Long time, no update. Turtle, where oh where have you been!?
Sheesh, last update in April! It's almost June! What was I doing all May long? Well, mostly on autopilot. Work was, well crazy in May. I haven't added anything or changed anything up since the last update. I did do a water change somewhere in there. It needed it. I have another one coming up Sunday evening. The girlfriend and I will be doing both of our tanks.
Speaking of water changes, I've been thinking on why if I miss my water change at the 4 week mark, my tank starts to look like poop quickly. Only a two things came to mind. Nutrients, and pollutants. The first, I can rule out because algae growth is limited to select areas(I'll divulge in part deux) the rocks and sand are 99.9999% algae free. I feed heavy, my fish are fat, and my chaeto is thicc. I haven't tested, and I don't see a reason to.
The second issue is pollutants. I have a two fold theory on this. Part one is environmental. Cleaning products, scented candles. We(Turtle and the girlfriend) try to keep the house clean. At the same time, we also live in our house and we have 2 dogs. One of which is a chow mix and sheds fistfuls by the hour. I doubt it's the dogs, but rather keeping the house clean, and smelling NOT like a pound. We do not use aerosol cleaners, but instead use spray bottles and spray into a rag to avoid any airborne cleaning products. We do however enjoy the smell of a scented candle on occasion. I do not think this is the reason for a tank to look bad after sparing use and not in such short time.
My second theory, is my frag racks. You see I mentioned algae growth earlier when talking about nutrients. I have 3 places that 2 different types of algae grows. The first is green hair algae on the racks. Lots and lots of hair algae. So much, that Warrant, Def Leppard, Poison, Twisted Sister AND Motley Crue would be jealous.... it strikes me as odd, that hair algae would only grow there and not on the rocks or sand where one would think detritus would settle. The second type of algae and location is on my aging PP-8, around the where power cord enters the motor. This is the weak point on the pump. It's where dry meets wet. Electricals meet corsive salts. And it HAD a huge clump of bubble algae growing all around it. I removed the bubble algae but the pump needs to be addressed.
So before this gets too long...(too late for that) I tossed the frag racks. I know, I had frags on them. I didn't toss the frags. We upgraded. The LFS had a sale going and I couldn't walk out without a new rack. Not after deciding the old ones had to go. We got a 45 hole Zen Reef rack. Imagine a M1A1 Abrams tank, that holds corals. That is what this rack feels like.
