My lil reef

Rick.45cal · Jan 2, 2021

GoVols said:
It's been a nice weekend, Rick

Saw WWC had a (New Year's Eve) 30% off sale on Thursday, have been on a hunt for a green slimer.

Took the time to call, then Christian took the time to post a frag on their website so I could see it.

Grabbed that $29 frag asap and logged out.

lol
Never hurts to ask WWC what they have behind the scenes.

I’m sure they’ve got a whole world of stuff going on in their new shop, I know from having been fortunate enough to visit their old store a few times that they definitely have a whole world behind the scenes that’s a coral wonderland. I‘m sure the new location and farm has even more to offer! I’m glad to hear y’all had a wonderful start to 2021!

User1 · Jan 2, 2021

GoVols said:
It's been a nice weekend, Rick

Saw WWC had a (New Year's Eve) 30% off sale on Thursday, have been on a hunt for a green slimer.

Took the time to call, then Christian took the time to post a frag on their website so I could see it.

Grabbed that $29 frag asap and logged out.

lol
Never hurts to ask WWC what they have behind the scenes.

It doesn't. I was looking for a frogspawn and at the time I was looking everything was sold out. They sent a PM and offered to make a frag just for me. I thought it was cool. I ended up waiting but the thought sure was nice.

Green slimer is something I need as they grow tall. Need something to act like some redwoods and reach the surface of my 30" tall tank

Hope all are having a great new year!

Daniel@R2R · Jan 27, 2021

How's it going @Rick.45cal? Hope 2021 is treating you well!

Rick.45cal · Jan 29, 2021

Daniel@R2R said:
How's it going @Rick.45cal? Hope 2021 is treating you well!

Hey Daniel, sorry to be slow to get back to you. Things are alright here! I can‘t complain at the moment. Been a bumpy road so far this year but I’m well. I’ve been working hard at getting my glass studio up and operational, so I’ve been putting long hours in working on making that a reality the last month or so. Progress is slow, since I’m doing this all myself but it’s getting there. (How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time). The tank has been getting along ok, I’ve neglected it a bit, I won’t lie. My aptasia problem has me down and overwhelmed but I’m sure I’m not alone in those regards. My berghia never seemed to do anything this time. So I don’t know what I’m going to do about it.

I’ve managed to get the ventilation hood up in the studio and have been working today on getting the mount to hang the ventilation fan so I can run the ductwork. Things are progressing, I’ll probably lift and mount the fan tomorrow. Hopefully sometime soon here I can start melting some glass.

.

Rick.45cal · Jan 29, 2021

Got my oxygen system up and running too

Daniel@R2R · Jan 29, 2021

Rick.45cal said:
Hey Daniel, sorry to be slow to get back to you. Things are alright here! I can‘t complain at the moment. Been a bumpy road so far this year but I’m well. I’ve been working hard at getting my glass studio up and operational, so I’ve been putting long hours in working on making that a reality the last month or so. Progress is slow, since I’m doing this all myself but it’s getting there. (How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time). The tank has been getting along ok, I’ve neglected it a bit, I won’t lie. My aptasia problem has me down and overwhelmed but I’m sure I’m not alone in those regards. My berghia never seemed to do anything this time. So I don’t know what I’m going to do about it.

I’ve managed to get the ventilation hood up in the studio and have been working today on getting the mount to hang the ventilation fan so I can run the ductwork. Things are progressing, I’ll probably lift and mount the fan tomorrow. Hopefully sometime soon here I can start melting some glass. .

Great job on getting things moving on the studio. Looks like that's coming along nicely. Sorry to hear about the difficulties with the aiptasia, but I'm confident you'll get through it. I put berghia in my 50g tank to deal with my outbreak, and then after several months decided they'd probably failed...and then almost overnight, the aiptasia were gone. I think it just took them a lot longer than I expected. I'm hoping maybe that will be what you experience too.

Definitely looking forward to seeing your glass blowing in action! Share some of that with us too!

Rick.45cal · Jan 29, 2021

Daniel@R2R said:
Great job on getting things moving on the studio. Looks like that's coming along nicely. Sorry to hear about the difficulties with the aiptasia, but I'm confident you'll get through it. I put berghia in my 50g tank to deal with my outbreak, and then after several months decided they'd probably failed...and then almost overnight, the aiptasia were gone. I think it just took them a lot longer than I expected. I'm hoping maybe that will be what you experience too.

Definitely looking forward to seeing your glass blowing in action! Share some of that with us too!

That‘s also my hope with the berghia/aptasia situation, it’s been many many months now which is why my hopes are diminishing. I’m not sure when I introduced them but it was well over 6 months now. We’ll see. It’s funny after posting this I went to clean the glass to take a photo and my skimmer was overflowing and filled the whole sump with foam so I had to work on the tank today. Everything seems to be back in order but we all know how that goes. I might be in the market for a new skimmer before I know it. Lol. Thank you for checking on me, I appreciate it greatly!

drawman · Jan 29, 2021

Rick.45cal said:
That‘s also my hope with the berghia/aptasia situation, it’s been many many months now which is why my hopes are diminishing. I’m not sure when I introduced them but it was well over 6 months now. We’ll see. It’s funny after posting this I went to clean the glass to take a photo and my skimmer was overflowing and filled the whole sump with foam so I had to work on the tank today. Everything seems to be back in order but we all know how that goes. I might be in the market for a new skimmer before I know it. Lol. Thank you for checking on me, I appreciate it greatly!

Do you have any fish that would eat them Rick?

Rick.45cal · Jan 29, 2021

drawman said:
Do you have any fish that would eat them Rick?

Well I‘ve used berghia twice before with success and never had an issue. However the ochre lined cardinals are new since then and I suspect they’re eating them at night. They seem to be extremely active at night and they are definitely voracious eaters. I suspect that’s the issue. I’ll have to start looking for nudibranchs at night and see if I can find any traces of them.

Rick.45cal · Jan 29, 2021

I just looked and didn’t see any signs of any berghia so I guess I’ll check a few more nights and see if I notice any. Not looking good so far lol

GoVols · Jan 30, 2021

Rick.45cal said:
I just looked and didn’t see any signs of any berghia so I guess I’ll check a few more nights and see if I notice any. Not looking good so far lol

Yeah,
That's a bummer, Rick

I've used the nudi's two times as well and they worked both times.

lol
Bought a cleaner shrimp a few years back, that dude never wanted to clean a fish during his time in our reef. Wiped out my 4" wide WWC OG bounce shroom, space invader pectinia and a few Aiptasia nens...

It sure acted like a pep. shrimp that went bonkers than a cleaner shrimp.

Just changed media's in my cal reactor this morning. Went with the new coarse Reborn in stage one. It's a lot smaller sized media than their original course media. If it has a lower melting point than the original I'll let you know.

Still got plenty (one year's worth) of the original, but wanted to try the new coarse Reborn.

The Tunze media was a good ride, but it all melted.

Glad that your studio is moving forward.

Rick.45cal · Jan 30, 2021

GoVols said:
Yeah,
That's a bummer, Rick

I've used the nudi's two times as well and they worked both times.

lol
Bought a cleaner shrimp a few years back, that dude never wanted to clean a fish during his time in our reef. Wiped out my 4" wide WWC OG bounce shroom, space invader pectinia and a few Aiptasia nens... It sure acted like a pep. shrimp that went bonkers than a cleaner shrimp.

Just changed media's in my cal reactor this morning. Went with the new coarse Reborn in stage one. It's a lot smaller sized media than their original course media. If it has a lower melting point than the original I'll let you know.

Still got plenty (one year's worth) of the original, but wanted to try the new coarse Reborn.

The Tunze media was a good ride, but it all melted.

Glad that your studio is moving forward.

Definitely keep me informed Freddie, It’s about time for me to refresh my reactor again but I haven’t managed to attain the momentum to do it yet. Lol

GoVols · Jan 30, 2021

Rick.45cal said:
Definitely keep me informed Freddie, It’s about time for me to refresh my reactor again but I haven’t managed to attain the momentum to do it yet. Lol

Lol
I didn't want to do it either, but I just made myself do it first thing this morning. Went back to the fine ARM media in stage two.

I'll let you know, Rick

Rick.45cal · Jan 30, 2021

GoVols said:
Lol
I didn't want to do it either, but I just made myself do it first thing this morning. Went back to the fine ARM media in stage two.

I'll let you know, Rick

I pretty much have to make myself do everything these days, (not just limited to the aquarium). I must be in a rut lol

GBRsouth · Jan 30, 2021

Here's another alternative to deal with aiptasia for you Rick. Australian stripey fish. Love your reef by the way! Gallery Aquatica TV on Youtube has two recent videos entitled Aiptasia Annihilation and Aiptasia Annihilation: The Results. They show an Australian stripey fish introduced to a reef tank with aiptasia and the results after 4 weeks in the tank. Basically it wipes out all except those deep in crevices.

GoVols · Feb 4, 2021

Rick.45cal said:
Definitely keep me informed Freddie, It’s about time for me to refresh my reactor again but I haven’t managed to attain the momentum to do it yet. Lol

Rick,
My batch of the new Reborn was clean (no shells) and it still has the high ph melting point like the original.

I was melting Reborn at a ph of 6.8 (1.6 dKH intake per day), but I tore out pounds of sps last summer.

Right now, alk leveled out at 7.1 ph inside the main reactor.

Hope things are good your way.

Rick.45cal · Feb 6, 2021

GoVols said:
Rick,
My batch of the new Reborn was clean (no shells) and it still has the high ph melting point like the original.

I was melting Reborn at a ph of 6.8 (1.6 dKH intake per day), but I tore out pounds of sps last summer.

Right now, alk leveled out at 7.1 ph inside the main reactor.

Hope things are good your way.

My second box of reborn that I got recently was pretty full of rocks and stones from what little I looked at. I’ll have to look at what’s in the one I snagged before that one and see if it’s any cleaner. I’m going to have to take care of it soon. Yeah my consumption went down signifcantly after I pulled a bunch of corals out too.