride, mix up a small batch, put in a bubbler, and watch it precipitate.
Now where's my ball; this ball-wall nonsense is hard to believe.
A month or so ago I picked up some Caulerpa from Sunny. I threw it in my refugium, which has a deep sandbed and a powerhead. When I had cheato in there, it wasn't an issue because the ball of cheato just seemed to tumble around as a ball. However, with the Caulerpa, it "planted" itself in the sand, and also didn't tumble well. Small pieces would constantly get sucked into the powerhead.
So tonight I made an ACG....an Algae Containment Vessel. I only had a limited supply of egg crate, but a considerable amount of Artist Stiff Plastic Canvas. I had used this in the past to make a screened wall in freshwater tanks to keep miscreants apart. So with a number of small zip ties, I put this thing together:
Here it is in the sump with about 90% of the caulerpa captured and confined in the vessel. That white pipe you see is coming from the BRS GFO/Carbon reactor.
So tonight I made an ACG....an Algae Containment Vessel. I only had a limited supply of egg crate, but a considerable amount of Artist Stiff Plastic Canvas. I had used this in the past to make a screened wall in freshwater tanks to keep miscreants apart. So with a number of small zip ties, I put this thing together:
Here it is in the sump with about 90% of the caulerpa captured and confined in the vessel. That white pipe you see is coming from the BRS GFO/Carbon reactor.
I also changed out the Koralia nano powerhead I had in the refugium. This POC (piece-of-crap) had started to stall and required me to to put a toothpick into the front of the powerhead to "start" the pump. I originally liked Koralia when they had simple numbers....like the K4's. Still use one for my saltwater making. I pre-purchased the newer "big number" Koralia powerheads...as an example, 1400's....and within a year and a half, watched all four of them crap out. This is one company I have little respect.
Anyway, I was fortunate enough to pick up an Ecotech NoisyDrive MP10. WIth their introduction of the QuietDrive, I'm assuming their lackadaisical attempts to fix a problem they've had since its introduction is now termed NoisyDrive. I'm not overly concerned because I've already done bearing replacements on MP's, so I'm ready.
Wow, just realized I'm floating some negative feelings tonight! Anyway, here's the NoisyDrive in the refugium.
Anyway, I was fortunate enough to pick up an Ecotech NoisyDrive MP10. WIth their introduction of the QuietDrive, I'm assuming their lackadaisical attempts to fix a problem they've had since its introduction is now termed NoisyDrive. I'm not overly concerned because I've already done bearing replacements on MP's, so I'm ready.
Wow, just realized I'm floating some negative feelings tonight! Anyway, here's the NoisyDrive in the refugium.
So for some reason my yellow tang has gotten aggressive towards my long nose yellow butterfly. I don't understand...they've been tank-mates since maybe five years, and have lived very happy together. And to boot, I've got another zebrasoma in there for the yellow to beat on, and he only lightly picks on the scopas.
The tang comes in for a tail strike and the butterfly turns to expose it's spiny dorsal fin. Some of these attacks are amusing in that the butterfly will actually flip upside down to expose it's dorsal spines toward the attack.
Anyway, I wanted to see if I could stop these attacks by hanging a hand mirror on the tank. The idea was that the tang would see itself and focus its attack on the mirror. Well guess what.....the tang could care less....and it was the butterfly that was facinated by the mirror and constantly stopped in front of the mirror, extending its dorsal fin spikes, ready for the attack. I can't win! You can see the back-side of the mirror in the lower left corner, and the butterfly showing it's aggressive pose with the spines extended.
The tang comes in for a tail strike and the butterfly turns to expose it's spiny dorsal fin. Some of these attacks are amusing in that the butterfly will actually flip upside down to expose it's dorsal spines toward the attack.
Anyway, I wanted to see if I could stop these attacks by hanging a hand mirror on the tank. The idea was that the tang would see itself and focus its attack on the mirror. Well guess what.....the tang could care less....and it was the butterfly that was facinated by the mirror and constantly stopped in front of the mirror, extending its dorsal fin spikes, ready for the attack. I can't win! You can see the back-side of the mirror in the lower left corner, and the butterfly showing it's aggressive pose with the spines extended.
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I've actually had the long nose since 2008.....and I don't know what the secret is. I've actually tried copperbands two times, and refuse to kill any more of these fish. I just couldn't figure out the copperbands.....and the crazy thing with both was that they ate in the LFS but refused to eat in my tank. My long nose butterfly eats everything....including nuri from the algae clips when I feed the tangs.
I try not to buy any fish that historically have little chance of a long life in an aquarium like the copper-band. Moorish idols were the same. But maybe there is a long nose in my future...
I was not around much in late October through to the first of January and didn't do much maintanence on the tank. I saw a considerable decline in the appearance and thought it was due to this lack of maintanence. So the beginning of January, being back home, I did major water changes, and it still looked crappy. My LPS were looking real sad, SPS with minimal polyp extension, and an overall washed out look.
Well I eventually discovered that my Apollo lights were slowly cooking themselves. I've chronicled that story HERE. While I make the decision on my future lighting choices, I put an old blue and white TaoTronics fixture up. The human eye change was immediately noticed....color now popped....it was considerably brighter (and yes I know the eye is not PAR). Within two days I've seen considerable change in my sad looking corals. Here are some examples, apologizing for my crappy camera.
This pink chalice had turned green and just within two days is starting to slowly revert back to pink.
Hammer has expanded another 25% and the neon color is back:
King Midas back to looking like royality:
Nuclear Greens back to looking radioactive:
And finally, I can't tell you the last time I saw the polyps on this guy. With this new "old" light, and the powerheads flowing, it looks like the tassels on a Las Vegas dancer.
I am pretty sure I can state that the crappy look and poor condition of my corals was from the slow loss of the light from the Apollo LED's cooking themselves.
Well I eventually discovered that my Apollo lights were slowly cooking themselves. I've chronicled that story HERE. While I make the decision on my future lighting choices, I put an old blue and white TaoTronics fixture up. The human eye change was immediately noticed....color now popped....it was considerably brighter (and yes I know the eye is not PAR). Within two days I've seen considerable change in my sad looking corals. Here are some examples, apologizing for my crappy camera.
This pink chalice had turned green and just within two days is starting to slowly revert back to pink.
Hammer has expanded another 25% and the neon color is back:
King Midas back to looking like royality:
Nuclear Greens back to looking radioactive:
And finally, I can't tell you the last time I saw the polyps on this guy. With this new "old" light, and the powerheads flowing, it looks like the tassels on a Las Vegas dancer.
I am pretty sure I can state that the crappy look and poor condition of my corals was from the slow loss of the light from the Apollo LED's cooking themselves.
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