novahobbies
Well-Known Member
Chillin' out at LAX right now. One more flight to go.....
Novahobbies' 37g Seahorse Tank Journal
- Thread starter novahobbies
- Start date
novahobbies
Well-Known Member
Aaaand.....SAFE.
novahobbies
Well-Known Member
BACK. Had a great time, everything was a blast, and I was so happy to come home to 4 horses and 2 mandarins...and no catastrophic tank failures!! 
12 day vacations play hell with Seahorse owners.....
12 day vacations play hell with Seahorse owners.....
flower
Well-Known Member
Quote:
Originally Posted by novahobbies http:///t/366648/novahobbies-37g-seahorse-tank-journal/700#post_3478578
BACK. Had a great time, everything was a blast, and I was so happy to come home to 4 horses and 2 mandarins...and no catastrophic tank failures!! 12 day vacations play hell with Seahorse owners.....
LOL...NOW you can relax.
Originally Posted by novahobbies http:///t/366648/novahobbies-37g-seahorse-tank-journal/700#post_3478578
BACK. Had a great time, everything was a blast, and I was so happy to come home to 4 horses and 2 mandarins...and no catastrophic tank failures!!
12 day vacations play hell with Seahorse owners.....LOL...NOW you can relax.
novahobbies
Well-Known Member
It's a bit of a mess. Have to do a water change tomorrow, but I'm pretty chill right now.
I took the shots from Hawaii and posted links on this site. If you want to see.
https://forums.saltwaterfish.com/t/392016/pictures-from-hawaii
I took the shots from Hawaii and posted links on this site. If you want to see.
https://forums.saltwaterfish.com/t/392016/pictures-from-hawaii
novahobbies
Well-Known Member
Jaodissa, if you mean the fake coral from the first few pages of the journal, then they were actually cut from a faux coral ornament that I got from *****. It was a pink staghorn coral ornament, and I cut the branches from the "rock," glued styrene rods into the base of each branch, then pressed the branches into the foam.
Update: The tank is misbehaving badly right now. Maybe because I've not had enough time to really pay attention to it since I got back, but Real Life has been a particular PIA lately. I have a masive cyano outbreak. Both of my Acans are just about dead, and my chalice is toast. Some weird Caulerpa (it looks like racemosa, but with much smaller grapes and vines) has almost completely taken over the left rock and the top, killing off a couple zoa colonies and my last bit of xenia in the process. I can NOT get rid of this stuff. The grape caulerpa I used to have was much more well-behaved, never even clinging to the rock.
Doing a 10 gallon water change today. I'd scrub the rock if I could, but I don't want to run the risk of turning patches of caulerpa into clouds of miniscure caulerpa bits to get everywhere. Such fun!
Update: The tank is misbehaving badly right now. Maybe because I've not had enough time to really pay attention to it since I got back, but Real Life has been a particular PIA lately. I have a masive cyano outbreak. Both of my Acans are just about dead, and my chalice is toast. Some weird Caulerpa (it looks like racemosa, but with much smaller grapes and vines) has almost completely taken over the left rock and the top, killing off a couple zoa colonies and my last bit of xenia in the process. I can NOT get rid of this stuff. The grape caulerpa I used to have was much more well-behaved, never even clinging to the rock.
Doing a 10 gallon water change today. I'd scrub the rock if I could, but I don't want to run the risk of turning patches of caulerpa into clouds of miniscure caulerpa bits to get everywhere. Such fun!
novahobbies
Well-Known Member
Resurrecting my thread!
OK, so, um......I haven't been taking care of the tank. Oh, sure, the basics are always done -- food, topoff water, checking in to make sure everyone is alive and kicking, sitting and enjoying the tank from time to time, but....I've been bad. No water changes since BEFORE the Hawaii trip. And I have the invasive macroalgae to show for it. :-
I promised Flower I'd post this, so here goes. Pre-cleaning tank shot, warts and all:
Pre-water change parameters (the big 4)
pH: 7.8
Amm: 0
Trites: 0
Trates: 40 (eek)
dKh is 10...a little low here.
I didn't bother with Ca or Phosphate. Obviously there's phosphate since the macros are growing, but the challenge is going to be to prune the undesired macros while leaving in the good stuff. Some regular good old elbow grease and regular maintenance will solve that. And the Ca is most likely low, but I never test that until AFTER a water change...to determine if I need to add 2-part or not.
You can tell there's an issue with my acans. My green is coming back, but the red on is probably not long for this world. The horses and the mandarins are all doing well.....Theresa's little girls are now almost as big as my wild caught beauty, and the male is frelling HUGE.
OK, so, um......I haven't been taking care of the tank. Oh, sure, the basics are always done -- food, topoff water, checking in to make sure everyone is alive and kicking, sitting and enjoying the tank from time to time, but....I've been bad. No water changes since BEFORE the Hawaii trip. And I have the invasive macroalgae to show for it. :-
I promised Flower I'd post this, so here goes. Pre-cleaning tank shot, warts and all:
Pre-water change parameters (the big 4)
pH: 7.8
Amm: 0
Trites: 0
Trates: 40 (eek)
dKh is 10...a little low here.
I didn't bother with Ca or Phosphate. Obviously there's phosphate since the macros are growing, but the challenge is going to be to prune the undesired macros while leaving in the good stuff. Some regular good old elbow grease and regular maintenance will solve that. And the Ca is most likely low, but I never test that until AFTER a water change...to determine if I need to add 2-part or not.
You can tell there's an issue with my acans. My green is coming back, but the red on is probably not long for this world. The horses and the mandarins are all doing well.....Theresa's little girls are now almost as big as my wild caught beauty, and the male is frelling HUGE.
novahobbies
Well-Known Member
And DONE. 10g water change (which in a 32g "real water" aquarium is pretty significant), plus a full blow off of the rocks and a serious macro trimming job for that invasive stuff. I had to break off my pagoda cup to trim some of the algae, and I fragged the dead stone off of the green acan. I'm going to need something bigger to frag the red one. I'll take chemistry readings and a post picture when things have settled down a bit (and after the filters are changed in an hour or so) but I have to admit it looks much better now than before.
novahobbies
Well-Known Member
Post water measurements.
I didn't do Ammonia or Nitrates....hardly necessary.
Nitrates: Between 20 and 40. Makes sense given the size of the water change.
pH: 7.8 (still)
dKh: 10 (again, still)
Ca: 440
With that in mind, I'll probably need to buffer a bit to get my pH and carbonate hardness back in order....dKh isn't too bad, but it could go up a skosh.
I didn't do Ammonia or Nitrates....hardly necessary.
Nitrates: Between 20 and 40. Makes sense given the size of the water change.
pH: 7.8 (still)
dKh: 10 (again, still)
Ca: 440
With that in mind, I'll probably need to buffer a bit to get my pH and carbonate hardness back in order....dKh isn't too bad, but it could go up a skosh.
novahobbies
Well-Known Member
Clean Tank Pictures:
FTS:
Holy crap. I just loaded half a dozen pics, only to have the computer freeze up. Ugh....the rest will be loaded later.
FTS:
Holy crap. I just loaded half a dozen pics, only to have the computer freeze up. Ugh....the rest will be loaded later.
flower
Well-Known Member
Quote:
Originally Posted by Slice http:///t/366648/novahobbies-37g-seahorse-tank-journal/700#post_3484798
Beautiful tank!!
-wonder why I am drawn to that rockwork style??
LOL...I always get you too mixed up....I love both of your tanks.
Originally Posted by Slice http:///t/366648/novahobbies-37g-seahorse-tank-journal/700#post_3484798
Beautiful tank!!
-wonder why I am drawn to that rockwork style??
LOL...I always get you too mixed up....I love both of your tanks.
novahobbies
Well-Known Member
Quote:
Originally Posted by Slice http:///t/366648/novahobbies-37g-seahorse-tank-journal/700#post_3484798
-wonder why I am drawn to that rockwork style??
LOL!
Originally Posted by Slice http:///t/366648/novahobbies-37g-seahorse-tank-journal/700#post_3484798
-wonder why I am drawn to that rockwork style??
LOL!
novahobbies
Well-Known Member
This is the lovely stuff choking out the coral on the left side.
S
smallreef
Guest
Everything looks great,, well,, except for that really cool macro choking out your corals... but atleast its a pretty macro...