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Jimroth's Big Ol' Tank

One interesting thing was observed after the big insult and deaths involved in the blackout.

When I built my reef I made a support structure on PVC pipe with holes drilled in it, see way earlier in the thread. It connects to a barb fittting in the tank. When I do water changes I run a hose to the barb fitting a suck out the water and sand from inside and adjacent to the pipes. usually I get a little muddy water and sand out of there. When I did my water change after the disaster, what came out of there was EXTREMELY NASTY. And there was a lot of it. So that thing is worthwhile. I never saw bodies for my regal angel or royal gramma, they were somebody's expensive lunch. So maybe that was liquid fish.

Probably Hydrogen Sulfide from the water not moving in the pipes. See # 6 in the section, "Preventing and Dealing with Hydrogen Sulfide", in this information:
 
I made up a batch of Eric Borneman's pest killer formula (http://www.njreefers.org/showthread.php?61395-APTASIA-MOJAMO-PEST-killer....Eric-Borneman-s-recipe) for the first time. A few thoughts:
1) The mixing container gets too hot to hold when you mix the stuff. Don't plan on moving it if you aren't wearing gloves. 2) It's nasty, don't get it on your hands. It burns. 3) It works as advertised but it kills everything you put it on, including coral. 4) It blows around the tank like snow, or maybe I used too much. 5) It is powerfully basic, it raised my pH to 8.6 and it stayed there. That was with about 50ml of the solution.
 
The great folks at Reeflo replaced my Super Dart Gold with a refurbished unit. The extra cost was worth it for the 5-year warranty! They even threw in a new impeller and the back half of the volute with a new shaft seal. Ahhhh. Now I have two working Dart pumps. Once I follow the bearing replacement procedure on Melev's website for my screaming pump I will have three. From now on I will swap out the pump at the first sign of leakage from the seal, and rebuild the offending pump at my convenience. Life is too short etc. Plus it was a lot of dough to ship the pump back to the manufacturer ($30 I think) and nobody reimburses you for that.

I loved my old powder blue tang. The new one from AO looks good, and is even a bit bigger, but has a different personality. It's not "boss of the tank" so it's shy. Hides from people. Does not eat enthusiastically yet, after several weeks, not even nori. It's on it's second round of ich, lighter this time than the last time, but still disturbing. The old one never had ich. It's kind of a hunch but I think my last one was female and this one's male. The shape is a little different.

The old one also ate bubble algae, as did my big foxface, and nobody's eating it now, which is a problem. I'm pulling it out by hand but god I hate that stuff. I'm thinking about buyng a second larger foxface (ornate!) in hopes that it will chow down.

I'm doing way better with snails. The cool-looking top crown snail from AO is a very good snail. It's a big snail, larger than a silver dollar. It's all over the tank, covering big distances. Someone told me that copperband BFs kill snails, they eat off their antennae, and I am starting to believe that since I am having this minor snail rennaisance and no longer have the CBB. I have more algae too, I bet that helps.

The seahorse project is over. There were some management problems, and some bad luck, and I'm never going to mention it again.

The former super seahorse ranch 58G Oceanic is going to become a new non-reef. I was inspired by super-aquarist Sandee to start a tank to indulge my interest in weird fish, odd inverts and onther stuff outside the normal reefy realm. I'm trying to do it all with used gear from my vast supply, though I think I will cave and buy some basic LED lighting.
 
Jim if you are not going with corals in the 58 gallon I would look at these:

http://www.marinedepot.com/Marinela...ht_Fixtures_for_Aquariums-AS-FILTFILD-ct.html

I have always wanted that tank for interesting stuff, non reef safe stars, cuttlefish, tobies, things of that nature so I am a bit jealous. Greg at R2R had in two amazing anglers over the weekend and I thought about setting up another tank on the spot.

Thanks. What really got me going was the desire to do the gobies-and-pistol shrimp thing, as well as certain other things that would get lost in the big tank, jawfish maybe, garden eels, odd stuff. I've found that small stuff in a 200G tank just disappears, you have to hunt to find it.
 
sorry to hear about the ranch moving on. But a tank of jawfish /eels or other odd critters would certainly be very interesting and appealing!

I hate bubble algae...so i totally hear you about ripping the stuff out.
 
Got a glass lid for my Oceanic 58 G. Oceanic is out of business, so it took some detective work. There were four left in the Central Pet warehouse, and they aren't making them anymore. Now there are three.
I couldn't find an external to fit with my sump under the stand, without attaching it right to the bulkhead , a bad idea. Instead I'm going to use a submersible pump for the return, an Italian Sicce pump. Shades of my first reef tank! Heat shouldn't be much of an issue since I'm planning on using LEDs and the tank doesn't need reef- grade lighting.

Merry Christmas and a happy New Year to all who read this! Let's hope for a blackout free 2012!
 
Have been wrestling with a certain degree of reef fatigue. It still seems like one issue after another but it's really more like I'm having trouble getting jazzed up about a crappy looking reef. Acros all bleached when I let the alk and salinity go through the roof. Got that adjusted, then I finally admitted to myself that I was not handling my phosphate issues, finally installed the jumbo (550) PhosBan Reactor and finally did an overdue water change. In the process of all this my RO unit crapped out (ASOV failed) and I found I was putting out 20PPT water, so, ordered some new cartridges.
One thing that did get me excited was I bought a half-dozen blue chromis, my first chromis ever. They are fun to watch, something cheap and enjoyable for a change!
 
I remember being so resistant to chromis but I really liked my small group when I first got them. Nice color ! Active! Just cool! ... and Cheap!
 
any pics of the blue chromis? i know you said they are relatively inexpensive but they are at least what $20 a pop?
 
any pics of the blue chromis? i know you said they are relatively inexpensive but they are at least what $20 a pop?
These are blue green, but they are just the garden variety, 3/$21 at the store, not the whoopie blue Caribbean guys.
 
All my parameters are now in very good shape: Phospates, Ca, Alk, Mag, pH, Salinity. So why won't my corals get their color back (the new ones look OK)? I think I'm going to shorten my photoperiod by a half hour.
 
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