wangspeed

A few goniopora pics.

+1 gasket goes on flange side. Never the nut side. I’m also a believer of a little aquarium safe silicone on the nut side. It’s never failed me.

It seems I exceeded some limit. Bummer!

A few higher quality pics. Prepare for a photo dump! https://flic.kr/p/2jLZMkE https://flic.kr/p/2jLZMtA https://flic.kr/p/2jM1E6o https://flic.kr/p/2jLZMgw https://flic.kr/p/2jLZMcJ https://flic.kr/p/2jLWdUR https://flic.kr/p/2jM1Bij https://flic.kr/p/2jLZLZu https://flic.kr/p/2jM1Dp3 https://flic.kr/p/2jLWdxi https://flic.kr/p/2jM1Dkk https://flic.kr/p/2jLWdiq https://flic.kr/p/2jM1D9Z https://flic.kr/p/2jLWdgw https://flic.kr/p/2jLZLx7 https://flic.kr/p/2jLWcXL https://flic.kr/p/2jLZKG9 https://flic.kr/p/2jM1BYC https://flic.kr/p/2jLWc4X https://flic.kr/p/2jM1BGR https://flic.kr/p/2jLZK71 https://flic.kr/p/2jM1BsC https://flic.kr/p/2jLZJYa https://flic.kr/p/2jLZJRB https://flic.kr/p/2jLZJNA

Very excited to have been chosen TOTM! https://wamas.org/forums/totm/totmprev.php/?prev=totm-2020-09

If you want it to be near, start with ask inner that comes with a DC pump. There is no such thing as an AC pump that doesn’t have that annoying 60Hz hum and vibration, even the most expensive ones that people say are quiet. That sounds irritates me so much that I couldn’t even stand it for my mixing station. Iwaki, Sicce, Eheim, even the venerable old Red Dragon pumps. They all make much more noise than a common Jebao or Octopus DC pump.

A long rambling video update, if anyone’s interested

I’ve definitely had a lot of ups and downs. The tank is stable now and things are returning to normal. Cyclic dinos, that I think are tied to die off when I dose fluconazole once in a while. I’ve also proved it’s possible to have both high nutrients AND dinos. Super fun there. Anyways, the fuge is back on track and is wiping out nutrients faster than I can put them in, which is great. Colors are coming back, but some things have weird green colors from high phosphates, while others are just growing like gang busters. I changed jobs about 7 months ago and have been super busy since then, so I haven’t paid as much attention to the tank. Apparently that strategy is starting to pay off. I’ve had all manner of nuisances in the last year. Dinos, super wiry red turf algae, and now I am happy to say I just have hair algae in a few spots. Mostly on pump cables and a few spots on the bottom. I’ve decided it’s not with messing with, other than to pick it off once in a while. I’m at capacity for fish. Hard to say that! Each time something goes in now, it just causes too much chaos in unexpected ways. Not even the normal intra species bickering. I added a beautiful male Watanabe to my existing collection of 2 females. The larger female because super aggressive and turned male within a month. The male I put in started losing his stripes. Along with this, my potters leopard wrasse went mad and started to bully the meleagris. I had to rescue her. She’s been in sand for almost 2 months with only a few minutes out, only to get harassed. Oh, also had Monti eating nudis. What a pain. They are tough! I took out almost all the montis except for a few choice frags and toothbrushed everything on rocks, or buried it in sand. Pouring 3% peroxide on the drags every few days did the trick. I’ll try to take some pics and videos soon.

I went on a business trip and I came back to a missing rhomboidalis fairy wrasse, small foxface, and sunburst anthias. No evidence left [emoji22] I started from dry rock so I can’t imagine something like a bob it. The rhomboidalis could be a result of fighting with the pintail fairy. The others I’m not sure. I see some of them have damaged mouths. Maybe due to jumping into the cover or fighting. I feed 2/3 times a day, but when I’m out of town, it drops to once a day.

So what happened for me is that I had accidentally setup a time period during the day with max 385nm UV for multiple hours. And the overall intensity was set to 100. Oops. I can do this just fine with the other blue/violet channels, but not the 385. Even green slimer at the bottom of the tank was showing burned sections. The coral in the pic was near the top of the rock work. I moved it down and it’s recovering now.

I’ve had some minor setbacks from time to time, but the tank and corals are mostly thriving and growing. The biggest reoccurring problem I have is ostreopsis ovata dinos. As a result, I always keep my UV flow set right, and I run microbubbles in my display 5 minutes per hour. I’m also up to 7 GHL Mitras over the tank. I have more even lighting as a result. The sandbed is about 300 par. Low rocks are 325 or so. The peak is about 450, but that’s only in limited areas. Most of the acros are in 350-400 par. The only problem I had with this level of all LED lighting is some UV burn that would occur in some corals, but not others. Here’s a sample UV burn I had to add some additional cooking to the upper cabinet, due to the 2 extra lights. It was causing the temp to run hot in the cabinet, and of the water. I used 140mm Be Quiet fans. They are nearly silent, and the water temp is noticeably down.

No I’ll effects. Alkalinity consumption slowed about 10%, based off what I have my calcium reactor peristaltic pump set to. I dosed extra. 7 grams into what’s probably 250 gallons of water, but I left my skimmer on and also turned my UV back on after a week or so. I have opportunistic dinos in my tank. If I leave the UV off and the conditions get just the right kind of wrong, dinos start forming.

2/3 are eating like pigs. I can’t tell about the third. I’m going to do a copper treatment on them and them move them to my observation tank. They’re so small, I’m afraid they will be harassed in the big tank by my long nose hawkfish, Or they might just get sucked down the overflow! Hoping they work out. I have always wanted some.

Sorry for the lack of updates. I’ve been through some minor issues including a bryopsis outbreak that I treated with fluconazole. Here’s something rare that’s currently in QT [emoji3] 3 little ventralis anthias. Along with 2 red saddleback anthias. I’ll try to take some pics or a video update soon

Trust the readings from the Hanna. It has been awesome for me and many others.

On the right side, that is a 2” flex PVC. It leads to a flow sensor and the. Up to a split where I run 2 1” pipes for the return. I really like flex pvc. It is much more forgiving than solid pvc in terms of how carefully you have to make all the angles and connections, since it can just bend.

My wife would really like that tank. In some ways she misses the nano. Yours is packed and looking great!

I had a few setbacks. The first is the most devastating. My yellow belly regal died. I’m not entirely sure what happened here. He didn’t eat as vigorously. Maybe because my other fish are just too aggressive at feeding time. So I upped the frozen clams to twice a day. I didn’t think he was skinny at all, but I found him one morning not coming out for food and he got worse and I lost him by that night [emoji22] The other setback was that my phosphates bottomed out and hit 0 despite feeding tons of frozen food twice a day. I made the mistake of increasing the fuge light an extra hour or so of runtime and it really just eats nutrients like crazy. That caused a tiny bit of dinos to pop up, which caused my first STN event in this tank. I lost a PC Superman, which kept falling and getting blown around, and a few small frags are really questionable right now. Everything else is recovering after a calculated dose of trisodium phosphate. Here’s the nutrient destroyer.

I’ve had a few questions now about the box from various folks. Here’s a picture that might help. It runs to an IO port, like a breakout box would, but there’s no need for a breakout box since the switches are already integrated. I’ve been using it quite a bit in the last week. I really enjoy having these physical buttons.

There’s already Alexa integration for Apex. I don’t really want to run Alexa or Google in my home.

Are you sure you don’t want a refugium or live rock section? Also, I know you don’t care about them that much, but 2 7” socks are going to clog up really quickly. I use 2 7” mesh socks and they last maybe 3 days before they start overflowing.

No. 3D printing seems like something I would like. If I had the time and energy for another hobby. They are buttons wired to the IO port on one of my Apex Neptune PM1 modules. I have the buttons programmed to do certain actions. Like shutting off flow pumps, skimmer, return, etc. The toggle switches are set to turn things on and off until they are flipped back. The momentary buttons are used to start timers for things like feed timers. If anyone wants contact info, LMK. It was $65.

Physical buttons for various stuff.

Fish pics, because my corals are too small to be interesting. This guy is looking great! But he is bullying my rhomboid into hiding [emoji36]

A few things. I wouldn’t run the biopellets unless you have a crazy high bio load. Mine sits in a box these days. Skimmer and Refugio’s are more than sufficient for me, without overstripping the water. Your main pump is a little undersized. I know it says 1400 GPH, but after head loss and if you are trying to power a manifold for the reactors, you may be much lower. Shoot for at least 300-400 gph through the sump. Also that MJ pump might be annoying. They aren’t quiet compared to your other pumps. Or is that only for mixing?