Fishroom Reality Check

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It’s not plagiarism if you are the one you are copying, right?

From another post- thought I’d update here too

>>

I’ve been distracted with the current heatwave killing my lawn, that I just spent 6 weeks fertilising and prepping for my girls third birthday party, only for it to die in 4 days as we hit a run of >95of temps and no rain for a month. We have a watering ordinance that’s inadequate and it’s killing our grass.

Also- coral QT woes. GHA, clumsy crabs (little jerks have been eating my gsp instead of the GHA right next to it), too much flow, too little flow, plus I need to separate the nem away from potential hatching velvet cysts so I’m waiting for another light and temp controller. Then her 16 days timer can start.

Add to that conflicting advice re: Chrysophytes and a couple of logistical issues with dosing and algae cleaning. I measured out my GFO for the silicate removal and it’s literally half a medium BRS container. Also conflicting advice regarding phosphates, which has me super frustrated. I’m hoping to reduce to 0.075 (from 0.4!) but a handful of people are telling me that 0.3 is the best target. I do need to dose my stump killer, but I’m waiting on my test kit. I don’t dose blind.

Katie is traveling tomorrow through Tuesday and I won’t have support other than 1 night. Steeling myself for that.
 
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51902aeda852189879b316bac1d6c0da.jpg
 
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So, today, I found myself with a few free hours, with no yard or house chores to do. I finalized a couple things for my girls birthday party on June 29th, then tackled a few projects in the fishroom.

1) Did you know that if you upcycle your old pantry door and use it in your fishroom, and that door used to have stupid screw in spice racks on it, and you *neglect* to fill in the screw holes and seal it, mold will start to use the glue in the MDF as a food source? Now, I’m a microbiology guy, and while the fractal patterns of hyphae growth coming out of the holes and spreading over the door *are really cool*, it’s not the look I’m going for.

Door replaced. With the one from my walk in closet. I own 4 pairs of jeans and 7 tee-shirts- we use it for luggage storage. All I had to do was flip the hinges and, presto!- new fish room door, sans the lung disease.

2) rehung the leds over the DT. They were a little too far back and it left the living room side at a lux disadvantage. I used superstrut as a hanger and pushed them 4 inches back. Looks way better.

3) I like this one. @Victoria M and @Dubs83 might too. Ive had this one on the to-do list since February- all the pieces were around, I just needed the time and activation energy.

Going from this-

1ad8c72c04be494e843150495594564e.jpg


To this-

cae3c8357c14a2cc970c8d31029a47eb.jpg


Lol[emoji51][emoji51][emoji51][emoji51][emoji51]

I eventually want to have a number of dragonets- a green spotted (or two) a ruby red, abd a scooter blenny. Of course- they are going to need a healthy pod population to sustain them.


I originally planned to use 5 gallon tanks, but couldn’t get over the fact they were the same price as a 10g... especially when I happened to walk past these square 5 gallon containers, made out of food grade PP, at target for $3 each. So I snagged a couple and a couple extra lids.

https://www.ezystorage.com/product/storage/karton/16l-karton-storage-container/

Pods need hiding spaces. Here’s some synthetic chaetomorpha I picked up at the dollar store.

6a7b8f71ab4664a721b3dbdd1d14c677.jpg


Some work on the lids. This makes each pod ball individually removeable. Idea is to grab one of these and shake it out into the DT once a week. Two week period for each scrubber gives time for repopulation.


571600ec39c52c67c57fd67fdb1f9f99.jpg


d13d76e825fa28f0ecb5537b99f05bf5.jpg


I also added a rigid airline connected to an air pump to add some small amount of circulation. I’ve read that this is t needed for the pods, but the algae I’m using to feed them- Nannochloropsis- is a non-motile single cell that is like to keep in suspension, rather than have it all clump at the bottom.


Then I filled it with 3.5g of NSW at 1.023, and greened up the water with a big dose of algae culture. I used about 750ml.

54e786332442989a4195ac0732082976.jpg
4e5f6ebcce8e72a2bc465c63247bbf86.jpg


Now the pods! I bought a bottle of Tigger Pods from the LFS in January- due to an employee at a different store gifting my 2 year old a scooter blenny that wouldn’t take any food- I ended up using 90% in a failed attempt to get it through QT.

The last 10% of the bottle, I filled up with algae culture and have been growing this bottle since mid feb. I’d add half to DT, then top up with algae culture once every 6 weeks.

a8ea7a2b813f359216235b823a15453c.jpg


I dumped 2/3rds of this- including the ‘mulm’ in the bottom which contains microscopic pod larvae- into the big vessel, then added the last 1/3rd to a larger jar with algae culture. Kind of a safeguard against the big culture crashing. I’ll have a backup.

And that’s where we are at. T. californicus has a fairly quick maturation rate, around 30 days, and each female carries a large number of eggs. Once established, I should be able to harvest on the order of 10-15k pods every 3-4 weeks... given that the original bottle cost me $24 for 3850 pods, that’s pretty cool for about $50 of starter culture and equipment.

I have plans to grow a second species of copepod, but I’ll be trialing this for 4-6 weeks to iron out any kinks.
 
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So, today, I found myself with a few free hours, with no yard or house chores to do. I finalized a couple things for my girls birthday party on June 29th, then tackled a few projects in the fishroom.

1) Did you know that if you upcycle your old pantry door and use it in your fishroom, and that door used to have stupid screw in spice racks on it, and you *neglect* to fill in the screw holes and seal it, mold will start to use the glue in the MDF as a food source? Now, I’m a microbiology guy, and while the fractal patterns of hyphae growth coming out of the holes and spreading over the door *are really cool*, it’s not the look I’m going for.

Door replaced. With the one from my walk in closet. I own 4 pairs of jeans and 7 tee-shirts- we use it for luggage storage. All I had to do was flip the hinges and, presto!- new fish room door, sans the lung disease.

2) rehung the leds over the DT. They were a little too far back and it left the living room side at a lux disadvantage. I used superstrut as a hanger and pushed them 4 inches back. Looks way better.

3) I like this one. @Victoria M and @Dubs83 might too. Ive had this one on the to-do list since February- all the pieces were around, I just needed the time and activation energy.

Going from this-

1ad8c72c04be494e843150495594564e.jpg


To this-

cae3c8357c14a2cc970c8d31029a47eb.jpg


Lol[emoji51][emoji51][emoji51][emoji51][emoji51]

I eventually want to have a number of dragonets- a green spotted (or two) a ruby red, abd a scooter blenny. Of course- they are going to need a healthy pod population to sustain them.


I originally planned to use 5 gallon tanks, but couldn’t get over the fact they were the same price as a 10g... especially when I happened to walk past these square 5 gallon containers, made out of food grade PP, at target for $3 each. So I snagged a couple and a couple extra lids.

https://www.ezystorage.com/product/storage/karton/16l-karton-storage-container/

Pods need hiding spaces. Here’s some synthetic chaetomorpha I picked up at the dollar store.

6a7b8f71ab4664a721b3dbdd1d14c677.jpg


Some work on the lids. This makes each pod ball individually removeable. Idea is to grab one of these and shake it out into the DT once a week. Two week period for each scrubber gives time for repopulation.


571600ec39c52c67c57fd67fdb1f9f99.jpg


d13d76e825fa28f0ecb5537b99f05bf5.jpg


I also added a rigid airline connected to an air pump to add some small amount of circulation. I’ve read that this is t needed for the pods, but the algae I’m using to feed them- Nannochloropsis- is a non-motile single cell that is like to keep in suspension, rather than have it all clump at the bottom.


Then I filled it with 3.5g of NSW at 1.023, and greened up the water with a big dose of algae culture. I used about 750ml.

54e786332442989a4195ac0732082976.jpg
4e5f6ebcce8e72a2bc465c63247bbf86.jpg


Now the pods! I bought a bottle of Tigger Pods from the LFS in January- due to an employee at a different store gifting my 2 year old a scooter blenny that wouldn’t take any food- I ended up using 90% in a failed attempt to get it through QT.

The last 10% of the bottle, I filled up with algae culture and have been growing this bottle since mid feb. I’d add half to DT, then top up with algae culture once every 6 weeks.

a8ea7a2b813f359216235b823a15453c.jpg


I dumped 2/3rds of this- including the ‘mulm’ in the bottom which contains microscopic pod larvae- into the big vessel, then added the last 1/3rd to a larger jar with algae culture. Kind of a safeguard against the big culture crashing. I’ll have a backup.

And that’s where we are at. T. californicus has a fairly quick maturation rate, around 30 days, and each female carries a large number of eggs. Once established, I should be able to harvest on the order of 10-15k pods every 3-4 weeks... given that the original bottle cost me $24 for 3850 pods, that’s pretty cool for about $50 of starter culture and equipment.

I have plans to grow a second species of copepod, but I’ll be trialing this for 4-6 weeks to iron out any kinks.


Dude! That’s brilliant! Thanks for sharing man
 
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Did a nyos nitrate rest at 2am after I got woken up by my dummy dog falling off the bed. When the wife travels, he waits until I’m asleep and jumps up and sleeps in her side. This time, I was hogging the middle of the bed, he undershot, and scrabbles around before hitting the floor.

Anyway- nitrates are at 0. Not a surprise.

Time to dose some spectracide! Sometime this afternoon, hopefully
 
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Stupid Tapatalk crashes while updating. I lost like 30 minutes of typing.

I’ll redo later
 
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hey guys. that was frustrating! anyway

im online instead of on tapatalk, and i have FORMATTING BUTTONS!!!

Anyway, i started my battle against the gross Chrysophytes algae thats been growing in the DT the past few weeks. Initially, it was only on the BRS reefsaver rock, but has recently jumped over to the Pukani. time to do something about it.

After reading several threads, ive decided to take the following approach

1) correct nutrient levels. Many cases of chrysophytes arise in tanks with little or no Nitrate, and elevated phosphate. Exactly my situation. as of last week, nitrate was at 0 and phosphate was 0.4ppm. I want to get them to 5ppm and 0.2ppm respectively.
2) mechanical removal- essentially, scrub and siphon
3) Silicate removal via <24hr GFO treatment. Self explanatory, although im going to push it to 36 hours to reduce my phosphate too.
4) Niche competition

no fluconazole, no lights out.

Part 1- Nutrients.

Nitrate
So, yesterday I started dosing Spectracide stump killer to provide the tank with Nitrate. I used a couple of online calculators and my own math to come up with a dosing schedule, then made a 10% KNO3 solution by adding 10g to 100ml of RODI. calculations show that for every 50 ml dosed into my tank, I should raise nitrate by 3ppm.

First dose- 50ml, followed by nyos test 3 hours later. NO3 = 1-3ppm
Second dose- another 50ml , tested 6 hours later. NO3 = 3-5ppm
Third dose this AM- 30 ml of a new batch. NO3 = 5-7.5ppm.

Going to retest in the am and look for consumption, then plan a dosing schedule accordingly.

a333cda797e4a9f1bedd046f7f45a053.jpg


Phosphate

Currently at 0.4ppm, want 0.2ppm. See GFO section later.


Part 2- Mechanical Removal

I made a filter bucket by punching 3/16" holes in the bottom of a gallon cheese puff container and stuffing it full of the innards from a sacrificial pillow. I then turned off all flow and scrubbed 1/3rd of my scape, let the algae settle on the sand, then siphoned it off into a 35 gallon rubbermaid through the filter. Then pumped the water back into the DT. Repeated for the other two sections, plus a 4th session to clean up the sand. total pumps off time was 2 hours 15 minutes, which is a little more than id like. Michael J Foxface is acting skittish, but everyone else looks fine. MJF gets skittish whenever the scene on the TV changes, so thats normal.

Then i packed my two BRS reactors with floss and have them going in the sump to remove debris.

05a59f92df8ae3cdf1e7ea4f9ed0ce44.jpg
92194932a128b8d3e75a5b8457bebb7b.jpg
dfedcd4bf76f3cddfaf2d9155cbfc0c4.jpg


Part 3- Silicate starvation

Chrysophytes algae incorporate silicates into their growing cell wall. Removing silicates stunts their growth by limiting the ability to create intact new cell walls. GFO run for <24 hours removes a large amount of silicate from the water. > 24 hrs and it starts to pull out the phosphates, which is the primary use. I plan to run it for 36hours, test phosphate and make a go/ no go decision on the read out. I want to try to get it to 0.2ppm.

I use BRS high capacity GFO with a recommended usage rate of 1 TBSP per 8 gallons treated.

1TBSP is a stupid unit of measure for several reasons. I like grams. 1 TBSP of BRS high capacity GFO is 11.92 grams.

My system is around 260 gallons, so ill need (260/8)*11.92g = 387.4grams of GFO. The tub i have is 1.75lb, which is 794g. so ill be using around half of my stock.

uugghh.

Ill store it after the 36 hours and reuse it if i see phosphates raise up again.

Ill set that up in one of the reactors at a gentle tumble once the filter floss does its thing.

Part 4- Niche competition

I plan to dose a couple bottle of ARC coraline algae spores in a bottle to get some niche competition going. Ill probably dose that in a week or two once i see if the preceeding protocol has made any impact on regrowth.

Fin

Ill keep you all posted with comments on how things look and if im noticing a difference in the algae.


Before and after pics

9373e8298f4aa40dc18fda40c98d6ec6.jpg
e23f68978f6e97fae523199bb796099e.jpg
3a3694f19682f7391180968e249f0efa.jpg
2a357bf87e868b2fc2c10d0f7ad97a33.jpg

Cheers!
 
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Yesterday, I did something about this-
47f12914e52d42f59b09a2e974ffe5a3.jpg
7d7416ce9c690477c9a538551cbf63de.jpg


That’s my house water supply shut off and pressure reducing valve. Code requires that they remain accessible with at least 3 inches of space on each side of the valve. I also needed it accessible for other people to easily recognize and shut off in an emergency

Built out a frame for a couple sealed boat deck hatches

08a6acade8b7ebf0ee523e8c35b7d495.jpg
b463e3faf31a8504681df9ff2b7d3b9b.jpg


They look off-center compared to the frame, because, well, they are. Not a big enough bother to fix. I had to answer the door and when I came back I cut on the wrong side of the straightedge because I wasn’t concentrating. Whatever.

Still need to paint and seal, but at least the cold water pipe for the house no longer sweats with the humidity condensing on it.

Then stencil the ID on the top part of the frame and a sign outside the fishroom door.
 
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What’s y’all thoughts on a mccoskers flasher wrasse?

Need something that’ll eat my ostracod population and they sure look pretty
 
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Holy moly...just read through this build thread. Makes my 40-gallon AIO look a little unambitious.:) Might have to buy a house instead of rent so I can have a fish room. Alas, California housing prices...
Really nice build. I'm impressed.:)

Thanks man, appreciate it.

Here’s the secret to living in California.

You ready?

Move somewhere else and vacation there.


Seriously. I lived in Bay Area for 6 years, and LOVE IT, but there is just no way to buy property and raise kids. We are both academic scientists and we were barely keeping it in the black and that was before the family came along.

Miss it every day, sure, but poverty line living is just no way to raise kids.

Saying that- I’d move back in a minute if we got a windfall
 

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Thanks man, appreciate it.

Here’s the secret to living in California.

You ready?

Move somewhere else and vacation there.


Seriously. I lived in Bay Area for 6 years, and LOVE IT, but there is just no way to buy property and raise kids. We are both academic scientists and we were barely keeping it in the black and that was before the family came along.

Miss it every day, sure, but poverty line living is just no way to raise kids.

Saying that- I’d move back in a minute if we got a windfall

I hear ya. Where in the Bay Area? I live in the North Bay and can't imagine living anywhere else (even after living in other parts of the world that I loved). That being said, once my son graduates high school - in four years... - and is off to college, I may be looking elsewhere. Of course, journalists don't make much money anywhere these days. Maybe a change in career is in order. I think I'll open a LFS so I can finally build a reef system of epic proportions.:)
 
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I hear ya. Where in the Bay Area? I live in the North Bay and can't imagine living anywhere else (even after living in other parts of the world that I loved). That being said, once my son graduates high school - in four years... - and is off to college, I may be looking elsewhere. Of course, journalists don't make much money anywhere these days. Maybe a change in career is in order. I think I'll open a LFS so I can finally build a reef system of epic proportions.:)

We were in Menlo Park for 2 years then Mountain View for 4. I was on my first post doc contract while my now wife was doing her oncology PhD at Stanford.

We spent the better part of 4 years down in Monterey every other weekend scuba diving. We’d do two weeks of 60-75 hours, then dive for 2 days and crash for a day, then repeat. Fun, but fast paced. Once our contracts came up we moved to Nashville for 5 years, got married, had our first kid (now 3) then moved to atl to be nearer to her family. Then kid number 2.
 
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