jgraz's 90 up grade

[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.

 

[SeahorseKeeper]

How is the SPS looking now?

 

[jgraz]

Some of the acros still look kind of blah. My green slimer and pearl berry are still STN from the base. But I do believe it might of slowed. Everything else is looking great.

 

[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.
Arctic-S026 LED Aquarium Light_Aquarium LED_OCEANREVIVE LED
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

 

[lps1212]

yoo great stuff J I cant believe I missed this thread

 

[jgraz]

Thanks Jae.


Well the LED fixture solution is almost complete. Box is solid oak to match the stand.

The tank mounts from my Tek light were bolted to it. That will allow me to be able to raise and lower the fixture from about 11" off water to about 5" off water. Though I don't anticipate going that low.

Inside I put rails that the fixture will sit on.

All in all I think it came out pretty good.
Cost minus the legs which I had was around $50. Now need to do some hole filling, a bit of sanding, then I'll finish it up.

 

[jgraz]

Here you go LEDs in and going. Starting out really low. It's weird cause even at its highest setting they seem dimmer then the T'5s. We shall see how things go. But the Tek light is sticking around for a while just in case.

 

[jgraz]

Update time.

Well at the end of October I switched to LEDs. So far so good on that front. All the growth seems great and I'm thinking in gonna stick with them. Colors have also gotten a little deeper as opposed to a slightly pastel look I was dealing with before, however, that could be both a combo of the switch in lighting and a second change I made.

At the same time I changed the lights I also pulled the bio-pellets. To aid in the switch I upped my WC's also and obviously went back to the refugium. The day I pulled the pellets I did a 10gal WC and did it again a few days later. Then I started doing 5gal changes roughly every other day. I'm def liking the results. Since I started this I've seen a huge increase in growth and have seen some of my colonies put on up to an inch worth of growth during this time. Frags that I've made during this time heal and grow over the breaks in only a couple of days. I chose to do the 5gal changes cause mainly it takes me about 5min or so to pull it off. So I'm gonna stick with it. My tank will never see pellets again.

Additions:
Mystery wrasse that hides all day. I usually only see it in the morning before the other fish come out.
Purple Firefish. Again a hider but he will pop out during feeding time.
Royal gramma. Comes out but stays close to his hole. Little though I expect to see it more and more.

Losses:
JF jokers wild chalice(literally gone overnight)
Also a large colony of some type of cysphestrea(sp). I think it was meteor shower. Not sure why I lost either one.

I've also been feeding my new addiction for Z's & P's and have come across some real gems lately. This particular addiction has not been kind to my wallet. I just wish I could pull the pics good but that will come with a new camera which is in the works. My newest additions include darth mauls, tyree space monsters, time machines, sopranos 2.0, nuclear sunsets, flaming Mohicans, bowsers, hallucinations, GB emperor, joes rainbow kazoo, electric Oompa Loompa, JF bloodshots, and ktar g-hornet. I think that's it, that's enough for now.

Here are a few pics for your enjoyment.

And finally a new FTS

 

[jgraz]

The end

 

[bknapp]

The end?

 

[jgraz]

Tank gone