A New Dawn

[madweazl]

Just occurred to me that I never posted the specifics on the dinos. I ended up ordering this microscope and using 400x magnification, captured this image via cell phone using an inexpensive mount.

After some assistance in the dino thread, they were positively ID'd as ostreopsis (made easy by looking at the whitish colored "beak" on each dino).

 

[madweazl]

I replaced the Reeflo with the Iwaki this morning and wow, what a difference in flow. I knew it was going to flow more but didn't realize how much; I love having the additional headroom for the manifold. It is surprisingly quiet for the size; more noise than the Reeflo but not bad.

I also picked up a couple mounting brackets for the UV sterilizer that are fantastic (two per box, don't be a bonehead and buy two boxes like I did...)! They appear to be 3d printed (perhaps partially) and are extremely light weight so I'm not sure how durable they are but the sterilizer is in a low traffic area so I don't think it will ever be an issue. The descriptions show they come with mounting hardware but there weren't any screws in this box (not a big deal if you have some at home already). Big thumbs up from me regardless.

 

[madweazl]

Well crap, certainly wasnt expecting that so soon. Hopefully they chill out long enough for me to get some corals established in there before there are 90 of 'em.

 

[Maxx]

They shouldnt have split at that size...could anything have stressed them out?

How do you have the UV plumbed?

 

[madweazl]

They shouldnt have split at that size...could anything have stressed them out?

How do you have the UV plumbed?

I gave up on trying to figure out the rhyme or reason to anemones splitting long ago. Stress could certainly be a part of it with the UV sterilizer coming online, new pump being plumbed, diatoms (never seemed to bug the anemone), etc.. With that said, it didn't change location or bail out so I don't suspect "stress" to be the cause but who knows. I've caused them to split in the past from heavy feeding but I don't feed this one (haven't in many years for past bubble tips). Size has never seemed to be a causal factor in the past for me.

 

[madweazl]

 

[Maxx]

Looks good! How's the rest of the tank doing?

 

[madweazl]

Good. Lost all the SPS in the dino war but all is well now. I think we're going to put a 300g where the 150g is now and move the 150 into my office so I'll probably stick with LPS until that happens so I can mitigate killing all my SPS again.

 

[Maxx]

I like your style....
Please post a link to the new build thread if you start a new one vs continuing on here.

 

[madweazl]

Too lazy to grab the dSLR today but its still a neat pic of a tiny acan echinata.

 

[madweazl]

Something is up with the motor block and/or impeller on the Deltec. I thought about ordering the replacement parts but last time I had to do this with the SC1350 it took well over a month for them to arrive and the same thing happened on this one when parts were broken during shipping. Because of this, I decided to walk away from the Deltec and purchased a Bubble King Double Cone 200. Hopefully the pumps are as robust as they claim. I have no complaints with the performance of the Deltecs (they were both outstanding) but customer support in the US is dismal at best. Hopefully with BRS coming on board with Royal Exclusive, I'll avoid similar issues.

As for the tank, it's chugging along. I haven't dedicated much time to it the past two months and it shows. I'm not pleased with Tropic Marin's balling method results and am just going back to weekly water changes like I did with the 75g. Also switching back to Instant Ocean salt; it provided equal results at less than half the cost.

 

[Maxx]

Sorry to hear about the Deltec pump issue. local support is something to consider when purchasing some things.
I used to have a Triumph Sprint ST1050 motorcycle.
I loved that bike.
But there were no local dealerships for purchasing parts for the bike or doing any serious maintenance on it.
Fortunately, I never really needed much, but purchasing parts for it was ridiculous. Apparently valve cover gaskets are hand made by virgin Unicorns in England and are priced accordingly.
I wound up selling the bike shortly before my third child was born. I still miss the bike, the but the lessons learned from not having a local support network for the bike still remains.

BRS has good customer service, so I would expect they would take care of any issues that come up.

Interesting that you're switching back to IO and moving away from TM Balling. I dont blame you for doing so if you're not seeing the increased cost to use them in the results.

How's the tank otherwise?

 

[madweazl]

Sorry to hear about the Deltec pump issue. local support is something to consider when purchasing some things.
I used to have a Triumph Sprint ST1050 motorcycle.
I loved that bike.
But there were no local dealerships for purchasing parts for the bike or doing any serious maintenance on it.
Fortunately, I never really needed much, but purchasing parts for it was ridiculous. Apparently valve cover gaskets are hand made by virgin Unicorns in England and are priced accordingly.
I wound up selling the bike shortly before my third child was born. I still miss the bike, the but the lessons learned from not having a local support network for the bike still remains.

BRS has good customer service, so I would expect they would take care of any issues that come up.

Interesting that you're switching back to IO and moving away from TM Balling. I dont blame you for doing so if you're not seeing the increased cost to use them in the results.

How's the tank otherwise?

I'm not worried about BRS's support, I'm concerned about their ability to obtain parts quickly if/when needed. We'll see how that pans out. Tank is OK but nothing special at the moment. Some things are doing great and some not so hot. I need to get my act together and bring it back to where it should be. I bought a Shelby GT350 about a month ago so I've had something else keeping my attention. The engine seized up a little over a week ago with 454 miles on the car so that's on the back burner for a while LOL.

 

[Maxx]

How did the engine seize?
You dont mess around with expensive malfunctions!

If the skimmer pump is a legitimate concern for you, I would suggest buying a 2nd pump for it and keep it on the shelf in the box ready to go in case you need it.

I did that with my Bubble Blaster 5000 pumps for SRO 5000 INT skimmer.

 

[madweazl]

How did the engine seize?
You dont mess around with expensive malfunctions!

If the skimmer pump is a legitimate concern for you, I would suggest buying a 2nd pump for it and keep it on the shelf in the box ready to go in case you need it.

I did that with my Bubble Blaster 5000 pumps for SRO 5000 INT skimmer.

No sure what exactly happened yet but looking at other cars with less then 500 miles that failed, it probably dropped a valve.

As for the pumps, I did that with the skimmer on the 75g but I'm just done worrying about it now. Rather make a change and hopefully mitigate it that way. Time will tell and I'll report its performance honestly.

 

[CoralDanimal]

Great thread! I admire your determination. You've been hit with multiple roadblocks but you're powering through. It's a really great setup and I can't wait for the good times to start rolling (particularly the SPS)!

 

[madweazl]

Getting back to normal. The tank has looked much better over the course of the last three weeks or so. I reverted back to Instant Ocean and once this round of Tropic Marin alkalinity and calcium supplements are exhausted, I'll be switching back to the BRS pharma I was running on the previous tank.

I just about killed the hammer coral but it has stopped dying off the past few days and may actually survive. I suspect that was from playing with the lone A360X over the tank because everything else away from that light (the rest are A360WEs) is doing well (messed around with the violet, green, and red channels). I know better and often tell other members not to do it but like many, I was curious.

I've lost a few fish - likely due to over stocking and limited hiding places with my aquascape - but the rest are doing well. The hippo has doubled in size and is a porker. It took control of the tank from the yellow tang early on who has mellowed out dramatically since (it used to mess with just about all the fish. The hippo is much less of a bully to the remaining inhabitants (everything seems to recognize he is boss). One of the two emerald crabs that was added to the tank has grown dramatically. When added, one was barely larger than the other but now it's at least double if not triple the size of the other. It's claws have gotten massive and I thought it was a different crab when I saw it pop out a couple weeks ago. I actually captured it just to make sure it was actually a mithrax. Everything checked out so I dropped it back in the tank. The yellow watchman and orange prawn goby have moved into the same burrow where the spend time with both pistol shrimp.

The anemones are doing great (all three of them...). The elegance is as beautiful as ever. I am planning to break up some extra larger dry rock pieces that I have and use it to change the look of the large flat rock on the right side of the tank. My intent is to add some hiding places for the smaller fish and to provide some artificial shaded areas for some of the corals over there to provide some flexibility in regard to lighting as I'm currently only using two of the six T5s and the Kessils are running at 25% intensity.

The Royal Exclusive skimmer has been pretty awesome. I was blown away by how much larger it was than my Deltec (the cup dwarfs the Deltec). Even though it's the lower end of their lineup, the fit and finish is considerably better than that of the Deltec. Everything is much more robust. It has worked exceptionally well and collects considerably more skimmate than the Deltec was. It also flows exponentially more water. I am a bit curious in regards to the pump for this body though; I have it running at 34 watts (from a max of 60) with the output roughly 50% open. I've tried to increase the flow to cycle more water through the unit but it seems to create too much turbulence in the skimmer and decreases skimmate production. Not sure if this would perform differently in another tank but it seems like a waste of about 40% of the pumps capability on this skimmer body from my experience. I suppose the lower duty factor that I run it at should increase the lifespan so I guess that is a plus (I hope...). The only real down side to this skimmer over the Deltec is ease of maintenance. You can completely disassemble the Deltec with a single thumb screw where the Bubble King has a bunch of titanium screws that need to be removed for disassembly.

 

[madweazl]

 

[madweazl]

Small update but I couldn't be happier with where the tank is at right now. It has that glow you get when things are doing well (I don't know how else to describe it). There is appreciable growth in corals that were added just 10 day ago (lepto is doing really well) and things just look good overall. I don't know why I decided to try something knew but I should have stuck to what I know and what I've had positive results with in the past. I'm sure others can make the Tropic Marin balling method work but it was something new for me and I failed to produce any results with it (and failed a few corals along the way too).

For me, weekly water changes (roughly 16-17% for my setup) and simple 2 part additions are the easiest path to success.

 

[madweazl]

On the mend