Mixed Red Sea Reefer 525XL

[DLHDesign]

7/1/2016 - Day 54 - Hard Times in the QT and Sump

I either had a needless panic attack about a total non-issue, or else I just did a QT swap that may have saved my fish. Not really sure; there's another thread out there if you want to see the details. I'd welcome any/all feedback.

But beyond the QT shenanigans, I also managed to plumb in most of the solid piping in the sump. Yay! I say "most" because there's a few more pieces to glue in place, but I need to first get my refugium tank in place (since I've got a direct-from-tank ATO, I'm using the standard ATO tank for this). But before I could do that, I had to drill out the drain line. No big deal; my wife does stained glass (when she's not pregnant and/or chasing our kiddo around... so perhaps I should say "did stained glass"...) and I helped her out a time or three, so drilling glass - no big deal.

I'm sure you can see where this is going.

Yeah; I cracked the glass. I was about 3/4 of the way through and I guess I just let too much of the drill's weight press down. Or something. Whatever the cause, the glass broke. So now I'll get the opportunity to replace a pane of glass (which I will pre-drill, of course) on a tank. Seems like something I should know how to do, I guess? And since this is a tank that's out of view, it's a perfect opportunity to use too much silicone and make a proper mess of the job...

But hey; at least the plumbing is mostly in place. I've left the soft tubing long for now just in case I find any issues. It'll get cut back soon, I'm sure. The dosing lines are also in a temporary holder; I've got something better on the way.

I won't bother with a shot of the electrical/storage section of the cabinet; it's a right proper mess. That's next in line to be improved upon...

 

[DLHDesign]

7/8/2016 - Day 61 - I Shouldn't Have Said That... (And; Now With More Carbon)

But before I could do that, I had to drill out the drain line. No big deal; ..., so drilling glass - no big deal.

Wow - I totally should NOT have said that...

The tank cracked while drilling it. Too little support, in too much of a hurry, not paying enough attention, ... Whatever the reason, the soon-to-be-refugium cracked while I was doing the "no big deal" drilling. I played around with removing the cracked piece, but after getting half of it out (and slicing open not one, but BOTH my thumbs in the process - despite wearing gloves), I decided to just trash it. It's got bad karma (and blood on it) anyways...
So now the modified plan is to build the refugium out of acrylic. I don't really mind this option as it allows me to modify the fit a bit more. The Red Sea ATO tank just barely fits in it's space; which I'm sure is nice for an ATO tank, but for my purposes I wouldn't mind having just a smidge more room in that area to be able to clean out algae and such. I can also build it so that the tank-side is just a bit lower than the others, so any overflow due to a clogged drain will still go down into the main sump (hopefully with a loud slashing sound, but that would just be a bonus).

Meanwhile; I've made use of all that hard plumbing in another way - I've added a carbon/GFO chamber into the mix!

I could have just set this in the sump, but I didn't want to have to be cleaning it. The install location (left side) was perfect - except that the canister was just a BIT too long to be mounted flush to the cabinet. If I'd done that, I would have had a difficult time getting the canister unscrewed without knocking it against the sump. And as I've just had some fun dealing with broken glass and am not keen to have more, I went ahead and added the 3/4" board you see in the pic. This allows me to remove the canister without worrying about it hitting anything. Just a bit unsightly, but it's in the bottom of the cabinet (I thought about painting it black, but meh).

Before adding this, btw, I'd picked up a Hanna Phosphate checker. My initial impression is, "Wow - what a pain." I'm sure I'm spoiled with the dKH checker, but getting that powder into that vial is nowhere near as easy as I'd hoped. I'll have to dig around all my cooking stuff and find a funnel or something... Anywho; my first reading came out to 0.04ppm - a bit high. I'd also noticed during my water changes that the water I was pulling out was noticeably yellow. Not seriously so; just a bit.
I just did a 15gal water change and could tell that the water was less yellow - as clear as the new water, in fact (having bought multiple buckets of salt at this point, I'm not short on white buckets to compare water clarity with - which is nice). I'll let the tank cycle tonight and will check the phosphate tomorrow.

Also replaced the Seneye slide a few days early. I was a bit trigger-happy with soaking the new one yesterday and figured that as long as it was wet, it may as well be doing something useful.

Over the course of the week, I also picked up the Aquarimate app. After spending all month logging every measure and activity into my tiny little calendar, I decided that $10 was worth avoiding the hand fatigue of trying to write that small... Also; I can't read my own handwriting most of the time (I'm a programmer - I type things; not write them...), so this will let me actually (potentially...) make use of the numbers.

Creature Update
Meridah and Marlin (the clowns) are doing great - as far as I can tell. They eat when fed, they swim in normal fish-like ways, they breath easy (and - thankfully - often), and they don't seem to have any illnesses that I can spot. In short - they were the perfect first fish. They do seem a bit lonely, however...
Peek-A-Go (the blenny in the QT) is also doing fine, despite my inability to get enough copper into his tank... He doesn't seem to be suffering any ill effects, however, so I'm just doing my best to keep the levels at least around 0.75/1ppm (for those not following my QT thread; my CopperAid is likely bad, so I'd have to pour in practically the entire bottle to get copper levels up to the suggested dosage). His QT had a bit of an ammonia rise, so I went ahead and did a 50% WC using the tank water I pulled out. Everything is back to yellow (eg; good). Peek-A-Go (the name, btw, comes from what my 2yr old says instead of "peek-a-boo") loves to eat - darting out of his tube cave every time I dump a bit of mysis in there. At first, I turned off the power head to let him eat, but he seems to get more if I let it run. It's also fun to see him dart around the tank, so there's that. His QT time ends on 7/30 - or when my wife goes into labor (could be any day now).
I gotta say - nassarius snails are awesome. Every time I turn off the pump and heads to feed the fish, they rise up out of the sand and start jamming around the tank to get at the food. They are such fascinating creates to watch, too. I don't get nearly as much enjoyment as watching the other varieties of snails - though I appreciate them all. The tank is mostly algae free; which is nice. I am intentionally over-feeding right now in order to keep the 30+ snails fed; the last thing I want is a large snail die-off to spike my ammonia and kill everything. But at the same time, I don't really want to remove anything, as I'm sure I'll need them eventually.
I think I may have lost one of my two hermits. I'm not sure; they tend to hide in the rocks and I rarely see them, but I did get a positive ID on one tonight. Their shells are very different, so if I see the other one, I'll know it's still around too - which would be nice...
I've moved the xenia around several times. I keep looking for it to pulse, but it just waves. So be it; it seems to be growing. Which, as I understand it (now), is what they do - grow. "Like a weed", so I've heard. Which is fine; I need some life in this tank and am not sure that my budget can handle filling it all up quickly enough. Yet while I'm looking for a place for it to grow, I also want to be able to contain it as well. So for now, it's near it's own little rock in the back-corner of the tank. It's still on it's plug, but I'll likely cut it off and glue it down soon.
The zoas are doing okay. I think I've lost some color on the Caribbean Blue; either that, or it just isn't that brilliant of a zoa (most likely both). The other two are doing fine. One of them (Mandarin Orange) seems to be coming loose of it's mooring when the polyps are fully open, so I'll be glueing it back down soon as well (just need to get some glue that's easier to manage than what I have now). No new polyps that I can see. *shrug*
I target feed the Goni every other day, but it doesn't seem to have much of a feeding reaction. Or it does and I just can't tell... It seems healthy and happy in it's spot, at least.
I think the GSP is starting to expand onto the rocks I placed it on. Yay for potentially noticeable growth!
The Galaxea and Favites are also doing well enough. Nothing noticeable in terms of growth yet, but they also haven't lost any color or look to be suffering. I'm counting that a win.

Finally (I really didn't expect this update to be this long...), I ordered three more creatures for the tank - another zoa variety (Chunk of Dragons), a frogspawn, and a Sea Ablaze anemone. The latter is likely a risk with such a "young" tank, I imagine... I'm hoping it turns out okay and I get an easy one that the clowns take a shining to. If not; I'll learn as I go how to take care of it. Which, really, is rather what this is all about...

 

[DLHDesign]

I'll let the tank cycle tonight and will check the phosphate tomorrow.

Phosphate dropped to 0. Nice.

Got the refugium tank built over the weekend. I must admit I was a bit sloppy with the build. For example; after cutting the sheet down to the component pieces, I did not route down the edges. I've got a router table in the workshop; I just didn't do it... not sure why; I think I was just in "get it done" mode. Like I said earlier on; having a saltwater tank is about learning patience for me; some days I just don't take the lesson as well as others...

Anywho; I got the pieces cut and they fit together well enough. I could tell during the dry-fit phase (I didn't skip ALL the steps, you see) that I would end up with - at best - some bubbles due to the rough edges. Even at that point, I decided to move forward with assembly. I used the "pin method" to assemble it. Not because I thought I would actually get a clean join (I knew I didn't route the edges clean) but simply to try out the method. In general; it worked well. The first join went better than I'd hoped it would and I got a pretty clean solder between the two pieces (I think it was the "front" wall and bottom? Not sure...). By the third join, I had a nice rhythm going.

And then the nozzle plugged up. I think I ended up pushing it into a soft bit of acrylic or something; not sure. But it got jammed up before I had all the panels done, so I had to fix it with tools on-hand, or else put the project aside until who-knows-when. First thing I tried was to clip the nozzle tube off using a pair of sharp (I thought) wire snips. The applicator tube was so small and thin material that it ended up pinching together, so that didn't work. I ended up putting the nozzle cap on and using a push-pin to make a small hole in the tip of it. This let me control the flow a little bit, but it wasn't ideal. (Thinking back, I'm not sure why I didn't try using the Dremel to cut the tip down; that likely would have worked better...) With the now much-higher-flow nozzle, however, I didn't really think I could continue with the pin method, so I switched over to the "tip-and-press" method. This worked okay, but (as expected) the results weren't as clean looking. Still; the tank got assembled and didn't have any noticeable gaps. I knew it likely wouldn't hold water as it was, however, so I went ahead and siliconed up the corners in order to ensure that they were good and sealed the first water test.

Here it is drying:

I ended up doing two things to help prevent an overflow. The first is that little "shelf", which was designed to be the "small overflow" audible alarm. Any water dropping from that shelf will fall about a foot into the main sump chamber - making a nice splashing sound, but leaving the floors of the house dry. The back-up to that is that the front wall is a slight bit lower than the other walls. So in the case of a major overflow, the water should all go down into the sump... I hope.

The fuge light (JBJ LED) is on it's way. I'll have the tank plumbed into place by the time it gets here and will pick up some chaeto following that. I'm looking forward to having the sump area "done" so that I can go back to spending money on stuff that swims and glows. But most likely, my next major purchase will be a new sump pump, as I'm pretty sure the one I have now will be underpowered for everything I'll have set up. *sigh* Oh well; I'll like having a backup pump.

 

[revhtree Verified Admin]

Looks good!

 

[DLHDesign]

7/15/2016 - Day 68 - And Then There Were Plants

Got in my Refugium Starter Kit from Live Aquaria today. Which meant it's (finally) time to show how the fuge turned out! It's actually been plumbed in and running for a few days now, but it wasn't until two days ago that the light came in and then - today - the final piece that makes it more than an extra ~4gal tank of water:

It's 3/4" coming in and 1" going out (sort of - the filter and bulkhead are 3/4", so really the whole exit pipe is practically 3/4". It's a bit hard to see, but I added and adjustable air inlet to the top of the downspout. With that wide open (only there just in case; and to direct the tube out of the cabinet some because why not), the setup runs quieter than my skimmer. So I'm happy with that part - yay me.
Already I can tell that I'll want to replace both ball valves with gate valves. I had these sitting around anyways, so figured I'd give them a shot. Nope - too hard to dial it in to the right flow. Speaking of flow: there is none in this picture. On the advice of Live Aquaria, I'm letting it sit for a day or two to give everything a chance to settle into it's new home. One of my hopes with this fuge is to help stabilize my pH during the DT's dark hours, so I've got the light hooked up to a timer to run at night.

I also know that my current pump won't do the trick for long. It was enough for just the return, but now that I've got a calcium reactor and this fuge running off of it, it's just not going to cut it. I don't want the fuge running full blast, of course, but I do want enough to tumble it aboutBesides - it's loud. Really loud. Something the LFS told me would not be the case... Oh well; live and learn (via R2R, of course). Next pump will be a Vectra L1 and the current one will become the backup (not a bad plan to have one of them anyways).

Also picked up a couple of new corals for the tank! Due to the hectic schedule of late, I wasn't able to capture any really good pictures, so the sub-par ones below will have to do for now...

Sea Ablaze Nem (and snail)

Super excited for this. Nems are something I LOVE seeing in the wild and this first one just brings all that up every time I see him (I've decided it's a "him" for no particular reason). He's now settled deep into a crack in the same rock I placed him on (about an inch to the right of where he's at in this pic).

Zoas and Hammers - Oh My!

The colors of this picture don't do these justice. It's sad, really, because these are all awesome additions that I'm super-happy about. This was taken only a short while after I placed them in the tank, so they hadn't had time to open up - they've done so now and I hope to snap some better pics soon. I've got a photographer buddy coming over tomorrow night with some gear I've not got (extension tubes and a different/better camera rig), so I hope that he can give me some tips and we can get some nicer pics taken. There is a better picture of the three zoa frags in front (along with a request to ID them!) in another thread...

I hope to have time this weekend to mount all the frags pictured and the xenia (whom I've been moving about trying to figure out where I can contain it the best from). The xenia has also grown a new "arm" that's about 1.5" and has a few buds on it, so I plan to try my hand at fragging this (not that I expect to do anything with this frag but mount it in the same place after a few weeks/months - it's more about the experience of the process.

Peek-A-Go (the blenny in QT) is doing fine. The wife is starting to get Braxton Hicks ("false contractions"), so I'll likely be moving him into the main tank sooner than the end of the month. Last thing I want to have happen is for Peek-A-Go to suffer due to inattention while we're at the hospital. I can have my mother-in-law feed the DT tank easy enough, but feeding the QT tank, checking it's chemicals, topping off it's water, adding Prime, ... That seems a bit much to expect. He's been in there 15 days now and shows no signs of any distress; been eating, breathing, and swimming well the entire time. I'll likely give him a few more days just to be sure and then move him over. Merida and Marvin will (hopefully) enjoy the company. Though, in all likelihood, they'll be across the tank from each other, so perhaps not. Snails will be happier with more fish poop, at least...

 

[Rekt]

Awesome thread. I look forward to your next update. Where is your RO reservoir?

 

[DLHDesign]

Awesome thread. I look forward to your next update. Where is your RO reservoir?

Thanks! Just waiting for the new zoas to settle into their new spots and I'll have a pic of the developing garden. Soon...

RO reservoir is located in the garage - which is about 20ft away from the DT. The reservoir (white 55gal drum) sits about 2-3ft above the level of the sump, so it's just gravity fed (the line with the shut-off coming out the bottom. The blue drum holds the waste-water (which we use to water our lawn, fill kiddie pools, etc. via the pump - it's on casters in case I need to roll it around, but I generally just use longer hoses) and I use the brute garbage can to mix up saltwater.

 

[DLHDesign]

7/19/2016 - Day 72 - The Garden & Hammers

Managed to get all the frags mounted. Wow - that was not easy. I'm hoping that working with super-glue underwater is a skill that rapidly gets easier with practice, because I made a mess of it. A bit of history on my glueing endeavors:
My first batch of frags included three zoas - the Caribbean Blue being the one of note here. When mounting the Blue, I was able to get the piece down to it's base rock - which was tiny (about 2x4mm) - before I glued it in place. Not wanting to have an unsightly mess, I used the glue sparingly. A few days later, I noticed that the zoas were gone. Not shrunk down and hiding - just... gone. Best guess is that one of my on/off pump cycles for feeding shook loose the mount and the small piece got blown into some nether region. I hope at some point in the future that I'll have a random "zoa bloom" somewhere in the tank (wherever it ended up), but I doubt it...
Another of those initial frags (the Mandarin Orange) had spent most of it's time half-attached at best. With the pumps on, one of the polyps would wave about in the air. It looked dynamic, for sure, but I was pretty sure that it would do better fully attached to something solid (like the rock I thought I'd glued it to).

So going into my latest mounting, I was cognizant of not using too little glue, but I still wanted to avoid the unsightly mess. I kind of failed in all of that... Here's how it ended up:

Top Row: Dragon Eye, Sunkiss, Mystery Zoa #1, Mandarin Orange
Middle Row: Mystery Zoa #4/5, Toxic Dragons, Mystery Zoa #2
Bottom Row: Chunk of Dragons

(Any help identifying the unknowns is welcome! Better pics are in the links. Hint: they're all the same link. <grin>)

As far as too little glue; it was the Chunk of Dragons that got me this time. The morning after I glued everything down, I checked everything to see how they were all settling in. At that time, all seven zoa colonies seemed to be doing well. I moved on to feeding the fish. As I was feeding them, I realized that I should have eight colonies; not seven!!! Looking again, I realized that the CoD was gone. I sighed. Despite my horrendous picture above, they are lovely. "Were lovely," I remember thinking...
And then, about 5 hours later, I find them. On the other side of the rock, hanging out on the shell you can make out in the bottom-right in the above pic. YAY! I pulled out the glue and made sure that this time, they would stay where I put them. With too much glue, of course. But oh well - glue will grow over. Eventually. And until then, it's a small reminder that I have so much more to learn in this hobby every time I look at the tank... I'm sure it will go away, but I see the glue more than the coral right now... Yeah; I'm a bit OCD like that...

The other thing I mounted into the tank were the new hammer corals!

A bit of a washed out picture (still learning the picture-taking thing as well; clearly), but you get the idea. I have no idea what these are, so if anyone is willing/able to ID them, I can provide better pics (I hope). The colors here are pretty true, actually; the one on top is a bit more yellow than the white it looks here, but the lower two are about right...

Also; the hammers were photo-bombed by one of my two large snails. Those two are huge - easily 2-3". They don't move about all that much, but when they do, they clean a pretty bit swath.
In the background in the Xenia. It's home is the back-left corner, where it can grow on that rock (which is detached from the hammer rock) all it wants. It seems happy there anyways - it's close to doubling in size since I got it. Which I'm sure is an indicator of it trying to take over the entire tank, but until I get more stuff to put in there, I don't mind overly much of anything in the tank wants to grow - I'll take all the growth I can get!

I also managed to come out of the latest round of frag mounting with 4 frags to sell/trade! So that wasn't too bad at all. Two of them have a single polyp on them, so I'm not sure how they'll do in the long run, but the other two have a couple each. All of them have opened back up after my butchery (there was no finesse to my process, let's be honest), so I'm hoping that - eventually - even the singles will become something trade-able, at least. I got so excited to having made frags, however, that I didn't keep track of which things I cut up. Oh well; I'll be able to compare them to the ones I've got, so that'll work when I need it to.

Aside from that, the tank keeps on keeping on. Which is exactly what I want it to do, so that's grand! Peek-A-Go (the blenny in QT) is getting ready to be added to his new home any day now. He seems pretty happy right now in a 1" PVC tube. I've got numerous small caves already in my rock structure, but none of them are quite that size (most are larger - in the 2-3" range). I've thought about digging out a place to put a PVC tunnel for him, but I'm not sure yet where I'd do that... I would also need to pick up some more small pieces of rock to build out around it... Yet another trip to the LFS, I guess. *sigh* Fine; I'll go if I must...

 

[jsker]

The tank build has come along well.

 

[DLHDesign]

The tank build has come along well.

Thanks. I feel less like a train wreck now when I look at the tank.

With the @AquaSD and @WWC sales, the next update will likely be a pile of new corals being added (up to 15 and counting combined and the sales aren't done yet)...

 

[rebekwl]

Very entertaining thread! I'm looking forward to seeing things progress

 

[DLHDesign]

Very entertaining thread! I'm looking forward to seeing things progress

Thanks! Updates are spreading out a bit as my wife and I get closer to our next baby, but I hope to keep up a reasonable pace.

 

[stevensr239]

Love the rimless tank

 

[dson78]

Awesome build and everything seems to be coming along nicely. Keep up the good work and keep posting those detailed pics.

 

[DLHDesign]

7/25/2016 - Day 78 - Frags, Frags, Frags

Well this has been an expensive AWESOME weekend! Both @AquaSD and @WWC had some screaming deals (both auctions and sales) that were just too much to pass up on. And while WWC still has some auctions up that are enticing, I have already received The Look from the wife. Plus, I've already got 35+ frags on the way!
Here's the haul in unimpressive list format:

Aqua SD
Acid Spill Space Trip (Duncan)
Warriors Shields (Zoas)
Lime Times Candy Canes (Caulastrea Furcata) x2
Candy Apple (Zoas)
Dr. Seuss (Acro)
Treasure Pits (Favia)
Titanfall (Acro)
Cranium Liquifier (Chalice)
Lizard Gold (Zoa)
Blue Sympodium
Ice Goni
Nuclear Bubble Tip
Toxic Bubble Nem

WWC
Devil's Armor
Gold Lithophyllon
WWC Blue Mille
Tyree Aequituberculata
Kryptonite Candy Canes
Neon Blastomussa
WWC Watermelons
ORA Neon Birdsnest
Rainbow Montipora
Green Favites
Blastomussa Merletti
Green Striped Micromussa
WWC Spectras
WWC Disco Ball Leptoseris
Green Frogspawn
Neon Rhodactis
Gold Clove Polyps
WWC Incredible Hulk Lepto
WWC Blues Clues Acropora
Aussie Micromussa

Even looking at it now, I can't imagine what I was thinking buying so many at once. To start with; where do I PUT them all?!? I mean; lots of room in the tank and all, but it took me 2 weeks to figure out where I wanted the single Xenia frag...

So then, today while the wife and I were out getting dog food at the local pet store (which is not an LFS despite having dozens of tanks that used to have saltwater fish), we saw that they were having a sale on old inventory. The store was changing ownership at the corporate level, so they had to get rid of everything not in the new catalog. Which included the dog food we needed (which is meh - we can get it elsewhere). It also included something (potentially) better - a 24" Lunar Aqualight. (Edit: Not that exact model, it turns out, but really close to it - mine has two fans, not one. Everything else looks the same.) Now; I wasn't in the market to spend more money (see: frag list above). And the wife was with me, so I figured I'd just walk on by it. But here's the thing - it was 90% off. No typo there. That 24" reef light cost us $13.

So that's the solution, then, I decided. A frag tank it is. Now, I know that the light isn't the best out there, but it gives me the option. So I ran with it today and put together a frag tank using one of my two QT tanks. Added a bit of (new) live rock from the LFS, some DIY racks, and the ($13) light:

The numbers in red are the PAR readings (yay for the Seneye!). Nothing too out-of-whack there. Only problem I'm having is that the lights are so hot where the tank is that my water temp at the top rack is ~82F (mid-tank 81F, lower is 79F). I'll have to see what I can do about that, but I'm not (yet) overly concerned.

After setting it up, I moved over the few random frags I had. After some acclimation time, they all seemed to respond well (I'll get close-ups of them later, I'm sure).
And here's a surprise - I found the Caribbean Blues! Okay; I didn't find them - one of my hermit crabs did. I looked into the tank one day to see it holding the rock chunk. I have no idea if it was getting ready to eat them or if it was just cleaning off the rock, but that was the fastest I ever put my hand into the tank. I glued them (securely, this time) down onto a frag to see what would happen. A few days went by and they didn't open up. But now that they are in the frag tank, they are doing so! So happy I didn't loose them. Thanks Crab #1 - I shall dub thee "Blue Finder"; or just "Blue" for short.

The timing of this FT is also very fortuitous. The wife is going to have our second baby any day now and we've got the mother-in-law staying with us to watch our dogs and firstborn while we are at the hospital. So if by chance either (or both) of the above shipments arrive while we are at the hospital, she has instructions to open everything up and put them directly into the FT. Won't be ideal and I might loose a few as a result, but I figure it's better than them sitting in the bags and doesn't risk anything happening to the DT.

Another thing that was on sale (besides a pile of filters and air stones) were two packets of grow-your-own Brine Shrimp (6 total "batches"). I thought that sounded cool to try out, so I picked them up. I'm not sure if I can just dump them in the fuge directly? I'll likely follow the instructions for the first batch or two (adding them into the fuge when they are ready), at least...
Speaking of the fuge; it's working okay. All the red-colored algae bleached out within a few days and started to decay away (which spiked up some of my numbers, so I pulled it all out and just tossed it). The chaeto is doing fine - growing as expected - and the micro organisms still seem to be hanging around and doing micro organism stuff (which I assume is basically eating and sexing). But there's a flaw in the design (the horizontal drain valve) that prevents me from getting anything more than a low flow going through it. Not a high enough flow to keep the chaeto spinning, at least. So I plan to build another one. I've got all the pieces left over from the first (I over-bought the acrylic just in case) and think I can do a better job this time. I plan on using a vertical drain this time and also intend to paint the bottom with silver paint to reflect the light back up some. I'll then paint most of the edges (and likely the bottom) with black in order to better contain the light bleed. I added some weatherstripping to the doors that blocked out the excess light, but it also increased the humidity in the sump area by a lot - which I don't think is a good trade-off. DIY Fuge 2.0 will hopefully solve the problem without creating others...

Next update will either include a filled frag tank, or a baby picture. I'm most excited about the latter, of course.

 

[Rekt]

Congrats on the second baby! Those hammer frags are beautiful. lmk when you ready to frag them

 

[DLHDesign]

Congrats on the second baby! Those hammer frags are beautiful. lmk when you ready to frag them

Thanks; they came from @AquaSD as a set, so I'm not sure exactly what they are. I think the top one (yellow) might be a Golden Supreme...?

I'm pretty far from fragging anything mounted. Unless I start getting some explosive growth at some point, it'll be a year or two (at least) before the tank begins to look even remotely close to how I see it in my mind's eye.

 

[DLHDesign]

8/4/2016 - Day 88 - As Promised; Baby Picture (Bonus: AND Frag Tank)

Baby Lily!

She is amazing. If you've had a baby; you know what I mean. If not; I could never explain it, try as I might.
(The fish is a goldfish. Hardly something she'll ever see in the tank, but at least it's a fish...)

Prepare for an understatement: Having a baby throws off your tank maintenance rhythm.
Even with a minimal hospital stay (~24hrs), it's been hard to get the time to really focus on the tanks. Boy am I glad that the DT has an ATO, otherwise I'm sure all sorts of stuff would have gone wrong. As it is, the impact of this hiatus seems to be minimal. While we were at the hospital, one of the powerheads (a Hydor Koralia 3G) fell off the wall and made a cloudy mess of the entire tank. Again. This is the second time that the pump has done that. The other one has stuck like glue. So rather than constantly be simulating a really bad storm in my tank every so often, I unplugged the offending powerhead. I ended up ordering a Maxspect Gyre 150 and it came in today - yay! I hooked it all up (using cable ties and all that) only to discover that the controller just blinks red at me. Red, for those wondering, is not a color that means "everything is working as it should". Looking up possible causes and resolutions, it seems that taking it apart and putting it back together might help. I assume that's the powerhead equivalent of, "turn it off and back on again". So I tried that (the manufacturer has a video on how to do this, so you know it's something that happens a lot), but no dice - same blink, blink, blink of red. Le-sigh. Opened a support ticket, so hopefully I'll heard back from them tomorrow with a solution that does not involve me shipping the whole thing back, since my first daughter (nearly 2) laid claim to the tin box that the pump came in. It's not in "original condition" is what I'm saying...
Beyond that; the tank is doing well-ish. The nems I got pre-baby are doing meh. One has retreated into the total backside of a rock structure to the point that I can barely see it. Another wanders about nearly constantly. Two others have settled in near the bottom, but don't seem to be happy about it. The final new one seems to be doing the best of the lot... Fish (such as they are) are doing fine. Peek-a-go is eating well and wandering the entire tank. Meridah and Marlin (clowns) are still on "their" side - which they now share with far more nems than they likely want to.
The digital timer on my fuge light failed. Just stopped working. *sigh* I hate those things. They're cheap junk that I'm only getting because I don't want to sink a bunch of money into something good that will be replaced by an Apex soon... For now, I've just plugged the light in and will have it on full-time. I'll likely get too much growth and/or some kind of algae problem as a result, but it's the best option I've got for now until I can find a timer that doesn't fail 5 days in. The result of the light failure was that some of the chaeto died off - which I'm sure released a bunch of nutrients back into the water that I didn't want (gah; need to find time to test the DT, at least...). I removed as much of the dead/dying stuff as I could in the moment I had between keeping the 2-year-old from climbing into the newborn's crib and cooking dinner. I'll check again for more tomorrow as soon as I can...

Corals were received and added to the frag tank:

This was pretty soon after adding; most everything is doing well. The smaller acro in the second column on the left (WWC Blue Millie) has wasted away to practically nothing; not sure why and I didn't have the time (read: energy) to test everything, so I did a 20gal water change on the main DT and replaced 50% (5gal) of the water in the frag tank. I then moved the Blue Millie (which still has some growth on the base) and all the other sticks into the DT; along with the three canes.
I also won one of the WWC raffles and got a $100 gift. After placing an order to use the gift cert, it got a bit confusing as it seems there were terms I didn't understand (my bad, I'm sure). WWC made good (no surprise) and I got in a shipment of four more frags today (Red Monti, Purple Polyp Birdsnest, Lime Frogspawn, and a WWC Copperhead Cyphatrea) - all of which went into the frag tank for now (not pictured).

Finally; I decided I best start setting up for all these coral to go into the DT. I've already got the 2-part dosers set up - though I manually turn them on and off after the last digital timer failed in the "on" position and drained my calcium into the tank (lesson: don't auto-dose anything using cheap timers). I just ordered a Jabeo 4-port from Amazon along with the KZ Coral System (the "new" package of 4 parts that all dose equally). It was either that or the Red Sea stuff, and I liked the simplicity of the KZ dosing schedule (5ml/25gal 1/week - or spread out as desired using the pumps). I figure that if I'm happy with the Jabeo, I might replace the BRS pumps I have now for the 2-part with another one of those and just give up on the idea of the Apex controlling the dosing pumps all together...

Decision for later. One of many...

 

[rebekwl]

Congrats on the new arrival, she's beautiful!!

 

[mmw64]

So happy for you and your wife. Mind telling me the "local fish store" you are using? Live in Modesto and Livermore area isn't THAT far. Nothing closer that I would trust.