Deeper Well - An Aquasole 60

jedimasterben · Aug 27, 2016

bknapp said:
Very nice. That wasp fish is super cool.

Thanks, she really is. She already seems to be associating me stopping the Gyre with feeding, because she comes out of whatever cave she is in and starts looking around

bknapp · Aug 27, 2016

Cool. Think I may start researching them some, may want to add one.

jedimasterben · Aug 30, 2016

Anyone here know of an easy way to do a dual-layered cabinet of sorts? I want it to sit next to the tank stand and hold a 10 gallon tank in the bottom for topoff with kalkwasser and the top layer will hold my electronics. Wanting to make I out of 1/2" plywood. Both the bottom and top need to be easily accessible to refill the topoff container and to access the electronics to activate feed modes, and it needs to be easily toddler proofed.

Also, last night I fed some LRS, I left it in decently big chunks instead of stirring it up before putting it in after thawing, and the waspfish came out of nowhere and swallowed a piece that was about 1/4 the size of its body!! :O

jedimasterben · Sep 2, 2016

Cleaned the glass today. This stand is just too tall for its own good, I have to stand on my toes to get my arm into it. On top of that, my friggin starry blenny decided to start nibbling on my arm!!

I fed some more LRS after taking that and decided to snap a couple of pics, so you'll have to deal with the low res FTS

This fish is so cool.

jedimasterben · Sep 12, 2016

Well, this really sucks, pulled the angelfish, rabbitfish, wrasse, and starry blenny. No clue what happened. The tank has a weird film on the top.

jedimasterben · Sep 14, 2016

As of last night, I couldn't find the waspfish. Orange male clown looked fine, as did the watchman goby and radial filefish, female black clown had super cloudy eyes and was still breathing super heavy after changing carbon and adding a whisper 60 with limewood airstone a few hours before the evening feeding, at which the remaining fish all ate well.

Several leathers are all shedding at once, and three of them all detached from the rocks they were attached to, which I've never seen before. Then again, I've also never had this problem before.

I did finally get everything moved into my new side stand holding the ATO tank and got the ATO hooked up, filled up, and put four teaspoons of kalk in it. Ants are gonna be in for a big surprise if they decide to try and get a drink from that tank.

As of this morning, however, I was only able to see the black clownfish. The orange clownfish and my waspfish are confirmed dead, and the watchman goby and radial filefish were nowhere to be found. I will know this afternoon if they're still around. Corals all looked better, though, even without any lights on (photoperiod doesn't start until 10AM).

The culprit is more than likely these little scent diffusers that my wife put around the house late last week, one of which she put just a few feet from the tank. The film on the top disappeared the day after I took the diffusers off (which was Monday night), but it looks like the damage was already done.

ksfulk · Sep 14, 2016

jedimasterben said:
As of last night, I couldn't find the waspfish. Orange male clown looked fine, as did the watchman goby and radial filefish, female black clown had super cloudy eyes and was still breathing super heavy after changing carbon and adding a whisper 60 with limewood airstone a few hours before the evening feeding, at which the remaining fish all ate well.

Several leathers are all shedding at once, and three of them all detached from the rocks they were attached to, which I've never seen before. Then again, I've also never had this problem before.

I did finally get everything moved into my new side stand holding the ATO tank and got the ATO hooked up, filled up, and put four teaspoons of kalk in it. Ants are gonna be in for a big surprise if they decide to try and get a drink from that tank.

As of this morning, however, I was only able to see the black clownfish. The orange clownfish and my waspfish are confirmed dead, and the watchman goby and radial filefish were nowhere to be found. I will know this afternoon if they're still around. Corals all looked better, though, even without any lights on (photoperiod doesn't start until 10AM).

The culprit is more than likely these little scent diffusers that my wife put around the house late last week, one of which she put just a few feet from the tank. The film on the top disappeared the day after I took the diffusers off (which was Monday night), but it looks like the damage was already done.

Heartbreaking

revhtree · Sep 14, 2016

Dang man sorry!

jedimasterben · Sep 15, 2016

Yeah, it just sucks. The black needed to be euthanized, but I guess the 'good' news is that the radial filefish and watchman goby are both confirmed alive and well, my smallest and laziest fish were the only two to make it through this. I don't seem to have lost any inverts, and the corals are beginning to open back up like they did before.

I got my replacement skimmer pump yesterday and got it installed, so hopefully that will help out a bit now. I turned off the air pump that was pushing into the sump.

jedimasterben · Sep 20, 2016

FTS 9/20/2015

The sole survivor.

revhtree · Sep 21, 2016

Love that goby!

jedimasterben · Sep 23, 2016

revhtree said:
Love that goby!

He is a pretty cool dude. Dummy lived in a den with a small mantis shrimp (yes, you read that right!) for a year, and I've had him for another four years beyond that after my buddy took his tank down and gave him to me. He has jumped out of every tank so far except this one, and always when I'm working in the tank, so I've been able to keep him alive this long. Pretty sure I could shoot him and he'd still be okay lol

jedimasterben · Nov 12, 2016

Despite them eating, I lost both resplendant anthias I'd gotten a few weeks back. I had heard resplendents are pretty touchy, but dang. Ordered another foxface this week, this time a magnificent (Siganus magnificus). I had also gotten a Fijian male lyretail anthias, but it did not survive shipping and was DOA.

30ish gallon water change today (about 85-90% I think).

All drained!

Filling back up. The foxface is still super skittish, but what little I have seen of it it is already nibbling on the hair algae in the tank.

I also got an Apex setup, I got tired of waiting on Fishbit. Got a 'Classic' and got a set of double junction pH and ORP probes. I figured as much, do I did finally get to see exactly how depressed pH in my tank is due to having to keep the windows closed all the time and not having a lot of fresh air in the house.

And here are some fish pics I took this week.

nicholas.babb@gmail · Nov 13, 2016

Nice build.

Thoughts on the acquasole?

jedimasterben · Nov 13, 2016

nicholas.babb@gmail said:
Nice build.

Thoughts on the acquasole?

Thanks! The tank is alright. The plumbing is a bit weird, but the tank itself has excellent build quality, the stand is really nice (though very tall).

FTS 11/13/2016

My starry blenny just jumped up to the front of the tank, which was kind of odd. Then, he scooted his back up to the glass and then kinda shimmied across it like he was scratching an itch, which was even weirder. Then, he turded the biggest load I've ever seen from a fish :O

Dude's starting to warm up to me. Still a bit skittish if I come up to the tank too quickly.

Haven't seen any kind of color or polyps from the small leather that is in focus in the center in quite a long time. This one was from DD months ago as a dark green base with I think fluorescent polyps, but it deflated completely in the 40 and I had basically written it off, but kept it in the tank just in case. Might turn around?

I can finally keep GSP! yay!

Been a long road for this gorgonian. Basically everything but the stem died off, all the branches faded away so I cut them off, and slowly but surely they're regrowing. This one is SUCH a slower grower.

My SPL - small polyp leather. It's been super droopy for the past month, month and a half or so, and haven't seen the polyps out in a few months maybe? I haven't taken a ton of pictures of the corals after moving to this new tank, so I don't have many progression photos.

'Mind blowing' palys. Still don't have the color they did back in the 80g tank.

Fiji yellow leather.

This is a hard one to focus on (had to get it at an angle to the glass and it couldn't focus properly), but dead center the fluorescent green bits are some of the tentacles of the cristata I got from Saltcritters a while back. The polyps slowly bailed out on it over the last month or so and I just noticed today that they actually settled there. I wonder if it will just die or if it might try and regrow there.

Daniel@R2R · Nov 14, 2016

Looking good, Ben! Great photos!

jedimasterben · Nov 14, 2016

mdbannister said:
Looking good, Ben! Great photos!

Thank you! I'd honestly forgotten how much better photos look when I have the camera set to full manual... I've been cheating the last few months and the pictures show it lol.

jedimasterben · Nov 19, 2016

Quick shot from earlier.

Finished some LED strips for something.

I also realized today that I'm going to have to redo my electrical stuff. Currently, all my wires and stuff are just jumbled together inside the cabinet drawer with most of the power supplies sitting on the shelf above the ATO reservoir, and the wires for everything (including the conductivity probe) are run together. Whenever the lights and such are cranking up for the day, conductivity spikes exactly as the system does, which means I'm getting some wicked interference. Gonna have to resolve that (and recalibrate the probe after, as it's saying salinity is 25ppt lol).

Also, a rocket launched from Cape Canaveral tonight carrying NOAA's new weather satellite, GOESR.

This is after the first stage had dropped off.