my other tank is a 15g

[mickeysreef <*))))<]

today i'll be working on flow and aquascaping.

flow goals:
1. eliminate dead spots on floor of tank (particularly under rocks + right rear corner and rear wall between overflows)
2. direct all floor flow into rear or front left corner for easy siphoning

Aquascaping goals:
1. move entire rockscape closer to rear wall
2. create extra caves and hiding places



Also:
i've added a couple of rocks from an established pest free tank. will add 3 or 4 more from that tank + a ton of established bio media into display until sump is complete

tank is about 2/3 filled with water, but plumbing and sump/refuigium not done yet

have not decided on what style of drain and returns to use. originally wanted to go bean animal for noise and safety but wife says tank is not in bedroom so noise not a factor and she would also rather have all plumbing in tank/cabinet - so this will eliminate some of my plumbing ideas)

will use 20g long for sump and 10g for refugium with separate return pumps. was unhappy with last sump when combined. i needed different flow rates and it was messy. i like a messy refugium but not sump.

 

[mickeysreef <*))))<]

spent the whole day doing fish stuff. wow I'm exhausted. I broke down 5 tanks holding live stock, got them into the new display. rehoused the damsels in a couple of 10 gallon tanks. and set up a 55 to hold my live rock fallow for several months. I do not believe I have ich in there but I want all the pests dead. although my new display is pretty well stocked with rock but my old display had much nicer live rock. just really nice pieces. I also sold my 56 gallon as well. so a lot happened today.

you can see I have my bricks in there and some established rock along with some mixed bio-media - so plenty of bacteria. I also have about 10 pounds of pumice to drop in there too.i keep it in a fine mesh laundry bag. hopefully before I go to bed tonight. I seeded the tank today with the 3 bottles of bio spira and microbacter 7 as well.

right now this tank is pest free. hopefully nothing sneaks in!!!




this is my fallow tank. I will use covers so nothing goes airborne just in case.


the plan tomorrow is to work on my boat since it will be such a nice day. I'm about 1/3 done on stripping the bottom paint. I'm also going to lift the outboard off the transom to replace the bracket with hydraulic tilt and trim.

in the evening, I will start working on my sump. I need to order the sock holder, but I can do most of my baffles. not sure if I'm going to use valves on the plumbing though. still need to order my new pumps. rest of my livestock should be here on Tuesday. let's hope powder blue doesn't have an ich breakout!

 

[mickeysreef <*))))<]

my order is in. jebao scp150 and jebao sow20 for flow
4"sock holder and 20 4x14 200 micron socks

 

[mickeysreef <*))))<]

so turns out yesterday was not as warm as they predicted so no boat work + it was a migraine day so I was totally out of commish.

whats happening today?

some of the fish are in the tank now for 48 hrs. thats the sailfin, yellow, tomini, pj cardinals and bluegreen chromis....


so sad to say that my true sebae was out of stock at shipping and will not be included. and really if you just knew how much ive wanted this fish for such a long time how bittersweet this fish delivery really is. i could see myself settling for a tomato - would have to be stunning but ehhhh probably not


what else. after much thought, discussion with the wife, have decided to move the sump up to a 40 breeder from the original planned 20 long. the 40 breeder offers an additional 6 inches of length and is capable of holding more water. refuguim is still capped at 10 but maybe i can go to a 20x if i can find one

 

[mickeysreef <*))))<]

 

[amado]

Petco is having their $2 per gallon sale,.
40 gallon is 50% off

 

[mickeysreef <*))))<]

thanks buddy! I'm headed over there later today. I have a big credit there do I'm getting the tank for free sort of lol

 

[mickeysreef <*))))<]

 

[diana a]

What did you get? How is the health? Always wary of ordering from LA. Hear so many bad experiences with fish.

 

[mickeysreef <*))))<]

What did you get? How is the health? Always wary of ordering from LA. Hear so many bad experiences with fish.

I ordered 1 tiny yellow belly hippo tang. 1 medium powder blue tang, 2 lemon chromis, 2 black and white chromis, 2 small captive bred banggai cardinals and 1 true sebae clown.

whole order shipped last night from California. guy from UPS did not ring the bell but my son saw the truck and we were out there as he was driving away.

opened the box and everything was packed nicely. each fish either double or triple bagged sealed with a metal clamp. the hippo tang had black protective plastic to keep out light.

every fish was packed individually except the banggai cardinals and lemon chromis.

the black and white chromis are pretty big, nearly the same size and were fighting a bit later on so I understand why they came separately.

my go to has been the Petco in brick but recently I've had 3 bad experiences there. I won't flatly blame the store as it's impossible to know exactly what happened each of those times but just figured I'd try something new and with a guarantee. I was actually going to order all these fish at ACC because I've always had good experiences there but again I just wanted to try something new.

sad to say that the true sebae never shipped. I don't know if computer inventory was wrong, he didn't look good enough to ship or what it was but they shipped my order without him. I knew he wasn't coming when they confirmed the order as I could see I the charges. I have really wanted this fish for a long long time and my wife kept saying no no no. I finally said I'm getting it and I don't care what you say LOL. she was ok with that

my order was placed on Thursday however Saturday shipping is suspended because of covid 19. I called Monday morning just before 9am Central to update my order with some supplies. they stated to me that my order had already gone for processing however they would waive and shipping and boxing fees. I didn't end up getting anything else at that point though because it was just supplies and not fish. supplies ship separately and they come ups ground.

I emailed LA as soon as I opened the box and confirmed everything was alive because there was no signature (probably a covid thing) and I wanted to try preserve my guarantee.

I took about 2 hours to acclimate the fish.

all the fish look very good and healthy. I am super impressed with the powder blue. Hippo is so small! he looks good, I'm guessing he is sensitive since he came in the black plastic. everybody eating already and swimming about. I have mirrors up on the front and 1 side to quell aggression. lights are off and I'm very happy with purchase, condition of fish and guarantee I'll have for 2 weeks. would have been absolutely awesome if I could have gotten my clown but everything looks great so far.

 

[mickeysreef <*))))<]

not too much happening over here with the tank. seems like all fishys made it through the first 24,b almost 48 by now. just one chromis hiding out probably. don't see him.

bought a bunch of food and prime. also couple extra bottles of bio spira.

have a light I'm throwing on there. picked it up for 120 on Amazon for my nano but way too big for that


my helper for the day









didn't fit in the rim. had to rig it up a bit but did not cut rim

 

[mickeysreef <*))))<]

also picked up sump




have some old tanks







just made 3 chambers decided to keep it simple

 

[mickeysreef <*))))<]

uh oh. the original 20 would have fit in though the side but this 40...

 

[mickeysreef <*))))<]

ok so just a few updates. the big one is that I'm nixxing the refugium. because A. I don't have the space under the stand. 69 inches. 40B is 37 inches. leaves very little room. and b. this dual sump idea of mine isn't so great. tanks will have to be connected otherwise flood. so to compensate for the loss of the refugium, I'll be adding a coralife 12x uv and a denitrification reactor. - this is going to be less work than a refugium so it just makes sense.

so I gave the floor of the cabinet a coat of plastidip. I didn't go crazy with like 5 coats because it was stinking up the house. I also used white so I didn't have to worry about overspray.




so yeah I had to drain 3/4 of the tank, remove that marked up brace and slide the sump in. I left all the fish in the tank while I did this, they were fine.



I also decided to hard plumb the tank because I had a return hose get loose on my 75g and don't want that happening again... here are some old bulkheads I'll be using. they are all 1". no worries I used all new gaskets



since I'm upgrading the return from 3/4 to 1. I can run a bean animal drain. I'll still use the adjustable drain pipes that came with the tank though cause they are 1" and... I won't have to cut more PVC



here are my drain lines, the main line and the siphon line. have to order my gate valve still. but I did use some straps. we'll see how it works for now.



here I set up my return line and my emergency drain



yep I broke the baffle...



all fixed. scraping of all that silicone was so much fun!



you thought I did a bad job on the silicone when the sump wasn't under the tank...



so this is probably a temporary return because the tank only came with 3/4 loc-line. I'll have to find some 1 inch soon. that's my emergency drain next to it



for hard plumbing... buy this, it's awesome. I used to do plumbing 25 years ago and I wish we had this.



holy crap, did I buy too many fittings? uh yeah this is what's left over cause I hate going back to the store to pick up an extra 45. lol




soooo. I'll probably fill up the sump later tonight, giving the silicone at least 12 hours to dry. I have a 38 par lamp on it so pretty sure the uv will help it cure a bit faster

not here yet but already ordered. 2 pumps, uv light
will order later today. the reactor, gate valve

 

[mickeysreef <*))))<]

this is my cheap return pump. idk I bought it on eBay or Amazon but I paid like an extra 8 bucks for a 2 year warranty. soooo.



this is my skimmer. I bought it from some guy on letitgo. he gave it to me super cheap. what a nice guy. asm g3 sedra 5000. I know it's not assembled.. errr




I also got rid of 5 10 gallon tanks, a 20 and 29 gallon tank.

all I have left now is a 55 gallon running fallow with live rock, a 75 reef ready that I'm going to sell soon. a 10 gallon, nothing in it, some cheato and snails. going to give away the cheato but it is probably fill of worms etc.

and the 210 and my 15g

that's my update for now

 

[mickeysreef <*))))<]

not much happening over here. do have my noisey sump running. stop have to order the gate valve too quiet things down a bit. so as mentioned before, I take wanted a clown. was looking for a true sebae or even the blue stripe. but I visited ACC today and found this great little guy!



pumps can in today.. very cool!

 

[amado]

That cross flow gyre pump moves a lot of water.

 

[mickeysreef <*))))<]

That cross flow gyre pump moves a lot of water.

crazy flow in the tank now. I'm still playing with them. controls are exactly the same so guessing I can make a master and slave. idk if I have to buy another control. I'll figure it out. I'm ready to tackle electrical but that might not happen for a week or two. in the meantime I'm just going to get everything up off the floor.

of course there is an ich outbreak with so many new fish. already started treating the DT with copper. trying an accelerated 5 step ramp up. first dose last night, second by 10 am today.

 

[amado]

You should never put cooper in the display.
You should treat in a separate tank.

 

[mickeysreef <*))))<]

You should never put cooper in the display.
You should treat in a separate tank.

I've heard that before but I think it will be ok. I'll just run cuprisorb forever lol. I'm absolutely no expert in the hobby but idk maybe this is an old idea or maybe it's taken out of context. it just doesn't make sense to me.

treating in a separate tank is really such a pain, I've been down that road before and personally I think it probably causes more deaths than saves. in a situation where you are bringing home one fish, it's a good idea but housing 20+ fish in separate qts or a large qt is just an enormous amount of work and takes up a ton of space or is just unnecessary stress on the fish. I've had tanks all over my house and I really just don't think it's necessary or helpful. plus the amount of stress it puts on the fish is unnecessary. so first I'm going to catch the fish, remove them from their homes, put them in a tiny tank, take away their friends, change the water chemistry on them. not to mention that I'll have to have 20 pumps, heaters lights. changing water every 2 days x 20. all of this creates so many potential points of failure... completely insane and unrealistic for a home aquarist, how do I know cause I've done it lol

for me I'll just treat them in the space where they are living happy have homes are eating, plenty of oxygenated water, live rock already processing ammonia. just easier. and with access to products like cuprisorb and available test kits, it's a no brainier for me.

but I absolutely do agree that if you are bringing home one or a few fish, do use the ttm or copper etc etc. no reason to immediately add to DT just to later treat in the DT