Kallor

Coming along really nicely! I think this is going to turn out quite well once everything settles - good work and great progress!

Wow. Quite a story! Well, congrats on getting this far with your new tank. Your set-up troubles and frustrations remind me so much of my own. You ran into some unique ones due to you building the stand yourself, but I think the general feeling is the same. Based on what I saw in your old thread you've at least got some photos to remember Mr. T - my condolences for your loss. I particularly feel your pain regarding Lowes and Home Depot trips - Good luck moving forward and spending more time shopping for fish and coral than plumbing parts!

I'm on the same page as you. Apparently the tape is supposed to be used for metal fittings only, as if you use tape for PVC as you can over-tighten and break the pipe. The liquid goop just oozes out, so this isn't an issue. Of course either can get the job done, and to be honest I've used both depending on what I have handy.

When I ordered my tank it was supposed to be drilled for 1" schedule 80 bulkheads. It was drilled for 1" schedule 40 - so I used those. But they are quite a bit easier to break, and I ended up with leak issues. Eventually I switched to 3/4" schedule 80, which fit perfectly in the holes drilled for 1" schedule 40. I still have more than enough ... bandwidth .... to accommodate all the water output and return from my Eheim 1262, which is running unobstructed into the 3/4" bulkhead. So the long and short of this is, based on my experience, don't futz around with widening holes and just use 3/4" schedule 80 bulkheads. PS - Schedule 40 are of course technically fine and many people use them without issue. But the 'dry' side is much thinner and weaker, so some left/right wiggle style stress leads to small leaks much, much easier than the schedule 80s.

Glad your underwater-family likes it! This time I added the nori at the very end - after soaking it. I very gently mixed it. I'm hoping to avoid the overly thick consistency the last batch had . . . it seems better so far :-)

Thanks for the kind words! That fatty tuna looked pretty darn tasty - if it were sushi grade I would have had a hard time not eating it myself

Oooo now that is lovely. Throw in the tank inhabitants you are planning on adding, and you will really have something cool! I'm excited to see this build progress!

Making Homemade Fish Food One of my weekend projects was to make my second batch of homemade fish food. This time I took a few pictures of the process. . . which was tricky given how messy your hands get I ended up making almost 2 lbs of food. The ingredient cost was about $40. Of that, $20 was fresh stuff from Whole Foods, about $10 worth of frozen brine and mysis, and about $10 worth of selcon. The garlic and nori I already had laying around (and are so cheap as to not impact the total cost). To get this much of something like Rod's Food, it would cost about $100. I have a hunch that Rod's Food have a lot more added water as well, so I might be off by a factor or two. But either way, it is certainly cost effective to make this stuff yourself. And it is also messy enough to illustrate that Rod's Food is fairly priced. So my ingredients were: 4-5 sheets of nori (pre-soaked in RO/DI and then drained) Frozen brine shrimp (thawed and rinsed) Frozen mysis shrimp (thawed and rinsed) Tuna steak (fresh) Fatty tuna belly (fresh) Jumbo shrimp (fresh) Jumbo scallop (fresh) Smelt (fresh) Squid with tentacles (fresh) Diced organic garlic (2 tablespoons or so) Selcon (nearly a fully container) The proof of the pudding is in the eating, and my fish seem to thoroughly enjoy this food. Everything is already rinsed and fortified, so I can put it directly in the tank. Next time I'm going to try to get more ingredients, like frozen cyclopeeze. With all the jibber jabber out of the way, here are some photos! Frozen brine and mysis Rinsing and thawing the brine and mysis Fresh ingredients. The Avast cup has the nori sheets in it. At this point, the bowl had selcon, brine, mysis and jumbo shrimp, along with the smelt. The end result!

Thanks for the kind words! I couldn't align the shots perfectly when I took them (though I got close). What really help with getting things 'close enough' was using the lens hood and pushing the camera square on the side of the aquarium. That at least ensured the shots were from the exact same distance. After that, just a bit of Photoshop work to tweak the alignment and make an animated gif. The coloring of the shots haven't been adjusted - it really is more colorful in the current state :-) If any of you guys have a before/after you want me to animate like this, feel free to shoot me a message and I'm sure I can take care of it for you.

Sadly B.B. the helfrichi firefish died of her injuries Tuesday night. Her eye had healed some, but the gash in her throat just got worse and worse. I wish I could have helped her somehow :-( On a happier note, attached is a (re)growth gif of the red montiporra. I know this is one of the easiest corals to grow, so I'm not bragging or anything but it is really cool to see it growing back! This is just a bit over 2 weeks of regrowth.

Sand, sand, sand! Three cheers for sand! I like the way it looks to much, and I love all the little guys that live in it. But in the end your tank is your creation, so I guess there is no 'wrong' choice. Also, I love your stand! I wish I had gotten saved up for a metal framed stand when I was getting my tank set up. You've got amazing access to everything! Definitely looking forward to watching you get this new tank set up! Also, congrats on the move!

Yeah, at least if it were a bar fight she would have gotten to enjoy a few drinks first! The only thing I've been able to really do at this point is hunt for larger hermit crabs. I had one that was whose shell was about the diameter of a quarter, and he is now on lock-down in the refugium. The other hermits are all 'micro' sized - penny-diameter shells and smaller. I guess theoretically even the very-small crabs have claws and can do damage - but the gash on her throat is large enough that I doubt those tiny crabs could be the source of the drama. None of the fish have ever come close to fighting, and even with the busted up eye and throat, the injured firefish hasn't acted intimidated by anyone else in the tank (the other fish being: 1 additional firefish, a pair of pink-skunk clowns, a kole tang, 1 banggai cardinalfish, and 1 blue-spot jawfish). The most aggressive things ever get in my tank is when the big female clownfish briefly chases the small male - or when the kole tang decides to nip on algae on the back of a conch :-).

Thanks for the kind words everyone! The coral continues to grow back, which is rewarding. Unfortunately, one of my firefish got beat up pretty bad last Wednesday night. She was doing great when I went to bed, and when I saw her in the morning she had a popped-out eye and a big gash in her throat. My guess at this point is that a hermit crab snuck up on her while she was asleep and starting chomping. I've never seen any of the fish quarrel, and given the severity of her injuries, I don't know what else it could be. Over the last 6 days, the swelling in her eye has gone down a bit - but the gash in her throat doesn't look much, if any better. I'm not sure she can open her mouth to eat, so I guess prospects aren't so good. She was looking particularly bad this morning, so I'm sure she will appreciate any wishes for a speedy recovery. Also, If anyone has any treatment ideas, feel free to share! Sick firefish

My apologies to everyone for not tuning into the WAMAS forums over the last few months. I've had some busy times (non-reefing) as well as busy times reefing. Most of the busy tank work has been trying to figure out why everything fell apart back in June. I think I can honestly say I'm back on the right track now :-) I'm still not entirely sure what caused the coral problems I had starting in June. I’ve been confident I figured out in the past, and been wrong (as I continued to have problems after fixing an issue). My current theory is that it was (at least) two issues. The first was not enough light. Over the months I tweaked and updated the settings of my Radions. The Reeflink software makes this all too easy. Over a few months of tweaking, I slowly lowered my light output via lowering the whites, greens and red LED output in the tank in an effort to achieve a more pleasant color. What I didn't do was compensate by turning the light level up. I think over time I went from just-enough light to too little light. The corals may have been fine through the light change process, but as this was happening trouble was a-brewin' in my sump. I had decided not to use filter socks because 1) they are a pain, and 2) you pull out all of those lovable little 'pods when you remove them from the water. My plan was to siphon out the junk that built up in the slow flow area of the sump. I did this as part of monthly maintenance, but over time the detritus levels grew and grew. My nitrates never went nuts, but they went up to about 8ppm. Previously I'd been around 0 or 0.25, and I don't think the corals appreciated the raised levels. These two factors hitting at once, combined with an ALK overdose (and a pump issue) led to a mass SPS die-off. To make things worse, I convinced myself at one point I had too much PAR and lowered the light level. Now I've got a PAR tester, so I can get ballpark figures and make sure things are set right. At the lowest of the low points, my red monti me died off. It started as frag from Isaac’s mother colony, and was one of my first calcifying corals. It had shown great growth, but over about 1 week or so it totally browned over. I realized then that my issues weren't just flow, or the past ALK overdose, and I really went into high gear trying to figure out the problem. I've since gone crazy cleaning my sump, and I've worked filter socks into my regular maintenance routine. My nitrates are back in the 0 to 0.25 range as well, and I'm slowly raising my Radion's brightness. Also, happily, the red monti is coming back with gusto. After being sure it was dead, it is immensely satisfying watching it re-grow. I've got an orange setosa that I thought was completely dead - over the last month it has gone from 1 tiny, tiny polyp to over a dozen. The monti has re-covered about 20% of itself, and continues to improve. Most recently, my mystic sunset montiporra has also started to re-grow. I'm thrilled, and continuing to very carefully monitor everything. Now that I feel like I'm back on track, I hope to spend more time on the message boards and otherwise participating in the community. It has been a rough few months (reefing wise) but I've certainly learned a lot. I'll post some before/after re-growth shots in a week or so. I would have documented the progress more, but I was worried that I would jinx myself :-) Thanks for checking in on my thread!

Thanks - it was a fun thing to see! This particular worm is a type of cirratulid (likely a cirratulid polychaete). If you scroll down a bit on this page (or just search the page for cirratulid) you can find some more info on them.

Now hopefully to put that negativity behind me, here is something positive that happened this month http://youtu.be/D8Tq0xvRDvk (If anyone knows how to embed flickr videos, please let me know - I finally buckled and upload it to youtube as I couldn't figure it out) (Edit: Hopefully youtube will figure out this is a 1080p video, and not 360p ... never uploaded to youtube before so I'm not sure how this works - Here is the flickr link if anyone wants to see it in 1080p)

So re-visiting the coral die-off I experienced, I definitely think it was a flow issue. As I noted above, for about a week one of my MP-40s was unplugged (the slave unit). I don't know if this caused the other MP-40 to throttle up or not, but I do recall seeing some vortexes form in the water, which I normally never see. In hindsight, this should have been a wake up call to check what was going on, but at the time I just thought "Neat, I've never seen Reef Crest mode kick in this strong!". Perhaps the second pump mellows out the other (or at least it helps disperse the other pumps flow). Either way, by the time I realized their was an issue (which was last Saturday/Sunday) the damage was done (I had re-plugged in the pump on the preceding Thursday). It appears that the coral die off has stopped (or it has at least slowed quite a bit). My bubblegum millepora appears to have taken the worst of the damage, but all in all I've got 4-5 wounded SPS (all my acros and millies). I feel really bad about this, and I should have noticed the warning signs earlier, but the pump that was off is obscured a bit behind some rock from my primary viewing location. There were of course warnings (the vortex I noted above, seeing a clownfish sleeping right under the should-have-been-on pump, and also seeing a cleaner shrimp walking almost on top of it, etc.). A hectic week at worked paired with a bumping the wrong thing ... uggh... This sums up how I feel right now.

Thanks for the info - and the update on the trachy'. I'm sad but not surprised - I think it was too far gone by the time you got it. I do appreciate the effort nonetheless. Your's certainly looks amazing! I love that color combination as well! Oh, and my apologies for continually misnaming that tri-color. I'll update my photos so I put a stop to it for good :-) I think (hopefully) my current problem could possibly have been a flow issue - I noticed the other day that one of the powerbricks for one of my two MP-40s had come disconnected, and thus I was running only one of the two pumps for a week or so. I've of course got the situation sorted out now, so hopefully that will get everything back in swing. I'd be more confident this was the issue, but this tri-color still got lots of movement from the other pump - however, the waterflow in the tank was obviously still impacted. Also, I'm constantly doing mild tweaks on my lighting, so in case I really messed it up somehow I reverted to a backup of my lighting program from a month ago.

Thanks for the kind words! The helfrichi have been great, and hopefully the coral growth will continue (assuming I can get this algae issue ironed out . . . see the above photo for what it looks like)

Thanks! Sorry to hear about your assessors :-( So far everyone is getting along nicely, so hopefully that will continue! I definitely get the 'type of coral I just can't keep' issues people have - in fact, I'm running into another issue myself regarding my SPS. I've noticed on both milleporra and now some acros some algae growth. This all popped up recently and quickly. Does anyone have any clue what could be going on? I did a fully battery of tests this weekend, and everything looks fine water-quality wise - I'm really rather perplexed. You can see what this stubber's acroporra looked like earlier this month (and even last week) in the photo above . . . here is what it looks like today:

I’ve had some new arrivals! BB and Dizie, the Purple Helfrichi Firefish! And that’s not all – there is also Kela, the Yellow Assessor Basslet! After the basslet and firefish were introduced, my formerly reclusive clownfish became much bolder. They continue to regularly explore the tank and clearly seem more at ease after the addition of Kela, BB and Dizie. Here they are exploring with Sharon the Kole Tang (who is also the benevolent queen of the tank). Of course, everything hasn't gone perfectly smooth (see the prior post regarding my ailing Trachyphyllia, which is currently convalescing at Issac’s (thanks again!)). However, I have gotten some growth on quite a few corals, so with that said, here are some photos documenting the coral progress. Starting with the Mystic Sunset Montiporra, which I don’t have a ‘before’ picture of – but you can see the growth nonetheless (along with some snail eggs). Frogspawn – 2/26 to 6/9 Stubber’s Acroporra – 4/21 to 6/9 Meteor Shower Cyphastrea – 4/21 to 6/20 Blueberry Lime Birdsnest – 4/21 to 6/20

Thanks for the feedback guys! Issac, I'm definitely going to take you up on your offer!

Thanks for tuning in again, and for the positive outlook! Things are indeed going quite well ... on most fronts. I've got some fun stuff to share over the next few days regarding the positive things - but I guess I shall start with the more urgent info. My first 'update' post will thus be more of a cry for help - as of course those are always more time sensitive. I've got a trachyphyllia I picked up at the last WAMAS meetup. It has been doing well, but over the last month or so it started a gradual decline. It has some dark spots that appear to be growing. I've tried a Beyer dip, followed a week later by a dip in Lugol's solution - but those haven't had any apparent positive response. It is placed in a well lit spot on the sand bed (light by two Radion Gen 3's). I know that sometimes you just get a coral that won't work in your tank - or had issues you couldn't fix - but I'd love to save this guy if I can. If my tank just isn't a good home, I'm happy to give the coral (gratis of course) to someone that might save him. This is what he looks like at the moment. The dark spots have noticeably grown since the dips - which have been over the last two weeks. My parameters are as follows: Ammonia: 0 Nitrite: 0 Nitrate: 0 Phosphate: 0.04 - 0.06 PH: 8.0 - 8.2 Salinity: 35ppm / 1.025 Temp: 77 - 78 ALK: 9 Calcium: 440 MG: 1420 I'll follow up in the next few days with the positive stuff - I've got lots of nice growth on most everything else :-) All input and suggestions are appreciated! (edited to fix typos)

I've had a blast going through and catching up on your progress. The variety of corals you have is outstanding, and the colors looks spectacular. Just your frag rack alone - wow! Keep up the amazing work, and thanks for sharing all the photos. My tank wants to be like yours when she grows up

Great work! You've done quite well with that 20 gallon tank - and you keep making improvements.