Jimroth's Big Ol' Tank

[jimroth]

Nice pick ups Jim!

Thanks!
I made a 5G bucket of weak kalkwasser and forgot to close the tube on the peristaltic pump. I went to the movies and managed to siphon 5G of kalk into the tank. Yay! Pretty cloudy, mostly just undissolved calcium, and the skimmer is going nuts pulling it out. The fish and corals I can see though the fog look fine, so I dumped in some seltzer water to raise the pH, and let the skimmer do its thing.

 

[JRWOHLER]

I added a new shrimp goby from AO to the biocube to replace the one that died a while back. The new one is a large pink spotted goby and the obnoxious watchman goby has given him no guff! He immediately moved into one of the existing holes. The goby-less candy cane pistol has been trying to get his attention, but no dice so far. While at AO I picked up a frag of purple-blue stylo as a kind of test frag, see if it stays happy and grows.

Funny I think Will sells those purple stylo like they used to sell damsels I have one at the top of my tank too.
Nice goby, it was pretty good sized as I recall.

 

[jimroth]

Very heartening to see my reef returning to normal. Since setting up the Ca Reactor again, coral growth has increased, it may be the alk support or the form of calcium in the water. The Miami orchid has new growth tips and the frags I took off are encrusting. Joe the Coral is pretty sad. The patch of blue acro I found behind the rockwork is actively growing again. I thought it had to be the aggressive pink-and-blue mille, but it doesn't look millie-like now that it's branching. i don't know WHAT it is! Incredibly, there's another stray acro I didn't notice before coming up in and almost shady spot. I thought i was fooling myself, but it's taking off. There's a couple more tips in the same spot, I'm going to try to frag it and baby it along! Hair algae continues to diminish, there is quite a lot of bare rock cryin' out for frags. I think some sunset monti may have survived, it looks like it's trying to color up. The ton of pokerstar I had survived, and that's coloring up very well. Heater/controller continue to manage well though the recent deep freeze.

The evil non-symbiotic brown pistol shrimp in the biocube had lost his big claw at some point. As soon as he shed and it was functional again BANG killed and ate yet another firefish. I need to get him outta there before I replace the firefish.

 

[jimroth]

Replaced the cooling fans in the Oceanic Biocube 29 with replacements from In-Tank. Pretty easy but you need something to grab the plug from the circuit board in the hood, it's like a computer motherboard connector. I used a really tiny pair of pliers.

Getting ready to order the wireless hub for all my EcoTech gear, because I can't help myself. I need to update replace the controllers on some of my VorTechs too, but that's minor..

 

[Fish Brain]

You have some time to upgrade your pumps. Currently the Reef Link only works with the lights. Vortech control is "Coming Soon".

I might pick one up also once they have control of the pumps. Let me know how you like it.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[jimroth]

Thanks, I Did Not Know That!

 

[jimroth]

Added a bunch of frags from a club member and old friend. One of the acros is one I originally gave him, Tyree Pink Lemonade, and he kept going, plus a bunch of other great stuff, green slimer, blue tort, bunch of nice stuff, it's really great.

 

[jimroth]

The big pink-spot goby in the Biocube seemed to have disappeared. I went looking all over for him (where can things hide in a Biocube?) and to my surprise found a very unhappy firefish who had spent 3 weeks living in the overflow! Took a long time recovering, just sat on the gravel, but all better now. The pink-spot goby must have had his butt kicked by the much smaller watchman goby, because he got moved out of his burrow and moved into a hole in the rock. Hey, at least I shook things up in there a little!

The big tank is moving along rapidly. With almost all macroalgae gone, (thanks, long-spined urchin), I started supplementing with nori sheets. I moved one of the rocks while landscaping and found a huge black deposit, like a mound of black mud. It might have been an algae mat that decomposed when a rock was placed on it. I siphoned it into a bucket where it turned 5G of water jet black and stinky. Happy to have that out of there!

Starting construction on my new fish cave I'm keeping the PVC supports but I'm going to cut them so the cave ceiling is only 4-5" high. The old cave dominated the left end of the reef too much and blocked flow. But it was so popular with my fish I can't eliminate it outright. I'm adding a third support at the back right corner of the cave, since the PVC in the old cave drooped eventually. To try to improve the appearance, I'm going to to hide the PVC supports by drilling 1" holes in some of the LR I have in storage and stacking it over the pipes. I hope it doesn't look too much like Fred Flintstone's house. This avoids having to make piles of rock against the side of the tank, again impeding flow. The whole shebang is going to be topped with a single piece of actual shelf rock, since the multiple pieces I used last time turned out to be a disaster. (The supporting cable ties disintegrated and the roof fell in!)

Bought a slightly better calcium reactor from a club member, but the old one is doing fine, so I'll wait. The used package buys me a second CO2 tank and regulator, and a new controller, which I can put to use right away. Ca reactor clogged for the first time, time to start playing with the pinch valve!

Pizza delivery guy totalled his van in front of my house last night, flipped it right over. I put on my EMT jacket, grabbed some gear, and headed right out there to help him, while we waited for the ambulance. He was a little banged up and cut up but otherwise okay. It felt really good to be an EMT right then!

 

[JRWOHLER]

Pizza delivery guy totalled his van in front of my house last night, flipped it right over. I put on my EMT jacket, grabbed some gear, and headed right out there to help him, while we waited for the ambulance. He was a little banged up and cut up but otherwise okay. It felt really good to be an EMT right then!

Lucky guy.

 

[jimroth]

I would like to figure out a way to run carbon which is more efficient than what I'm doing (big bag of carbon in the sump) and less bothersome than what I used to do, the TLF reactors, which were a PITA to clean and the carbon clumped up anyway. I wonder if I can just make a simple module out of PVC with a hose barb and a threaded cap at each end and an internal screen? 100% of the water would go thru the carbon, and to clean it I could just open up both ends and bang the stuff out.

 

[JRWOHLER]

I would like to figure out a way to run carbon which is more efficient than what I'm doing (big bag of carbon in the sump) and less bothersome than what I used to do, the TLF reactors, which were a PITA to clean and the carbon clumped up anyway. I wonder if I can just make a simple module out of PVC with a hose barb and a threaded cap at each end and an internal screen? 100% of the water would go thru the carbon, and to clean it I could just open up both ends and bang the stuff out.

http://www.tbaquatics.com/double-chamber-media-reactor-for-remphos-or-bac-310.html we have the group buy coming up might be a good time to get one.

 

[jimroth]

I've been getting used to the new skimmer. One thing I discovered is that the Beckett injectors do get clogged easily and when that happens they stop foaming and it cuts the foam way down. It's easy to tell which one is clogged because you cut off its air intake and nothing changes. The good thing is that the design of the MRC skimmer is so slick that I can get the Beckett off and disassembled in less than a minute, especially since the skimmer is at bench height.
Old skimmer and pump is for sale in the Deals and Steals section, if it doesn't go in a couple weeks I'll put it up on RC. For more money.
Drilled rocks to maker the new fish cave, they look pretty good. Looking for a big piece of shelf rock for the top, that may be hard to find.
The tiny bit of Meteor Shower Cyphastrea that survived (4 polyps!) is spreading fast (8 polyps!), I think it will re-cover its old skeleton and I won't need to repurchase. The undata colony remnant (about 2 square MM) is just too small.
Bought a little blue tux urchin on a whim.

 

[jimroth]

I forgot how fast green slimer grows. Bang Zoom, Baby! Joe The Coral is picking up speed too.

 

[dan_k]

I think we would all like to see some pics

 

[EricBa]

Hey Jim,
Yes, that green slimer will quickly take over part of the tank if not kept under control. In fact I see myself doing some serious triming in the next week or so. The blue tort is not as fast, but can similarly dominate a section of tank. How is the other stuff doing?
Eric

 

[jimroth]

Hey Jim,
Yes, that green slimer will quickly take over part of the tank if not kept under control. In fact I see myself doing some serious triming in the next week or so. The blue tort is not as fast, but can similarly dominate a section of tank. How is the other stuff doing?
Eric

Everything is doing awesome! Well, the ricordea came unglued and got lost, but everything else, well, great. Good polyp extension!

I think we would all like to see some pics

I agree. Pics soon!

 

[EricBa]

Yeah, I've had issues with getting the ricordea to stay mounted. It seems the best way is to just put a small rock next to the rock full of ricordea and wait for them to move over. I'm sure I will have more in the future, I'll save one for you. Maybe a trade for some of the Miami orchid.

 

[jimroth]

Tank is looking almost barren following the disappearance of hair algae. Phosphates measure zero, calcium at 550. I think I need to add some more fish, and maybe feed some more mysis, time for more frags or colonies! It shows you, I was ready to change the GFO, but with phosphates at zero, why?
Have been feeding everybody nori sheets, they are disappearing. Don't want to lose the urchins, who have done so much good.

Pink spot goby did team up with the little candy cane pistol, got two good pairs again in the pistol shrimp tank.

 

[jimroth]

This is the new fish cave. The key was getting a big piece of shelf rock, which I bought from Ab Fish. It's the most expensive rock I ever bought that wasn't in a ring. The old cave was a PVC box basically, this one is lower and more natural. It's open on all sides for circulation, so it's more like an overhang than a cave. I feel the cave reduces stress on the fish, everybody likes to hang out in there. It gives them a shady spot to get out of the bright light.

 

[jimroth]

It's been great to see corals start to grow again and colors return! Some of these are from generous club members (you know who you are!) I think going back to the Ca reactor was the right move. The new skimmer is doing a good job too. FWIW my pH probe had gone very far out of calibration. The meteor shower cyphastrea has gone from a couple of polyps to 18 polyps.