chillout-reefer-dave
Active Member
Ok please someone help me figure this one out.
I swear the following is true to my best account.
I somehow have zero nitrates....confirmed by my sailfert testing and a local reef expert's hanna checker. We couldn't believe our eyes.
Here is the absolute bananas tank.
55 Gallon. Call the size police.
Call the fish police now. These fish have been together since they were little kids probably. Thats what the incompetent owner told me last November. These fish Show zero aggression, zero fin nipping or ramming or anything I recognize other than the marron clown trying to guard 7 BTA all at once. They eat at least a cube of frozen mysis or omega one and a sheet of nori every day. Hippo tang eats tons of meat, go figure. Sometimes I throw in grocery store clams and random freshwater fish food or turtle pellets I have sitting around. Sometimes I forget a day.
I don't measure any food I just throw and go.
I keep many African cichlids and kind of applied some of that anger management.
It's like they understand the pecking order. Until they don't and I have a murder scene I guess?
Here we go;
Blue spotted puffer, best fish I've ever had the pleasure of owning. Truly personable, eats from my hands and never bites (hard). His teeth are long so I try to give him clams and sometimes just let him gnaw on a rock I'm holding.
Maroon Clown, every fish is different. There are exceptions to every rule. Just look at cichlids like Oscars. Some are sweethearts and others are murder machines. Yes there are many mean maroon clowns. Now move on.
Niger trigger, still like 3 inches long, always observe for aggression. Likes to wedge under surpieimgly small rocks. I've gone looking for his carcass on the floor more than once.
Hippo tang - yes I know, needs a 40 foot long tank with enough space to turn around a semi trailer. It is happy and eats so much side by side with all the other fish. Swims a lot. It's territory from day one is behind the canister intake. Everyone leaves her alone.
Lawnmower blenny - looks like a retired general with bushy eyebrows. Eats surface algae all the time. You can see mouth marks all along the glass from where he scrapes it. Fish hickie?
Engineer goby - this is why we can't have nice things. Do you like your sand bed? Wrong. This fish has a better idea. Just let him do his thing and he eventually stops dicking everything up. He uses his eel like body and mouth the whip around and rearrange sand , mostly nocturnal. Looks like some kind of spotted eel. 9 inches long now.
7 bubble tip anenomes that I cannot kill no matter what I do. A guy gave me the first 3 for 10 bux. They will eat random crab legs sometimes. I learned that by accident. I use a turkey baster and blast some frozen food into them when I'm bored.
It's cool watching them split. One is the entire depth of tank now so 12 inches.
Random CUC, urchins and stuff I don't know whatever the puffer doesn't murder. Maybe some emerald crab or sand stars.
I explored at night with a flashlight and saw what I assume are zillions of copepods and other little shrimpies.
2 x 65 w Nicrew lights 100% blue and UV 12 hours a day. Minimal r,g,w.
maybe 20 lbs live rock. I got some from random different people for free. Sometimes I had to let it die to kill aiptasia.
Eliminated all aiptasia fingers crossed.
I glued together some dry rock and called it an aquascape. That all encrusted with stuff. Some tufty looking algae appears sometimes I'm guessing from phosphates and I pick it off with my fingers sometimes when I'm bored.
fx4 canister filter packed full with nothing but nylon potscrubbers and a small sachet of carbon and fluval brand powdered rusty nails (aka ferric oxide) . I left the main 25 ppi foam pads. Nothing finer than 25ppi. When I cleaned the filter that time I saw what looked like dozens of sponges, tunicates and other stuff.
Zero protein skimmer or any mechanical filtration. Filter floss is annoying. Polyfil is annoying. Filter socks smell because I will never remeber to empty it. I cleaned the canister once I think in December when I threw away all the bio balls and whatever the guy had. I kept the main sponges and only lightly swished in tank water. I might clean it in 6 months or if it stops flowing.
2 strong power heads some guy gave me.
I sometimes do like a 3-5 gallon water change depending on how strong I'm feeling. Maybe like every 2 weeks?
Instant ocean reef crystals,
35ppm probably. I use a swing arm and never calibrate my refract since I got it. I think I made my own calibration solution right? The local reef expert confirmed my solution, this batch anyway is 35ppm . Thanks Randy.
The corals I had looked like crap and faded. GSP died first. Duncans and monti caps did ok. Those are awesome in their own aio but that's another story.
Zero nitrates. High phosphates the guy said, I forget what exactly. He said stop using the iron oxide.
But where and why and how is this a thing?
Is there any more info I can provide?
Can anyone postulate or offer any clues?
Don't worry guys. I plan on having a 180+ 6foot+ tank with a sump plumbed to my basement before the end of the year.
It just takes some financial planning and the approval of certain uh marital stakeholders. Ya never know when you might hear about s tank teardown or FB deal or local clubs.
I swear the following is true to my best account.
I somehow have zero nitrates....confirmed by my sailfert testing and a local reef expert's hanna checker. We couldn't believe our eyes.
Here is the absolute bananas tank.
55 Gallon. Call the size police.
Call the fish police now. These fish have been together since they were little kids probably. Thats what the incompetent owner told me last November. These fish Show zero aggression, zero fin nipping or ramming or anything I recognize other than the marron clown trying to guard 7 BTA all at once. They eat at least a cube of frozen mysis or omega one and a sheet of nori every day. Hippo tang eats tons of meat, go figure. Sometimes I throw in grocery store clams and random freshwater fish food or turtle pellets I have sitting around. Sometimes I forget a day.
I don't measure any food I just throw and go.
I keep many African cichlids and kind of applied some of that anger management.
It's like they understand the pecking order. Until they don't and I have a murder scene I guess?
Here we go;
Blue spotted puffer, best fish I've ever had the pleasure of owning. Truly personable, eats from my hands and never bites (hard). His teeth are long so I try to give him clams and sometimes just let him gnaw on a rock I'm holding.
Maroon Clown, every fish is different. There are exceptions to every rule. Just look at cichlids like Oscars. Some are sweethearts and others are murder machines. Yes there are many mean maroon clowns. Now move on.
Niger trigger, still like 3 inches long, always observe for aggression. Likes to wedge under surpieimgly small rocks. I've gone looking for his carcass on the floor more than once.
Hippo tang - yes I know, needs a 40 foot long tank with enough space to turn around a semi trailer. It is happy and eats so much side by side with all the other fish. Swims a lot. It's territory from day one is behind the canister intake. Everyone leaves her alone.
Lawnmower blenny - looks like a retired general with bushy eyebrows. Eats surface algae all the time. You can see mouth marks all along the glass from where he scrapes it. Fish hickie?
Engineer goby - this is why we can't have nice things. Do you like your sand bed? Wrong. This fish has a better idea. Just let him do his thing and he eventually stops dicking everything up. He uses his eel like body and mouth the whip around and rearrange sand , mostly nocturnal. Looks like some kind of spotted eel. 9 inches long now.
7 bubble tip anenomes that I cannot kill no matter what I do. A guy gave me the first 3 for 10 bux. They will eat random crab legs sometimes. I learned that by accident. I use a turkey baster and blast some frozen food into them when I'm bored.
It's cool watching them split. One is the entire depth of tank now so 12 inches.
Random CUC, urchins and stuff I don't know whatever the puffer doesn't murder. Maybe some emerald crab or sand stars.
I explored at night with a flashlight and saw what I assume are zillions of copepods and other little shrimpies.
2 x 65 w Nicrew lights 100% blue and UV 12 hours a day. Minimal r,g,w.
maybe 20 lbs live rock. I got some from random different people for free. Sometimes I had to let it die to kill aiptasia.
Eliminated all aiptasia fingers crossed.
I glued together some dry rock and called it an aquascape. That all encrusted with stuff. Some tufty looking algae appears sometimes I'm guessing from phosphates and I pick it off with my fingers sometimes when I'm bored.
fx4 canister filter packed full with nothing but nylon potscrubbers and a small sachet of carbon and fluval brand powdered rusty nails (aka ferric oxide) . I left the main 25 ppi foam pads. Nothing finer than 25ppi. When I cleaned the filter that time I saw what looked like dozens of sponges, tunicates and other stuff.
Zero protein skimmer or any mechanical filtration. Filter floss is annoying. Polyfil is annoying. Filter socks smell because I will never remeber to empty it. I cleaned the canister once I think in December when I threw away all the bio balls and whatever the guy had. I kept the main sponges and only lightly swished in tank water. I might clean it in 6 months or if it stops flowing.
2 strong power heads some guy gave me.
I sometimes do like a 3-5 gallon water change depending on how strong I'm feeling. Maybe like every 2 weeks?
Instant ocean reef crystals,
35ppm probably. I use a swing arm and never calibrate my refract since I got it. I think I made my own calibration solution right? The local reef expert confirmed my solution, this batch anyway is 35ppm . Thanks Randy.
The corals I had looked like crap and faded. GSP died first. Duncans and monti caps did ok. Those are awesome in their own aio but that's another story.
Zero nitrates. High phosphates the guy said, I forget what exactly. He said stop using the iron oxide.
But where and why and how is this a thing?
Is there any more info I can provide?
Can anyone postulate or offer any clues?
Don't worry guys. I plan on having a 180+ 6foot+ tank with a sump plumbed to my basement before the end of the year.
It just takes some financial planning and the approval of certain uh marital stakeholders. Ya never know when you might hear about s tank teardown or FB deal or local clubs.
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