ReefGrammie's 90-Gallon Reboot

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VERY successful trip to the LFS yesterday. I finally brought in the hammer that tipped over and (I fragged off a chunk for myself). I came home with 2 blennies, 6 trochus snails, 1 turbo snail, 8 hermits, and a couple of marine supplies, all for $40. I haven't seen the blenny in the BioCube this morning (disappeared into the rock) and I didn't see the tail spot blenny in the 90 until this morning. There he was, chilling by my favorite chalice! None of the tankmates seem overly interested, so the blenny should be fine. Thanks for the suggestion, @najer!

blenny.jpg
 
Top Shelf Aquatics
Never underestimate the power of snails. I had this weird fuzzy stuff growing on the rocks in the BioCube. It was getting on my nerves, and I added a turbo snail and a few trochus snails to the tank this weekend. I don't know what is eating the fuzz, but something is! Compare the left side to the right side. After the fuzz eaters have done their job, I'll rehome most of them to the 90. I saw the turbo snail munching on algae on the back wall, so it might be the turbo doing most of the work. My zoanthids will probably be happier when the fuzz is gone!

BioCube 08.16.2022.jpg
 
Blenny is a great addition to the 90. He is being ignored by the rest of the fish, which is the way I like it. Funny thing. It took a few days, but he has discovered the "blenny hole." This is one of my original rocks from my 46, which I started in 2008. We've had several blennies over the years, and every one of them (plus the royal gramma) has found this same hole in the rock. They back in the hole, which is also pretty cute. :)

blenny3.jpg
 
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I decided to rehome the cleaner shrimp from the BioCube to the 90. The BioCube is a zoanthid tank, and most of my zoanthids were staying closed, probably because the shrimp was stomping on them all day long. I figure the shrimp will have more fun in the 90 anyway. Here is the shrimp this morning, already exploring the cave. There is also a fire shrimp in the 90...it was on the other side of the cave. The fire shrimp has been housed with a cleaner shrimp before. They generally don't pay a bit of attention to each other and do their own thing.

Cleaner Shrimp in 90.jpg
 
Interestingly, that weird fuzz I had a few weeks ago is completely gone, thanks to the turbo snails and/or banded trochus snails. I may need to rehome a few them to the 90 so they don't get too hungry!

After snails:
BioCube 9.16.2022.jpg


Before snails:
BioCube 08.16.2022.jpg
 
The BioCube is coming along. The rehomed cleaner shrimp is doing fine in the 90...it might even find a fish to clean in that tank! I still just have the possum wrasse in the BioCube, plus a few snails/hermit crabs.

BioCube 09.17.2022 Glowy.jpg
 
During a crazy visit of chasing little children, one of our sons managed to change the return pump. I went with the Maxspect Jump MJ-DC8K for the 90. It seemed like a good choice for my system and I'm very pleased so far! The old pump was 9 years old, and I was really worried it was just going to konk out on me at a very inconvenient time.

The new pump is running quietly, and I just have it on level 6 for continuous flow, which seems to match my previous turnover. It goes up to level 20! I also like the smaller footprint. My crafty son rigged my ATO output to land on the PVC pipe that runs as a T from the downspout into the refugium on the right. It will rinse off the PVC pipe, as it flows down into the middle chamber of the sump, to keep down the salt creep. Who would have thought?

The old pump will be kept as an emergency backup, which I will hopefully never need. It needs to be taken apart and cleaned. I can't even remember the last time I did such a thing. :flushed-face:

I also had to keep the 1-year-old from throwing a calculator into my ATO reservoir....among many other things! That baby is into everything!! At least it wasn't apple juice...or worse. My son caught the 3-year-old going "potty" in the flower bushes. Adult supervision only in the fish room!

IMG_3366.jpg


IMG_3373.jpg
 
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Ugh, good things and bad things. My six-line wrasse has apparently expired. I haven't seen it in days, and the fish never missed a meal. I checked behind the tank and the corner overflow, but no wrasse. The tank otherwise has a canopy, so no other escape points other than a thin strip behind the tank or the corner overflow. I'd never find it in the rockwork. I'm sure the creepy crawlies will take care of things.

On a good note, Baby Clown is officially 14 years old this month! I started my first system in October of 2008, and Baby Clown and his?/her? mate were the first additions. This is from 2008 after the uglies went away. Look at that pristine back glass!! No coraline at all on the glass or the rock. It was THAT new.

IMG_1753.JPG


Next in line is the pygmy (cherub) angel at 9 years. Everything else is within the last 4 years. I wish I knew what happened to the wrasse. At most, I had it for 2-3 years. All other fish/coral seem healthy, so who knows. My wrasses were never known for longevity, so maybe it's just the nature of the species.

Next, my take on live sales. I do love them, but I think it's time to scale back. I'm tired of dealing with frags with bubble algae. Thankfully, none of this has happened in the 90, but I'm constantly dealing with it in my zoa-filled BioCube. The frags don't show up with bubble algae, but give it a few weeks, and there it is. I have noticed aiptasia on the few frags, but I take care of that right away and it hasn't been a problem. When I started buying coral in 2008, the only choices were eBay, the LFS, or Liveaquaria...at least those were the only ones I knew about. Now everybody seems to be in the fragging business.

I usually buy from reputable vendors, but I imagine this is what happens when a live sale is coming up. Vendor needs to come up with 1000 corals, as the live sale advertises. Vendor reaches out to all his coral friends and they trade this for that. Vendor magically comes up with the 1000 corals as promised, but from where?? Anyway, I have enjoyed the live sales very much, but both tanks are pretty full now and I think I'll just let everything continue to grow. Meanwhile, I can reach everything in the BioCube and will keep manually removing the bubble algae until it's gone for good. My favorite LFS has closed for a month or so to change locations, so maybe I'll pick up a few emerald crabs for the BioCube when he reopens.
 
Congrats on such an old fish. That’s awesome! I too set up my first tank in 2008. Emerald crabs have always helped me with the bubble algae. Sorry again for the loss of your wrasse.
 
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MrsBugmaster said:
Congrats on such an old fish. That’s awesome! I too set up my first tank in 2008. Emerald crabs have always helped me with the bubble algae. Sorry again for the loss of your wrasse.
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Thanks! Interestingly, we think Baby Clown started out as the "he." They were a mated pair and Mama Clown (I know, weird names...kids named them!) was much bigger and was the dominant clown. Mama Clown only lived about 4-5 years for some reason. After that, Baby Clown grew much larger, so I guess "he" became the "she?" I have a love-hate relationship with Baby Clown. That fish can be a real jerk and has been banished to the BioCube before. At least clowns are easy to catch!

I will definitely invest in a few emerald crabs when my LSF opens back up. He was hoping to sell all the livestock before the move (the store is half fresh and half salt) and shut down mid-October. I'll have to decide on a replacement fish for the wrasse. Actually, I'm down 2 in recent months with the loss of the 3-stripe damsel (I wasn't too sad about that one), so I may have to do major fish shopping!

That's pretty neat we set up our saltwater tanks the same year! We had a small freshwater tank going from the time our kids were 3. We even moved it out of state in a mini-van! I'm glad I don't have to think about moving the 90...that might be a bit of a stretch!
 
Tank maintenance yesterday. After my favorite chore of soaking the power heads from both tanks in citric acid and cleaning them up, I realized I had salt creep that needed to be cleaned up, the fish room was a mess, the drawers in the fish room were a bigger mess, my cabinet with my testing kits was a mess, etc. I spent the whole day on the tanks!

My travel dilemma. I struggle with when I should use an auto feeder. If I leave for a quick weekend trip, I don't use one. I feel before we leave and then as soon as we get home, and I've never had any trouble. A trip for a week or more, there's no question I use the auto feeder. I generally don't like them because I think they tend to overfeed the tank (maybe it's my settings?), and I'm not overly fond of flake food anyway. I do feed both flake and thawed frozen mainly because I like to feed a variety and if I'm feeding the flake food, I can control how much goes in the tank and when to stop.

My last trip was four nights. I really struggled with being gone that long without the autofeeder, but I decided to try it. I fed more than normal the day before in several spread-out feedings. I was able to feed the Wednesday morning before we left, but the fish didn't eat again until Sunday evening. They seemed to do fine. I fed as soon as we came in the door, plus I fed several more spread-out feedings that Monday. I don't know if I was pushing the limits with the four-night trip. It was a tough decision!

Anyway, tank maintenance is done. Filter socks are clean. Fish room is semi back together. :)
 
Very happy that my favorite LFS is back open in the new location! The store is bigger and better than ever. I got a VIP tour of the grow-out area in the back, and to my nice surprise, the grow-out tanks are all sporting nice @Reef Breeders Photon 2 fixtures...probably about 8-10 tanks...maybe more. I should have counted them! The owner is also selling the fixtures now. Great to see. :)
 
BRS
ReefGrammie said:
Tank maintenance yesterday. After my favorite chore of soaking the power heads from both tanks in citric acid and cleaning them up, I realized I had salt creep that needed to be cleaned up, the fish room was a mess, the drawers in the fish room were a bigger mess, my cabinet with my testing kits was a mess, etc. I spent the whole day on the tanks!

My travel dilemma. I struggle with when I should use an auto feeder. If I leave for a quick weekend trip, I don't use one. I feel before we leave and then as soon as we get home, and I've never had any trouble. A trip for a week or more, there's no question I use the auto feeder. I generally don't like them because I think they tend to overfeed the tank (maybe it's my settings?), and I'm not overly fond of flake food anyway. I do feed both flake and thawed frozen mainly because I like to feed a variety and if I'm feeding the flake food, I can control how much goes in the tank and when to stop.

My last trip was four nights. I really struggled with being gone that long without the autofeeder, but I decided to try it. I fed more than normal the day before in several spread-out feedings. I was able to feed the Wednesday morning before we left, but the fish didn't eat again until Sunday evening. They seemed to do fine. I fed as soon as we came in the door, plus I fed several more spread-out feedings that Monday. I don't know if I was pushing the limits with the four-night trip. It was a tough decision!

Anyway, tank maintenance is done. Filter socks are clean. Fish room is semi back together. :)
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I like to use pellets in my auto feeder. I feel like I have more control of them over flakes but I could be wrong lol
 
MrsBugmaster said:
I like to use pellets in my auto feeder. I feel like I have more control of them over flakes but I could be wrong lol
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I've never really thought about using pellets! I think that's a great idea. It makes sense they would be easier to control. I feel like with the flakes, the feeder sometimes dispenses a big glob or hardly anything at all if a large flake gets in the way.

Do the pellets sink easily? I use a feeding ring with the flakes to keep them floating around the tank and ending up in my sump.
 
www.dinkinsaquaticgardens.com
It's rainy outside, so I might as well work on the tanks. Skimmer is in a citric acid bath now.

I still don't know when my new SpectraPure RO/DI filters will be here. With shipping these days, there's no telling. My BRS calcium finally showed up yesterday. UPS said it was left on my front door Wednesday at 9:17 p.m. My Ring doorbell says nobody was at my door then. I figured it ended up with a neighbor, who kindly dropped it off, or maybe a thief who decided they didn't need 2 liters of liquid calcium!

My TDS is still around 17. I'm not too thrilled about that, but I guess I'm at the mercy of my replacement filters showing up. My bad for not changing them earlier! My tap water runs a TDS of about 115, so at least I'm nowhere near that. The tanks don't seem to be showing any ill effects, but I need those filters!

Due to a 4-hour training session at work last week, I was able to clean up the fish room. ;) I boxed up a bunch of parts and unidentified stuff. Some of it is probably from 2008, when I first started with my 46 bowfront.

While the skimmer was soaking, I decided to do more aquascaping/coral relocation, which means I'm covered in reef cement and super glue. :rolleyes: I was going to take some pictures, but when I put the skimmer back in the sump, it stirred up a mess and the tank is cloudy now. Maybe later.
 
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IF YOU HAD TO TAKE A REEFING EXAM, WOULD YOU PASS?

  • Yes!

    Votes: 32 45.7%

  • Not yet, but I have one that I want to buy in mind!

    Votes: 9 12.9%

  • No.

    Votes: 26 37.1%

  • Other (please explain).

    Votes: 3 4.3%
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