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Jimroth's Big Ol' Tank

Fish Brain

Fish Brain

Officer Emeritus
Officer Emeritus
It might take some time. I have some sps corals that have had somewhat of a rough past. They went from a tank with inadequate PC lighting, to a tank with LEDs and some bleached while others were still browned. Since putting them in my 65 in November under MHs. 2 of the brown ones are starting to color back up, and one that was bleached really bad is getting its green color back. One still doesn't look good and one is still blah, and all this is almost 3 months later...
 
ricwilli

ricwilli

jimroth said:
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.
Click to expand...

come on Jim. Your a pro. You know in this hobby things are slow. lol. Your sps are probably still in a state of shock. They will recover. At least they are still hanging on.
 
Baxreefs

Baxreefs

My SPS looked horrible after the move to the garage. Now, when I take the time to unwrap all the inuslation and look at them, they look pretty good! It's been over four months since the move. All things good in reefing take time! Only BAD things happen fast! :D

Did you switch to LEDs?
 
NikkiT

NikkiT

Jim, I feel your pain. Our corals in our 57g fall into two categories: one group looks fantastic, is growing and happy, and the other group looks awful. Unfortunately, we had our alk fall over the weekend when we were gone, and we added a few more corals to the "awful" category.
Hang in there. We had a chalice that survived our tank crash in 2009 and just got its color back. It spent almost three years being browned out, and I thought of giving it away more than once, and I am AO glad I held on to it now that it is finally colored up and growing again. If you were coming down to the meeting, I'd point you to the two happy tanks, and then the tank that looks like crud. I just keep telling myself that eventually we will get it right, and then it will look beautiful again.
 
jimroth

jimroth

Thanks all for those kind words. I'm sure it will regain its former glory (?) in time, but of course I want it to happen NOW, in fact I'm going to go buy a thousand bucks worth of wild Acros and MAKE IT HAPPEN. BOO YAH! COLOR ON!

ha ha, if only.
 
jimroth

jimroth

I've done a bad thing to my tank and I didn't mean to. :(
The water wasn't flowing through the return fast enough so the siphon started sucking air. I wen to check it and found that my two part had deposited a great deal of residue, I dunno what, in the last chamber of my sump. Like a couple of inches worth! I think I accidentally had both driplines going in there. There were two heaters buried in the stuff, so I dug them out, only the cord is still stuck on one of them.
There must have been a lot of soda ash in that precipitate, because the pH in the tank shot up to 9.05! I used an old trick and lowered it with soda water, seltzer, and that worked but now the tank is almost as cloudy as milk . Fish are hiding and the pH is still 8.6, kind of high. There's white crap (calcium snowstorm?) all over everything.
Kinda bummed.

HALF AN HOUR LATER:

The tank is mostly clear. pH has dropped to 8.45, everything looks fine except there's white dust on every algae-covered surface. Looks kind of cool or maybe like a construction site. I'm curious to know the Ca and alk, will have to do a test later. I have shut off the 2-part drip for now.
 
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jimroth

jimroth

I'm going to have to figure out how to remove the remaining deposit in the sump without causing another incident or cracking the sump. Which is, of course, hard plumbed. It's amazing in there, it looks like Carlsbad Caverns. I suspect it's going to involve shutting down the return pump and using the shop vac and something to gently scrape the deposits off.
Maybe if I'm going to keep the big ol tank going it's time to re-do the sump by building a surround for my Rubbermaid trough and going that route. The glass sump has not conferred the benefits I thought it would.

Oddly enough, during all this, I'm starting to get some purple back into my bleached tricolor acro, will wonders never cease etc.
 
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jimroth

jimroth

Color continues to return to my acros, I must be doing something right. A couple have really left the building though. Have to stay on the water quality issues. Just changed 50G, making another 50G this weekend.
I'm thinking about removing some of my more algae-encrusted rocks for cooking, it's only maybe 1/3 that are the problem.
New 29G biocube looks good, it's cycling. I should post some pics. I ordered a media basket from InTank, and for some reason the pathetic little skimmer from Oceanic (Coralife). I got a good deal on ebay and thought I would try it until I worked out something better.
I never saw the appeal of nano reefs before. It's like having a dollhouse. Everything the big reef has, only smaller. I have an ancient tiny HW-Marine UV sterilizer I'm dying to install on the tank, I think it's 9W.
 
jimroth

jimroth

The InTank media tray is a nicely made item, and costs top dollar like anything handmade in the US. Fits perfectly. The nano cube people love this stuff I've never used in a big reef tank, Boyd chemi-pure and Seachem Purigen. The need for filtration in a tiny tank is much more critical, I wish I had studied this stuff before my ill fated seahorse project.
I loaded my media rack with floss on top, then Purigen, then chemipure elite. Which adds GFO. Chemipure is supposed to replace carbon and last a lot longer. I added my first fish, it's slightly an experiment because the tank is still new, a Randall's shrimp goby. And two trochus snails.
 
Fish Brain

Fish Brain

Officer Emeritus
Officer Emeritus
Sounds like things are moving along nicely.

I run chemipure elite in my Biocube 8 and was running it in my 20L when I had it set up. It's a good thing to have in the smaller tanks. Having the GFO helps when you are not running a skimmer on little tanks.
 
M

mnat

Officer Emeritus
Staff member
Moderator
+1 to the chemipure elite, I have been running it on my 12g since I setup in nov 2008.
 
jimroth

jimroth

Bought my first exciting fish purchase in a long time for the big reef -- a PAIR of Burgess' butterflies from DD. I hope this works okay. They are supposed to be pretty reef-safe, and also pretty tough. Fingers crossed. Expensive, more than 2X the cost of a Burgess. The Biocube is going to get a couple of pistol shrimp soon if they get to the store alive. Same day as the butterflies. They were WAY too much at Ab Fish ($30) so my friend is ordering some, wholesale is $5- $10, from a local distributor.
 
jimroth

jimroth

monroereef said:
Way to go Jim. Pics Pics Pics ... LOL
Click to expand...

Well this is sort of a tease, but I won't be taking any flash pictures of them (if they even arrive alive, etc etc..) for a while. Here they are...

_cfimg-5243407471118950005.PNG
 
jimroth

jimroth

The Burgess' Butterflies have arrived! Trying to limit aggression from the PBT with a mirror, not having much luck. They are sticking together though, that helps. They did a super-cute nuzzling thing when they were reunited after their long trip in separate bags.
 
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