Kim's 36
- Thread starter kamar
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Ha! we must all be suffering from the same disorder...started working at it 3 days ago...boy is this fun!
Little fish syndrome
chickenofthesea
Well-known member
WOW! how do you get such great pictures of your gamma? I have one in my 42g but I can never get a good shot. What settings do you use to get such clean beautiful photos?
DevonM
Mantis Shrimp
- Joined
- Apr 1, 2010
- Messages
- 643
Oh, and here's a picture of my royal gramma doing his defensive thing with his mouth wide open. He does this when the angel gets too close, and he can't get back to his hole fast enough.
Love this picture!
cdearing
Well-known member
I do the same when people get in my space...
OK Kim, you have been pictureless for to long, we don't care if there is algae or not, could you give us an update or I will have to come over and take pics myself:bump
Well, we did some experimenting last night taking pics of Kims tank, so here we go. These are all macro shots, RAW, and edited with Elements 10.
nice!
Those pictures did turn out good, Charlie. Too bad my corals don't look that good anymore. I've been having some issues with my tank, and I'm basically just sick of using either inferior testing, or trying to use my spidey sense to figure out what's going on. I wanted some serious equipment . . .
The first thing I got was a refractometer. I tried this quite awhile ago, but gave up and returned it after I just could not read it. This time, I got the Marine Depot Pro model. Wow. What a huge difference! I'm so excited! The scale is limited to only what you'd need, and with a strong light, is super easy to read. Yay! I can finally read salinity very accurately. The bad news was that my salinity was reading 1.018 :faint2: So, through water changes and adding saltwater as topoff, in about 2 weeks time I've brought it up to 1.023 . . . almost there, and the shrimp is doing fine. I feel so much better knowing that every batch of salt I mix up has the right salinity now. I like to be meticulous, it's just really hard to do when you're using inferior equipment (like a swing arm hydrometer). I also ditched my old calcium test kit and got a Salifert kit this time. Another huge upgrade, and a pleasure to use.
Check it out . . .
I was so excited about the salinity and calcium epiphany, that I wanted to see if my pH was anywhere near where it needed to be. I got an American Marine Pinpoint pH monitor.
Here it is being calibrated to 7 then 10:
And the moment of truth . . .
Looks like everything is ok there. I'm having fun watching it change when I add alkalinity (10ml of B-Ionic), and to see how much it changes (from 8.15 to 8.26). It was very informative to see what it dropped to overnight (8.026 this morning) and back up to during the day. I'm so glad I got a digital probe . . I'm loving the accuracy, instead of trying to figure out what freakin color I was looking at.
Yay! Very very happy with my purchases, and hoping to one day soon have a thriving, beautiful tank again. Plus, I get to use some fun techie stuff!
The first thing I got was a refractometer. I tried this quite awhile ago, but gave up and returned it after I just could not read it. This time, I got the Marine Depot Pro model. Wow. What a huge difference! I'm so excited! The scale is limited to only what you'd need, and with a strong light, is super easy to read. Yay! I can finally read salinity very accurately. The bad news was that my salinity was reading 1.018 :faint2: So, through water changes and adding saltwater as topoff, in about 2 weeks time I've brought it up to 1.023 . . . almost there, and the shrimp is doing fine. I feel so much better knowing that every batch of salt I mix up has the right salinity now. I like to be meticulous, it's just really hard to do when you're using inferior equipment (like a swing arm hydrometer). I also ditched my old calcium test kit and got a Salifert kit this time. Another huge upgrade, and a pleasure to use.
Check it out . . .
I was so excited about the salinity and calcium epiphany, that I wanted to see if my pH was anywhere near where it needed to be. I got an American Marine Pinpoint pH monitor.
Here it is being calibrated to 7 then 10:
And the moment of truth . . .
Looks like everything is ok there. I'm having fun watching it change when I add alkalinity (10ml of B-Ionic), and to see how much it changes (from 8.15 to 8.26). It was very informative to see what it dropped to overnight (8.026 this morning) and back up to during the day. I'm so glad I got a digital probe . . I'm loving the accuracy, instead of trying to figure out what freakin color I was looking at.
Yay! Very very happy with my purchases, and hoping to one day soon have a thriving, beautiful tank again. Plus, I get to use some fun techie stuff!
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Hey Kim, I really like the little fainting emoticon. Isn't it nice to know that what you are seeing is about the most accurate it is gonna get??? Congrats on the new equipment, I am sure that you are going to enjoy knowing that your critters are in good hands. Make sure you keep the Ph meter calibrated, I have mine on a one month schedule and I find that it does make a big difference as far as the accuracy goes. If I may so bold as to ask what your Calcium and alk levels are??? It looks as tho the Ph is sitting good. I think the salinity thing was the main cause of your stuff starting to go south, it will take a while for them to re-adjust, so just be patient and keep up the maintenance, and life will get better.:biggrin1:
Thanks. I know you guys have probably had this stuff for a long time, but I'm excited to finally have them! Thanks for the tip on the probe . . . I ordered a few extra packets of fluid so I would be ready to go with the calibration.
So . . . here's my test results this afternoon.
salinity 1.025
pH 8.11
Alk 8.5 (Elos)
Ca 490
Mg 1600 (Elos)
nitrate 0 (API)
temp 79.2
phos .50 (Elos) - Yes, it's that high. It was 1.0 last weekend. I am working on this too. I've had an ongoing algae problem, and in trying to get at the cause, I discovered my sandbed is loaded with detritus. I seem to have stirred up a fair amount during a recent vacuuming, which I have never done. The sandbed is so loaded with gunk, that I'm slowly replacing patches of it. I'm going to wait now until I get the phosphates down. I think my ChemiPure Elite is exhausted since the phosphates won't budge now, and after doing a fair amount of research, I'm going to start using BRS high capacity GFO and some of their ROX carbon. AND, I got rid of all the Eheim balls and rings in my canister filter. I basically just have ChemiPure and PolyFilter pads in there now.
Remember the little brown stick coral? Well, here's what it looks like now . . .
It's this strange, bluish white now that glows. It still has polyps, but isn't doing anything. I keep thinking it may die soon, but it hasn't yet. The leather is tougher than nails, and so is the blasto, and the hammer. They're all still looking pretty good. **sigh**
So . . . here's my test results this afternoon.
salinity 1.025
pH 8.11
Alk 8.5 (Elos)
Ca 490
Mg 1600 (Elos)
nitrate 0 (API)
temp 79.2
phos .50 (Elos) - Yes, it's that high. It was 1.0 last weekend. I am working on this too. I've had an ongoing algae problem, and in trying to get at the cause, I discovered my sandbed is loaded with detritus. I seem to have stirred up a fair amount during a recent vacuuming, which I have never done. The sandbed is so loaded with gunk, that I'm slowly replacing patches of it. I'm going to wait now until I get the phosphates down. I think my ChemiPure Elite is exhausted since the phosphates won't budge now, and after doing a fair amount of research, I'm going to start using BRS high capacity GFO and some of their ROX carbon. AND, I got rid of all the Eheim balls and rings in my canister filter. I basically just have ChemiPure and PolyFilter pads in there now.
Remember the little brown stick coral? Well, here's what it looks like now . . .
It's this strange, bluish white now that glows. It still has polyps, but isn't doing anything. I keep thinking it may die soon, but it hasn't yet. The leather is tougher than nails, and so is the blasto, and the hammer. They're all still looking pretty good. **sigh**
Kim,
I don't use anything to remove phosphate, and I gave up running carbon because after a week it is used up anyways. Just my .02. I am pretty sure Devon has some experience and maybe Kevin does too.
I don't use anything to remove phosphate, and I gave up running carbon because after a week it is used up anyways. Just my .02. I am pretty sure Devon has some experience and maybe Kevin does too.
DevonM
Mantis Shrimp
- Joined
- Apr 1, 2010
- Messages
- 643
I have not used any BRS products for carbon or phosphate but I would give them a shot!
I used a little chemi-pure in my last skimmer because it had a compartment for it, but since I hooked up the new one (5 months ago) I haven't run any. I don't really intend to use carbon any more. Hopefully paying special attention to the water I put in my system will pay dividends when it comes to the quantity of trouble makers I have to remove.
I do use HBH Aqua-Pure Phosphate pads every once in a while but I don't think they make much of a difference on my system, now. I'm probably going to completely stop using them too and see how my system fares. I do think they work well though.
Thanks Devon. I got the regular GFO and their ROX carbon - will see how it works. I plan on changing it out about every two weeks, and the GFO when it needs it.
Wow, that's a serious looking skimmer, and it even has it's own chair! I will have to peruse your very nice looking website so I can see some more pics of what your tank looks like. BTW, my corals are all starting to look much happier.
Wow, that's a serious looking skimmer, and it even has it's own chair! I will have to peruse your very nice looking website so I can see some more pics of what your tank looks like. BTW, my corals are all starting to look much happier.
