I received a box of rocks today.

[Victoria M]

all caught up. what a fun read! It is so fun to hear that your family enjoys the tank so much!

 

[Victoria M]

LOL. We live about 30 miles north of Manhattan (where I work), but our home is in a very green, old, tree covered neighborhood. The girls just love animals and playing outside. I grew up in the center of NY State in dairy country (ultra rural), so I love that they enjoy the farm.

Honestly, I would love to return to the rural life, but my career in live television pretty much requires our habitation near an urban center.

I want to visit NY someday. It sounds like you guys have the best of both worlds. The idea of commuting to work on a train just blows my mind. It sounds like we live in similiar neighborhoods though. But our "city" is about 20,000 people. But we live about 2 miles from the community hospital where I work. My husband works about 2 miles from our home too. 3 minute commute. We love it.

 

[NY_Caveman]

I want to visit NY someday. It sounds like you guys have the best of both worlds. The idea of commuting to work on a train just blows my mind. It sounds like we live in similiar neighborhoods though. But our "city" is about 20,000 people. But we live about 2 miles from the community hospital where I work. My husband works about 2 miles from our home too. 3 minute commute. We love it.

The train makes it easy. The opposite blows my mind, having a free place to park at a job! LOL.

NY is an amazing state. I have lived in a dairy town, Long Island, Manhattan and where I live now. There are tons of different areas that are worlds apart and I feel like I have enjoyed most of them.

 

[Victoria M]

The train makes it easy. The opposite blows my mind, having a free place to park at a job! LOL.

NY is an amazing state. I have lived in a dairy town, Long Island, Manhattan and where I live now. There are tons of different areas that are worlds apart and I feel like I have enjoyed most of them.

That is whatbis crazy about NY. Vastly different and intersting landscape.

 

[Monsinour]

Naw, all of New York State sucks. Stay away.

 

[NY_Caveman]

Naw, all of New York State sucks. Stay away.

LOL, perhaps your opinion, but I think there is something in this state for everyone.

 

[NY_Caveman]

Back to the aquarium. I returned home late last night from RI and the house was not flooded. I did not think it would be, but thought I was taking a chance going on vacation one week after setting up all of the equipment. The only thing that happened, that I expected, was the skimmer cup was full and sputtering a little.

Today, so far, I changed 10% of the water, eradicated two large Aiptasia and then finalized the aquascape.

It is much more sturdy and cleaner looking. I am very happy with it right now. I love the shapes and sizes and the way they flow together aesthically. I feel I accomplished almost exactly what I have been envisioning for the nine months leading up to this point.

Next I am heading to the LFS for some clean up crew. I will likely return with 4 Red Dwarf Hermits, 2 Trochus Snails and 4 Dwarf Cerith Snails. I will likely pick up a Peppermint Shrimp as well. Even though I got the two Aiptasia (outside of the tank with boiling water, destroying any possible offspring) I worry their may be more in this porous rock.

The next additions after that will be two Cleaner Shrimp and then the first fish, a Pink-Streaked Wrasse (if I can find one).

 

[._Z_.]

Great aquascape! I liked having shrimp, even when the little buggers would steal food from my LPS. Unfortunately my cleaner shrimp got sucked into a hole in the back plastic panel. Something to look out for

 

[NY_Caveman]

Great aquascape! I liked having shrimp, even when the little buggers would steal food from my LPS. Unfortunately my cleaner shrimp got sucked into a hole in the back plastic panel. Something to look out for

Thanks.

I saw that picture. So weird. I guess it was definitely not a molt.

 

[Monsinour]

LOL, perhaps your opinion, but I think there is something in this state for everyone.

I lived upstate for 15 years, it was the worst 15 years of my life.

No offense to you or any other person from NY, but in my career of talking to around 100 people per day, here is no more disrespectful "censorship is bad" in this country than those from NY. Downstate citidiots are the absolute worst.

As much as I hated living in TN, I would rather live in TN as opposed to NY. I am very happy here in OH and have no plans to move.

 

[NY_Caveman]

I tested some parameters last night, one week after adding the live rock.

NH3 = 0 ppm
NO3 = 2 ppm
PO4 = 0.49 ppm (160 ppb)
dKH = 8.6
pH = 7.8

pH is still lower than I would like. Nitrate and PO4 rose, doubling in a week which makes some sense from the new rock, but PO4 is still higher than I expected. I may test it again tonight to confirm.

I am still running with no lights but turned on the LEDs to take a couple of pictures. I think I am really going to like this SB Reef Lights 16” WiFi fixture.

Found some Palythoas on the live rock I bought. Not something I would have added (toxin prevention for my kids), but cool to see some coral in the tank.

I saw two more Aiptasia. These are on the rocks which I was curing, so these pests must be spreading from the added live rock.

I also saw the first Mojano. Pretty funny looking on a hermit actually.

As I mentioned I added a Peppermint Shrimp so hopefully he will get to work and I will not have to pull the rocks out again. I am really happy with the aquascape right now and it is very sturdy without any glue, rods or epoxy. I can probably pull the two in the pictures without too much trouble.

 

[NY_Caveman]

I pulled the right structure out today. I eradicated two large Aiptasia and three small Mojanos. It felt good to get them out. Pretty easy since it is mostly just rock in the tank and I can take them out to do it with a turkey baster and boiling water. Still, I hate having my hand in there working so much. I guess that is just part of a new build, but I would like to let it all sit and be stable.

Some might take this as a negative to live rock. I do not. Tons of life and biodiversity is why I would only use live rock. The bad can all be dealt with and lots of bad is a sign there is lots of good as well. Besides, things like pest anemones will eventually get introduced anyway.

Speaking of pests, I saw my crab last night. With some confirming opinions from this forum, I feel confident it is a Xanthid crab. The red eyes and antennae position seemed to indicate it to me. I kind of like him really (invertebrates are my favorite part of the reef). I left him in for now. I may regret it, but so far he has not bothered the hermits, Trochus or Peppermint Shrimp. He continues to come out every night and patrol the perimeter which is kind of cool. Just scurries along in the gap between the Starboard and the glass.

Last thing, I checked PO4 again last night with two different tests and it is higher still at 0.51. pH however was back up to 8.1. When the pH got down to the mid 7s I started thinking rock might start dissolving and releasing PO4. Perhaps that is why PO4 suddenly rose. Likely there was a little die off from the rock as well, so hopefully that will all stabilize soon. I will monitor closely.

 

[Retro Reefer]

Tank looks great! I’m also going with fresh live rock on my current build, on my last two tanks I used synthetic and had good results but just not the same as tanks I have set up with fresh harvested real live rock.. I’m not sure how much of your rock you boiled but remember your killing off lots of the “good” stuff from the boiling process, also make sure your doing it in a well ventilated area.. following along

 

[Fudsey]

Tank looks great! I’m also going with fresh live rock on my current build, on my last two tanks I used synthetic and had good results but just not the same as tanks I have set up with fresh harvested real live rock.. I’m not sure how much of your rock you boiled but remember your killing off lots of the “good” stuff from the boiling process, also make sure your doing it in a well ventilated area.. following along

I do believe @NY_Caveman is just squirting the aiptasia with a syringe of boiling water, not boiling the rock itself.

 

[Retro Reefer]

I do believe @NY_Caveman is just squirting the aiptasia with a syringe of boiling water, not boiling the rock itself.

I must have missed that part, a syringe makes much more sense.. it’s the one part of fresh rock I’m not looking forward to but I will be laying mine out across a bare bottom tank lights out for a couple months and hopefully I’ll be able to eradicate or catch any pest and unwanted critters.

 

[NY_Caveman]

Tank looks great!

Thank you!

I’m not sure how much of your rock you boiled but remember your killing off lots of the “good” stuff from the boiling process, also make sure your doing it in a well ventilated area.. following along

I do believe @NY_Caveman is just squirting the aiptasia with a syringe of boiling water, not boiling the rock itself.

@Fudsey is correct. Carefully with a turkey baster outside of the tank. I edited my earlier post to avoid confusion. One of the rocks came with some Palythoa so I held it at an angle and shot slowly, away from them. I would definitely never boil even dry rock myself for fear the porosity would lead to exploding rock.

 

[NY_Caveman]

This was a long weekend. We basically moved within our own home. Wife and I moved downstairs and the kids split into two rooms. We still have some small things to do, but we were impressed by what the two of us accomplished.

Homeowners out there will understand this. It is often two steps forward, one step back. Despite all our positive work, we had two random negatives in our home this weekend. First, we had a breaker failure on the new kitchen. Upon investigation, the electrician “forgot” to connect the ground on one of the duplex arc breakers. Yikes! No fire, but we lost the fridge, stove and microwave for two days. This has been fixed.

Secondly, our air conditioner failed this morning. Called our HVAC person and he has moved to Florida. Crap. Working on finding someone new. Hottest day of the week of course.

“Hey Caveman, this is a reefing forum!”

Oh yeah, the tank. Not much going on there. Everything is just sitting and maturing as expected. Only change is I started running the lights maxing blues at 10% and whites at 5%. After 10 days of ambient only, and seeing all of the life and coralline on the live rock, I felt a small amount of light would be beneficial.

The hermits and snails are still cruising around happy. The Peppermint Shrimp is typically hiding, but I have seen him twice in 5 days, so he is doing well I presume. I eradicated two additional Mojanos, but have not seen any more of them or Aiptasia in 24 hours.

Sort of top down shot

 

[Fudsey]

I had some purple coralline on my Koralia pumps and it turned orange without light.... Now it's starting to turn some other color now that it's back under lights for 7 weeks.

 

[NY_Caveman]

I had some purple coralline on my Koralia pumps and it turned orange without light.... Now it's starting to turn some other color now that it's back under lights for 7 weeks.

I have seen that turning orange before. On this live rock there is tons of thick purple and pink with a few spots of orange and green. I am so impressed by it. Worth a few pests for sure.

 

[samnaz]

I have seen that turning orange before. On this live rock there is tons of thick purple an pink with a few spots of orange and green. I am so impressed by it. Worth a few pests for sure.

Live rock is always worth it IME.