And now for something a little different ...

[LBReefer]

I decided to replace the propellers on my gyres. Good news: flow has improved significantly. Bad news: I broke one of the mounting brackets.

 

[LBReefer]

The bumblebee bee snails went to work right away. I am hoping that they are going after the vermitids, and not my zoas...

 

[LBReefer]

I moved the frag rack from the QT tank to the main tank. I haven't decided where these drags will go just quite yet, but I wanted to be able to breakdown my QT tanks so I could redo the floors in my bonus/fish room:

 

[LBReefer]

I broke out the big camera and took some shots:

I had to adjust the exposure a bit, but I am pretty happy with the diversity of color in the tank and level of activity. I definitely favor orange corals and fish ...

My BTAs finally started bubbling again. I brought the Alkalinity down to 8.5 and they seem much happier. All four are growing at a steady clip. I will probably need to re-house one soon, but that's easier said than done.

I have struggled to get good shots of these guys since they went into the big tank. This was a cool moment.

I love color on this guy. The contrast against the GSP almost makes it worth the nuisance of having it in the tank.

The Midas Blenny is a consistent goof and blast to watch.

This guy is a challenge to capture on camera. He is only active during peak daylight hours.

This shot depicts the general level of chaos well.

 

[BayouReefer]

Great build thread thanks for sharing. Love the pictures of your livestock what camera and lens do you use?

 

[LBReefer]

And some coral shots:

This guy isn't this most colorful, but the color is pretty unique.

I can't wait for this mushroom to grow a bit. I have to figure which tank it will ultimately live in.

These guys have been steady, but not overwhelming in their growth.

I enjoy the polyp extension on the leathers. They don't add a ton of color, but I think its cool to see how the shed their skins and look different at different points in the day.

I knocked these candy canes off their perch and I was worried that they were lost forever. It made me very happy when I discovered them while siphoning through my sand last week. The purple and green colors were pretty cool.

SPS continue to challenge me, but the re-positioned power heads and, additional lights, and trident seem to be helping.

I'm cautiously optimistic with this one. I picked him up from Animal Kingdom in San Diego.

 

[LBReefer]

Great build thread thanks for sharing. Love the pictures of your livestock what camera and lens do you use?

Much appreciated.

I use a Canon 5D with a 50mm macro lens for the coral and fish photos. I use a general 28-200mm for the tank wide shots. I still struggle to get good tank wide shots and the fish shots take forever to capture. I usually take 150 photos at a time and wittle it down to 10 that I am comfortable sharing.

I struggle in post processing to accurately capture the colors. There's a lot of spill light and reflection in my fish room, so I have to shoot at night and sometimes get drowned out colors in the pre-processing photos. I try to correct them to show as they actually appear.

 

[LBReefer]

Next project: new cabinet for my electronics. My current cabinet is now buried a bit and a pain in the butt to access.

Cord management is non-existent. Wish me luck, this will be a multi hour adventure.

 

[LBReefer]

The cabinet of much frustration:

 

[LBReefer]

Which has now caused way more frustration.

I decided to clean my return pump, since I was already unplugging everything for my cord management project. This turned out to be a big mistake.

My return pipe broke:

Note the blue pvc cement from my dumb butt attempt to fix the break.

 

[LBReefer]

And now I've had to completely drain my tank as it was flush against a wall with flush mounted over flows.

My wife had sympathy and helped mop up the floor, after we move the tank to a more serviceable location.

I was super lucky to have family staying with us as part of our "quaranteam," helping out with day care.

 

[LBReefer]

I rushed out to Petco and took advantage of the dollar per gallon sale to expand my quarantine/holding tank capability.

I did discover that I had a pistol shrimp that I thought had died. He may need a new home as I have to decided to go bare bottom in the new(ish) tank.

 

[LBReefer]

I'm telling myself that I'll remember where all of these carefully placed cords came.from, when I go to put everything back together.

 

[LBReefer]

I did take the time to replace the brackets on my maxspect gyres. It was pretty painless. I am hoping that the bee bra ccx let's hold up better than the last.

 

[LBReefer]

I had ordered the red sea gyre to replace the maxspect, but I'm hoping to supplement instead. I want to crank these up now that I am going sand-less.

 

[LBReefer]

Everyone seems to be faring well in their temporary accommodations:

 

[LBReefer]

Trimming these down to size was a bigger pain in the rear than I anticipated.

 

[LBReefer]

Work in progress.

 

[LBReefer]

Today was the big day to move the rocks, fish and lighting back into place. My hands are pretty torn up and I managed to drop one of my kessils into the tank, but all the fish made it into the revamped, ripped and repositioned tank.

I tried to kill all the vermitid snails I could find. Some of these ended up gigantic.

My new aquascape leaves something to be desired. But it does give way more room for sticks. I am hoping to transition to SPS dominant without losing all my zoa colonies.

Now the real pain starts: cleanup. I think that will have to wait until next weekend.

 

[LBReefer]

The great pipe burst of 2020 seems to have taken three of my fish: one of my clowns and two of my anthias. My visits to my area LFS(s) did not yield any anthias, but I did pick up this guy:

I've been monitoring him for a week. He takes music, brine, and nori like a beast, and is slowly accepting flake food.

I started him on a quarter dose of copper power today and will it increase it every two days for the next 8 days.

Wish me luck. I've had problems with ich and PBT's before.