Onward and Upward ... the 65 gallon that's too big.

HuduVudu · Dec 1, 2020

The ERV is totally awesome!!!! What a huge difference it is making in the house. I will let the the picture speak for itself. CO2 issues done. Both fish are eating solidly and doing great. I don't have any worries about them now. I am so happy to have them and grateful to have gotten them eating right away.

HuduVudu · Dec 4, 2020

New toys arrived day before yesterday. Worked all of yesterday getting them set up. I have done some basic programing to get the light on a timer. So far so good with the GHL. Hardware seems solid only time will tell.

I am using an Apex on my other tank. Programming is definitely not the same with the GHL. I am going away from the Apex because of it's monolithic hardware architecture, and the hardware issues people are having with them. Plus they are making making me nervous with their in crowd mindset. I don't find these qualities to be good for long term reliablity.

Jeffcb · Dec 5, 2020

Jeffcb101 said:
Years ago I had a 100 gallon tank with 200 lbs of Florida live rock back when its was legal. Is it legal now? idk. Did 2 drops 100 lbs each? Its fascinating just watching the rock grow and all on it. I liked Christmas Tree worms the most. . Its a little smelly at first for a few weeks, well a lot. About like rotten eggs. . My problem was a giant Mantis shrimp I couldn't catch for two years. He would eventfully kill every fish I put in the tank. They make a very loud clicking noise. Some say they can break glass.

I like to fish and do so often in Port Aransas TX. At certain times of the year bait stands will have Mantis Shrimp. They call them Sea Lice and they are great for catching Red Drum. They are very dangerous and will cut your finger badly so we step on the mantis before we bait our hook. Just saying. Beware!

HuduVudu said:
It is through the collectors. I actually think that they are past the U.S. territorial waters when they collect. Either way the rock in the pictures is from Florida. I think the salesman said that they collect at 30-40 feet, so my cheesy light is going to work just fine.

The really kewl part about this rock is that was collected the day it shipped. I have dealt with a lot of live rock in my time and hydrogen sulfide (rotten egg smell) was always a part of it, but since this was collected and shipped the same day there was no die off that I could see.

Yup in my first tank in 1996 had a mantis shrimp in it that took me some time to get out. He was small, but I knew he was a pest. It only took me a few days to get him and then I killed him. If I get any from this rock I will probably save them and see if anyone would like a new pet. They are incredibly intelligent and their colors are beautiful. I am not hearing any clicking so far tonight so probably no adults. That doesn't preclude eggs so I will be on the look out for those.

So far the pests have been pretty minimal some calurepa taxinoma and about 5 majanos. Removed the calurepa and have killed four majanos. The fifth one I just found wil get him tomorrow.

Mantis suc but. Live rock is the way to go. Good luck

HuduVudu · Dec 11, 2020

Some current pictures. Nothing really new. Nitrate is 25ppm and dosing about 10ml of phytoplankton. Alkalinity is 7.7dKh

HuduVudu · Dec 30, 2020

Not a lot different. Alkalinity stable at 8.0. Nitrates consitent at 25ppm.

I have upped the phyto dosing to 20ml per day. All of the bivalves are still alive. Have lost quite a few sponges

and of the two small LPS that were left in the tank that Gillian ate one is recovering without it's mouth ???!!??? and the other is losing tissue. I don't expect the one that is losing tissue to live. Dozer is a complete ich magnet and Mr. Nuerosis. The ich is finally starting to abate with him. Gillian never really got it, just a little bit of head shaking but she is way more calm.

Both fish are eating white worms well and Gillian seems to prefer Rods over the worms but will eat the worms. They get fed 4x a day and eat pretty much all of the worms in one go. Some escape only to be discovered by them later.

Maybe someday I will figure out how I want to mount this Mitras light that I have until then the T5 lives on.

One of the several large bivalves that came in the rock. Looks like a lot of the red macro is going to survive also.

Halimeda is starting to green up, but looks like the sponges are struggling.

It is hard to see but to the left of the large white nub is the small LPS that is doing well. It is the brown oval at about 10:00 o'clock to the broken tonga branch.

HuduVudu · Jan 11, 2021

Whelp the chlormine demons have come to my house, so like any man I over-compensated and bought a chloramine monster from BRS. I removed the carbon block on the three stage and replaced it with an anion DI. So now I also have a two part DI.

POW! here it is:

HuduVudu · Jan 19, 2021

A video of the Odd Couple bickering over worms.

HuduVudu · Jan 24, 2021

Ok I finally feel like I have an idea of stocking for this tank.

For fish I plan on adding two more butterflys. I am not sure what kinds but I want them to be of the same species. When the weather warms up a bit I will order them. I would also like to get to signal gobies in the tank. This is quite a load so I will stop there.

For my inverts I am going to add a lot of the coral and inverts from my 20 gallon. Here is the plan.

- Slimer for the stag structure. Just purchased a frag of this pic will follow. This should work well with the strings of halamida.
- Porites from my 20. Great deep water looking coral.
- Brown gorgonians from my live rock. I had to move these to the 20 for light. Will move them back into this tank.
- Pipe organ coral. Once again a great looking coral that fits well with a deep water look.
- Live rock LPS that is currently in my 20. This coral is really amazing and of course it matches with the motif.
- I am not sure how many of my LPS I will move over. Pretty sure I want my blastos, not sure much beyond that.

I finally have a plan on dealing with hanging and mounting my Mitras. This has been a brain bender for me for sure. I have started ordering the parts and because I got them from EBay they are going to be a while. I am going to use 8020. I look forward to this. This will be my first time using it, but the possibilities seem endless. Love to have more tools in the toolbox. LOL this hobby certainly requires it.

Pic of new slimer. Seems pretty happy. These are the cheapest and easiest stag-like structures I could find.

HuduVudu · Feb 5, 2021

I have finally managed to create a lighting solution. I think it broke my brain.

DIY is fun AND difficult.

Here are the beginnings.

HuduVudu · Feb 5, 2021

Looks like the nitrates are at 50ppm. Oooof. The new light is going to be interesting.

The plan:
Run the new light at about 10% to try to keep it near the current light output. Move over some of the LPS and the gorgonians. I have a small piece of porites that I will move over too. I need to get some coral to do some nutrient reduction, otherwise things will probably get ugly.

HuduVudu · Feb 6, 2021

Still more work to do but now it is up.

HuduVudu · Feb 8, 2021

I just love these Mitras'. The color is awesome and the program-ability is insane. I also just moved over a small piece of my porites that broke off. Will get pics of that when things clear up.

I needed to add so more sand. That's always fun.

HuduVudu · Feb 10, 2021

Tank cleared up no problem. I put in a small stylo frag, porites frag and gorgonian that I had gotten off of the live rock from this tank. The are all doing terrible.

Everyone of them opened up at first and then closed and have stay closed. The stylo looks the worst of them all and will probably not make it.

I am sure that it isn't helping that the butterflys find them very fascinating, but in general this tank doesn't seem ready for coral. All good. I can frag from my other tank constantly so I have have an endless supply of frags for the tank. It is really weird what @Auquanut said about the invisible wall. I really think it is true.

Pics or didn't happen or so they say.

HuduVudu · Feb 17, 2021

Day two of the Texas deep freeze. I will post pictures when I can.

The first day we were without power for about 24 hours. I had a idiot moment getting the generator up. Because I don’t use the generator often I forgot one of the steps. The generator would come on and run a few seconds and then go off. I was panicking. The tanks were dropping a degree every half hour it was 16F outside and I knew if I couldn’t get the generator up the tanks were toast. I tore the generator apart trying to find out what was wrong. The generator was in pieces and it dawned on me the piece I missed. You have to open the vent on the gas cap so that you don’t create a siphon lock. You close the vent during storage to keep the gas from evaporating. Total face palm. I felt like a total idiot. The tank was at 68F and I got the generator running but it was half together. I couldn’t wait I put in a couple of screws to hold it somewhat together and started it up. It was really touchy because it was 16F outside and I couldn’t open the choke all of the way. I fiddled with it until I got it stable.

The generator was running the tanks slowly moved up to about 71F. So far so good. When the generator ran out of gas it didn’t want to start back up. I freaked out again. Finally it came back up. I decided after that that I wouldn’t let it shut down so filled while it was still running. That worked well. So every four hours I went to fill it in the cold.

Will add more later.

HuduVudu · Feb 19, 2021

Ok power is stable ... so far.

First off the temp. For reference we have not seen temps like this for 122 years. I was supposed to have moved away from this.

This is my poor genny after I tore it apart. I can't believe this thing ran for the two days I needed it to. I gotta give it to Honda they make things bullet proof. Even when idiots like me tear their stuff apart.

HuduVudu · Feb 19, 2021

This is the mess of cords and the improvised insulators. I was trying to get the right stuff plugged in. Because my plan was for hurricanes and not deep freezes things were out of the gate screwed up and improvisation was in order.

Mical · Feb 19, 2021

HuduVudu said:
Whelp the chlormine demons have come to my house, so like any man I over-compensated and bought a chloramine monster from BRS. I removed the carbon block on the three stage and replaced it with an anion DI. So now I also have a two part DI.

POW! here it is:

Been following and yes, "chlormine demons" can haunt you. I went this route

HuduVudu · Feb 19, 2021

All's well that ends well. When the tank got down to 68F on the first day I freaked. My Pakistani turned really pale and wouldn't come out. I was really worried. Luck was on my side, and maybe a little bit more.