Jgraz's Finally a Proper Tank 90 Upgrade

[Adamc1303]

The plumbing is looking really neat and nice.

 

[RollinReefer]

corals and manifold look great!

 

[jgraz]

Biopellets week 2
.
Week 2: just added my next batch last yesterday. I started with 1/4, now I'm up to 1/2. It's still early I think to be seeing any results yet. Only thing I have noticed is that the skimmer is a bit harder to dial in ATM. Seems to be skimming a tad bit wetter. I'm still getting the usual film on glass also. I did not add any bacteria to start it off. I 2 weeks I'll add the next 1/4.

 

[jgraz]

Bio-pellets week 4:
So last week i noticed that I would have to clean a heavy film off the glass almost daily. Everything looked good otherwise so I just kind of filed it away in my brain for later thought. The last time I cleaned the glass was on Thursday and as of this morning its still pretty clean. So I figured that the pellets finally kicked in since i also noticed that my skimmer production while the same seems to be much darker and smellier. Oh, and cheato has also been dying off, so I finally tossed that out. With that said I went ahead and added my 3 batch of pellets. This brings me up to about 3/4 of a full batch. After I brought the reactor back online I decided it was time to feed. I noticed that one of my bangaii's is missing. Then I realize that I haven't seen it in quite some time. Then I remembered the extra film on the glass. I guess he must have died last week sometime and the hermits just did their job.

Anyway no other changes ATM.

 

[jgraz]

Well it's been a while since I updated. Nothing special to report. Pellets seem to be going well. I changed my mp20's to 40's, and I'm on the hunt for at least one more fish. Most likely a wrasse, though I'm not not exactly sure which one yet. Well that's about it. I took a ton of pics today as well I'll get to most of them later but here is a few top downs for now. Some are the pretty much the same pic with white balance adjusted. Thanks for looking.

 

[jgraz]

Here's a few more that I took

From the side

These I thought were cool. Sun on first half

And sun in the upper right quad

And a new FTS for good measure

I took a ton of pics I still have a bunch left for another day.

 

[fishman1069]

Nice! Tank looks sweet!

 

[ecvernon]

very nice!

 

[jgraz]

Well Its been a bit since I updated this so here I go.

In another case of bad luck It seems I came across AEFW's somewhere along the way. I noticed some of my corals looking unhappy about 3 weeks ago and had a friend come by and comfirm my findings and it did indeed look like bite marks on a few of my acros. The worst looking of the bunch was a purple bonsai that has just never looked right. So I dipped it and sure enough there they were. So began the process of dipping, not an easy task as most of my stuff is well encrusted at this point. I do believe that I caught the problem early on however, since I have seen very few of them after dipping. The only eggs I have come across were on a small milli frag and those were scraped off and glued over. The latest dip this past weekend only produced 2 very small worms and inspection of each and every piece with a magnifying glass turned up no eggs. Also this past weekend I went with a round of prazi since there is some debate about whether it can be an in-tank treatment for AEFW's, I figured what the heck.

Round one of dips was with Coral RX and went at the corals with a turkey baster. This dislodged the worms but i noticed that they did not die even after they remained in the dip water for over 30 min. Round 2 was with Bayer and turkey baster, same results worms dislodged but they did not die right away, but after about 20 min they did. Thats when I realized I only used the dip at 1/2 strength by mistake. Round 3 will be this weekend with full strength bayer. As of today almost all of the bite marks that I seen are already healing over and I have noticed no new marks as of yet. I also began using Zeo Flatworm Stop on the day I found the worms. I know it dosent kill them but I must admit I have seen many of my colors becoming more intense since starting it. So I will continue with it.

Other news, Right around the same time I found the AEFW's I noticed that my Hawkins colony looking a bit shabby as well. No bites, just blah. I also noticed a little STN so I cut off the dead parts and replaced it. No dip. The STN continued and pretty much turned to RTN yesterday. This morning I pulled out the colony and fragged anything that looked alive, dipped and put it back. I don't expect the dipped frags to make it though. When i did dip there was no AEFW's on the colony though.

On to the good news. The coral group buy I took part in arrived and it looks like we had a nice pull. As for now everything is still in QT and doing well. I also just found out the my dosing canisters came in today so I will finally be able to get my 2-part automated. Thats about it for now.

 

[jgraz]

Well I dipped for round 3 this morning. Used Bayer again at the 30ml per gal dose. Dipped everything and found 2 AEFW's this time. I inspected everything with a magnifying glass and glued over anything that may have been eggs. I think I may have found some though I'm not positive since the glass was a bit cheap, I gotta get a better one for next round. As I said I found 2 worms left in the dip water. One was very tiny and dead, the 2nd was a bit larger and well still alive. This is a bit disappointing since I have heard very good things about dipping with Bayer. All corals were in the water for at least 10 min some a bit longer. And I used the water for two rounds of corals. After the second round of corals the water stood for about 10 more min while I was cleaning up. So at minimum this worm was in the dip for at least 20min possibly more. Along with that I saw a few other little things moving around as well. For the next round I guess I'll be shelling out the money for Reef Pest Solutions stuff. That's it for now. Thanks for reading.

 

[ecvernon]

Good luck. So far I haven't found any flatworms after my out break. My display tank was a frag tank for more them two months. I was doing weekly dipping. Apparently I didn't find all encrusting spots or eggs cause I would keep in finding 1 or 2 small worms a week. I try to be extremely carefull now. I do t introduce any rocks or frag plug in my tank because I caught them and I way dipped my coral with withe coral rx and coral revive. It's interesting that your colors look better using flatworm stop

 

[ecvernon]

Never heard of reef pest solution. The newest Best thing?

 

[Jaftica]

I use about 10 ml. Of bayer to about a cup of tank water, mixes up very milky, been doing it thus way for a while now.

 

[SteveZ15]

I have the rx what is bayer?Nice tank btw I like the green stag.

 

[jgraz]

Thanks guys. Yes reef pest solutions seems to be the newest best thing ever. Supposedly kills eggs too, though that remains to be proven.

10ml per cup is a pretty strong. I've been making up large batches of dip since I'm dipping about 25 acros some of which are pretty good size colonies. I'm going to make the next batch stronger though. Not sure how much though.

 

[jgraz]

New addition. Been hunting since he went in. Got him from a fellow reefer that was afraid he was getting hungry. Six line bothers him every now and then but he seems not to care for now. As slow as he move I still can't seem to get a good pic.

 

[xxxAngeloxxx]

New addition. Been hunting since he went in. Got him from a fellow reefer that was afraid he was getting hungry. Six line bothers him every now and then but he seems not to care for now. As slow as he move I still can't seem to get a good pic.

Nice you got one too cool. I picked one a few back ago after the sandy storm. Till this day he's doing we'll and eating like crazy especially the pods that are in the rocks. Best of luck with the little guy.

 

[jgraz]

So a little update.

THE BAD: STN on a few of my acros. Not sure what's going on all params seem to be solid and the AEFW's appear to be a thing of the past. I actually lost my red planet and purple nana colonies. They took a hit with the worms then this current event knocked them off. The hardest hit by the new event is the green slimer which is STN'ing from the base up color and PE are good otherwise. My pearl berry is also affected and color is off on it a few other frags as well.

Still not sure what to think about these dosers. They are pulling a bit of air and I have been unable to track it down but I'm pretty positive it from the dosing vessels. I'm close to going back to manual dosing. I think I felt better being a bit more hands on.

THE GOOD: Despite the above difficulties all of my montis are looking great. As does all the LPS. All frags from the swap are doing good and I'm starting to really deep into the Chalices and Z's & P's. Of course my wallet and wife are not thrilled about that. I picked up a Miami Hurricane and Smooth Criminal Convict chalice at the swap and I have a JF BioHazzard on the way through a trade. To go with the few I have now, so if these go well then I'll surly be saving to get some more.

As I stated above, the AEFW's seem to be a thing of the past. I believe I caught them early on in the infestation. I haven't seen any bites, eggs, or worms for that matter in my last few dips.

The mandarin I added a couple of months back is doing great. He was pretty skinny when I got him but he has been fattening up nicely.

I also pick up a couple of Firefish and a serpent star today to add to the mix.

That's it for now. Thanks for looking.

 

[jgraz]

As I sit here at work not knowing when I will be getting paid again I figured I would update a few things. The few acros I have left seem to have halted their STN and are in full growth mode now. Still have no idea what ever happened and to be honest I do wish I had lost them all if for no other reason then whatever happened could run its course. With a few remaining Im fearful that what ecer killed them off is still lurking in the system. Either way I am done with acros for the forseable future. I have turned my efforts towards a mainly Monti tank. I have also started getting into Z', P's, and Mushrooms. And my collection has been steady growing for the last couple of months. I'll get some pics up of the collection soon.
I have been running Biopellets for about 10 straight months now and the other night I happened to look at the reactor and noticed that the pellets were no churning. I gave it a shake and and there was no change. So I checked the output line a noticed that there was a good steady flow of water. So not knowing what was going on I took down the reactor and gave it a quick cleaning. I am using the Reef Octopus BR 110. after taking it apart I noticed that the tube that send water down into the reactor was caked with gunk. This tube has a check valve that got so gunked up it would not move. This is the reason I hate check valves. Cleaned it and all is well. So if your using a R.O. reactor keep an eye on it.
The last few night I have been playing with my camera trying to figure out the best way to get some nice pics. I don't own a DLSR and I can't justify getting one right now. I usually just use my Iphone, but I don't know how to white balance it so I broke out my other camera. These were taken with a Nikon Cool Pix L310.
These are just zoomed in as close as I can get. I can zoom closer but then I wont focus in.

These were zoomed in as close as I could get the the pic was taken through a magnifying glass. I like these the best. I just gotta find a magnifying glass that has a higher lvl of magnification.

And for good measure a new FTS.

Thanks for looking everone.
John

 

[jgraz]

Well the swtch is on. After saying for quite some time now that I would NEVER switch to LED's, I'm switching to LED's. Here is what I went with.
http://www.oceanrevivellc.com/goods.php?id=18
Its getting nice reviews on R2R and RC both. The biggest dilemma I faced was how to mount them. My original plan was to build a hanging canopy. That got nixed when my wife said nothing hangs from the ceiling. I'm not a big fan of canopies on tanks, I like the open top look so that was out too. so that got me thinking, My first though was to gut my Tek fixture and drill a few holes in the casing to allow for the fans and dimming controls. But I figured why ruin the fixture. Then I though I would make a box that would be essentially the same size as the tek light and also utilize the tank mounts legs that I use already. So here is the beginnings of the fixture.

Another coming change will be the removal of the Bio-Pellets. In it's place I will put a 10 gallon tank to add a bit of volume to the system and to facilitate WC's without having to shut it down. At the moment the refugium section of my sump is housing some LR that I've held on to for one reason or another. To make room for Macro that LR will also end up in the WC tank as well. Its all drilled and just waiting for the rest of the plumbing. Hoping to get that going this weekend. Thats it for now stay tuned for the LEDs