Busy Dads 40 gallon breeder

[roninmagik1]

Chronicling the hopeful maintaining and not declining of my 40 breeder, now that i've got a newborn baby as well as a two year old.

As of right now, tank is doing okay, although SPS is not really doing well. Alkalinity is 6.7 and salinity is 1.026. Did a 15% water change just a few days ago.

No sump.
Started tank with live rock about 7 or 8 years ago, it's had it's ups and downs, but like the energizer bunny, still going.

Lighting: ebay box lighting, i've had it for about a few years now, and am considering replacing it with new better lighting. also, bought a 2nd hand reefbreeders box light. it's basically like an ebay box lighting with some extras like a programmable timer. it works, and i use it just for the blues on the right side of the tank, where i have my anemones. Before that the anemones were stretching too much towards the middle of the tank for my liking.

Skimmer - IceCap K1-Nano Protein Skimmer
HOB filter - aquaclear 70 (helps to keep the surface clear and a bit of physical sponge filtration)

only 3 fish, a clownfish, a coral beauty and a royal gramma (considering adding more fish, maybe a school of 3 pajamas?)
Favorite zoa: got it from the $15 dollar section at the LFS, looks like a variant of the seduction or cb zombie
Favorite SPS: by process of it being one of the only ones that's still alive, Cornbred's Sour Apple Birds Nest would probably be my favorite.

 

[lapin]

Nice

 

[roninmagik1]

Had a glorious moment where both kids are asleep, tested the alkalinity and it's 7.3; not sure why the change from just 2 days ago, hopefully i can keep up the monitoring, and once i can see a trend, figure out how to keep the alkalinity stable.

 

[roninmagik1]

Today i got maintenance done on the tank. Changed out about 7 gallons of water, wihch amounts to about a 15 to 20% water change. Also, i got some sps a few days ago and they seem to be doing okay so far. I am not sure what has happened, but i think my tank has turned the corner and is viable for sps! =) there is also the thought, that the more sensitive sps i bought died, and the only ones left are the tough ones, like the green slimer and birds nest.

Recently, the only changes i made were to stop using the skimmer, i pulled it to clean it, and then time passed, so it had been more than a week without it....also, i've been feeding the fish more, i read somewhere that more fish poop was better for the sps.

Anyhow, back to todays maintenance, i repositioned the pumps to get better water flow, also repositioned the lights a bit. Nothing too drastic, all small but good changes for the tank, hopefully. I also repositioned some of my frags to take advantage of the better lighting and flow. Cleaned and put the skimmer back, but i'm keeping it off for now.

Alkalinity was at 7.1 today after the water changes.

Feeling pretty positive about the tank today! =)