Fishroom Reality Check

[Victoria M]

That is sooo cool. I could hear her in the back ground of the last video but I was not sure it she was excited about the shrimp or something else. That is so wonderful that she loves your tank too.

 

[NY_Caveman]

That is awesome!

 

[User]

So- I put Santos the yellow tang (still going with the WestWing naming structure...[emoji52]) into the DT today. My QTs are salinity and temp matched to the DT, so the basic procedure is to drain off 2 gallons from the sump into a 5 gal bucket, scoop the fish from the QT using a big square colander, walk upstairs, scoop out of bucket, add to DT, pour the 2 gallons down the toilet, back downstairs, add 2 gallons freshly made water to sump to return the water level to normal.

3 minutes after I put her in, MJF bolted under a rock and went BLACK. That lasted for 20 minutes, then she put her sleeping colours on, but stayed in the rocks. She’s been there 5 hours at this point.

Didn’t expect the mag Foxface to have such a crazy reaction. YT seems to be doing fine, still a little shy of human movement, but swimming around pretty happy. Going to up my feedings to get her weight up a bit, maybe introduce the PT in 5-7 days. Depending on how MJF gets over this ordeal.

Also got a bit of a Cyanobacteria outbreak in the sump. A light dusting over most of the sand in the DT but the sump is crazy considering this is a week and a bit ago-

Today-

Was going to order some liquid Chemiclean, but then saw the threads on hydrogen peroxide dosing. Cant work out if it’s lysmata shrimp safe, and the 10-14 day dosing makes me a bit nervous, considering h2o2 half life is like 9 hours at the dilutions used. Something just isn’t computing in my brain, trying to correlate the concentrations used with the proposed bacteriocidal effect. More data needed.

 

[User]

This happened... couple days ago, alongside s bunch of family crap that I’m just now getting out from under. Nothing bad, but had to focus on it for a bit. Planning on getting the cyano treatment done this week, then a big update towards the weekend

Thanks to the regulars for continuing to watch, and comment. Very much appreciated

 

[Dubs83]

This happened... couple days ago, alongside s bunch of family crap that I’m just now getting out from under. Nothing bad, but had to focus on it for a bit. Planning on getting the cyano treatment done this week, then a big update towards the weekend

Thanks to the regulars for continuing to watch, and comment. Very much appreciated

Ah! The PT looks so friggen good!

PS- by family stuff you mean your new found passion for lawns [emoji6]

 

[User]

No- I mean my wife’s Mega- promotion coming with a stipulation we move to Boston...

Nipped that in the bud but it took a couple days of convincing them. And a sick baby, and a sick dog, and our car crapping out right at 22 years old and 180k miles.

So yeah, one of those weeks.

But I did throw down 30 lbs of 30-0-3 0.38% prodiamine on my 10k sqft, and 2 bottles of post emergent spectracide on hose end sprayer. That puts my N2 @ 0.9lbs/1000ft, so I’ll need to drop my milorganite a touch in 3 weeks.

 

[User]

Zero remaining HLLE on the PT btw.

Just a touch dull but colour getting better daily

 

[Victoria M]

The tangs look amazing!
So your wife is not getting the promotion or getting the promotion but not moving to Boston?

 

[User]

The tangs look amazing!
So your wife is not getting the promotion or getting the promotion but not moving to Boston?

She got the promotion and we don’t have to move. She’s been killing it at that job for two years, and the brand new chief medical officer came on board 2 weeks ago, saw her file, fired 2 other people and roled their jobs into 1 and gave it to Katie. It’s management, doing US side as Director of Medical Development. Argued that she is 30 minutes from the biggest air hub in the world and can be anywhere in US in 6- 12 hours if needed.

Less travel, but now doing 65-70 hours a week from home office. More important than ever to get the stand frame out and finished done.

 

[User]

The tangs look amazing!
So your wife is not getting the promotion or getting the promotion but not moving to Boston?

YT is a little thin, so I’m going to dose spectracide to increase nitrates so I get some organic free range GHA going for her to graze on. She takes nori, frozen and pellets but doesn’t seem to want to put on weight.

The PT is just stunning when the light catches it just right. Beautiful markings.

 

[mmw64]

Can you guess which room has the tank?

Nice home!

 

[mmw64]

So, figured I’d do a quick update on the pistol shrimp situation...

He molted a few days ago, and I finally got the time to get him in the DT. I run my QTs at the same water parameters as my DT, so its a pretty easy transfer.

What I didn’t want to do was just drop him in then watch him scurry off to a cave on the opposite end of the tank from his buddy, the Randall’s Goby, Toby.

So what I did was get a fluorescent bulb protector tube - 1.25” diameter, thin walled clear plastic tube 4’ long - from HD for $4 and cut a little door in one end. Then I placed it down into the tank with the door facing the preferred cave, but pushed under the sand a touch.

Then I sent the shrimp down the tube, and let him sit in front of the cave for a couple minutes until Toby popped his head out and they saw each other. Slowly retracted the tube, revealing the door- and shrimpy just swam right into the cave.

He then proceeded to quickly dig out a rear entrance to the cave, and blocked up the front door- so now Toby is using the hidden entrance and I don’t get my views anymore.

Plus, after that first couple hours- Randal is now MIA, and no new sand piles anywhere.

***

Great idea. Wish I had done that. I have the Goby at one end of the tank and the shrimp at the other! Never see the shrimp but hear him whenever something gets close to his space.

 

[mmw64]

YAY!!!!

I love that!

 

[User]

Nice home!

Thanks!

It sounds crazy, but we are paying less now for the mortgage than we were for rent in California, and our first two years in TN. We went from 2bed 1 bath 400sqft in the heart of Silicone Valley to building our own ‘kit’ 4 bed two bath 1100 sqft in Nashville and dropped $90 of our monthly housing bill. Then we found this place, 3 bed, 2 bath- since converted to 5 bed 3.5 bath - 2800sqft with a full basement and 0.5 acre, and we pay 2/3rds what we did in CA. Trade-off is I can’t find work in my field since we are kinda out in the sticks a bit, and I refuse to commute 15 hours a week, but SAHD and house upkeep keep me super busy.

We plan to die in this house and pass it down to our daughters. Literally, probably going to have a coronary maintaining the yard. Ours is probably the last generation that’s going to be able to buy this sized property as a private citizen- overpopulation and urban sprawl is going to wipe out these kinds of neighborhoods. It’s a good feeling thinking we can bring our daughters up surrounded by some natural beauty before it’s all too far gone.

 

[User]

I love that!

Me too, but I haven’t seen either of them in like 5 days. Getting a little anxious.

 

[User]

Got kelp?

Ignore the white spots. It’s some sort of tiny little ‘sumthing’ on the glass. Not on the fish. Ive been meaning to bust out my scope to check them out but I’ve been busy. I’m devoting ALL of Monday to tank stuff (starting a chemiclean treatment for cyano tomorrow, and Monday is 25% WC day... that’s 75 gallons to those counting) so I’m going to finally get a look. I did see two of them ‘hatch’ and release a tiny worm, so it’s kinda funky.

 

[User]

Went to start my liquid chemiclean application today, only to find its full of some bacterial biofilm junk all over the inside of the lid and floating in the liquid. Glad I dispensed it out first so I could apply with a syringe instead of straight from the bottle

Inquiries to the manufacturer have gone unanswered- including a live chat with a person at Chemipure Facebook page, which went dead the second I mentioned a problem- and not getting much traction on a post in the forum, so I’ve submitted a return ticket with amazon and ordered the powder instead. It’ll be here tomorrow, so I’m going to start it then once the girls take their nap.

I have 3 air pumps and stones going, I have my empty reactors pumping water from about 8” high creating lots of bubbles and turbulence, and my fuge input is dropping 3” creating more. Think I’ve got the ‘extra aeration’ requirement suitably handled.

And a little cultural reinforcement in the ‘hood

Any of y’all know that sidewalk chalk doesn’t actually wash off of garage door paint? Who knew, lol!!

 

[User]

[emoji20][emoji3525][emoji20]

 

[User]

Started chemiclean treatment today. Here’s what I’m up against

main stuff in the sump.

In DT:

I performed manual removal of about 1/2 by siphoning out 7 gallons of the reddest stinkiest water.

At this point my phone went nuts with a tornado WARNING, which means we actually had a funnel on the ground. we evacced to our tornado area (woefully unprepared - I have work to do) and waited it out for 45 minutes. It passed us by, 2.25 miles away to our north. Close call.

Once maintenance resumed, I then replaced the removed volume with 6 gallons of NSW. To the last gallon, I added the chemiclean powder.

Instructions state ‘1 scoop per 10 gallons’. Yeah, no- that doesn’t work for me.

I measured out 1 scoop, and got 58mg. Then I did 4 more measurements and averaged out at 57.5mg per scoop.

I estimate total system water volume at 260 gallons therefore 26 scoops required. 26x57.5mg = 1495mg, or 1.5g with a tiny round up.

I measured this amount into the last gallon, mixed it all up, then poured it into the tank.


I have 3 air pumps and stones, and a couple other sources of extra aeration. My skimmer had to be dialed way back, and raised 6 inches before it would stop overflowing the cup. Im keeping it going for the aeration mainly.

All inhabitants look fine at this point, but the water has a pink tinge to it and I definitely see fine granular particles in the water column, abd some micro bubbles.

Now I need to wait 48 hours and do a big water change.

 

[Victoria M]

[emoji20][emoji3525][emoji20]

Oh no!