Swifty's 265 gal

[vinny2261]

I have heard many a nasty stories about Sally Crabs. I have had Damsels to Triggers drop sand, small pebbles, to good sized rocks on Corals and Clams. Sometimes I have had to move the Coral or Clam away from the Fishes "territory" to stop the dumping. Usually there is no harm done and I have seen Zoe's resurface through the sand, watch the clams slowly move away from stinging Anemone tentacles. It is pretty amazing to see the different tactics used to keep their territory.

 

[ntswift]

Yeah, my trigger is constantly grabbing up sand and dumping it everywhere. Not it one area though. Maybe the flow. But it has been fine up until recently. The weird thing is the sand is stuck together with kind of a glue. Not a very strong glue but it comes off in flakes instead of just blowing off. I try to dust off my corals with a turkey baster but when I do that a layer of sand will come off instead of a cloud, if that makes sense.

 

[estanoche]

that is really wierd..... what is your PH typically testing at in the middle of the night?? Maybe your sand is fusing during periods of low PH.....

And my fish dump sand on my corals all the time, but within a few minutes most of the sand has blown away or the corals "shake" it off - Never had it bother anything. Although I have experienced the sand melting the zoas - Can you move them up onto the rockwork? Or put them on some taller rocks to get them out above the sand???

 

[ntswift]

I will try and also test the PH in the middle of the night. I have never heard of that but there is a lot I havent heard of before! lol...Hopefully i can get my calcium reactor up and running soon so I can quit worry about all these ph and alk issues!

 

[Airphotog]

Just a quick note. Your (white)PVC fittings on the inside of your tank can be changed over to black if you want to hide them a little better. I used black on my 75 and they blend right in with the back...

Brian..

 

[estanoche]

I will try and also test the PH in the middle of the night. I have never heard of that but there is a lot I havent heard of before! lol...Hopefully i can get my calcium reactor up and running soon so I can quit worry about all these ph and alk issues!

Yeah - to add some "reason" to my random comment. As you will find when you setup your CA reactor, lower PH increases the dissolving speed of calcium carbonate. When your sand acts as a "buffer", its actually dissolving the calcium carbonate it has stored up (in the grains of sand) and releasing it into your water stream, "stabilizing" your PH.... Blah blah blah... so, if your PH is dropping to a level where the sand begins to "buffer" it "could" be "melting" into these chunks you talk about...

Did you get the leopard wrasse from Kevin?? The activities of that lil bugger will keep your sand chunk free in no time...... My pair probably turnover my entire sandbed once a day with all their foraging and nightly sand diving.... haha

 

[ntswift]

Airphotog- Thanks, I would have done that but its a little late now. LOL...They are already glued in.

estanoche- That makes perfect sense. I just have to test when the lights are off. I do have a question though, why does the ph change between night and day? I did get the leopard wrasse from him. Not the Choati like I wanted but from what I heard and was reading is that its really hard to keep them alive past 3 months. And for $160 I really didnt feel like trial and error with it! So I got a black leopard from him instead.

 

[estanoche]

Nice!! The leopard is awesome...... I wanted to go look at the Chaoti - haven't even seen one before!!

I believe it changes because your corals "exhale" CO2 at night as part of normal photosynthesis..... I could be wrong - memory only helps me so far

 

[ntswift]

Yeah the Choati's are really cool and he finally got one in but it died the next day after he got it. So thats when I did a little more research into it and found out about the whole not living more than 3 months thing. I guess that kinda make sense with the corals at night.

 

[NanoReefer411]

Sweet shots! That acro is huge! =) I like that orange zoa you have. Someday I would love a frag of that! LOL. What all do you have in terms of fish now? I think I overdid it with my fish population. =( I feel bad for my Naso. I wish Kevin would take it and put it in his big tank. O,r someone would take him and put him in a larger tank. I guess it is time to start saving my penny's for a bigger tank! LOL.

I love the side shot! That is awesome.

 

[ntswift]

I can frag it when ever you want one! As far as fish goes, I just lost my green mandarin and flasher wrasse this week but I still have quite a few left. A coral beauty, bursa trigger, two GSM clowns, two true percs, two anthias (different species males), yellow tang, randalls shrimp goby, chalk basslett, black leopard wrasse, scribbled rabbit fish, tomini tang, and a starry blenny. I lost my tenneti tang when I was getting my purple tang some how. If you dont want your naso there is room in my tank for him. i can trade you some frags for him or whatever?

 

[ntswift]

So I decided to get a wild hair and finish up my stand. So here are some pics of that and some new habitants! Although my Randalls goby is still MIA... No body or anything. Kind of curious with my mandarin getting a fin ripped off and now this guy is missing, I think I have a fish assassin in the tank!
Before-

After-

After glow-

New things-
Blue tort from Kevin

BTA- you can see it barely sticking out in the middle of the pic, first time since I got it.

Where's Waldo?!--Can you see him, the black leopard wrasse-

More to come when I get back- Happy New Year all!

 

[NanoReefer411]

Hi there! If I am not able to get a bigger tank in the future, I will definitely ask if you want her in the future. Nice shots. =) When the weather gets better, maybe we can do some trading? =)

 

[ntswift]

Well just got in my white lightning pinwheel for my BM-250 and found one of the impeller shafts was broken. No wonder I had start up issues! lol...Anyway just got two carbon fiber replacements so they are on the way. Kinda stinks because my tank has a ton of cyano right now and I need the filtration.

 

[estanoche]

Turning off your lights and blacking out your tank for 3-5 days, (even ambient light from the room will give cyano something to grow on) helps a ton! Usually when I decide to go on a cyano killing mission its lights out, then after that a water change sucking out whats left, and then heavy skimming/filtering with fresh GFO, etc.

Usually sets the cyano back bigtime

 

[ntswift]

That doesn't hurt the corals any? I notice when some of my corals get flipped just for a day or two they look horrible. That could be because my tank chemistry is all out of whack too!

 

[estanoche]

I've never lost a coral from it and have done it several times. Heck, once my ballast burned out (and it was the ONLY light on the tank), took me almost a week and a half to get a new one in - barely even noticed any bleaching.... Actually, sometimes I think it makes the colors brighter on my corals - but that could be just because I didn't see them for a few days

 

[returnofsid]

I've done lights out, for a 5 day period, in 2 different tanks, to battle a Dynoflagalettes problem, in the past. Both tanks had SPS and Clams, one tank had an anemone. Nothing suffered, in the slightest, or even showed any signs of bleaching or stress.

Matt, after the nightmare start to your tank, and the issues you've had recently, I have to say, seeing it in person yesterday, it's really looking good, considering all the issues!! That black wrasse was stunning!!! It was great to see you!!

 

[ntswift]

Okay well I may have to try it out while i fix my Reef Keeper that I just got! I plugged a little too much into it and blew the fuze. It worked great for an hour or so! lol....But now I have to redu the fuze circuit in it because I couldnt get it out. I dont know if it heated up too much and it stuck together or what. More problems to add to the list! Glad you liked it Michael! It was good to see you and Angie too!

estanoche- Thanks for the advice! I will give it a shot and see if that helps! I've a got two weeks until I have to leave again so that should be plenty of time to get it back to normal.

 

[ntswift]

Well last night I noticed that of my last anthias died. I really need to get my sally lightfoot out of my tank but cant seem to get a jar big enough to catch him! They say that his max size is "supposed" to be 4" but this guy is a lot bigger than that! Any ideas?