-
Folks, if you've recently upgraded or renewed your annual club membership but it's still not active, please reach out to the BOD or a moderator. The PayPal system has a slight bug which it doesn't allow it to activate the account on it's own.
Jimroth's Big Ol' Tank
- Thread starter jimroth
- Start date
Bax stopped by the other day to consult on his old skimmer, thanks Bax!
Everything's doing great, I did notice a couple things. One is, I hadn't changed my DI cartridge and the RO water creeped up to 35ppt, so I took care of that. I was worried about phosphate since I'm feeding a lot more mysis shrimp these days, but I'm not really having any algae issues, just some extra glass cleaning. The only problem algae is the eternal red wire algae we spread through the club back in the day, and the urchin team (Blue Tux! Pincushion! Diadema!) are doing a good job clearing that off the rocks. The diadema is now approaching scary size, with individual spines being 8" long.
Still, I'm going to change out my GFO and bring the carbon reactor back online (I've been running with a simple large bag of carbon in the sump).
Part of my current philosophy is: Keep water changes easy and do them often. Don't have to vacuum, or sweat the details too much, match the salinity and temp, 50G g out, 50G in, boom bang done, don't skip a month.
Need to get some new frags, probably schedule a field trip to one of our local farmers soon.
Everything's doing great, I did notice a couple things. One is, I hadn't changed my DI cartridge and the RO water creeped up to 35ppt, so I took care of that. I was worried about phosphate since I'm feeding a lot more mysis shrimp these days, but I'm not really having any algae issues, just some extra glass cleaning. The only problem algae is the eternal red wire algae we spread through the club back in the day, and the urchin team (Blue Tux! Pincushion! Diadema!) are doing a good job clearing that off the rocks. The diadema is now approaching scary size, with individual spines being 8" long.
Still, I'm going to change out my GFO and bring the carbon reactor back online (I've been running with a simple large bag of carbon in the sump).
Part of my current philosophy is: Keep water changes easy and do them often. Don't have to vacuum, or sweat the details too much, match the salinity and temp, 50G g out, 50G in, boom bang done, don't skip a month.
Need to get some new frags, probably schedule a field trip to one of our local farmers soon.
Some Coral Pix
Here are some pictures of my coral progress:
Green Slimer, a great morale booster because I have never seen an acro grow this fast!
This is the purple nana (I think, maybe Plana) that I am re-growing from a quarter-sized patch that survived my tank disaster
My Favia Pallida, in culture since late 1999!
This is a wild colony, A. Monticluosa from LADD
My old Monti Capps, Hard to kill, not gonna let it get out of hand this time.
"Lucky Shamrock" Cyphastrea, has been tough as nails, never even lost color
Continued...
Here are some pictures of my coral progress:
Green Slimer, a great morale booster because I have never seen an acro grow this fast!
This is the purple nana (I think, maybe Plana) that I am re-growing from a quarter-sized patch that survived my tank disaster
My Favia Pallida, in culture since late 1999!
This is a wild colony, A. Monticluosa from LADD
My old Monti Capps, Hard to kill, not gonna let it get out of hand this time.
"Lucky Shamrock" Cyphastrea, has been tough as nails, never even lost color
Continued...
More Coral Pix
This thing is just fantastic, I got it from Eric in the club, like a movie star it doesn't look quite this good in person, and this is a top-down view...
Pink Lemonade. I had this and it was lost in the crash, I had given a frag to Eric and his colony was going strong, so it's back. That is the way it's supposed to work! I was never able to get it to look this good under halides, this is under Radion G2's
Miami Orchid, originally from Bax, another coral that just won't quit.
Unnamed Blue Tort
This sad looking thing is A. Solitaryensis, maricultured, from LADD. It turned brown and didn't sell, so it was cheap! I am pretty sure it will at least get some purple once it settles down. Already showing new growth.
Pretty cool little tricolor, growing almost in shade, and behind that a kind of red-orange Monti CappsI got from Radiata.
Not shown is my remnant of Joe the Coral, coming on strong since I re-fragged it into a new better location...
That's it for now!
This thing is just fantastic, I got it from Eric in the club, like a movie star it doesn't look quite this good in person, and this is a top-down view...
Pink Lemonade. I had this and it was lost in the crash, I had given a frag to Eric and his colony was going strong, so it's back. That is the way it's supposed to work! I was never able to get it to look this good under halides, this is under Radion G2's
Miami Orchid, originally from Bax, another coral that just won't quit.
Unnamed Blue Tort
This sad looking thing is A. Solitaryensis, maricultured, from LADD. It turned brown and didn't sell, so it was cheap! I am pretty sure it will at least get some purple once it settles down. Already showing new growth.
Pretty cool little tricolor, growing almost in shade, and behind that a kind of red-orange Monti CappsI got from Radiata.
Not shown is my remnant of Joe the Coral, coming on strong since I re-fragged it into a new better location...
That's it for now!
BTW, my copperband figured out about aiptasia, so those are all gone. My LFS got an adult regal angel, which will be MINE when it starts eating...much cheaper than LADD!
Brought my carbon reactor back online. I used the bituminous carbon we got in the club for so long, I had more than 5Lbs, that stuff was a pain in the butt! Now I'm using store carbon, which has much lets dust, and it sinks instead of floats. Sometimes you gotta just spend the money.
Brought my carbon reactor back online. I used the bituminous carbon we got in the club for so long, I had more than 5Lbs, that stuff was a pain in the butt! Now I'm using store carbon, which has much lets dust, and it sinks instead of floats. Sometimes you gotta just spend the money.
The Milli is looking very pink in my tank, but honestly it doesn't look as good as the photo. No photoshop, just shooting with my Canon, RAW format...Those are also the topdown view, everybody does it, but I bet it's hard for you to get your head inside the canopy you have. And head-on is not quite as good due to light angle issues.
Yes, I was very happy with how the pink lemonade colored up. It never looked that good for ME under halides, I guess it likes LEDs! It's encrusting rapidly so should do well. As is the blue tort. One thing about a true tank wipeout is that the choicest spots are available for coral. Once the collection grows, you end up shoehorning stuff into a second-rate spot.
Made run down to club sponsor Dr. Jim's Reef Corner at Amwell Bird Hospital. There is an ambulance across the street, but I was disappointed to learn it belongs to the Hillsborough rescue squad, rather than the Bird Hospital. Dr. Jim is a friendly guy and has a really choice selection of frags as well as a display where you can see a lot of the mother colonies. I picked up a trio of frags that have been on my want list for a long time. I got REAL Pearlberry, Red Planet and Strawberry Shortcake. Yes I'm trying again with Red Planet. This time for sure.
Solly color is rapidly improving!
I had a couple of portions of blackworms and I stored them in the fridge in a Vlasic pickle jar I had washed out. I opened the jar and got hit with a blast of garlic, though the worms were fine. I fed some to the fish and they went crazy for them. I think I just invented GARLIC WORMS!
Geeze Jim, this is going to change my Man Mantra on fixing anything. In the past this mantra was that if it can't be fixed by a hammer and duct tape, it can't be fixed. I guess I'll now have to add Weldon to this mantra. 
dnov99
FRAG SWAP VENDOR
I would dip and QT those frags....
Everything got dipped with Revive but not QTd. I didn't see anything fall off. Hope I didn't infect my tank!
Geeze Jim, this is going to change my Man Mantra on fixing anything. In the past this mantra was that if it can't be fixed by a hammer and duct tape, it can't be fixed. I guess I'll now have to add Weldon to this mantra.
I'm surprised more places don't sell Weldon. It's surprisingly useful in our plasticized world. I recently fixed our Brita water pitcher when someone dropped it and the bottom seam cracked.
Still having problems with water blowing out of the Becketts. All that needs to happen is to have the level up high in the skimmer for wet skimming and one injector gets good and clogged. Had an issue yesterday where I set the skimmer to wet skim and ended up with around 25G of SW on the garage floor. Some of it was overflow from the waste bucket but compounding it was the squirting injector which soaked down the whole back-end area. This is why (1) I always have the shop-vac ready and (2) I always have 50G of SW made up.
I'm not sure what I found in the clogged injector. Small white calcium objects, like vermetid snails. I've been running a filter sock, which has really reduced this phenomenon, but clearly these found their way into the injector anyway.
One thing that occurs to me is that this can only be an issue withg a multi-injector system. If it was a single injector system, the clogged injector would shut down skimming, but with the dual injectors, the unclogged injector continues to drive the skimmer and pushes water out the clogged one.
I'm interested in the possibility of a screen of some sort of screen over the intake of the recirculating pump. It would have to offer very low resistance and be easy to clean.
I'm not sure what I found in the clogged injector. Small white calcium objects, like vermetid snails. I've been running a filter sock, which has really reduced this phenomenon, but clearly these found their way into the injector anyway.
One thing that occurs to me is that this can only be an issue withg a multi-injector system. If it was a single injector system, the clogged injector would shut down skimming, but with the dual injectors, the unclogged injector continues to drive the skimmer and pushes water out the clogged one.
I'm interested in the possibility of a screen of some sort of screen over the intake of the recirculating pump. It would have to offer very low resistance and be easy to clean.
I may need to visit again. These Becketts are real tricky to dial in and any change can set set off. pH Alk even temp can effect them. Once in the sweet spot though they are amazing.
Sounds like your a little high on water level and then open the injectors. Use the syringe thingy to blast RO water every day maybe twice a day to keep it clear.
Sounds like your a little high on water level and then open the injectors. Use the syringe thingy to blast RO water every day maybe twice a day to keep it clear.
Edwardw771
NJRC Member
Do your self a favor and get one of these. http://www.coralvue.com/4inch-waste-collector-with-auto-shutoff