Neptunes 125 Reef Diary.

[king_neptune]

Originally Posted by Eric B 125
http:///forum/post/3177283
hows the shrimp grow box working out?
i dont think im ever going to go hardware special order. lfs is too slow. i still havent gotten it. but there is tons of teeming life all over the tank, and scurrying across its rocks. both sump and above. from now on hard ware will be online only. but live fish its cool to watch them at the store for a week or 2.
Originally Posted by jchase1970
http:///forum/post/3178316
Can you post a pic of your new overflows. I'm getting ready to drill mine in my tank and was thinking about using your overflow bar idea. But I see you have abandoned that idea. I am mounting my tank in the center of a wall so it is half in 2 rooms and need a overflow idea that I can mount in the center of the sides. Anybody with ideas or link to other projects please share.
all i have on that is two temp pieces that will stall a while for me to get my custom box.The temp consists of 2 pvc standpipes that are capped and drilled. it requires daily attention, but it is definitely a stop gap till i get the 6x9's.
im glad my lessons helped you. The next time i do a custom overflow it will be built into the foam itself but that requires you to have the whole tank in place permanently, and that is out of my scale for at least 3 years.

i cant wait till i get my degree done. i just got a "B" in my final algebra class. i wasn't looking forward to math, but ill take a hit to my GPA and get a B. I can go back to A's now that math is over.

 

[king_neptune]

OK

First of all I am so happy with this tank. Its been a while, and I have an objective look on good and bad. So with out further delay lets sink teeth into it.
The main current status of the system is all params happy. The foam build is $$$$$RICH$$$$ with life and critters. I got every kind of yummy pod there is. Mini star fish and other micro sized life all sorts of saturation throughout the tank. My Coraline now cover's about %3-5 of the rocks(some of them came seeded with %90). The foam build itself Is resisting; yet still shows coverage coming, this might be any number of reasons, but I don't see a need to dive that deep at the moment in pursuit.
I could go on but you get the point. I am thrilled at how mature it is. I saw someone today who had a nice tank. I estimated 6mo-1yr, I was shocked when he said 2yrs. Don't get me wrong, his system was nice, I envied much of his stuff. However he was not even close to the bio diversity. His was much more steryl, which will be discussed later.
As everyone predicted, the bristle worms are a fantastic addition. They work the sand and keep their own population in check, they earn their keep, and mind themselves. I spot a sand sifting crab from time to time. I got a good crew that move it around. Its not pristine grade "A" bleach I covet. But it has a quality I would give as better than 2/3 of the local fish stores Ive been to.
Almost all the long hair algae is gone. It is well past 99% dismissed. Now is only two things: stubble patches that are fading; but even worse, thin sediment layer that has settled on the rock.
This is most definitely the lack of a skimmer. It is the double edge sword that comes in the skimmer/scrubber debate, and I'm caught in the middle of this war. I can sit this out and the outcome can be a couple different things. So far I see that the rocks at %90+ Coraline coverage have NO sediment layer stuck on them. The rocks that have sediment are not showing sediment on parts with fresh Coraline growth. This tells me I can probably ride it out and when the tank is covered in Coraline I won't be seeing a sediment layer. Again that guys tank I saw today had 2 years and already I out classed his Coraline production, so It might not be too far off. Probably by summers end.
But If I have a skimmer chugging away I get a loss in bio diversity. So I am at a cross roads. The scrubber keeps everything safe and stable. The green comes slower now. Could be many things from me feeding more responsibly to the bulbs wearing near the end. They shouldn't be due for about 6 weeks, however, I'm getting some new bulbs next trip to home depot. This last week has produced an orange algae on the scrubber. I haven't researched yet what That means, but It is off the norm. But nothing dangerous.
I think my overall track will be to get a skimmer activated in the next month and begin water changes. The only water changing the system was top offs. And a 40gal swap when I nuked the red slime algae.(which by the way hasn't shown it face since) I might start water changes sometime in the next month.
Fact, the skimmer and routine water changes along with basic scrubbing of the rocks will remove all the film, Im positive. If I went the scrubber route it would take longer to get the film removed. So as a short cut method I want to jump to skimmers. From there it can ween the system back to a scrubber only. Or I might just do a mix of both, or abandon the scrubber altogether. I need more time to reach a substantial conclusion. I see merits in both systems, and I think doing both is feasible. They both work as promised so far.
I know there are a lot of people riding on both sides on this one, I want to use logic and define the best action through the scientific method. I think the skimmer is the shortcut method, but by no means does that detract...I like safe shortcuts like anyone else.
One thing is for sure I am definitely saturated with life, so adding a skimmer to the mix at this point wont slow it down up in the DT a whole lot. I honestly think it would speed things up in a positive way.
Anyhow its late and I'm tired, I snapped some shots but they came out garbage. I simply have a hard time putting up a screenie that diminishes the quality. I really really want a nice camera....but Id rather get something like a calcium reactor setup first. I got much more to add, but some other time.

 

[king_neptune]

I think I might have damaged my camera, It simply cant translate an image.

That was supposed to be a shot of the Coraline glowing, under the Night lights. I wanted to show some Coraline growth.

 

[eric b 125]

sounds like things are going good on your end. i hate not having a good camera. i took all the pics in my build-diary w/ my phone. some came out decent, others came out looking like cell-phone pics. i never took enough pictures to warrant buying a quality cam, but i think it's time to invest. what kind of skimmer do you have? its an asm, right?

 

[king_neptune]

I don't remember off hand what kind of skimmer it was. I only remember that it was a good deal at $150, and was nice to have on standby. But I broke it while moving it, and haven't been able to fix the inlet on the air nozzle. Besides the thing was modded in a couple ways that I personally didn't like because I wanted in out of sump skimmer. The mods would have likely made it leak...which is why it was probably for sale.
At any rate, im shopping for a skimmer. I want to get a used one rated for around 250 gal or better.
I put some cheap frags in last night to see how they will pan out. Its only been 10 hours so I cant get all excited yet. I figure half dozen frags for $20 would be a good test case to see how everything is going to survive. They range in difficulty from easy, all the way up to advanced corals.
Water changes will begin in the next couple days. I will be scrubbing the rocks just prior to pulling out the water. Ill do %10 weekly for the next month. That will help speed up the work of the skimmer immensely as well. When this thing finishes the layer of Coraline over its majority, Ill go back and forth till I see the common middle ground that keeps it all happy.
Also the GFO/Carbon reactor and foam wall should also be brought into consideration when deciding factors that keep the water so clean. I change them out regularly, and since I began using it...the long algae is really been stomped. Now to get rid of that unsightly "peach fuzz". And green that grows in the corner of the glass.
I remember I asked several people about their Foam builds before I committed to mine. And the prognosis that they have stable ideal water seems so far true.
I ordered a pair of new screens for the scrubber. It should significantly boost its workload. I'm still not happy with the screens I got. They seem hit and miss. Sometimes they have brown, and orange algae. Sometimes nice thick green. I'm pretty sure it has to do with he roughing of them. I spend a long time roughing them up...but they don't have the right texture.

 

[king_neptune]

Added a skimmer two days ago.
Its a Tunze 9010.
After first day it didnt foam. Second day after some tweaking I got it to produce a tiny bit of skim. When I woke up this morning, the collection cup had about 2/3 cup of dirty water. A yellow color, nothing thick. The skimmer cup had a layer of a little bit. But mostly looked like flakes that I fed earlier.
Altogether I think its just a weak skimmer, right now, its not producing anything. I think either the model is bad, worn out...or just garbage. It gets mixxed reviews...either 5star this thing is AWESOME!! or 1star this thing is garbage. no middle ground.
I think Im in the select that think of it as one star, because this thing is deffinatly not worth the $230 i blew on it. It was supposedly a $500 dollar unit new. And honestly it is garbage.
Im gonna run it through a 3gallon bucket filled with vinegar overnight. After that Ill break it all down and clean it super good. Hopefully that will improve the performance.

 

[king_neptune]

I believe the cleaning session on the skimmer worked.After a night in a vinigar bath, I rinsed it and placed it back int he tank.
10 hours of skimming produced about 1/2 cup of yellow water with some clumps of debris. Not what I was expecting. I thought skimming brought forth green paste. Or at least much darker water.So having it Pee colored wasnt expected.
I scraped the scrubber clean last week. I am now convinced that the bulbs indeed need to be replaced. Algae growth suddenly dropped off sharply about 2 weeks ago, and I was suspecting the bulbs might have been bad.
As of now its been a week since I completely scrapped it, and there is almost nothing new on the screen except for a light browning. It used to be after a week I would have had a green film with some small patches of Algae.
Already the tank shows signs of the scrubbers inactivity. The surface water in the DT has a film looking layer(sorry that's the best description). Its not abhorrent, but it is definitely something that wasn't there a few weeks ago.
The Amonia shows 0, and the trite shows 0. But the trate levels are now showing almost 10(which hasnt been seen that high since the tank first cycled)I know I can go as high as 20(and Ive talked to people who are in the 70's and safe) before having to look worried, so as long as I nip this in the bud soon, it will be ok.
With things on the rise, I need to get to the hardware store and pickup some new bulbs, I guess now it means I should be getting new bulbs every 4 months. I don't know how fast levels will rise without the scrubber, it seems like its only barely creeping up. This might have something to do with he massive foam wall as well. I honestly thought things would have exploded out of whack, when the primary means of filtration broke down, but its only gently creeping up. At any rate, I need to get the scrubber back online. It will be neat to see how long it takes for levels fall back to 0.

 

[king_neptune]

I got ICH.

OK now the fun road of treatment.
I'm going to do hypo, but to do that I need to pull the livestock out and treat them in a medical tank.
This is preferred, but damn near impossible because they can hide so well in the foam wall. Its not a simple matter of pulling the LR out. I have to drain the whole tank, and even then they can still fit underneath the "Lava Bubble"
Or I can pull the inverts out and do hypo in the DT.
I really want to avoid Hypo to the DT since it will kill all the wonderful life that I have as a foundation(pods, starfish, ect).
The whole point of the scrubber was to have this rich micro life foundation, and now I am forced to possibly destroy almost 6 months of love and care

I know how I got the ICH, I don't want to think about it, just rest assured I will never let anything into my tank without a 3 week quarantine.Play Russian Roulette long enough, and you will eat a bullet.
Ill keep you all posted on how I treat this. bleh

 

[king_neptune]

Disaster struck today.
My GFI tripped sometime in the middle of the night. I woke up to 62 degree water. I don't yet what the death toll is. But I am crushed.
Its the concrete floor. The smallest little stress and the whole system shuts off. Im heartbroken needless to say.
I believe the culprit was a 20g bin for mixing saltwater. The current must have leaked through the power head, into the bin and then the concrete floor, causing the GFI to cut. I have since placed it on wooden blocks to prevent that from happening again.
Ill be assessing the damage, right now I got my hands on every heaters I could find, trying to raise the temp asap. But that's a lot of water volume.
I had the fish all out and in a 55g hospital tank for treating ICH. It lost power too. They miraculously seem to be alive...scared, and stressed...but alive. However my zoo's, SPS's, and LPS's, are probably at about 75% casualty. So lame since they were all flourishing so well. My sea hare and sea apple are alive

. They really are the last man standing!
I see some invert movement hear and there, but I also see corpses scattered about. At least my favorite shrimp is still alive.
I dont know yet what I'm going to do, its times like this that really demoralize someone.I know there are people out there who have had it worse than me. Mine was less than 6 months old, but this blows big time.

I literally am starting over.

 

[fishkid13]

That really sucks King! I am sorry to hear about that. But I am surprised they sea apple is still alive, hopefully it didn't release any toxins into the tank from the stress.

 

[king_neptune]

Hes partially open and feeding. Hes a champ, the sea hare is going about his business too.
Temps back up to 72 degrees and climbing. I got most of my Zoos and polyps opening a little. But the GSP looks bad
A few other casualties. Mostly my inverts, but overall nothing super painful, so my mood is much better now.
But I still don't know the status on the Frags. It will be a couple days before I can determine if I lost any.

 

[king_neptune]

Tank is pretty much making a great recovery from the GFI disaster from last week. I still took a heavy hit to my GSP, but otherwise the couple of frags and few heads of zoo's I lost isn't that much of a worry. Everyone else is doing pretty good.
I isolated the problem to a bad pump that tripped the GFI since it had a grounding prong. Its not in use anymore.
My fish are happy and healthy in the hospital tank. No sign of ICH since I put them in. Ill keep them in for another 8 weeks just the same. This probem will never happen again. I am destroying the ICH permanantly, and will never let anohte rfish into my tank w/out good quarentine.
In the mean time it will let me focus on adding corals. Hopefully Ill have a good dozen new frags added over the next two months. Starting with this guy:

Its called a Dendro and you have to hand feed him since he cant photo-synthesize.
Ya....I really really hate my camera

It just mocks me by ruining every shot I take.
Out of probably 20 shots, this was the best one:

Hear is what he really looks like:

Too bad I have to go to someone elses website to show what mine looks like. I detest putting up nasty pics, this camera doesn't shoot anymore. I don't know why its gone downhill, but it just wont take any kind of descent shots of underwater items.
What I want is a camera that approximate exactly what my eye sees. Anyone have any good ones to recommend?

 

[the_hadleys]

Hey King,
It depends on how much money you want to spend... You can get a nice point and shoot for around 100-250$ or you can go the route of DSLR and get a canon 50d but that ranges for around 1100 for just the body. Lenses are anywhere from 250-30,000$
If you have the money I would suggest getting the canon 50D you will love it!

 

[king_neptune]

Originally Posted by The_Hadleys
http:///forum/post/3220698
Hey King,
It depends on how much money you want to spend... You can get a nice point and shoot for around 100-250$ or you can go the route of DSLR and get a canon 50d but that ranges for around 1100 for just the body. Lenses are anywhere from 250-30,000$
If you have the money I would suggest getting the canon 50D you will love it!
I wont be doing the point and shoot method ever again. Thats what your looking at. My $110 walmart sony handy cam special. 10mp is what sukkred me in. Doesnt mean squat if the shutter and lense are lame.
I have heard of DSLR(dont understand why they are better). I see them on Craigs list for around $400 with several lenses. I think Ill go that route. If they really do improve the picture quality then I think its worth the investment. Thanks. Ill keep my eye out for the cannon 50d!

 

[king_neptune]

Just some thought running around my head before I go to bed. Thought Id say a small piece about my skimmer.
When my scrubber was up and running a bad day would be .1
Recently it shot up to 10 nitrates within 2 weeks of losing my scrubber. It's begining to sliding back down now(5), its the skimmer(or the fact that I have all my fish in the QT, and began doing water changes last week). I get my new bulbs tomorrow, and Ill be hooking up my scrubber again. In the meantime I still got a skimmer going. I love that thing! Talk about clearing up the water!
Ill take a full battery of tests tomorrow.
I cant wait till I get them both tuned in and running simultaneously. I love the merits of both. But if I had to choose...
Skimmer.
My scrubber is definitely the more potent filtration. And it totally helps saturate the whole system with a rich bio-diversity. Sorry skimmer, your gonna take second.
But the skimmer gives you that pristine clear water, and surface free of detritus that cant be overlooked.Um....thats like what eveyrone wants in this hobby. Kudos skimmer.
Now I want to see how they work combined.
I know there going to be skimmer fanboys trying to claim victory, and Scrubber junkies that want to claim equal winnings.
But honestly your both right. I will still be playing around till I find the best balance. But I am pretty sure that 2-3 months from now, I will be telling all that if it came down to one or the other....Skimmer would stay.
Bottom line, I can live with slightly higher trites/trates, and a little less biodiversity on the microscopic level, and even that big hit to my pod production. Its the ultra pristine water/rocks appeal to me more than all powerful perfect water params.
Now all that said. I am really truly hoping that I can find a way to get both to co-exist. That would definitely make my day I like having the best of both worlds!
However,
I think it would be a fair prediction to claim that in a few months Ill be telling those who can only have one or the other....get a Skimmer first. And those that can....get both

 

[bmkj02]

Hey King, I have gone to Lowes and HD and they just have the regular stuff Great Stuff not the pond version. I have even asked then and they say thats all they have. Can the regular stuff be used. What foam did you use and where did you get it?

 

[king_neptune]

I used a couple brands. My favorite was great stuff. I got it at Ace hardware I belive. Home depot and lows also carry it from time to time. Mostly they have a generic brand that is for UV protect pond use. I tried it, but had about hald the coverage and almsot double the price.
Ive read alot on foam builds. I know some people use the regular. I havent confirmed anything negative, but jsut the same. I used the UV protec since its there for a reason.

 

[king_neptune]

Just some updates for yall, I really hate this camera and have to take several shots of the same angle/lighting jsut to get a useable shot. Sadly it doesnt come anywhere near to doing justice:
Pink Poccilipora colony

Assorted frags Ive planted in the last couple months:

Green pocilipora, and Purple monti(aka purple haze)

My denro who has recently sprouted 3 new heads!!

My GSP colony on the back wall is now spreading from its orrigonal rock...to the foam wall itself!

Those button polyps that I thought was a couple dead worms attached to my LR. Not bad for a hitchhiker!

A nice mixed Zoo colony probably clsoe to 100 heads alltogether:

Best full shot:

Sorry...the camera gets intimidated by the bright lights. So it just shoots a white blur unless I direct the LED's away fromt he camera lense.
Also some comments:
Had a devastating ICH outbreak that came just after christmass. I tried to treat it without drastic measures...unfortunatly the problem only kept getting worse. After my first casulty,a powdered blue tang I got for a present...the very fish who introduced the ICH. I stepped it up and removed the remainging survivors to a HT. Over the 10 week regume I lost 2 more. Broke my heart, but please please learn my lesson! Always QT QT QT! I will never again skip such a precious step! I had three fish die from ICH that would have never had to suffer, provided I put my christmass present into QT...rather thant Directly into the DT.
I had to pull out the skimmer and Reactor shortly after my last main update. I had to put them in the Hosiptal tank to keep everyone alive.
The DT itself was running off just the Foam wall,LR,LS. I had Zero negative readings. But then again there were no fish in the water either, jsut the inverts and corals. I put everyone that survived the ICH disaster back in last night.
The scrubber is still off. Ill be putting it back on sometime in the comming months. FIrst I want to see how the system stabalizes with the fish being put back in. The Reactor and skimmer are currently running, everything is fine.The time spent in the HT at lower salanity did an amazing Job to the color and scales of my fish. Thier health is amazing and the coloring is noticably more vibrant.
My main focus ont he system this year will be stocking it with frags, and building an LED array. I will probably get a couple more fish later this summer, but like I said..they arent my focus. Corals are.
I jsut started putting in frags about 6 weeks ago, and they are really taking off under the LED'sI currently have. I payed $300 for the lights, and honestly I was a bit dissapointed...but after seeing how well everyone is doing, I have to take it back partialy. To be honest, the lights have amazing luminocity, they are overpoweringly bright. The spread isnt as good as a MH, but certinaly better than I origonaly thought. All in all I say they are worth the price considering what you get. On the downside...they are so white...that you dont get nearly as much color as you would under actinics. As such, they do provide what I was hoping for...a cheap LED alternative to use as a temp means of lighting till I get my LED array built over the following months. When I finish my LED array, I will use the temp LED system to start a 30g nano to place in my room. So its a win for me.

 

[king_neptune]

Also,
I flipped over all the rocks when I pulled everyone out. It was both a final aquascaping before I put in my first frags
(and I like it much better), and also a means to spread the Coraline to the other side of the LR. Already the Coraline has not only caught up to the level of the original top side...but surpassed it. This stuff has a snowball effect! I love the fact that I visit local reefers whose tanks have been up for years, and my Coraline production puts theirs to shame ^_^
Oh, and I should mention that the foam wall is a pod factory!
I know Ive said it before, but i just cant stress how impressed I am. I can pick any spot on the foam wall build and see dozens and dozens of mixed pods scurying about. I tried to count a small 5x5 patch. Too many moving to fast. But to give an idea...dozens. The bulk of them are amphiopods, but I do have tiger and copepods as well. THe tiger pods I seeded last month are now showing by the hundreds. So I expect their populations to rise as well.
I feel that I can successfully keep a dragonfly now! Ill get one later this summer!

 

[king_neptune]

Had some time today, so I took some shots:
Got some new corals. This is a Tri-color. Dont let it fool you, it really is a tri-color. This is the awesome power of those cheapo LED's that I experimented with. They are pretty awesome for growth, but they also destroy any color on the skeleton for almsot all my corals. So you end up with bland/brown looking corals, with phat happy polyps full of color waving about. Its unsightly to me, so Ill be thrilled when I finish my DIY LED array. I should note my Radioactive dragon eyes. These are loving the light, and every week I notice a couple new heads. All my zoos flourish under these lights.

Here is a birds nest Ive been slowly nursing back to health. It was almost compleatly bleached, and now its about 30% coloring back. He had a rough transition home. The whole colony shattered in route and the peices I could salvage I put in the tank anyways. I glued half dozen branches together hoping they would form a single colony one day, but within days it was looking like it was a waste of time, but I stuck it out and now the polyps are begining to fuzz a little. I still don't know if it will make it, but I wanted to see if it was worth hanging onto. His counter parts on the other side are almost fully recovered from the shock. And at about 95% color. I enjoy this nest a lot. It has really pretty purple polyps, its also nice to know that something almost dead is actually working towards recovery.

This is the other half. Its the one in the background, it is an LE birds nest, so the purple polyps are more pronounced than regular Birds nest. The smaller one in the foreground is a standard birds nest I picked up last month.

This is my favorite piece. Its a Dendro I picked up a couple months ago. I was a little shaky at first with it, it was actually regressing. But now I got the feeding down, and its done nothing but improve since then. Hes now got 4 heads. 2 of them I can feed, the other two are still to small to accept food.
*Note to anyone interested in Dendros...feed small amounts. And they will always eat more than they need. Just because it accepts food, doesn't mean it should have food. I feed it 2x a week. It varies. I might pop a salmon egg in it, or some mysis, other times I use brine. I have half dozen different things that I chang it up with. They real key is feeding smaller amounts. ANd not so often*

Here are just a series of remaining shots. Notice that I removed the Pink Poccilipora. Its actually still there, just look down below behind the rock with all the zoos on it. It looks much better down below, and that frees up the original rock for something else. Also look the the right, notice that large SPS colony that has some bleaching on the tips. I'm keeping an eye on these, since my water is good, and there is no reason for corals to die in my tank I was dumb founded. Then It dawned on me, its the LED's! I put them in a different spot hoping to boost the lighting for them, VIOLA! 72hours later, polyps are out and about. They are also brightening up to neon green. The skeleton is still browning under the lights, but the bleaching has stopped. And I have much larger polyp extension. So i predict a recovery. Seriously, I cant wait to get my own LED array in place. And behind it is a bob moore acro(hald dead). Someone was tossing it away, and I figured Id take it and see how it would do. I dont think its going to make it, but I really hope it does.