Finally! Gina's (NanoReefer411's) 180+tank upgrade! =)

[Faciosity]

Great pics! My clown used to host in my trachy brain until I got a rbta. My nem is getting pretty big again, so if it splits I will let you know. (it divided about 5 months ago, and seems like it might agan soon)

And I do believe that big monti is an Idaho Grape.

 

[ntswift]

Wow! Your tank is looking awesome! If the stupid BTA would ever move he's yours but your clowns seem to like that brain a lot!

 

[CarlaW]

Nice stuff Gina, I would love to make it over sometime and take some pics myself.

 

[NanoReefer411]

Ben that would be great! Is it really red? I love the really dark almost mauve red. Please do let me know.

Matt, I have tried 2 other types of anemone's and the clowns still preferred their brain. I am hoping that they would prefer a BTA. When I put anything close to their brain, they will attack it. They attacked the 2 anemone's I tried before. =(

Charlie, you are more the welcome to come over and take pictures. =) I would love to have a meeting here sometime. I need to get the house organized a bit first. Thank you for the compliments. It is still very early in the growing process. Everything is pretty small. Did your friend pick up that blue mille? How is it doing in your tank?

 

[CarlaW]

Haven't heard from anybody about the blue mille, so I will just hang on to it.

 

[Smitty222]

Looks nice well worth all the work!

 

[NanoReefer411]

Thank you Smitty. =)

I went out to Coral Props today. WOWY WOW WOW! Everyone that lives in Spokane/CDA needs to go out there and see Henk. He is soooo incredibly nice. I picked up 2 acro frags, that I cannot get good pictures of,...this massive beautiful clam! I mean this thing is HUGE!!!! It is blue with gold and just beautiful! I cannot wait to go back to Coral Props. LOL. Honestly, I could have spent all day there.

I picked up a gold/orange hammer as well.... this is really beautiful. I love, love, love hammers.

 

[CarlaW]

Nice stuff Gina

 

[estanoche]

awesome score!! I need a bigger tank so I can get more of Henk's clams

Can't wait to see the acros too!

 

[Faciosity]

Great looking stuff! You finally joined the club of coral props clam owners!

 

[Frankie]

What a beautiful clam Gina!

 

[NanoReefer411]

LOL! Thank you all. I love this clam. It is soooooo big! Haha. You really have no idea unless you see it in person. It still isn't as big as your Derasa though Ben. =) I will try to get some pictures of the acros. I glued them down with epoxy and superglue gel and my stupid urchin STILL was able to pry it off the rocks. He has killed quite a few corals by dropping them on other corals. Ben gave me a beautiful Echino and the stupid thing grabbed it and dropped it on my Trachy. It was toast. I didn't catch it in time to save it. BLAH! :tsk:

 

[NanoReefer411]

Oh yah, I also forgot to mention that my clowns have laid eggs again. Of course, my rotifer culture crashed! =( Barbie's friend has some, so I am going to pick them up at her store today.

 

[NanoReefer411]

Ugh. I cannot believe it has been such a long time since I updated my thread. I came to update because of some unfortunate events that have taken place. Since I have been reef keeping my fiance and I have both never been out of town at the same time. I have never been away from my reef for a week. Well, in September, I went on a trip to Alaska to visit for the first time. I gave the task to my parents to watch over the reef. Big mistake, of course. I went over things with them 2 times and I wrote everything down to a T. Not to mention calling them to check in on everything. I should have suspected something was wrong when my mom told me my skimmer cup was filling up every day and needed to be emptied. While I was gone my parents managed to dump 3-4 bags, yes zip-loc bags, full of fish food in my tank. OMG! Over the period of 7 days! Yes, 7 days! I came home and looked all over the freezer for my fish food. Called up my mom. She used them all. I thought, what?!??? No ill effects had been seen in the tank right away. Over the past couple of months I have had 2 anthias die, corals die, frags die, etc. Cyano is out of control. Purchased an API test kit yesterday. Tested my water and my nitrates are so high I simply cannot believe it. So, now I have a big chore ahead of me. I have a ton of trapped organics in my sand bed and in my rocks. I need some advice from you all.....

What should I do? Take the sand bed out and rinse it? How many weeks should I give to take out my sand bed? I hear a person is supposed to do this slowly. Should I just replace the sand with new sand? Rinse? Scrub my rocks? Use carbon? Vodka? Getting some advice from my friend Joanne revealed that she thinks I should do a 180 gallon water change. So, at this present moment I am getting all my totes ready for the task. I know I must do something else as well or else they will just creep back up.....need some help/advice. Thank you all for reading. =*(

 

[NanoReefer411]

On a side note, yes I had tested my water when I got back from the vacation. My test strips were over a year old and being the dingus I am, never thought they went bad until an unfortunate event that happened in my Seahorse tank. I knew something had to be wrong with my test strips when they were reading 100% normal in my big tank and nano. So, now I know test strips are only good for 1 year. Now I am wondering, how long are the liquid testers good for?

 

[CarlaW]

Solution by dilution Gina, lots of water changes over the next two weeks, buy stock in what ever salt you use and go to town. I think I would start with 20 gallon changes every other day or so. Does that sound somewhat feasible.

 

[NanoReefer411]

It does, but I have read that small water changes will not help in a situation like this. Do you think it will? If 20 gallons would be fine, that sounds more feasible. I've got 60 gallons mixing at the moment. Working on more. I'm really upset about it because everything, of course, is expensive and I had some really good growth on my monti's. My purple had gotten to be plate sized and was a beautiful dark purple. Now, it is half dead and brown. What should I do about the rocks and sand? Scrub the rocks in new saltwater??? Use a powerhead and just blow them off really well while doing water changes? Replace the sand or reuse and rinse? This will be a big chore. If I had done this to them by not following directions, they would make me pay for it. Yes, I mean with money! I should charge them! Haha!

 

[Jesse_emel]

Sorry to hear about your misfortune, Next time you leave on vacation you should let me know. I could have watched your tank like you watched mine. I'm hoping for a quick recovery. But i know getting rid of problems takes patients and determination. Slow and steady wins the race. Good luck and if you lost anything you fragged for me at some point let me know. I'd be glad to help you out anytime.

It does, but I have read that small water changes will not help in a situation like this. Do you think it will? If 20 gallons would be fine, that sounds more feasible. I've got 60 gallons mixing at the moment. Working on more. I'm really upset about it because everything, of course, is expensive and I had some really good growth on my monti's. My purple had gotten to be plate sized and was a beautiful dark purple. Now, it is half dead and brown. What should I do about the rocks and sand? Scrub the rocks in new saltwater??? Use a powerhead and just blow them off really well while doing water changes? Replace the sand or reuse and rinse? This will be a big chore. If I had done this to them by not following directions, they would make me pay for it. Yes, I mean with money! I should charge them! Haha!

 

[CarlaW]

It does, but I have read that small water changes will not help in a situation like this. Do you think it will? If 20 gallons would be fine, that sounds more feasible. I've got 60 gallons mixing at the moment. Working on more. I'm really upset about it because everything, of course, is expensive and I had some really good growth on my monti's. My purple had gotten to be plate sized and was a beautiful dark purple. Now, it is half dead and brown. What should I do about the rocks and sand? Scrub the rocks in new saltwater??? Use a powerhead and just blow them off really well while doing water changes? Replace the sand or reuse and rinse? This will be a big chore. If I had done this to them by not following directions, they would make me pay for it. Yes, I mean with money! I should charge them! Haha!

You can get in there with a powerhead and blow the rocks off either while you are doin a change, or just get it up into the water column and put a sock on the drains to the sump to catch the crap. The sandbed is something that maybe someone else can put in a suggestion. Have you asked Kevin or Barbie?????
I don't know Gina, maybe you are right about large water changes???? I guess since I haven't had anything happen like you did, that may be the better solution??? Some one else chip in here.......................... we need help .

 

[Faciosity]

I have never had something quite like that happen, but have experienced a few tragic things. I would say doing 20 or so gallons every few days for a week or two is a better solution, and try to blow off the rocks while you do changes. You can use a siphon to remove a lot of the organics from your sand, but don't stir it up too much all at once. Any quick change is bad for your inhabitants even if you are trying to make a quick change for the better. Anything that has survived this long should get better as conditions improve.