WarEagle88's Evo 13.5

[WarEaglesReef]

Ahh...man that sounds like a lot dirty work that is needed. I am sure it'll work out...hopefully without need for chemiclean.

Usually when I do water change, I make it a habit to blow the rock with squirts of water using a baster before I start siphoning the water from the tank to ensure I pick up as much of that debris as possible. I rest I leave it up to the filtration. This way at least there is little chance of dead spots long term.

Yeah, I'll baste off the rocks a bit every water change and siphon the sand I can access without moving stuff. Opted for the ultra detailed clean and got my little feeding pipette down in all the tiny holes to blow out all the stuff deep down inside the rock. I was amazed how much is way in there that a baster can't reach.

 

[WarEaglesReef]

Noticed the red slime starting to creep over my sand in a few spots this afternoon, so chemiclean it is. Got my carbon removed and my air stone running and just dosed the tank. Hopefully this does the trick!

 

[reef-rc]

Ahh...those slimy little red creepers...;Vamp. You shall be destroy!!!;Punch;Blackeye

 

[WarEaglesReef]

So far so good! Skimmer is going nuts as expected, so I just took the lid off and let it bubble up and pop out the top. All the visible red slime was gone this morning, but I'll let it run until tomorrow since the instructions say to give it 48 hours and then do my water change. Glad to see quick improvement though!! Die red slime, DIE! ;Dead

 

[reef-rc]

That's awesome that it works so quickly.

 

[WarEaglesReef]

Chemiclean was a success! All signs of the red slime are gone, and it even seemed to take care of whatever has been making my zoas angry and closed up for several weeks as they're both starting to open up today much more than they have in a while. Did a 4 gallon water change which is a bit more than the 20% they recommend but it helped a lot to get the skimmer to calm down. It's still running a bit wetter than usual, but definitely much more manageable. All the tank inhabitants and coral seem happy as can be and unbothered by the treatment. Although I knocked my duncan coral off the rock while I was sifting the sand during my water change...think I need to go get some thicker coral epoxy to get it adhered better to the side than the gel superglue I was using as that's just a bit too brittle. It's chillin' in the sand for now with my acans.

Also, while the air stone was running to help keep the pH stable during the treatment I used Glad press n seal as a makeshift lid to keep the spray from getting everywhere and causing a ton of evaporation. Stuck really well to the outer edge of the tank and didn't get in the way of anything. Haven't decided yet, but I may continue to use it as a lid as it worked really well and didn't interfere with the lighting in the tank and it cut down a ton on my evaporation from switching to lidless to accommodate the AI Prime. Could be a nice DIY solution if I took the time to cut out a precise piece.

Hard to tell from this photo, but my red montipora has started to encrust onto the rock on the back edge! Excited to see a noticeable change even though it's minimal from my first go at SPS.

 

[WarEaglesReef]

Definitely starting to see the AI PrimeHD's effect on my corals. As of this week it's officially finished with acclimation mode and is running normally on my set schedule.

In the last few days I've noticed my duncan finally starting to have longer extended polyps rather than shorter ones with little bulbs on the tip. The heads have always been open really wide and looked happy, but getting the tips to stretch out hasn't happened until now which is cool. They're not quite all the way stretched out, but close! It's also got an iiiiitty bitty little baby head budding off underneath one of the larger heads that I noticed today when spot feeding, so it looks like I'll have 4 heads here soon! Stopped by Aquatic Art last weekend and picked up some purple coral epoxy and got it affixed to my rock much better than the superglue was capable of. Wasn't the easiest stuff to work with, as it hardened much faster than the instructions said it would, but it worked pretty well for the most part.

I've also noticed a big change in my little green polyp leather coral this week. The base has started growing upward quite a bit in the last month (before, I only ever saw growth horizontally), and the diameter of the top has really started growing fast out away from the rock. It'll be really cool to watch the shape of this coral evolve as it grows.

The head on my little candy cane has made a lot of progress towards completely splitting into two. The flesh is still connected, but it has two distinct mouths that both respond to feeding. This coral ALWAYS seems to be hungry and in search of food to catch in the water column, so I can see why it's been a fast grower.

Last but not least, I've noticed one side of my GSP start to take off. It's encrusting really well onto the rock on the top right of this pic. The left side detached from the superglue I had holding it down, so it waves around a bit, and I'm thinking that's why I haven't seen much growth from that side. I need to get in there and glue it back down.

Having a bit of an issue with WiFi connectivity with the light, but thankfully it's capable of running by itself until I get that figured out.

I took my return pump out this evening and took it apart to clean it. Man was there a lot of gunk in there! Think I need to make that a more frequent task. It's much more efficient now that all of that is out and I'm definitely liking the increased flow. Didn't realize how much it had slowed until seeing how much stronger it is after cleaning.

 

[WarEaglesReef]

Less than thrilled with AquaIllumination's customer support. Although the Prime worked fine on my home Wifi network for a month with no issues, now when it refuses to connect and just sits in limbo forever their solution to the problem is to just stop using that feature I paid for and connect to the light directly rather than actually address why it won't connect to my network any longer.

A+ customer service /s

 

[Sobo's Reef]

Tanks looking good!!! I've had my Prime set up for a few days now and I've had a couple issues with connectivity as well. Seems to be fine now but it was annoying at first. Sorry to hear they just shrugged off your issue without any real explanation. Sounds like the rep who answered your call was under trained in that department.

 

[WarEaglesReef]

Tanks looking good!!! I've had my Prime set up for a few days now and I've had a couple issues with connectivity as well. Seems to be fine now but it was annoying at first. Sorry to hear they just shrugged off your issue without any real explanation. Sounds like the rep who answered your call was under trained in that department.

Yeah, I could understand recommending connection just to the light's signal as a solution had I never been able to connect to my network in the first place since that would probably indicate an issue on my home network's end of things. But for it to have worked for a month with no issues and then all of the sudden stop successfully connecting is an issue with the light. Waiting to see how they reply to my follow up email. I'm hoping they will offer me a better solution although I'm afraid I'm encountering what I've seen many people describe about their experiences of shoddy customer service with AI.

 

[Sobo's Reef]

Yeah, I could understand recommending connection just to the light's signal as a solution had I never been able to connect to my network in the first place since that would probably indicate an issue on my home network's end of things. But for it to have worked for a month with no issues and then all of the sudden stop successfully connecting is an issue with the light. Waiting to see how they reply to my follow up email. I'm hoping they will offer me a better solution although I'm afraid I'm encountering what I've seen many people describe about their experiences of shoddy customer service with AI.

I agree with ya. That stinks tho. Hopefully they come through for ya and get it resolved.

 

[brett_schn]

Yeah, I could understand recommending connection just to the light's signal as a solution had I never been able to connect to my network in the first place since that would probably indicate an issue on my home network's end of things. But for it to have worked for a month with no issues and then all of the sudden stop successfully connecting is an issue with the light. Waiting to see how they reply to my follow up email. I'm hoping they will offer me a better solution although I'm afraid I'm encountering what I've seen many people describe about their experiences of shoddy customer service with AI.

Yep and now I'll probably get a kessil or nano reef box or a photon v2 16" besides the prime even though my lfs speaks so highly of it. I have heard nothing but high rating for ai customer service

 

[WarEaglesReef]

Finally figured out tonight why my torch coral has seemed a bit closed and unhappy for the last week or so...came home tonight and shined a flashlight in my tank to spot my chalice coral sending out some wicked long sweeper tentacles straight towards the torch against the current. It's officially been banished to a different corner of the tank where it can send out sweepers to its heart's content without bullying anyone else.

On the positive side of things, when I fed my duncan coral this evening and the heads closed up to eat I noticed not just the one new budding head that I thought it had, but 4-5 new ones which is wicked cool. Looks like that coral will quickly become the largest one in my tank.

And in random "what on earth is this??", maybe someone following along can tell me if this is some sort of sponge or not? First noticed it growing on the back of one of my trochus snails, but now there's this spot on the bottom of my rock where that snail usually hangs out that appears to be taking off. The part I can reach feels a bit like a sponge, but it looks pretty alien and branches off into tiny tubes in a few places. Hard to get a decent pic of it, but it's the beige blob tucked into the rock in the middle of the photo. Lol

Looks kind of similar to some of the photos of clathrina sponge that I'm seeing on Google. But who knows. *shrugs*

 

[reef-rc]

Most chalice it seemed from what I understand are semi-aggressive due to their sweepers. It's always good to occassionally check on the corals after lights goes out just to see what's going on in the dark ;Peeking

 

[WarEaglesReef]

SUCCESS! *maniacal laughter*
Did a factory reset on my AI Prime and also rebooted my wireless gateway and router and the light finally connects to WiFi again!! Had to re-upload my lighting preset again (glad I thought to download it before resetting) and re-do all my lunar settings, but it's up and running again and I'm so happy! Victory is mine!

Getting ready to head out of town for a week, so this will be my first real test of tank stability when left largely unattended for 7 days. I've got an automatic feeder set up to feed the fish once a day, and someone stopping by every other day just to make sure my ATO hasn't run dry and there's no glaring issues. Headed out tomorrow to pick up one of those little in tank ammonia warning indicators so that on the off chance something were to die my tank sitter can see without having to manually test my water. All my parameters are in check and I think it should do great while I'm gone. Still nervous since this is my first time leaving it alone. Lol. ;Nailbiting

 

[WarEaglesReef]

Most chalice it seemed from what I understand are semi-aggressive due to their sweepers. It's always good to occassionally check on the corals after lights goes out just to see what's going on in the dark ;Peeking

Yeah, I usually check pretty frequently since I'm an ultra night owl, but I think with moving stuff around during my last water change I put the rock with the torch on it closer than usual and it was enough for the chalice to smell it and send out sweepers since this was the first time I've ever seen them. It's back to no longer sending out sweepers now that it's all on its own in a different corner. Territorial little bugger.

 

[WarEaglesReef]

Using one of my Nest security cameras to check in on the tank while I'm gone. [emoji23]

Second day unattended and everything seems to be going smoothly. All inhabitants appear alive and well! Urchin rearranged some coral, but it doesn't appear to be too unhappy where it ended up. Haha

 

[Chriswillz]

Ha love it thats a really good idea one which i will definitely use next year when i set up my own

 

[WarEaglesReef]

Ha love it thats a really good idea one which i will definitely use next year when i set up my own

Thanks! It's been awesome so far to be able to check on the tank whenever I want. I hop on to watch when their automatic feeder goes off to make sure they're getting fed. Only downside to the NestCam is it will send a push notification when it recognizes significant movement, so the fish set that off numerous times a day, and the shrimp sets it off at night when he's cruising around the tank and the camera's infrared sensors are on. Hahaha

 

[reef-rc]

heard Nest is coming out with a newer camera within the next month.