A Saga: Nikki's 120 gallon

[Krish]

I agree about liking the eurobracing over pretty much sealed tops for the same reason. I see a few people with acrylic covering pretty much the whole top of their tanks and wonder how in the world can they do any aquascaping etc in there. I guess if the tank is built with thick enough acrylic like Tom had mentioned before, then the eurobracing probably would be just an extra bonus in stability, but definately not what is keeping the tank together (I'm no expert at this, just seems kind of logical (LOL)) You'll get soted out Nikki, I'm sure. You may think you have bad luck, but trust me, it could be worse and I'm sure good things will come around to you because of all the good you do around here...

 

[NaH2O]

Thanks Krish. There is such a great community here, and folks have been very generous in their advice and help for me, so I'm thankful for that. The acrylic on my tank is pretty thick, and the eurobrace top was 1 inch thick. The engineer of the house explained to me why the wider radius is better on the corners, which was a good supplement to Tom's explaination in the other thread.

Thanks for the support everyone so far....wish I could transfer that support into my eurobrace !

 

[spongebob lover]

well Nikki i just wanted to say that i think my dream is gonna come true.. you're getting a new tank !!!

 

[IAP Brian]

Bummer !

That really stinks Nikki. Sorry about the bad luck. That tank was built before I bought out IAP so I am not sure how John built it. I will give you a call and see what we can do for repairing the tank. Sorry for the head ache and hassle. Brian

 

[NaH2O]

Thanks for the response Brian. I appreciate it and will talk to you soon.

 

[jlehigh]

This has got me worried about my 280 now... Nikki that really bites. I am really feeling for you...

 

[cheeks69]

Sorry about your troubles Nikki !
I hope IAP will take care of it for ya soon, just the trouble of the eventual switch over... wish I could be of some help.

 

[dgasmd]

I am so sorry to hear and see this Nikki. You ahve had so many problems since setting up this tank. So have I. Maybe we could start a club like "when doing it right goes wrong".

 

[NaH2O]

I am so sorry to hear and see this Nikki. You ahve had so many problems since setting up this tank. So have I. Maybe we could start a club like "when doing it right goes wrong".

ROFL :lol:. I think that is a fabulous idea! We can have a contest every month on most costly break, and/or biggest run-around . I swear, I keep thinking things are going to improve, only to have something else happen. The airstones I think take the cake Alberto! Even over the chiller.

Thanks for the thoughts! The crack really does suck. Brian at IAP called a week or so ago, and is going to be sending out a patch piece for the crack and some other pieces for the other corners.

In the meantime, I ended up losing my Kole tang. I'm not sure what was going on, but I suspect it was something with the swim bladder. I set up the hospital tank, but couldn't catch the fish...grrrr. So, I'm in the market for a tang or two. Haven't decided what I want to get. Corals are doing well, and when I get a chance, I will post an updated pic.

 

[spongebob lover]

i'm really sorry to hear about your tang Nikki

 

[Maryrosi]

Very sorry you had to deal with all that Nikki and I hope the repair works out well for you.

Looking forward to more pictures when you have a chance to post them.

 

[Maxx]

Ya know I like my Tomini tang.....you should go ahead and order one from LiveAquaria. You know you want one.....

Hey, I heard you've gotten some new corals and frags since the last time I was over there! What gives? Its Wednesday, you got them on Saturday, why no pictures yet?
Get off yer butt and start shooting, (and dont try fobbing off those pics from the macro thread as new pics...cause I'll call shenanigans and bust ya!)

Nick

 

[CarlaW]

Well, it's been a couple of weeks since you discovered that crack, Nikki, how is that going? Sorry to hear about your tang .
I think you ought to try a blond naso, they have alot of personanlity!!

 

[wrightme43]

Sorry about your tang Nikki.
Like Charlie said Naso tangs are awesome.

 

[Scooterman]

Get the Hippo they are cool in their behavior & very hardy as I had mine stuck in the overflow drain more than once & after the first few bouts with Ick it slowly disappeared and didn't show up over a year and counting.

 

[Krish]

In the meantime, I ended up losing my Kole tang

Sorry to hear that Nikk. I lost a clown this week also. Seems like anything that happens in someone elses tank happens in yours. Chuck's euro-brace-Your eurobrace, my clown-your tang...You'd better be careful! Gabby floods the place weekly!:shock:

 

[spongebob lover]

yeah dood my neighbours dont complaint by now, they know it's the usual :lol:
you know i've never seen a convict tang in a fish tank but i think they look awesome too

 

[Ed Hahn]

Wow...?

Nikki,
I feel for ya. You and Chuck have me watching my tank in the corners. What I learned by doing this was that one of my Sea Swirls took good amount of heat. The cover of my Sea Swirl is warped. I am assuming the Sea swirls shielded the corner of the eurobracing from getting a direct hit. When my sea swirls were put on my tank, there was a piece of plastic added to corners on front of tank. Its a L shaped piece that the Sea Swirls were mounted on. I am assuming you guys are building the same thing to prevent further separation. So I guess if you wanted to hide the area you could add a Sea Swirl on that area.
Again, I am sorry this happened to you guys.
Sincerely,
Ed:|

 

[NaH2O]

Some Bad News & Some Good News

ROFL - seems like I'm always posting the not so good updates, so I'll compliment the bad with a couple of good things...

After the cracked Eurobrace mishap, and losing my tang...I had another issue. If you aren't familiar with it, you can read this thread. Basically, I hadn't cleaned the air intake on my skimmer and it spouted water out all night. I had to take the tank down to dry the subfloor, by moving the tank and stand. Tile was installed under the tank this time around. The immediate loss was my long spined urchin. Disaster...again.

Here's the bad part....I've lost nearly all of my corals to RTN. I think it was a combination of the stress of moving things back and forth from the tanks during the tear down and set-up, a possible small cycle, and increased clarity in my water. I removed alot of my rock to cook and boil, and the rock put back in the tank was scrubbed, so I likely experienced a small short cycle. My water has really good clarity now after all of this, and I'm sure the lights had an impact with the other stresses mentioned, and my corals gave up. To read about my live rock...Here is a thread Live Rock Saturation?.

On another note...some of you are probably wondering about my cracked eurobrace. Well, I never received the patches IAP said they'd send , so I've decided to go with the angle iron top/bracing for it. My husband is going to get the material and put it together....it will be painted with marine topside, the same as was used for the frame on my stand.

So...the good news....I have a kalk reactor!!! Thanks BigT for making a great piece of equipment. It is officially installed as of Sunday night. I had enough things happening with my corals, I didn't want to stress them any more by doing something different with the tank. Since most of the corals are gone, I went ahead and put it on. I have the powerhead hooked up to my ACII, and I have it oscillate on and off (1min on/60 min off). Right now it is set up to go through my top off. My Tunze Osmolator feeds into the kalk reactor, which tops off the sump. I will be watching my parameters for awhile.

I suppose the other good news, I added another skimmer to the system....an AquaC 180. I was storing it for my brother while he is stationed in another country, so I thought I'd put it to good use. I'm still tweeking it a bit, but figure I'll find the sweet spot for both the Euro-reef and Aqua C. You can read more about it in this thread: Dual Skimmers.

Hope to post some pics soon...

 

[zhenya]

Hey Nikki,

What's up with all this disasters, girl?
I left this thread so many pages back, when everything was doing really well... Your algae were seem to be beaten back and you had some nice corals coming in and stuff... I'm really sorry to hear about all this... :|
It was strange as well for me to read that your Rabbitfish ended up beoing such a pig. Mine don't even look in the direction of corals, any corals, and just waits for the handouts from me. Not very pretty as those Rabbitfish go but peaceful and most importantly harmless( S.virgatus).

Well, I leave your thread with hopes that the worst is behind you and things will look just great from now on.