Zoey's Reef is Growing Up . . .

[Maritimer]

Thanks for stoppin' by, Rev!

We'll be draining it this weekend, and when it's re-filled, it's going to be RO/DI. Re-hang the lighting above, add salt and sand ... a little bit of "vitamin sea"!

~Bruce

 

[TaylorPilot]

Thanks, TaylorPilot ... The drain here is the standard dual "MegaFlow" on Aqueon tanks, which is basically two Dursos. I've found that I can reduce the air churn by dialing down the ball-valves in the drain lines. (Wouldn't be surprised to find that dialing down the valves in the returns would do the same thing... don't know which is safer / better.) I am a bit worried about salt creep!

The loudest part of the system so far (haven't cranked up the skimmer...) seems to be the siphon-breaks!

~Bruce

Allot of people have converted those into Herbie style drains. The only downside (if you call it that) is you have to run the returns up and over the back.

 

[Maritimer]

Changed out the filters in the RO/DI unit.

Pulled the old light brackets out of the ceiling, and set four new ones, carefully spaced and in a straight line formation.

There's four inches of RO/DI in the six-foot glass box beside me, and the RO/DI will be running 24/7 until the water reaches the top. I'm thinking to fill the tank about 2/3 up, and then add salt to taste (or to 35ppt...), mixing it in the tank. Then I'll start thinking about adding sand and transferring rock and corals from Zoey's Reef, across the room. (I'm thinking I'll move the fish on the reef to the 75 gallon I've been using as a QT - there are fish in it who've come through copper, everyone should benefit from a couple of rounds of Prazi-Pro, and I can give 'pods and other invertebrate life a chance to get settled in before re-adding the fish. That'll give me a bit of time to order up some additional liverock - I'm seriously considering having some sent up from Florida, with all the plus-and-minus life forms that entails, and to cut frames and stretch screens for the top of the tank.

Kingston & Zoey's Reef is coming to life . . .

FTV of the fish in quarantine, all of whom seem to be doing very well: regal angelfish, yellow longnose butterflyfish, powderblue tang, orange-spot blenny, Caribbean striped parrotfish, three blackbar chromis and two Talbot's damselfish.
~Bruce

 

[jsker]

Seems like the the kids are happy

 

[Maritimer]

You should see them at feeding time!

~Bruce

 

[Maritimer]

Quarantine isn't always easy, and there's a battle being fought - with copper and antibiotics. I'm hopeful, but not at all confident. (There's a thread in the disease section . . . )

Meanwhile, across the room . . .


Several different bottles of bacteria, including "Bio-Spira", "Special Blend", and a couple of offerings from Two Little Fishies, have been opened and unleashed. Two different brands of live sand (and I can't tell which is which, by looking!) carpet the bottom. Tonga branch and shelf from BRS are stewing in salt water, as bacteria get comfortable. A little bit of frozen food now and again provides sustenance for microscopic colonizers. The Deltec skimmer must be "breaking in" ... I can't stop it from overflowing. Never seen so much foam! Filter socks are straining out particles - it took less than 36 hours to go from pouring in sand to crystal clarity.

Kingston & Zoey's Reef is cycling up! (It's not really that _noisy_ in person - and most of that is generated by the 65 gallon DT and 75 gallon QT on the opposite side of the room.)

~Bruce

 

[jsker]

A work in progress.

 

[Maritimer]

Aren't they all?!

~B.

 

[Maritimer]

The balance of power in my 220 is a delicate thing . . .

If I run the overflow / drain wide open, I get bubbles in the sump, and the water level in that section (to allow for the socks in the next section...) is close enough to the rim that salt creep and its forerunners are a major issue. Because of that, I'd throttled back the drains so that the bubbles in the sump were greatly reduced - but this brings the water levels in the "Mega-Flow" overflows up close enough to the rim of the tank that the spray from the siphon-stop holes causes salt creep on the back rim. (I also worry a bit about what might happen if the drains slow for any reason, such as a clog.) I'd thought I'd gotten it balanced . . .

Last night, I installed a Tunze Osmolator 3155. Cool gadget. Running smoothly, injecting RO/DI into the sump, the lights on its panel either orange (pump on) or green (water level stable and correct). This morning, I came down to find red lights - the little pump had emptied the reservoir (approximately four gallons of water) overnight. Refilled the five-gallon reservoir, but the Osmolator was now flashing red and beeping a strident alarm?!

The water levels in both the sump _and_ the display are much higher than they should be. (Pretty happy that this happened when the only life in the tank is bacteria and diatoms!) The backup sensor (float switch) of the Osmolator is functioning correctly, but I'm less confident of the primary (optical) sensor. Could this have happened because the main return pump fluctuated in some way overnight? Because the sump was in total darkness overnight? I've disconnected the ATO, and will allow evaporation to bring the water level down a tad. I think I'm going to have to open the ball-valves on the drains just a bit before reconnecting the Osmolator, and will cautiously try again . . .

~Bruce

 

[Maritimer]

Gotta figure out what to do with this skimmer . . .

It's been in the sump for about a week now, and is still producing so much foam that I've given up. I've left the valve open, and am just letting the thing run back into the sump, as there is _no_way_ that I could ever keep up with cleaning the collection cup. Anyone have any tips on getting the thing dialed in? (It's a Deltec SC1455)

There's been so little evaporation over the last toasty 24, that I don't _dare_ try to turn the Osmolator back on. I need to evaporate about 3-4 gallons, and we're having a heat wave this week!

Diatoms are beginning to fade, Ammonia is at zero, Nitrite is high, but that's expected. Green algae is beginning to grow on the right side of the tank.

There are four timers under the tank, and I've become fond of the view as the lights go down in the evenings. First the left-side whites go out:


Then the right-side whites, leaving an hour of all-blue, and finally the left-side blues go down, and it feels as though you've entered a cavernous environment:


Meanwhile, across the room, the male yellow watchman goby that I picked up six or eight months ago is _finally_ big enough to catch the attention of his intended:

(Yeah, he's also kind of a pig - bit off more than he could chew!)

~Bruce

 

[Maritimer]

Under blue lights, shadows lurk . . .

In this quick vid, you can really see the shadows from the cross-braces and the gap between the lights. I'll just have to make certain that my most light-hungry corals are located away from those spots...

~Bruce

 

[Maritimer]

Diatoms and the beginnings of green algae are growing thick on the liverock in the 220.

The skimmer's settled down, and is producing something that looks like thick tea and smells, as one R2R member very eloquently put it, like Satan's jockstrap.

The ATO issue resolved itself - it's apparently not uncommon for small bubble to form on the optical sensor, causing it to think it's in air instead of underwater. A good wash with soap (followed by a thorough rinse!) generally takes care of the issue in new installs.

The water's a bit cloudy, but that may be in part to a fairly lax changeout regimen for the filter socks.

I've been feeding the tank as though there were a half dozen or so small fish in it - watched ammonia build and fall, nitrite tests dive deep into purple and nitrates go flame orange ... but today's colors are much, much sunnier:

I think she's ready for a little life . . .

~Bruce

 

[Frop]

I think she's ready for a little life . . .

~Bruce

Woot!

 

[Maritimer]

Picked up a few hermits & snails - we'll see how that goes.

Coming home from work today, I noticed the house smelled ... off. Musty. Damp and organic, not in a good way. Didn't think too much of it, we've had a pretty long run of rainy days and my son, in lieu of gainful employment, babysits for a half-dozen dogs, in addition to his own two.

This evening, surfing around R2R and reading the manual for a fairly technical new test kit, something about the nature of the smell finally sunk in . . . "That's skimmate!"

Sure enough, the Deltec was overflowing, the sump's water partially covered in floating foam. Drained the cup into a bucket, fiddled with the adjustment knob . . . the skimmer pulled about two and a half gallons of very wet skimmate in just an hour or two! (Which, naturally, has the ATO complaining....) Not sure what caused it to go off like that, but it seems to have settled down - for now, at least!

~Bruce

 

[Maritimer]

OK, so a "settled-down" Deltec still skims with unrivaled ferocity!

Below are three photos. Three days. An inch and a half of junk in the cup that smells straight _nasty_, but what concerns me more is the dry, overflowing foam. I put a rock on top of it, to keep the lid from blowing off completely, but the foam still oozes forth from the vents, rolling slowly down the side of the cup and settling on the bayonet. (Doesn't do much for the smell of the house on hot, humid days, either...):

Seriously.

You want to skim stuff? Get in touch with Adam @Battlecorals.

I'm hoping this settles down still further - I can't _imagine_ what this thing'll do when there are _fish_ in the tank!

On a brighter note, I attended the June meeting of the SouthWest CT Aquarium Reef Keepers' Club last weekend, which was their annual frag raffle. Scored a _killer_ deal on four frags, all of which look happier now than they did in these photos:

Micromussa lordhowensis

Montipora setosa

Montipora undata

Cool green birdsnest with purple polyps - Ponape? Bird-of-Paradise?

Find a local reef club, folks - you'll be glad you did!

~Bruce

 

[Frop]

OK, so a "settled-down" Deltec still skims with unrivaled ferocity!

Below are three photos. Three days. An inch and a half of junk in the cup that smells straight _nasty_, but what concerns me more is the dry, overflowing foam. I put a rock on top of it, to keep the lid from blowing off completely, but the foam still oozes forth from the vents, rolling slowly down the side of the cup and settling on the bayonet. (Doesn't do much for the smell of the house on hot, humid days, either...):

Seriously.

You want to skim stuff? Get in touch with Adam @Battlecorals.

I'm hoping this settles down still further - I can't _imagine_ what this thing'll do when there are _fish_ in the tank!

On a brighter note, I attended the June meeting of the SouthWest CT Aquarium Reef Keepers' Club last weekend, which was their annual frag raffle. Scored a _killer_ deal on four frags, all of which look happier now than they did in these photos:

Micromussa lordhowensis

Montipora setosa

Montipora undata

Cool green birdsnest with purple polyps - Ponape? Bird-of-Paradise?

Find a local reef club, folks - you'll be glad you did!

~Bruce

Seeing all that makes me want to buy a skimmer. My tank is going through the ugly phase now.

 

[Maritimer]

Algal uglies here as well, but also a heteromorphic bacterial bloom clouding the water. Skimmer and filter socks are both the same brick-red color.

Check in with Adam - sometimes he puts the Deltecs on sale. (That's how I got mine...)

~Bruce

 

[LbulletM]

*lurking*

 

[Maritimer]

Welcome, LbulletM!

~Bruce

 

[revhtree Verified Admin]

It takes time but it's worth it!