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Tank birthday and I'm a Geezer
- Thread starter Paul B
- Start date
Paul B
NJRC Member
I noticed that I have this wierd bubble algae growing only on my cement rocks. Randy gave me an Idea and suggested that it "may" be the iron that is attracting the algae to the cement. It could be another chemical in cement but I will try iron first.
I made a slab of cement about 6 square inches and I ground up some nails with a grinder into the surface of the wet cement. I will let it cure for a week then put it in my algae trough. The trough is there to grow algae anyway and I want to see if I can enhance that ability with iron filings.
I want as much algae growing in the trough as can fit.
I love this stuff.
I made a slab of cement about 6 square inches and I ground up some nails with a grinder into the surface of the wet cement. I will let it cure for a week then put it in my algae trough. The trough is there to grow algae anyway and I want to see if I can enhance that ability with iron filings.
I want as much algae growing in the trough as can fit.
I love this stuff.
Paul B
NJRC Member
I think I have too many animals in my tank now and I need to stop adding things.
I also realize that In all these pages I don't think I ever mentioned what is in the tank.
I am going to try to list the animals but not the corals because I can't remember names to save my life.
I now have a copperband
2 fireclowns
a bluestriped pipefish
2 mandarins
an algae bleeny
a yellow wrasse
a rainsford gobi
2 unidentified red and yellow stripped cardinals
yellow clown gobi
4 various gobi's one is a watchman
and 4 chromis, two of them I got today and I never seen this type before. They are silver with a yellow horizontal stripe. Not extreamly great looking but If I never seen it before, I got to get it.
I don't know how many grass shrimp are in there, maybe a dozen and about the same with hermit crabs and mud snails. But there is a cool decorator crab and of course an arrow crab, you got to have an arrow crab.
I am sure I missed a few but thats all I can remember.
I also realize that In all these pages I don't think I ever mentioned what is in the tank.
I am going to try to list the animals but not the corals because I can't remember names to save my life.
I now have a copperband
2 fireclowns
a bluestriped pipefish
2 mandarins
an algae bleeny
a yellow wrasse
a rainsford gobi
2 unidentified red and yellow stripped cardinals
yellow clown gobi
4 various gobi's one is a watchman
and 4 chromis, two of them I got today and I never seen this type before. They are silver with a yellow horizontal stripe. Not extreamly great looking but If I never seen it before, I got to get it.
I don't know how many grass shrimp are in there, maybe a dozen and about the same with hermit crabs and mud snails. But there is a cool decorator crab and of course an arrow crab, you got to have an arrow crab.
I am sure I missed a few but thats all I can remember.
Paul B
NJRC Member
I'm still on a quest to take a decent video but I am not there yet. Here I tried with the pumps off. I am going to keep trying. These new camera's have so many settings on them that it could take a half an hour just to set the thing the way you want it. But they still come out kind of lousy. I will get it some day.
Click on it to start the video
Click on it to start the video
Paul B
NJRC Member
I don't know what to do with my tank now. There is nothing wrong, no corals fell down, no fish bullying other fish, everything eating well, the corals are growing, no flatworms, ringworms, cyano, hair algae, ich, flukes, dropsy, pop eye, no out of date lights, don't feel like changing water, algae trough working fine, corals growing, fish are smiling.
What the heck am I going to do today? It's a good thing that it is snowing so at least I could shovel snow. I should start an anti problem thread, there are so many "problem" threads, how about a thread where nothing is wrong.
Dam, I hope a pump breaks soon so I can get out of this rut.
Well, I can't find my oldest and largest gobi today, I guess I could look for him
What the heck am I going to do today? It's a good thing that it is snowing so at least I could shovel snow. I should start an anti problem thread, there are so many "problem" threads, how about a thread where nothing is wrong.
Dam, I hope a pump breaks soon so I can get out of this rut.
Well, I can't find my oldest and largest gobi today, I guess I could look for him
Paul B
NJRC Member
I had to re design slightly my algae trough. The LEDs I had over it just were not bright enough so I got a strip of LEDs that are about twice as bright. When I had MH lights the trough used to get the spill light but the LEDs are more directional so I had to add supplimental light to the trough because it was only growing red and brown algae. Now hopefully It will grow green hair algae. I also re designed the way the water enters the trough from the skimmer. I used to have unacceptable splashing that used to make salt creep all over the place. Now I have multiple layers of plastic screening around the skimmer outflow and now there is no splashing and no bubbling which burst and splash on the lights and rear wall.
This acropora has grown at least three times it's size in a year and I can't clean the glass in front of it any longer. Whenever I go near it I accidently break off pieces so I have frags of the thing all over the place. Now I am going to try to move it to a larger space and move the giant mushroom in that place to where the acropora is now. I wonder how many frags I am going to have because there is no room to move it so I have to lift it out of the tank to re locate it.
This acropora has grown at least three times it's size in a year and I can't clean the glass in front of it any longer. Whenever I go near it I accidently break off pieces so I have frags of the thing all over the place. Now I am going to try to move it to a larger space and move the giant mushroom in that place to where the acropora is now. I wonder how many frags I am going to have because there is no room to move it so I have to lift it out of the tank to re locate it.
Paul B
NJRC Member
After moving this all over the tank, getting bit to death and breaking a few pieces off this and other corals, I realize there is no room for this acropora. I temporarilly put it on this rock but it is just about out of the water and not sitting well. When I get time I need to do a major rock move. Of course I just re-aquascaped and removed a bunch of rock, but it is time again.
Paul B
NJRC Member
I was looking at the tank today (with the top opened) and I saw a spark, then another one, then another, then the LED strip over my algae trough sputtered and started to melt and smoke. The thing melted through the acrylic tube I had it attached to.
Cheap LED strip from China.
Luckily it was 6" from the end and I was able to cut off the melted part, the rest of the strip works fine but for how long?
If I get time I will just make a LED strip for the algae trough myself.
I really hate buying ready made stuff and like to build everything myself, that way I know what I have and it will last forever.
Cheap LED strip from China.
Luckily it was 6" from the end and I was able to cut off the melted part, the rest of the strip works fine but for how long?
If I get time I will just make a LED strip for the algae trough myself.
I really hate buying ready made stuff and like to build everything myself, that way I know what I have and it will last forever.
Paul B
NJRC Member
Today I decided to clean the algae out of my algae trough. There was just too much algae and the water was having a hard tiime getting through. The thing has a plastic window screen in it that I normally just roll up, then brush off the algae in the sink and put it back in but this time it was just too much of a job. The screen was covered in those hard tube worms and bubble algae. There was also just too many amphipods in it to save. I swirled the screen in some salt water and collected as many amphipods as I could and threw them back in the tank. Then I threw out the screen and installed a new one. I don't like to do that because I like a coating of algae on it and algae takes a long time to grow on a new screen.
I also like to smear a coating of cement on the screen because algae grows very fast on cement but I didn't have time to prepare a screen so I just put in a new one. Now it will take a good 3 weeks before algae grows significantly on it.
I may make a cement covered screen in the meantime for next time.
Today I will go to my marina to "play" with my boat and I will collect a bunch of amphipods to replace the ones I lost.
Have a great day
I also like to smear a coating of cement on the screen because algae grows very fast on cement but I didn't have time to prepare a screen so I just put in a new one. Now it will take a good 3 weeks before algae grows significantly on it.
I may make a cement covered screen in the meantime for next time.
Today I will go to my marina to "play" with my boat and I will collect a bunch of amphipods to replace the ones I lost.
Have a great day
Paul B
NJRC Member
Happy New Year. It has been over a year since I posted here. My computer croaked and on this new one I didn't have the link for NJ Reefers and I never got around to looking for it.
My tank is doing very well, in March it will be 43 years old. All of my fish are spawning except the copperband butterfly. I would like to say he is spawning, but I don't think I could get away with it. My spawning fish are mandarins, clown gobies, 2 pairs of cardinals and 20 year old fireclowns. The clown gobies destroy the acropora as they spawn. The eggs kill the area of coral they are on and hair algae grows there. It doesn't bother me as I would rather see the gobies spawn than have a nice acropora as it grows fast and I have a few of them. Luckily, they only use the one to spawn on. They spawn almost twice a week. The mandarins only spawn every month or two.
The cardinals spawn in the back where I can't hardly see them.
I recently went to Hawaii for a couple of weeks and left the tank with a sitter. I only lost a couple of corals.
I still feed live white worms and blackworms every day along with clams. It is the live worms that let the fish keep spawning.
Just thought I would up date.
I had a few pictures that I was terying to post here, but It won't even let me post one. So open a copy of National Geographic and look at some underwater pictures and imagine they are on here.
My tank is doing very well, in March it will be 43 years old. All of my fish are spawning except the copperband butterfly. I would like to say he is spawning, but I don't think I could get away with it. My spawning fish are mandarins, clown gobies, 2 pairs of cardinals and 20 year old fireclowns. The clown gobies destroy the acropora as they spawn. The eggs kill the area of coral they are on and hair algae grows there. It doesn't bother me as I would rather see the gobies spawn than have a nice acropora as it grows fast and I have a few of them. Luckily, they only use the one to spawn on. They spawn almost twice a week. The mandarins only spawn every month or two.
The cardinals spawn in the back where I can't hardly see them.
I recently went to Hawaii for a couple of weeks and left the tank with a sitter. I only lost a couple of corals.
I still feed live white worms and blackworms every day along with clams. It is the live worms that let the fish keep spawning.
Just thought I would up date.
I had a few pictures that I was terying to post here, but It won't even let me post one. So open a copy of National Geographic and look at some underwater pictures and imagine they are on here.