SC Aquariums 50 gallon PNP

[Philipgonzales3]

Still can't get over how bright this GSP is. Puts my other GSP to shame lol.

 

[mmw64]

Correct. Crazy right !?!?

In one of my other threads I have a lot of picture I think. Here is a video.

They would sleep in the fake nem every single night.


I got rid of the fake anemones because they kept breaking down into small pieces in about 1 month. Now I have a real nem and they just ignore it. Go figure!

Isn't that the way it seems to go!

 

[Philipgonzales3]

Glued a few of my corals to a few rocks. May do more later. My torch kept falling over and the split mushroom needed a new rock.



My Xenia is also pulsing!

 

[Sod Buster]

The rubble rocks look good anchoring stuff down. Looks like the puffer doesn't want the fry pan after all. On better behavior with the pulse.

 

[mattzang]

looking good man!

puffer stopped munching? i added a flame angel recently and on day 2 i saw him dart hard for my purple stylo, took a nice big nip and i was like well that didn't last long.. but ever since i haven't seen him do it. and everything else seems un-nipped too lol. gotta just roll with the nips here and there i guess

 

[Philipgonzales3]

The rubble rocks look good anchoring stuff down. Looks like the puffer doesn't want the fry pan after all. On better behavior with the pulse.

looking good man!

puffer stopped munching? i added a flame angel recently and on day 2 i saw him dart hard for my purple stylo, took a nice big nip and i was like well that didn't last long.. but ever since i haven't seen him do it. and everything else seems un-nipped too lol. gotta just roll with the nips here and there i guess

I think the puffer just likes picking at new things. It gets bored easily. I remember when it appeared to be eating my macro algea but that didn't last very long. Guess it just likes to try everything at least once. Can't say I blame it. As long as it doesn't go totally ham on my corals he will stay out of the frying pan.

 

[Philipgonzales3]

Here are today's parameters. A couple concerning things.


1. Is the temp, it's 74F in the house and the tank is very close to 80F. Both thermometers reading within .2 of each other. I have the alarm set to go off at 80F. I could turn on the fans but the best I could do right now is time based or manually on and off via a smart switch. Not sure if the Ranco controller has even shipped yet. Called the company I ordered from and left a message as I called after thier business hours. Pretty sure I'm getting to the point of the upper limit of where the tank should be. High today was 87F currently 80F outside and 59% humidity.

2. The Hanna Calcium tester is pretty much a paperweight at this point. Very inconsistent results from 385 to 430. Today it read 427 and my red sea test read 390. Sadly this is within spec of the +-6% accuracy when you take into account red seas 5ppm accuracy (1.2% for those of you keeping score at home). Now to @Why-Me's point on chasing numbers, do I think my corals care if calcium is 390 vs 427? Probably not at all. Do I think +- 6% is a good option (around 24ppm @400ppm) when you are trying to figure out dosing and consumption. Negative. With an alkalinity of 9 balanced Calcium is at 424, at a dKH of 8 balanced Calcium is 417. Again not shooting for perfection here but +-24ppm is just too much when I can easily use the red sea test and be 5 times more accurate in the same amount of time. (+-24ppm calcium is the difference between balanced alkalinity of 9.0 vs 5.5 dKH!!!) Not to mention I was using Hanna's own DI water. Just not worth the $20 a gallon to be off that much. And don't even think about using your own DI water as even an immeasurable 0TDS can have trace amounts of calcium that can skew the results even more. Rant over, just trying to make it clear to anyone thinking about ordering the Hanna Calcium checker that it is not worth it. Alk and Phosphate seem pretty good though.

Here is the skimmer. I emptied it sometime Monday I think, maybe Sunday. Going to empty the cup tomorrow and the goal for next week is to keep my hands out of the tank to ensure I am not affecting the skimmer level as I always have my hands in the tank for one reason or another.

 

[Hemmdog]

Here are today's parameters. A couple concerning things.


1. Is the temp, it's 74F in the house and the tank is very close to 80F. Both thermometers reading within .2 of each other. I have the alarm set to go off at 80F. I could turn on the fans but the best I could do right now is time based or manually on and off via a smart switch. Not sure if the Ranco controller has even shipped yet. Called the company I ordered from and left a message as I called after thier business hours. Pretty sure I'm getting to the point of the upper limit of where the tank should be. High today was 87F currently 80F outside and 59% humidity.

2. The Hanna Calcium tester is pretty much a paperweight at this point. Very inconsistent results from 385 to 430. Today it read 427 and my red sea test read 390. Sadly this is within spec of the +-6% accuracy when you take into account red seas 5ppm accuracy (1.2% for those of you keeping score at home). Now to @Why-Me's point on chasing numbers, do I think my corals care if calcium is 390 vs 427? Probably not at all. Do I think +- 6% is a good option (around 24ppm @400ppm) when you are trying to figure out dosing and consumption. Negative. With an alkalinity of 9 balanced Calcium is at 424, at a dKH of 8 balanced Calcium is 417. Again not shooting for perfection here but +-24ppm is just too much when I can easily use the red sea test and be 5 times more accurate in the same amount of time. (+-24ppm calcium is the difference between balanced alkalinity of 9.0 vs 5.5 dKH!!!) Not to mention I was using Hanna's own DI water. Just not worth the $20 a gallon to be off that much. And don't even think about using your own DI water as even an immeasurable 0TDS can have trace amounts of calcium that can skew the results even more. Rant over, just trying to make it clear to anyone thinking about ordering the Hanna Calcium checker that it is not worth it. Alk and Phosphate seem pretty good though.

Here is the skimmer. I emptied it sometime Monday I think, maybe Sunday. Going to empty the cup tomorrow and the goal for next week is to keep my hands out of the tank to ensure I am not affecting the skimmer level as I always have my hands in the tank for one reason or another.

Now that’s a good cup of skim!

 

[Sod Buster]

You are fine. The hanna calcium check has many videos on the tube. Red sea is good for calcium. Your tank will live at 80. Have a plan for higher temps though. Clothes pin a sandwich bag of ice in the sump. Looking good on the skimmer cup funk, just the green should not be below the neck in the chamber. That shows head drop, so the skimmer picks back up after you feed to get to the cup. No big thing, but you could probably just run it 14 hours and be fine.

 

[Sod Buster]

Never mind on the skimmer. I went back to page 16 and looked at the water height in the sump. You are doing a great job skimming that dry with it shallow like that. Disregard my neck comment and leave it alone!

 

[mattzang]

what do you guys think is the maximum 'safe' temperature?

i did some googling awhile back and found the great barrier reef fluctuated between lows of ~17 degrees Celsius (62 f) in the winter to 31~ Celsius (87 f) in the summer. not sure that'd be a recommendation for a home tank lol, but interesting nonetheless

being that my tank likes to have weird issues i've found:

-temp in the low 80s seems ok, my heater was doing a little too much heating a couple weeks ago and was keeping the tank at 82ish, but nothing seemed upset there
-before that my heater was off and i suddenly touched the water, found it cold, and checked temp. 70! at that range, i noticed euphyllia seemed particularly upset and closed up a bit. but i didn't incur any losses.

i'm now the proud owner of 3 eheim heaters because they all seem to have issues, i get mad and swap them out. lol

 

[Sod Buster]

I'm set at 78 with a pair of small heaters. Don't swing 5 degrees in 12 hours. 84 for a bit, but not over any period of time. I like 78 to 79.

 

[Philipgonzales3]

Never mind on the skimmer. I went back to page 16 and looked at the water height in the sump. You are doing a great job skimming that dry with it shallow like that. Disregard my neck comment and leave it alone!

Yeah I'm totally surprised I had to turn it so far down, if I bump it up a tad it can easily skim a cup a day no problem. I thought I was going to have to raise the sump water level but glad I don't have to. This way I get a 100% constant level in my skimmer chamber as the water on fluctuates a 1/4" or so in the return chamber. This leaves plenty of room should my 5 gallons of ATO water happen to end up in the sump.

 

[Philipgonzales3]

what do you guys think is the maximum 'safe' temperature?

i did some googling awhile back and found the great barrier reef fluctuated between lows of ~17 degrees Celsius (62 f) in the winter to 31~ Celsius (87 f) in the summer. not sure that'd be a recommendation for a home tank lol, but interesting nonetheless

being that my tank likes to have weird issues i've found:

-temp in the low 80s seems ok, my heater was doing a little too much heating a couple weeks ago and was keeping the tank at 82ish, but nothing seemed upset there
-before that my heater was off and i suddenly touched the water, found it cold, and checked temp. 70! at that range, i noticed euphyllia seemed particularly upset and closed up a bit. but i didn't incur any losses.

i'm now the proud owner of 3 eheim heaters because they all seem to have issues, i get mad and swap them out. lol

I'm using a 7 yeah old 100W aqueon pro. Underrated for the tank I believe but it does just fine. Was going to replace it with a new one but if it ain't broke...

 

[mattzang]

I'm using a 7 yeah old 100W aqueon pro. Underrated for the tank I believe but it does just fine. Was going to replace it with a new one but if it ain't broke...

i suppose. i subscribed to the idea that it's safer to replace heaters yearly, so that's what i did. but honestly, my first heater seemed to keep temps more stable than the two underpowered eheims.

i'm curious to see how you like the rancor. all i could gather about the inkbird was it's unreliable too. so i'd rather just get a couple clip on fans and turn those on for summer, turn back off in the winter. then in theory heaters should heat properly.. lol

 

[Philipgonzales3]

i suppose. i subscribed to the idea that it's safer to replace heaters yearly, so that's what i did. but honestly, my first heater seemed to keep temps more stable than the two underpowered eheims.

i'm curious to see how you like the rancor. all i could gather about the inkbird was it's unreliable too. so i'd rather just get a couple clip on fans and turn those on for summer, turn back off in the winter. then in theory heaters should heat properly.. lol

Yeah I may just turn on the fans tomorrow since I will be home all day and see what happens.

We also have a frwshwsater tank and it was reading 78.8 today. I may order this chiller and another controller for his tank. It's a 15 gallon Fluval flex. Figured I could drill the hole in the lid and have the heatsink stick out the top or what not.

https://www.bulkreefsupply.com/iceprobe-thermoelectric-aquarium-chiller-nova-tec.html

 

[Philipgonzales3]

Just did my weekly water change, still have not missed a single water change. Took a few pics. Decided to give away my mushroom frag to @Nanofan12, will be hand delivering it in a couple of days for all the help he has given me, and because I don't want any duplicates. I'll be interested to see if my little two headed one splits.

Couple of vids at the bottom, one of them is my sons freshwater tank with all the darn fish he has in there.


Also anyone know if this is bleaching or is that just how it looks?



Full tank Vid:

Freshwater tank, lotsafish!

 

[DiscGolfRob]

Looking good! I just had such a nice, peaceful two minutes watching your tank. I can't wait to get mine rolling!

 

[Sod Buster]

That looks like cyphastrea or leptastrea. if the edges had color and lost it, then yes. Look at the downward side, growth over the cut skeleton? Try moving it down to the bottom of the rock, then even in shade. In my old tank both would always grow down the rock, never up, even into the shade/under overhangs.

 

[Philipgonzales3]

That looks like cyphastrea or leptastrea. if the edges had color and lost it, then yes. Look at the downward side, growth over the cut skeleton? Try moving it down to the bottom of the rock, then even in shade. In my old tank both would always grow down the rock, never up, even into the shade/under overhangs.

I dunno. Never really looked at it closely before lol.

I'm such a noob still at some of this coral stuff. I moved it further down for now. Not in the shade at the moment. Just found the first spot on one of the lower rocks I could find for now.