Kyle's Reef

[Kyl]

Got the exhaust fan wired up and running, whisper quiet, success. I would have rather had a brushed aluminum front, not black, but there weren't colour choices. Not sure if I need to do an intake in a large push-pull or not, I figure there should be enough gap space to pull air into the sump anyway. This was easy enough though that I am probably going to do as mused earlier and come up with a bracket mount to do evaporative cooling for the summer, possibly mounted in the T5 fixture if there is room.


exhaust_fan1 by Kyl, on Flickr


exhaust_fan2 by Kyl, on Flickr

Now for the opposite of success. I set out last evening to get some of the T5 brackets done, and when it came time to mount the first screw / nut, there were only about three threads going into the nylock I was using. Completely forgot about thread loss with 1/8" channel use, and it doesn't feel safe to suspend all this by four nuts with three threads in them. Tried to brainstorm a work-around last night for a few hours after, and the only thing I could come up with is using some M5 stand-offs or bolt couplers. Going to see what Aquaticlife comes back with first, but I did come across knurled thumb nuts like the ones used on my 3D printer bed and that may actually work out the best.

So, barring something else, the new plan is to order these in and enlarge the bracket hole to 10mm, matching the threaded body diameter, and letting the top of the nut hang the fixture down approximately 8mm. This would screw down fully just like the hanging kit wire nuts for the fixture, and be easy enough to remove without requiring the sliding rail to be un-bolted.

Since that will probably be at least a week wait as no one stocks these locally, the main priority now is to get the electronics finally mounted..

 

[Kyl]

So I picked up a small tuxedo urchin and blue linckia starfish that are in the frag tank a few days ago. I have to say, I was hoping the urchin would somewhat deal with the GHA in the frag tank, but oh man, it is going NUTS on the stuff!. The Eheim heater was covered in GHA, and in two days it's almost completely been eaten by the urchin. Can't wait until the little urchin discovers the clam rocks, it's nice to see an invert that can deal with this stuff versus having to rely on a fish or chemical media to get it done. Long-term this tank is to be fallow of fish so the proper coral QT can be done, and I'm still on the hunt for some interesting inverts to keep it somewhat display worthy. Thinking about a coral banded shrimp as well, as I remember seeing them as a kid and it's always stuck with me how neat they are.

Health wise most of the acro frags are now encrusting onto the plugs, though one of the red ones is losing quite a bit of colour. The rest of the tank has had zero losses, and the alk consumption is slowly increasing so things are going well. There are still fish in it for the moment, and probably another flasher wrasse added this weekend. Once they're all out, the 76 day timer will start and then eventually everything can start hitting the DT.

DT wise the skirt for the ATO / control cabinet is done and glue drying, the A160 brackets for the Aquaticlife T5 fixture arrived and I'm hoping the mounting solution can be done within a month. I've seen positive results with the T5's added to the frag tank, and I'm hoping it really super-charges the DT for optimal growth. Some focus was given to getting my 3D printer back online after an 8 month hiatus, I plan on printing some custom lid brackets to in-set the top, and give cable exit points for the gyres and SW-4 control cords. Some more power brick brackets are also on the menu, again I think the two hobbies are a good match for each-other with all these little problems that can be solved come up. The other upgrade coming soon is a diffuser cover for the 7" filter sock entry to get rid of the water trickle noise. The tank builder is now doing full acrylic work with their new CNC machine, so I'm going to get a couple of the diffusers made, and going to see about getting some smoked overflow covers done as well. The other thought after seeing the nice frag racks the acropora guy had was getting some made. He had a really good method using the round clear acryli rod as posts, but they just friction-fit into a second piece of round acrylic joined to the bottom of his racks, so the height could be changed depending on needs.

Finally for livestock, the Tailspot is still doing great. Its eyes seem to be fully healed now, and it's happily swimming around while picking at the rock algae and eating mysis like a pig. Everyone else is getting along, the two conch's are doing a great job with the sand and the cheato is finally starting to grow as the nutrients have hit a steady input. Tank is up to about 10ml of 2-part per day now, it started at 6ml a couple weeks ago, so the uptake is definitely happening now

 

[Kyl]

So the Blue Star leopard continues to do well in the final stages of QT. It's been in the fusion 20 for post-copper observation and aside from hiding the first few days, she's been eating very well, and pretty much everything. That tank is also full of pods from being fish fallow for a couple of months, and I've noticed her going to town on the visible glass ones. I'm going to keep her there for a couple more weeks just to be 100% sure since she was flashing before copper, and to get used to flow in the display. The nano still has a MP10, so it's been running on low speed, constant, but going to ramp it up this week.


observation_leopard by Kyl, on Flickr

I also picked up some rockflower babies this weekend, four of them and the seller threw in a couple of plain colour morphs as well. They're in the frag tank in a small plastic container to keep safe, and I was told to just put some rock rubble in there for them to attach to. So far they're looking very well, and tonight they each ate a 1mm PE mysis pellet. I'm going to be feeding these guys almost daily, and the feeding response is very different than the RBTA in my display. Almost like a venus fly trap, super quick to fold their mantle up and close on the food. The pictures aren't great, they're under T5 blue+ at the edge of the tank to start with, so somewhat low par and a difficult area to get any fluorescence out of.


rockflowers_1 by Kyl, on Flickr


rockflowers_2 by Kyl, on Flickr


rockflowers_3 by Kyl, on Flickr


rockflowers_4 by Kyl, on Flickr

 

[Kyl]

Nothing to really update over the last while. I've hit a bit of a rut with everything, be it the light fixture, to mounting the equipment controllers and Apex gear. The DT's brand new DOS unit had a faulty head, had to buy a replacement locally but the RMA one came so I have an "extra" just in case now. The sump is getting a nasty looking bacteria growth, I'm guessing piggybacking from the chaeto in the 65 gallon tank that has had cyano issues previously. None of this is visible in the DT, so as long as that nasty is in the refugium section, it's all good. What is starting to spread though is bubble algae, it's starting to collect everywhere. I had not seen a trace of it since dosing Vibrant a while ago while in the nano, but it's back! I do have three emerald crabs, in the frag tank, so eventually they'll make it over to the DT. For now I'm just going pick off any that is clumping in easy to access locations, then the crabs can feast in a few months. The chaeto is really stalling for growth, but I have noticed an improvement after dosing iron in both the DT and frag tank.


clams_n_frags by Kyl, on Flickr


acros by Kyl, on Flickr

The SPS in the DT is finally getting most of it's colour back, and the frag tank is on a similar course. I guess the extended stays at low 6 alk of the previous months while the dosers were not online contributed to that, as has been a lack of nitrates in testing both tanks. The DT is finally showing some traces of colour on the Red Sea nitrate kit, but the frag tank is still reading clear. Growth and polyp extension hasn't been impacted in the frag tank though, just colour loss.


RFA_babies by Kyl, on Flickr

The RFA babies are doing well, and all eating a single 1mm PE mysis pellet every three days or so. I can see why the seller gave me two of the grey ones, they're pretty bland looking but you never know!

The Blue Star leopard hasn't shown any signs of flashing since copper treatment, and she's been in the old fusion 20 for about a month now. I am waiting on the Hanna HR copper checker to come in (picking it up tomorrow), as it seems this is a real way to see therpautic levels of copper since I can't make the API test kit out worth beans. If the copper level tests above 1.6ppm, I'm going to feel comfortable putting the leopard in the DT this weekend. She is still eating everything, quite voraciously - pe mysis chunks, 1mm PE pellets, NLS small pellets, spirulina brine and LRS frenzy nano. I'm having to ration the LRS, it's not available in my province any longer, so it's the treat food now. Can't wait to see her zooming around the tank, just hope the social wrasse doesn't act like a jerk.

And to wrap up, the purple monticap is really taking on a weird growth pattern, while one of the tuxedo urchins in the frag tank has found a new, somewhat dangerous hat!


monti_growth by Kyl, on Flickr


top_hat by Kyl, on Flickr

 

[elisa h]

Looking great, I love the leopard wrasse. May I ask where you got the rock flower nems? I’ve been looking for some

 

[Kyl]

I'm in Canada, a local guy is breeding them for lack of a better word. They are about 10-15mm across when open.

These are the parents:

 

[Kyl]

So my Hanna HR copper checker came in on Friday, and I was hoping that the blue star leopard had gone through copper of at least 1.6ppm strength.. but testing has showed it was hovering around 1ppm - not therapeutic. There have been zero signs of flashing or anything, but as noted by others wrasses and the thick slime coat usually hide any symptoms better than others due to lower infection intensities - but are still carriers.

Going to have to juggle things around, as I need to move the fusion 20 to get my 20L QT's going again, but I don't want to move the leopard to just move it again and again as the tanks get online. I'm thinking of grabbing the lumber tomorrow and starting on my 20L stack stand, then when ready I can empty half or so of the water from the fusion 20 and physically move it and the stand out for a few hours. Need to get on that soon as it's holding up the timer on my frag "QT" tank, else I it will be fall before anything makes it's way over to the DT..

 

[Kyl]

QT stand is ready to be assembled, and I've never been so happy as to receive four thumb nuts from England that came today haha! While this is a stop-gap to see if Dave @ Aquaticlife can help out with longer slot screws, it is the piece I needed to get the fixture hung. Looks to be a very busy week, with QT stand prep and getting this fixture hung and then the tank can be blanketed with T5 goodness.

 

[revhtree]

A bit of eye-candy this update:

FTS_March_2018 by Kyl, on Flickr

Starting things off, I won't lie - it's kind of painful !

• 3 AL470533 AquaticLife Hybrid 16"/18" LED Bracket with 2.5" Round Opening $19.95 - $59.85

It is motivation though, as the A160 brackets for the T5 fixture will be here either Monday or Tuesday next week. There hasn't been any headway on the mounting system, still waiting on the milling machine to get operational, but this weekend it's going to be a DIY one to get the holes drilled and a non-sliding version mounted. There is still enough channel left to fabricate another two brackets to have slots, so the fixture could be used in the mean time until then. The goal is still a slotted system for a number of reasons, but it's something I can't rush since it won't be costing anything (versus $80+ in a shop).


aneomones by Kyl, on Flickr

Livestock wise the tank is doing much better since the alkalinity was raised back up and has been stable just above 8 dKH. The monti caps were very bleached but have shown some colour recovery over the past week, still nothing near when first introduced to the upgraded tank. The orange setosa is really taking off with growth, and the pink lemonade acropora has started to form new shoots up off the original two branches that survived the nano tank. There is a bit of recession with one of the frogspawns, it might just be too much flow, but I do see the sexy shrimp hanging on them and picking at them all the time so it may just be a foregone conclusion that they'll end up dead heads. The other casualty of the tank was the forestfire digi, it just started to lose tissue rapidly last week and was completely gone by Monday.

The remaining good news is the Tailspot blenny is out of QT and made its introduction to the DT. There has been zero aggression between it and the Midas, something I was hoping wouldn't be an issue even though they're different blenny types. He is actively combing at the new rock work and has made residence under the arch in a small crevice between the left side of the rocks. You can see the patches of white rock where he's been scraping the algae off, and is out and about in the tank pretty frequently. The other future star, the Blue Star leopard is now in the old nano tank. It's been sitting fallow, and without any rockwork, but full of sand and some coral skeletons since the rock and livestock was moved, and seems like a perfect tank to go into for a few weeks for observation to make sure the ich was taken care of with copper. Right away it burrowed, but was out when I got home this evening and is still eating like a pig. Small grade mysis, PE pellets (1mm), spirulina brine shrimp, LRS frenzy nano and even some of the new spectrum pellets are all readily eaten by it. I really hope it doesn't end up transitioning to male, given I lost the other female, that colouring is just spectacular and I can't wait to see it shimmer in and out of the light under those Kessils.

Here's what I get to look at every time I glance from my desk, and some other random shots

side_shot by Kyl, on Flickr



left_perspective by Kyl, on Flickr


misc by Kyl, on Flickr


toadstool by Kyl, on Flickr

And the BIG CHICKEN of the tank who keeps spitting sand all over everything!

BIG_CHICKEN by Kyl, on Flickr

Tank is looking awesome!

 

[Kyl]

Been some brown chicken brown cow taking place in the tank...


trochus_babies by Kyl, on Flickr

Trochus babies spotted! And also in the frag tank, looks to be the same size. I guess both tanks had spawn events around the same time, which is really neat as the tanks have never shared anything yet. Hope they keep going, it would be nice to have a regenerating supply of them

 

[Kyl]

So it's been busting the past week, the new QT rack is done, installed and one 20L is just starting up as of today. Going to let it run for a couple of days and then I hope to get the blue star leopard in that tank so I can finally de-comission the IM Fusion 20. The Fusion 10 was finally emptied and cleaned as well, hoping to package it up with a few accessories and get it sold. The 20 is going to remain in storage mode at least since I won't get near the value out of selling it that I've put into it. I also think it's a fantastic tank for starting down the planted freshwater shrimp route if I choose to go there in the future.

The light brackets have been drilled to accept the thumb nuts I picked up on ebay, and they sit very nicely in the extrusions. The milling machine is still not an option yet, so as noted it's going to be a fixed fixture, no sliding forward or backwards for now. The hardware stores didn't have the shorter, thicker bolts I was after for mounting both of the profiles together, but I'm going to hit the fastener store during the week and pick some up. Hoping to have the thing finally mounted next weekend, but things always seem to come up and get in the way around here.

Aside from noticing baby trochus snails in both the DT and frag system, the next bit of the update is a somber one. The tailspot blenny hasn't been seen for five days now, and I'm convinced it has passed and was cleaned up without a trace left behind. I'm now wondering if the eye issues were age related, or if that had a hand at the little guys demise I will be getting another tailspot when the LFS gets one, it was a wonderful little fish that added a lot of character to every tank iteration of the tank and also picked at algae growing on the rock work.

In better news I did get an email today for my greenbanded goby wait list request, but it wasn't to state they're finally in. The LFS did get in though some Red Head gobies (Elacatinus puncticulatus), and I am going to go take a look at them tomorrow. If they are that quirky little goby I've been after, I may pick up a pair of them, but still not sure. Have to keep in mind the tank isn't some limitless 200 gallon tank, but they seem to only get around 1.5-2" max in length.

In terms of new toys, someone locally was selling a BNIB Kessil H380 that they bought last year for a tank install that went south and was ultimately abandoned. I snagged it for 200 CAD, which is less than half price of new for any retailers up here. No warranty this way, but I did test it before I left his place and it was a visual inferno of purple-red-ness that was burned into my retinas for a bit. Going to wait to use it on the DT till the T5 fixture is mounted, I don't trust magnets for this even though they're rated for 35lbs of pull each. So the 380 can go on the DT with a huge refugium section (18x 18 x 9), and the H150R can go on the frag tank and blast the heck out of the fuge area in it. Given the frag "closet" stand has been dedicated fully to the frag system, I'm also probably going to replace the DIY 10gallon sump with a DIY 20L to better position the tank for running sockless and with a larger fuge. More water volume won't hurt either, and there's definitely room for it under there.

Finally the rock flowers are doing really well and eating PE mysis 1mm pellets every three days or so. I don't know if it's because they're very happy, or growth, but all of them look quite a bit larger than when I picked them up. My SPS frags are still pretty bleached, but all have a lot of polyp extension so I'm still trying to figure that one out. Not sure if it has to do with available nitrates, but the frag tank is still testing at zero. Alk has been stable and steady at 8.5 with the rest in-line, so it may just be a matter of time for more recovery.

 

[Kyl]

t5_hybrid_3 by Kyl, on Flickr


t5_hybrid_2 by Kyl, on Flickr


t5_hybrid_5 by Kyl, on Flickr


t5_hybrid_4 by Kyl, on Flickr

It's happening!

I finally got the T5 hybrid fixture mounted and running, what a chore. It's rough around the edges, and I'm considering it only a version 1 at this point versus my original design, but for now the most important thing is it's mounted, works and is safe. I didn't realize how much easier the tank is to access now with the Kessils higher up, another plus.

It's currently only going to run the T5's for an hour a day at my schedule peak so I don't blast everything to death, though the Kessils have been raised about 4" versus how low they were previously so the overall par in the tank will be lower. Going to increase that an hour a week until an 8 hour T5 photo period is attained. The bulbs are currently 2x ATI Blue +, 2x ATI True Actinic, so I need to play with the Kessils till I find that more blue look I usually run the tank at. I will say the tank is blanketed in lighty goodness when the T5's are on, so any future shadowing for the acros should be of zero concern.

It has been a good week, the mount is done, so I can now hard-mount the fuge light with one of the Kessil mount arms now. As well, the RFA's seem to be gaining size quite quickly, and for the tank the LFS just happened to get in some Tailspot Blennies again, so I've picked up one to replace the original that perished.

A good week, hopefully the trend continues.

 

[Kyl]

The curse continues. I purchased a Neptune AFS, and the screw to affix the bracket is missing from it. This his three pieces of hardware this year - the two skimmers with issues, and now this. The Redsea nitrate pro kit I also bought at the same time has a leaking A bottle, so that has to be replaced too. I really can't believe it, I must have been a fish monger in another life or something to get all this bad equipment karma haha.

The H380 is mounted and is not as blindingly bright as I had thought it would be. PH is staying at 8.2 during the night, though it's only on for four hours right now so it doesn't roast the little macroalgae there is currently.

The only other news, I got the call just a few minutes ago.. GREEN BANDED GOBIES ARE IN!
I can't believe it, they actually came in locally after over two years of searching! It may seem silly, but I think anyone that's had that sort of bucketlist fish finally come in will understand. Without something national like Liveaquaria to fall back on, it's been completely hit or miss trying to source a vendor in Canada, and one that doesn't want $50 per fish plus another $60 for shipping.

 

[Kyl]

greenbanded gobies_3 by Kyl, on Flickr


greenbanded gobies_2 by Kyl, on Flickr

 

[Kyl]

Heat.. it's going to be an issue for both tanks. Outside temperatures are slowly increasing and these T5 fixtures are obviously dumping more heat into the room, and directly into the water. I have left the frag tank with an 8 hour T5 photo period (2x 24W ATI Blue+), and it is already hovering near 80º F during the daytime with an ambient outside temperature of 20º C (~68º F). The DT with a two hour T5 period after work is currently rising .6º F in that time, and I can only imagine if a similar 8 hour period daily would also be driving the tank to near 80º F.

My solution has always been evaporative cooling, as it's both the easiest to implement, and the most practical. I don't have an AC unit, and leaving the windows open with the fans on all day while I'm at work is also out of the question. The only question at this point is how to go about wiring in the fans. Do I source out some more 24v and wire them into the second EB832 24v DC port, or just go with something that's already an out of the box solution. I have years of 120mm fan use from my PC watercooling days, so that form factor and noise profile is well known. Settling on 120mm for the sizing, and roughly 30 dBA for a noise profile, I lucked upon these AC Infinity fans on Amazon.ca that are 50CFM @ 30 dBA direct AC plug, or 20 - 70 CFM @ 16 - 38 dBA with their controller. I've since installed a single fan on the frag tank after work today and the temperatures have already stabilized back down to 78.2 (the turn-on point for the fan), but I will be ordering the dual fan kit to see if I can knock that temperature down while using a slower speed for complete silence. If that works out, it will be replicated on the DT - and there is a perfect amount of room left in the Aquaticlife T5 hybrid fixture to fit them.

The only problem with this solution is the requirement of an EB8 / EB832 / EB4 apex plug, and I'm already past maxed out for each tank. Still trying to figure that out, but I've put the feelers out locally to see if I can find a used EB4/8. While I had thought about going the 24v DC route again, the fans in that profile are not as easy to source, would require more DIY and aren't natively adjustable without further DIY. As well I can always make use of more Apex EB ports, so another bar just makes sense.

In livestock news, I believe the pink streak wrasse has passed away. I had seen no issue with it until one day it stopped being cryptically out and about, which was about four days ago. The social wrasse had never really shown any attention to it, nor any other tank mates, so I'm wondering if there is something more at play (after the loss of the Tailspot), or simply an age issue? Everyone else in the tank seems fine, so it is puzzling. The hard thing about these is if a fish does pass, by the time you notice the body is most likely already processed by the clean up crew. I've looked all over to make sure it didn't jump while the lid was off, but I haven't seen a Mr. crispy on the floor or behind the tank. I really liked that little wrasse, and had owned it for over two years. I'm hoping it was just age related, but we'll see..

The greenbanded gobies are so tiny, but also so spunky. Two of them most definitely do not like each-other and I have seen some physical altercations, but the largest of the four comes along and breaks them up quite quickly. I'm not sure if those are little males or females, or just such similar size that they are being aggressive, but so far there is no lasting physical damage. Feeding these guys is the real problem so far, they are only eating PE Calanus. Thankfully I have lots from the combo pack of PE Mysis I purchased last sale, but I'm hoping they can eventually progress to larger foods like the PE mysis pellets that everyone else eats. They're in the tank with the blue star leopard as the 20L system is running but I want to give it a solid time to get the biofilter established before it's filled with fish for copper. The gobies are so small though that I feel they will be the last ones going into the DT, and I may set up the 10 gallon IM fusion again solely for them to grow larger in after passing through quarantine. Once they get around 1.5" I'll move them to the DT, and hopefully by then they've settled whatever squabbles are going on . This video has some bad quality, but shows the little guys eating for the first time when I tried Calanus, or at least mostly eating.




The rest of the livestock is d0ing great, the frag tank acro frags and my DT montis are finally getting full colour back, and the chaeto in the DT is starting to take off under this H380 beast. I'm only running it for four hours at night so I don't nuke the cheato, but the mass is visibly quite a bit larger already, and the DT is still reading low phosphates (~.02), and zero nitrates. The only thing that's somewhat lacking are water changes, mostly due to space issues with all the junk I have going on in this place, but have to make a concerted effort to get back to at least 5g weekly.

 

[Kyl]

Did a dry run of the evaporative cooling mount in the T5 fixture for the summer, seems to be a perfect fit aside from the screw lengths that came with the fans. These are two of the 1225(D) AC Infinity fans mentioned above, and even running on low (inaudible) they push a lot of air. Just need to pick up some correct length flat head connector bolts. The fixture would really look slick if not for the cans sticking up, but what can you do.


coolingfan_1 by Kyl, on Flickr


coolingfan_3 by Kyl, on Flickr


coolingfan_2 by Kyl, on Flickr

Also changed the gyre programming to get some wave action going, hopefully not to create craters in the sand. Still holding out hope that apex support finally materializes without the icecap modules (not paying almost $400 to hook the gyres up), but for now I have them doing rotating pulse waves varying in intensity every two hours with a 10% alternation for an hour each between 11pm and 7am.

Both 20L QT tanks are now online, one has been seeded for almost a month so I can start moving the livestock out of the frag tank and allowing that to finally start ticking down for 76 days. I've had the darn clams in there since early January, had hoped to have them in the DT by now haha. All in all, things are on the up and up, and I've come to realize that's all you can really ask for in this hobby.

 

[Kyl]

A bit of time this weekend to work on the control cabinet finally. The idea is I can easily access the rear compartment where most of the wiring will be, and can hide the controllers that won't ever really need to be looked at. Planning on running the power bricks from under the cabinet as it's raised 4", but for now they're sitting in the back area. What's left to do is get some better sized extensions, move the EB832 over a bit to un-block the fan vent, and pick up an EB8 which will go right below the EB832. I've been short on outlets and having to use splitters for a while, so trying to find a used one locally.

The ATO is going to be run from a 5.5 gallon Aqueon tank for now, but I intend to get an acrylic one made which will be 16" x 13" x 11", which when filled will be about 9 gallons. I saw a guy locally that had his ATO set up with a combination acrylic float sensor / tunze pump mount, so I'm going to try and pick one of those up too. The great thing about this is if I need to monkey with the ATO resivoir at all, the dividing shelf just pulls right up and off since it's just an Ikea kitchen cabinet. I've mounted the DOS just behind the tank for now, it may eventually be put in the cabinet overhead, or just left as-is.

Some progress.


cabinet_1 by Kyl, on Flickr


cabinet_2 by Kyl, on Flickr


cabinet_3 by Kyl, on Flickr


cabinet_4 by Kyl, on Flickr

 

[Kyl]

Some ups, some downs.

Something has happened in one of the QT tanks, I've lost the royal gramma, one of the red-head gobies and the jawfish seems to be iffy, potentially on its way out. Copper only tested at 1.01 last night as I have been ramping it up .25ppm a day since Monday, and the tank had been sponge-seeded and running for a month since got the QT stand built. The other tank is doing fine with the blue star leopard, blue flasher and the greenbanded gobies. That tank is just below 1ppm, same copper, same original water but it should have less of an established bio-filter. Sucks, though the gramma body did look somewhat dusted so I'm wondering if velvet has been in the frag tank the whole time and the process of moving them last week triggered an immunity lapse, or they were just beating the hell out of each-other when I wasn't watching, leaning to the former. Everyone was eating well as of Wednesday, and the tailspot, neon goby, Springers damsel and remaining redhead goby look and are behaving normally. Both tanks have ammonia badges, both clear..

The frag tank proper is now it's original goal, coral and invert quarantine. T-minus 73 days left, most of the GHA is gone and it appears there is some slightly better colouration on the acros. The rockflower babies, some are measuring at over an inch now and I've continued to feed them a 1mm PE mysis pellet every 2-3 days, hoping that in 4-5 months they can be put in the DT without going down the overflow I've also been giving it thought and will be making a 20L into a sump for this tank to replace the current 10 gallon; both so I can have an easier time with the equipment (it's a bit cramped and facing the wrong way), and to account for better backflow volume from the tank with the return pump off. I'm going to continue keeping the system sockless, but might incorporate a bit of a floss trap just to catch some of the mulm that has stayed in the tank. I still have like three giant 10 foot rolls of floss from the nano tank, and given this is just a cheap 20L, the baffle it will be attached on can be removed later and there's no big loss. Some more water volume is also never a bad thing

The DT has been kept with a three hour T5 photo-period so far, increasing it by an hour every two weeks to eventually hit 8 hours. I've also pushed the Kessils to peak at 80%, slowly ramping them up to account for the height raise of about 4". The heat in the room has been an issue with the two fan setup, when it's over 25º C outside (78º F), the T5's can be run. I've since upped this to four of the fans and this seems to be the magic number, and they fit perfectly in the fixture. The frag tank is easily taken care of by two of the fans, and with one left I'm giving thought to putting an exhaust fan on the control cabinet to get some of that power brick heat out of there. With 6-7 bricks, it's quite toasty back there (Return, Gyre, Jebaos, 4x Kessil). As well, I'm working on designing / printing a multi-mount bracket for the bricks to keep them vertical and spaced to better help with both cooling and the rats nest of wiring.

Bubble algae is really starting to collect on some of the rocks, and especially on the gyres. They've also been adjusted to somewhat mimic @pelphrey 's settings for the day but keeping a low, hour long 10% constant change from left to right between 10pm and 10am. The sand doesn't blow around too much this way, and I get some better day time water movement to keep things happy. The other achievement is the tank hit 8.4 PH last night about an hour after the H380 turned on, the first time ever. The chaeto mass has easily doubled since installing the H380, just about a month from the size of a tennis ball to one of those mini basketballs. Finally I've ordered in some John Guest PP450821W fittings for the DOS head caps as the lines just won't stop getting air in them. Whatever the reason, the default compression fitting isn't working, so I'm going to mod one of the unit head caps since I have the spare and see if that helps out.

The what's left list is getting shorter, a lot of cosmetic things at this point. One thing I have been wondering about is culturing pods, reading up on a lot of the threads here, especially the one by @40B Knasty on tigger pods. Wondering how small a vessel can be to be viable, and ease of access. It would be nice to have a source of pods for nothing other than giving the fish and large polyp corals a treat, and I felt when my nano was teaming with pods the general health of the tank just felt a lot better (I know some of them prey on things like dinos). Since I already have spirulina powder on hand it seems they could be very easy to cultivate.

 

[Kyl]

So, only slight bad news this week! The smallest of the greenbanded gobies passed, I'm not sure if it was the copper or being the 1/2" runt of the four was the ultimate culprit, but the remaining three are doing stellar. Nothing else in QT is looking bad, both wrasses, the red-head goby, three greenbandeds and the springers damsel are all super active and eating with copper at around 1.71-1.75ppm.

Nitrates are finally detectable in both the DT and frag tank again, and I can tell because the monti caps in each are getting their colour back. Going to change out one of DT the actinic bulbs this weekend to see if I like the look of coral+ better (B+, C+, A, B+), but otherwise it will be one of the calmer weekends. I did start up a culture of Tigriopus californicus (Tigger) pods, right now it's in a 2.5 gallon tank with an air bubbler and some spirulina algae. I went by a thread on this forum and it looks like that should work. Should I see success, it will probably get moved over to one of those 3 gallon plastic beverage dispensers as that seems to be a much better format. Kind of funny to watch them zip around in the water, at least the cat likes to watch them.

The final thing would be I'm trying to line up a few more acropora / sps sticks in general, trying to see what's somewhat hardy and available locally. Another say five or so acro/milli and some more encrusting montis would really set the tank up well for the fall.

 

[Kyl]