Me, Myself, & Sherman too.

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Sorry I missed you guys today. I had to go and deliver a custom oak stand and canopy for a 215 gallon Oceanic tank. Sorry to hear you lost some corals recently.

Take it easy and hopefully I will see you next time.
 
No sweat Eric.

This all started with the heat wave at the beginning of the Summer which put my Mexican Turbo population into a die-off. I had about 50 in the tank the size of golf balls, and when they die, they are wicked putrid. Because I had not been following my tank maintanance regimen of swapping out the RDSB sand 1/3 every 6 months, my sand bed got saturated and could not absorb the excess nutrients from the snail die off.

Then I had my back go out on me so bad that I was on some serious meds for a couple weeks, and at the same time, my RO/DI booster pump seized and stopped functioning, and my multi-media reactor sprang a leak. With the RO/DI only producing about 40 - 50g/day, I couldn't even do a bunch of water changes. I couldn't fix the reactor either because I couldn't lift anything. And with the reactor offline, that killed my carbon, Ca, floss, and GFO.

All of these things conspired to tip the scales and start a massive brown algal bloom, still about 60% present in the system today. I have been working slowly to correct the problems, but with our store in full swing, and life in general, it has not gone quickly. Sherman and I removed all the sand in the RDSB, and I have since replaced about half of it to get some nutrient absorption. I have been vacuuming the sand out of the display as well, but I can only get a few pounds out at a time before I need to replace the water.

All-in-all, not fun, and I fully expect to lose some more corals. There's just not much that can be done quickly to remedy the situation, but I am interested in hearing suggestions from folks who have dealt with similar issues. I am also dosing sugar which has made a dramatic impact on the brown algae. I am skimming about 2g of coffee colored slimmate per day.
 
Those are alot of things that went bad for you. I hope your back is better. I had an injury and it is amazing how that can mess up water changes and general care. Sounds like the tank is on the mend.
P.S. Those Turbos when they die are STINKY!!!!!!!!!
 
Well, just a quick update:

I vacuumed more sand/algae out of the display today and water clarity is quite good. I swapped out all media yesterday and there's nothing like fresh carbon to kick it in gear. For those of you who are keeing count, I use 1.5 Black Diamond 3.65L canisters each time I fill the carbon chamber, and 1 full 795g PhosLock for the GFO chamber.

The brown algae is slowly receding and I am dosing 2 tblsp sugar every other day. So I think my response to this issue has been slow and methodical, but not radical and destructive, and that is allowing the situation to improve without killing off everything. One GBTA came back out today so that is a good sign as well.
 
Nice work D...but you know your mods are always a cut above the rest. That reminds me I need to get a magnet for that one you did for me. It has jumped out of the tank 3 times now and I am scared it will electrocute me!

Do you need help with the move?
 
Thanks J.

The mod in the vid though is actually using the shroud from the Sureflow kit from Algae Free but with my own modded MJ1200 impeller magnet.

I think between my father in law and myself, I am ok with physically setting up the 125g. Although I may need to bum some RO water off from you to fill that 125g though. It will take a long time to do so using my own 100gpd rated unit which realistically only gets me about 75gpd or so.

Still not completely happy with the light setup I've built so I may have to tinker around a bit on that.
 
Well the 125g is up and running. Everybody got moved into their new house so to speak. I did lose a good chunk of my really nicely growing purple bird's nest colony. During the aquascaping, the colony somehow got dislodged and fell right ontop of a bubble coral :eek: It was on the bubble coral for maybe 5 seconds but I guess that was enough to kill a lot of the bird's nest colony.

Tank feels pretty empty.... I think I need more fish :lol:
 
Oh and Jonathan.... The black and brown specks and particles are definitely from the Pure Ocean salt bro. I opened a new bag of each box and inspected them adn saw those particles in the salt. They looked like particles of sand, rocks, or dirt to me. I think it's ok to use but when you make up your salt water, make sure to strain it. Pretty weird stuff...
 
Glad to hear your tank is up...you already put the corals in it? What about a cycle? And you don't need fish, you need more corals...Want to go to Barrier Reef on Saturday? Sherman and I are going to hop over there, and maybe check out Luke's system as well.

As far as the salt goes, I checked out both types today and did not find any specks in the Pro. using a magnifying glass still no specks, and only slight variations in grain size.

The regular blend did have a few specks in it that looked a bit like dirt. I would never have seen them if you hadn't pointed it out though, because there were so few. I am going to try and accumulate some of them and test them in a small sample of RO/DI water too see if they produce any of our commonly tested for elements.

So...LMK when you want some corals. Some of mine are getting too big! :lol:
 
I decided to salvage and use most of water from the 55g and my sump (about 1/2 of the 125g). That and all the established LR I already had in the 55g, there shouldn't be much of a cycle if there is even one at all IMO. Not much difference than say doing a large water change I think.


I do need more corals ( and I'll take whatever you're donating :D ) but I DO need more fish as well. With only 2 clowns, a yellow watchman goby, a mandarin, and a powder brown tang it seems pretty empty in that 125g to me :D

Oh yeah my lawmower blenny commited suicide a few days ago. He must have gotten spooked somehow and jumped.
 
jnarowe said:
Glad to hear your tank is up...you already put the corals in it? What about a cycle? And you don't need fish, you need more corals...Want to go to Barrier Reef on Saturday? Sherman and I are going to hop over there, and maybe check out Luke's system as well.

As far as the salt goes, I checked out both types today and did not find any specks in the Pro. using a magnifying glass still no specks, and only slight variations in grain size.

The regular blend did have a few specks in it that looked a bit like dirt. I would never have seen them if you hadn't pointed it out though, because there were so few. I am going to try and accumulate some of them and test them in a small sample of RO/DI water too see if they produce any of our commonly tested for elements.

So...LMK when you want some corals. Some of mine are getting too big! :lol:
Click to expand...

Maybe it's the batch I have that this is more pronounced as I can see the specks pretty clearly even through the bags. When you come over next you'll have to check it out it's pretty weird.
 
we're going to try and leave early...maybe 8am or so...I am going to win the Elos tank and set it up for seahorses dude! :D
 
Just upgraded my skimmer stones with a manifold...

Here are the shots.

manifold1.jpg


manifold2.jpg


Yes, that is 8 x 9" Aquatic-Eco fine pore stones...and the manifold weighs about 25 lbs.

skimmer1%20102708.jpg


I also mounted the Alita 100 above the water level for safety and a better, more direct flow of air. This alone is giving me a lot more air than how I had it before. The stones add some serious air producing surface area as well.

skimmer2%20102707.jpg


Based on what Sherman said, this seems to be a marked improvement. I just need to lower the water level another inch so I can run the water flat out.

And I have to give Sherman credit where it's due. I had purchased these new stones about 6+ months ago, and could not get past the whole design phase. I was caught up in designing a large port that would allow the manifold to be pulled out the side of the skimmer, but this required some serious acrylic work including a laminated port area to accept the screws, and a routed gasket install. Then one day, Sherman said, "why don't you just put a bulkhead in?"...I was a little surprised at my own idiocy to be honest. My whole scheme revolved around this stupid port, and all I needed to do was a bulkhead, since the top comes off the skimmer anyway. :rolleyes:

Oh well, I certainly am glad he spoke up rather than be amused by my rediculous plan! :lol:

This thing is kickin' butt!!
 
no doubt. After skimming out 24g, I have it set right now. By my calculations, there is an extra 6.8 gallons of air in it right now. :)
 
Couple things to note is that I have been asked by a few reefers how the skimmer upgrade is helping out. It's tough to quantify on this size skimmer since I was always pulling out a lot of nog. You can't really judge it by NOG GPD since t's the quality of it that matters most IMO.

Anyway, today, all throughout the light cycle, the tank has been absolutely crystal clear. That is a nice visual confirmation that the skimmer upgrade is helping out. :) The water is the clearest I have seen it in months, and that's saying a lot since I typically view it through the side panel and therefore am looking through 8' of water.

I also found another large deposit of detritus in a non viewable area behind the rocks and toward the front. I will target that area for my next vacuuming expedition!

What it all seems to come down to, regardless of the various factors that led to this recent melt down, the bottom line is that I am not getting enough flow around and under my rocks. (not nads)...

Unfortunately, with the Vortech temp. issue, I am unable to run them full blast and my reef has suffered over time. Currently Eco-Tech is working to solve the problem, but so far this amounts to running the pumps in pulse mode, which does in fact lower overall temp., but also does not provide the maximum flow. So now I have to decide how t move forward. One way would be to buy a few more Vortechs...I had planned to buy 2 or 3 more anyway, but with the reduced flow, it looks like I would need 6 to 8 more, and that is a serious chunk of change.

The good news is that the corals I fragged into the QT are all well and recovering nicely. I built a rack for in the display tonght and moved one frag over to test it out. Once I have it positioned properly, I will move the rest and start re-doing my QT area by installing a 90+g main tank and using the current one as the sump. That should give me plenty of room for my snail project as well as dealing with corals.

I also am on the cusp of upgrading my mechanical filtration and possibly cleaning the viewing pane of the display!! Yes, I wrote that out loud! :lol:

We'll see as I am still struggling with my store computer system and have to take about 15,000 photos for our web cart. Man that's going to suck. At least I don't have dry balls.
 
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