Coral in the Capitol

ccurnick · Nov 18, 2018

Stand swap went smoothly without any serious mistakes, here’s some pics from the adventure:

If the water tests okay today, I’ll be picking up my first inhabitants!

Janci · Nov 18, 2018

The tank looks great on that stand.
Pretty neat.

ccurnick · Nov 19, 2018

Tank cleared up and i got my first addition yesterday! Picked up a pair of clowns and they instantly were happy and eating, also got a small CUC to start. I also picked up the WXM Apex module so everything is now controlled wirelessly.

I also put in some work on turning the old stand into an extra storage cabinet. Still some work to do, but for my first project like this it’s starting to turn out alright.

ccurnick · Nov 19, 2018

Unfortunately it looks like the bigger clown beat up the smaller clown, he was pretty lethargic and had one cloudy eye. I currently have him in QT and he is swimming much better, but still won’t eat.

I don’t think it’s an infection of sorts because he doesn’t have any slime on him and it’s only one eye, but i put meds in the QT just in case.

Janci · Nov 20, 2018

Sorry to hear about the clownfish.
Normally they behave well in new environments and do not beat up each other so quickly after moving into a new home.
I hope he turns out to be alright.

ccurnick · Nov 20, 2018

Poor little guy didn’t make it through the night. The bigger of the two is alert and eating with no issues. Going to give it a bit before i get a replacement to make sure nothing is wrong....

Janci · Nov 20, 2018

Man, this always sucks.
Nothing that can be done unfortunately

ccurnick · Nov 20, 2018

Yeah, just always sucks. Hopefully the next one fairs better.

ccurnick · Nov 21, 2018

Working from home today gave me the extra time to finish the electronics cabinet i built out of the other stand. Still a few things I’m going to do to it, like add a false floor to hide the Power Supplies and touch up where the cuts in the wood are, but it’s up and running now!

ccurnick · Nov 27, 2018

Been a while since I posted and I have picked up a few things and they are settling in. I also grabbed a fair number of frags during the blasckfriday/cyber monday sales madness, as well as some Hannah Checkers and some salt

Heres some pics of a few acans I picked up, as well as a tomini tang that is in QT right now with another clown (not pictured):

Cant wait for this saturday

ccurnick · Nov 30, 2018

https://www.triton-lab.de/en/showroom/aquarium/auswertung-b/icp-oes/71565/

Some interesting results from an ICP-OES test. I am not entirely sure I trust the results, as the copper and zinc ratings are extremely high (.076ppm), and I think my corals and inverts would have shown some symtoms by now. I am going to go get a hanna checker copper test and see what comes up. I also ordered another ICP-OES test kit from a different company to compare results.

ccurnick · Nov 30, 2018

Hanna Checker came in at .04ppm, which is a lot better than what triton said, but still too high. Adding some poly filter and cuprisorb to see if I can bring it down, and then hunt for the source.

Janci · Nov 30, 2018

ccurnick said:
https://www.triton-lab.de/en/showroom/aquarium/auswertung-b/icp-oes/71565/

Some interesting results from an ICP-OES test. I am not entirely sure I trust the results, as the copper and zinc ratings are extremely high (.076ppm), and I think my corals and inverts would have shown some symtoms by now. I am going to go get a hanna checker copper test and see what comes up. I also ordered another ICP-OES test kit from a different company to compare results.

My ICP tests are showing Cu since the beginning. This was probably due to a bad working rodi station.
Ever since the values are dropping, but corals did not really show off the Cu level.
The tests are pretty darn correct.

ccurnick · Dec 1, 2018

I made some fresh saltwater mix and the test came back positive for copper. Going to grab a freshwater copper test tomorrow and see if my RO/DI is passing copper. I have a spare DI resin I will try as well.

Worst comes to worse I will probably buy a new RO/DI system.

SashimiTurtle · Dec 1, 2018

ccurnick said:
Tank cleared up and i got my first addition yesterday! Picked up a pair of clowns and they instantly were happy and eating, also got a small CUC to start. I also picked up the WXM Apex module so everything is now controlled wirelessly.

I also put in some work on turning the old stand into an extra storage cabinet. Still some work to do, but for my first project like this it’s starting to turn out alright.

Awesome work with the stand turned electronics cabinet. If I had room beside my tank I would do this to my failed stand, but alas, I only have around 12" to the wall on one side and the fireplace on the other.

Sorry about the clown, pet losses are always hard no matter how short we cared for them.

Looks like you have a little tomini there. My favorite tang. My guy has grown an inch or better in just 6 months, but he's very well fed...

ccurnick · Dec 1, 2018

Copper battle update:

I managed to get my RO/DI water copper level tested, it came out to 0 on both samples (before and after a new DI resin). I retested the fresh batch of saltwater and it came out to .01ppm, which is fine/normal. I retested my tank after using cuprisorb and poly filter overnight and it came down to .02ppm.

I am still not 100% sure where the copper came from, but I will be doing another water change tonight, and monitor to see if the levels are rising.

ccurnick · Dec 2, 2018

I made a fresh batch of saltwater and it tested 0.0 ppm for copper, but I let it sit overnight and tested it again before doing a water change on my tank, and it read .11ppm. I noticed the heater that I was using to mix my water for water changes had a small crack in the bottom, so I think that is where the copper was coming from, which was a relief to find out. However, I will be attempting to recreate it and verify sometime this week.

Janci · Dec 2, 2018

ccurnick said:
I made a fresh batch of saltwater and it tested 0.0 ppm for copper, but I let it sit overnight and tested it again before doing a water change on my tank, and it read .11ppm. I noticed the heater that I was using to mix my water for water changes had a small crack in the bottom, so I think that is where the copper was coming from, which was a relief to find out. However, I will be attempting to recreate it and verify sometime this week.

That is an interesting discovery.
I hope this solves the Cu issue.

ccurnick · Dec 4, 2018

My Black Friday binges arrived. All of them, along with all my other corals are doing great!

Here’s some photos, once I get them in place I will take real photos with my DSLR.