Project 58!! (Image intense)

[Maxx]

Now for the pics....

My glass tank has a few scratches, and I have a microbubble issue...so keep that in mind when looking at the pics.
Also, I've had this camera for about a week now, so I'm still figuring out how to do things on it, and I have absolutely no idea how to work photo shop to darken areas that appear hot or realy white in the pics...bear with me, they will get better. I've been able to crop out the really blown out parts of the fish pics....


Full tank shot 01-21-06

Frag Alley

Closer view of Frag Alley...(I really need to get a macro lense)

Blue Tort, Rescue Acro, and Pocillipora

Blue Polyped Acro and Green Monti Digitata

Nick

 

[Maxx]

The great thing about the new camera is that its fast enough to capture the Tomini as it zooms around the tank. My previous camera was an old Sony Mavica, that wrote images onto a floppy disc and had about 1 megapixel resolution. By way of comparison, my new cell phone, has a 1.3 megapixel camera. The lense isnt as good as the Sony's, but I'd be willing to bet I could take equivalent pics with it.

Anyway, I took ALOT of pics of the Tomini, and uploaded two. I dint want want to bore everyone to tears with photos of this particular fish.

Please excuse the microbubbles in the water.....

Royal Gramma

Onyx Percs from Rod's Reef

Thats all for now, more pics later.

Nick

 

[MarineTeng]

do your onyx clowns breed? sorry i haven't read the entire thread but i am curious

 

[Maxx]

Happy it worked out. I can pretty much count on my iwaki shutting down every 6 weeks like clock work. Once a month I dose the sump with 3 cups of muratic acid for 30 minutes, so I dont have to remove the pumps.

Don

Don, Any issues with the acid getting back to the tank? Obviously you shut down the return pumps, and do a water change, but after that any issues? I'm interested in hearing more about how you do this.

do your onyx clowns breed? sorry i haven't read the entire thread but i am curious

Not yet. They are still pretty young and havent matured yet. The obviously misbarred one is going to be the male though. He's already been doing the shimmy and submissive behavior to her.

Nick

 

[Maxx]

A couple of other pics....

Finally, a close up of one of the phishybusiness frags....

Acropora aculeus 01-23-06

Nick

 

[DonW]

Don, Any issues with the acid getting back to the tank? Obviously you shut down the return pumps, and do a water change, but after that any issues? I'm interested in hearing more about how you do this.

Nick

Nick,
I have a union on my return pump that I disconnect and redirect back to the sump. I drain the sump and fill back up with tap water and 4 cups muratic acid. I let the pumps (return, skimmer and chiller) run for 30 minutes. Then drain the sump and refill with tap water and a half a small box of arm and hammer. Drain and refill with fresh sw, never had a problem. You can tell if there is a problem by looking at the ph. The skimmer will remove all the scum while its being cleaned.

Don

 

[cheeks69]

I had the same problem with my Mag 12, the ceramic shaft actually broke apart, same thing with my Seio 1100 good thing I had a backup impellar for the Mag and the Rio just in case. What I do now is every few months I'll take all the pumps and let them run in vinegar for several hours.

 

[Maxx]

I just finished gluing up a new PVC "manifold" for the Iwaki 40RLT. The purpose is to be able to screw it on and run vinegar through it while running. I'll put about 2 gallons of vinegar in a 5 gallon bucket, plug it in and let it go...
Need to make a similar manifold for the Iwaki 55RLT and then I can run them both and make maintenance easier.

Nick

 

[Maxx]

Nick,
I have a union on my return pump that I disconnect and redirect back to the sump. I drain the sump and fill back up with tap water and 4 cups muratic acid. I let the pumps (return, skimmer and chiller) run for 30 minutes. Then drain the sump and refill with tap water and a half a small box of arm and hammer. Drain and refill with fresh sw, never had a problem. You can tell if there is a problem by looking at the ph. The skimmer will remove all the scum while its being cleaned.

Don

Hmm...very interesting. Any issues with muriatic acid being dumped down the drain? So the baking soda nutralizes the acid, and the acid quickly dissolves mineral build up? I have heard that Tunze reccomends NOT using muriatic acid on their streams...will this damage any other equipment or etch acrylic or anything like that?

Nick

 

[Scooterman]

Tank is looking beautiful Nick, awesome pics!

 

[Maxx]

3-6-06

Short update.

I have my calcium reactor online after some entertainment with the cracked fitting. It appears that Ehiem changed some things on the Korallin reactors, namely, fitting sizes. This happened about 5 years ago...and no one told me.


Anyway, I figured this out after ordering a new fitting from Marine Depot. When it arrived, it didnt fit. The unions connecting it to the reactor lid were smaller than the ones it replaced. So I had to buy a new lid, and the other fitting, (inlet) to get my reactor online.

I've never had a calcium reactor before so I was a little worried that I'd screw this up and dump a bunch of Co2 into my tank, nuking the pH, and wiping out everything. Happily, this didnt happen.

The reactor I have is the Korallin 1502. Its filled with ARM media, and has a pH probe port in the new lid I bought. The instructions Korallin includes with their reactors are almost useless since they read like a Sear's instruction manual:

"Putting hand of first on knob of left....What the hell...????"

Fortunately, there's a very informative thread on RC about these reactors. Oddly enough its titled...Korallin Calcium Reactor.

The info there can be used to dial in almost any reactor, although it is geared primarily towards the Korallin reactors.

What I've learned from playing with my reactor for a week is this:

DON'T SKIMP ON THE NEEDLE VALVE, BUY A GOOD PRECISON ONE THE FIRST TIME. It will save you headaches and time. The one that came with my set up isnt bad, but its REALLY sensitive, one light touch will increase/decrease the Co2 bubble count radically.

Currently, after one week of being online, the reactor is running at:

10 BPM Co2
102 drops per minute effluent
Effluent DKh 30.24
internal reactor pH showing 6.5

The tank is holding steady with:

DKh 8.6
Ca 415

The reactors pH is a bit low from what I've read about ARM, but I'm not 100% sure thats the real pH. I did calibrate the probe prior to placing it in the reactor, but my understanding is that a pH that low will turn ARM into mush...and it doesnt look like thats happening.

I have the effluent from the reactor dipping into the first compartment of my sump where my skimmer sits and the overflow feeds so there is alot of oxygenation going on there and any excess Co2 should off gas fairly easily in there.

Nick

 

[Maxx]

The only other thing to report is that I have managed to aquire bryopsis since I last posted a photo of my tank. It aint pretty and it freakin exploded all over my tank.

To deal with this, I've done 2 things:

Begun increasing my Magnesium levels and changed out my bulbs.

Hooked stated she has dealt with bryopsis in the past by increasing her Mag levels to 1500 and holding them there for a week or two.

Not doubting her, but curious about why this would affect bryopsis I asked Boomer about it. He said it could be because alot of algaes have less magnesium than surrounding water and increased mag levels will affect the algae on a cellular level, (increased concentration gradient requiring active transport removing the excess magnesium from its cells. Algae expends more energy and could also be loosing water while it expends extra energy, wiping it out...thats the short version).

I changed the bulbs because they've been running for slightly more than a year, and I'm pretty sure there has been a spectral shift, possibly towards wavelengths more beneficial towards bryopsis. We'll see.

Nick

 

[Maxx]

Wow...been a month since last update....

04-06-06

Bryopsis is under control, but not eradicated. Unfortunately, I cant point to one factor and say "this is what caused it to recede", because I had three things happening at once.

1....increased magnesium, but was never able to get it to 1500 ppm. Dont know why, but every time I got it close, it would lower and I ran out of magnesium supplement.
2...changed out my light bulbs. The previous ones were at least a year old, and needed to go anyway.
3...the long spined urchin finally decided to eat something besides corralline algea.

I've had some issues to deal with. Two of my corals are really looking like crap. The chicken foot didnt make it and died and the pretty green and pink tipped colony bleached badly and is slowly receding. I really think this was caused by some temp swings I had a month ago. I left a fan on while it was warmer and it dropped my tank temp to 73 overnight.I've also found redbugs again and as an added bonus pyramid snails. Fortunately, the pyramid snails are only on my Astrea snails and not my clams. I asked Dr Ron about them and he states pyramid snails are are not opportunistic parasites. If you find them on snails, they wont go on clams, and vice versa. For the whole thread:
Pyramid Snail or Something Else?

Everything else in the tank is doing good otherwise. I'm seeing new growth in just about everything else in the tank, and my onyx percs are displaying mating behaviour. We'll see if they actually spawn or not, but its neat to see them acting like that. I wont try and raise any of the fry.....alot of work and I'd hate to horn on Elmo's market.

I attribute all the new growth in my corals to the stability created by the calcium reactor primarily, and several conversations with Steve-S on husbandry and other issues in reeftanks. After talking with Steve, I now change 5 gallons of water a week as well as changing carbon once a week. I will still do larger water changes once a month, but weekly changes will be smaller. Thanks for the advice Steve, I really appreciate it.

I'm also keeping up the logbook. May not be necessary for anyone else, but I find it helps me out significantly.

I have halimeda growing in the tank. Kinda interesting....but nothing is eating it as far as I can see, and I can eventually see it becoming annoying. But it grows slowly so its not like the end of the world, its better looking than bryopsis at any rate. No idea where it came from, it just started growing one day. So far its only on the left side of the tank. We'll see what happens with it and where all it goes.

Anyway...here are two new pics....taken 04-04-06

Nick

 

[Porkfat]

Nice work Nick, keep the pictures comming (lets see some macros hint hint)

 

[Maxx]

Porkfat,
thanks for the kind words. I'd love to take some macroshots, but I dont have a good lens for it. I'm using a Canon 10D I inherited from my younger brother, (professional photographer in NY, who sold his 20D to upgrade to the 5D...forgot he had the 10D and decided to give his big brother a hand-me-down), and I only have a 28-105 mm lens and a 75-300 mm lens. A macro lens is the next lens I will buy...rest assured, then the macro's will be posted!


Where in Honolulu are you? My parents were stationed at Hickam from 86-90. I lived in Aiea, Waipahu, and finally on Hickam before we left in 90. Iused to work at Coral Fish Hawaii as a kid. That's where this addiction, uh....hobby really took hold.

On a not so good note.......
Yesterday while checking out the tank, I found a single Acro Eating Flatworm on one of the "Rescue Corals". It was on the one on the left just below the blue tort in the last picture. So it looks like I'll be pulling all acro's out of the tank and putting them in QT for 3-4 months and treating them there. Sigh....
They say troubles run in packs of three's....looks like I've found the 3rd and hopefully last problem for awhile.....
Redbugs, AEFW's, and pyramid snails.......looks like I've got a real parasite party going on in my tank.

Yay for my side....

Well, I can beat them, its just a giant PITA.

Nick

 

[Krish]

Really nice again Nick! You make me want to re-aquascape(LOL) Tank's looking really good man...Keep it up and I think it's soon time for you to get off that extended honeymoon of yours and have a little one

 

[Maxx]

03-18-2007

Its been almost a year since I updated this thread. The tank is still running, but I'm upgrading and plan to eventually move this tanks contents into a larger tank. Check it out at Project 150!! .

Nick