A 60 Gallon Cube Doesn't Fit in a Model 3

[glmory]

Since I am going to be out a bit decided to limit loss of water. Would hate to have the ATO run out of water.

Actually ends up a tricky tradeoff. Too little airflow and oxygen levels get low temperature gets high and everything dies. Too much airflow and the tank loses water and everything dies.

I cut out an acrylic sheet to act as a cover on it and taped up the other holes on the aquarium. The sump is still uncovered but doesn't get great airflow. Is that enough for my five gallons to last a few weeks? Maybe. Will watch it a bit.

Definitely will force air conditioning to be on even when no one is home.

 

[glmory]

Well, all my fish and most of my corals survived my five week vacation. Still had the 5 gallon bin half full of water so wasn't even cutting that close.

The corals I lost were ones I was regularly having to clean of algae so not surprising they didn't do well without me. Unclear if my thin gorgonian will pull through, it was completely covered in algae. The thick one grew a ton though. One small clove polyp died off.

Plank feeder was disappointing. It appears to have gotten algae on the bottom and that blocked the food from freely escaping. There was a lot of rotting food in it. I should have used it longer before leaving, there is a giant dial on bottom I probably needed to set to let food escape faster so it couldn't clog.

 

[glmory]

On further investigation of the issue with the Plank, it seems to be that some of the food doesn't sink even with the pump. I mixed too many types of food so not exactly sure what isn't sinking but something isn't. It is sort of weird because when I mix with my hand, they quickly sunk.

 

[glmory]

Looking more closely, the plank wasn't mixing the water well. So I disassembled it and realized there is side part that got filled with gunk blocking water from circulating.

Once I cleaned that there was enough water circulation for the food to be properly dumped into the aquarium. Sort of disappointing it got filled up so quickly, not sure if it was a fluke or if it will require monthly disassembly. Probably it is normal and I just need to stay on top of it.

 

[glmory]

Still have failed to get the uglies under control. Lots of hair algae and cyanobacteria.

Decided that it was too few snails, so made a order at Addictive Reef Keeping including:

• Keyhole Limpets (Diodora cayenensis)
• Stomatella Snails
• 100x Mix N Match Caribbean Cerith and Nerite Snail
• PODS 16oz Ocean Blend Copepod, Zoo, Plankton

Still might not be enough snails, but seems like I must be getting close.

 

[glmory]

The cereth snails were a lot smaller than I expected. Possibly should have bought the 250 snail pack, a hundred just disappeared into the muck.

 

[glmory]

The pods were one of the strangest things I have ever ordered. Just a bag of marine muck, not even the fancy container shown in the picture.

Still, saw a bunch of marine isopods and a small brittle star in the mess. Possibly something will scale up in my aquarium and make it a worthwhile purchase.

 

[glmory]

The keyhole limpets were quite a bit larger than I expected.

Taking a bit of a chance here, heard they eat coral and damage acrylic. There wasn't all that much information available on them though so thought I would take the chance. They definitely seem like a interesting choice for a predator tank as they seem rather tanky.

 

[glmory]

Some of the stomatella snails seemed a bit sluggish. Seemed like the ten I bought gives me a decent chance of getting a stable population though.

 

[TheWB]

The keyhole limpets were quite a bit larger than I expected.

Taking a bit of a chance here, heard they eat coral and damage acrylic. There wasn't all that much information available on them though so thought I would take the chance. They definitely seem like a interesting choice for a predator tank as they seem rather tanky.

I have some of those and they don't damage my acrylic and I've never seen one bother a coral. I would think you'll be fine with them. I need to get more, they are great cleaners.

 

[glmory]

Encouraging. The limpets seemed like one of the most interesting members of the cleanup crew so really didn't want them to go to the sump.

 

[glmory]

Ran out of frozen food so decided to make another batch. Got a mixed seafood pack which looked like mussels, shrimp, squid and octopus. Then added some dried seaweed and capelin roe.

The fish eggs were not the economical choice, but they looked like a good size so I thought might be neat to add. When I tried giving the fish some they went crazy for them and even the gorgonian caught a couple. So seems likely to work out.

Went much smoother this time, probably because I bought seaweed precut into smaller pieces then beat on the bag a bit to make them even smaller.

 

[glmory]

Just watched a small pithos crab pick up and eat a small stomatella snail. How annoying, had suspected a while they were eating clean up crew.

Possibly it was already dead but likely will not replace these when they die and use snails instead of crabs going forward.

On the plus side, the three pithos crabs have survived a long time. They do seem better than emerald crabs.

 

[glmory]

Been adding a lot more snails the last month. Probably $300 in snails, every species I could find at my LFS.

Helped things a lot. The cyanobacteria seems under control, although I think that was copepods on the snails not the snails. Hair algae is still not where I want it but still receding.

The best of the clean up crew I bought seems to be the keyhole limpets. They charge into deep hair algae far more often than the other snail species. Once it is clear, the others should be able to keep it clear.

 

[glmory]

Daughter used a magnet cleaner and a snail to put a rather large scratch in the aquarium. Really made me appreciate acrylic. In a glass tank I would be stuck with a scratch forever.

I held some sandpaper on my algae cleaner with Velcro and was able to sand out the scratch in a few minutes without removing any water.