Randy's Tank and Learn Thread

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Tank Prep for Arriving Rock

I’m at the airport cargo facility waiting for the rock to arrive, so I thought I’d describe how I prepped the system.

With this much rock arriving, I needed to draw down the water level to be sure I did not overflow the system, something I might not recognize immediately when at the display.

I decided to take this opportunity to clean out the refugium which had some local macroalgae added of dubious survival likelihood. I effectively removed one brute cans worth of water, and arranged it all to lower the primary refugium level.

There was plenty of different pest algae, including the cyano coating much of the air water interface. I used a wet vac to pull out a bunch of gunk and macroalgae, leaving this behind:

Interestingly, I determined that some of the local macro from the very cold ocean did grow new green areas, but not much. Not enough to keep any except a couple as a memory of the beach trip. You can see some new small green bits in the picture below.

The various gracilaria species I had gotten from afboundguy had grown nicely, and many little pieces had also grown into quarter sized pieces. The main chunk is about softball sized now.

I sorted through the gunk, saving all the gracilaria and discarding most everything else.

After I see the new rock, I may figure a new land for the refugium, likely using egg crate to elevate must macroalgae closer to the lights. More on the later.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Rock Arrival

Rock arrived right on time and pickup was a snap. I’m very happy with it. Tons of life of various sorts. It’s been a very long day since I was not at home this morning, so I did not get to cleaning the glass for photos (my glass scraper has also not arrived. I’ll clean the glass tomorrow and take photos. I’ll detail lots about the rock tomorrow.

Here’s the reworked refugium with egg crate, also showing the gracilaria that is yellow in bright areas and red in lower light. This main glob was at the top, and the red bits were underneath it, and the little red bits were all the way at the bottom.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Here’s a picture before I unloaded the new rock and CUC:

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Alk and pH

Got my pH meter up and running using one of the many old pH probes I had from years ago. Seemed to calibrate ok. I had soaked them for months and refilled their internal fluids.

Tank pH at noon was 8.0.

I measured alkalinity using a diy method. I bought 2 N sulfuric acid from Amazon, and diluted it with 1 part by weight acid and 19 parts by weight ro/di to make 0.1 N acid.

I then filled a plastic cup 2/3 full with tank water, and weighed the water. 212 grams.

I then began to add the 0.1 N acid to the tank water until the pH stabilized at about pH 4. It took 7 grams of acid.

I then calculated the alkalinity to be 0.1 N x 7/212 =0.0033 N or 3.3 meq/L = 9.2 dKH.

That’s a perfectly plausible value given that I started with normal IO and reduced the alk a bit with muriatic acid.

At some point I’ll get a Salifert kit to double check since I’m just accepting the 2.0 N sulfuric is what is claims to be. For now though, I’m satisfied and will use the diy alk method going forward.

I plan to dose AFR by dosing pump to maintain alk and calcium, but there’s no need to start that yet. Since I’m not starting it yet, I’ll have to dose some trace elements separately, and I’ll cover that in up coming posts.

A DIY Alkalinity Test: By Randy Holmes-Farley - REEFEDITION

Alkalinity is one of the most important measurements that a reef aquarist can make. It can become rapidly depleted in many aquaria, requiring frequent measurement in order to maintain stable levels.

www.reefedition.com

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

TBS Premium Rock and Clean up Crew

Pictures will come later today because my Tunze glass scraper from Saltwateraquarium dot com is arriving by mail today and I want the glass clean.

I am very happy with the rock and CUC. The rock shapes are great, and far better than the wild Florida rock I got from TBS decades ago. Those old ones were mostly rounded blobs with a few flat pieces. Presumably that’s what is naturally on the bottom.

The new ones are much more interesting, including a lot of curving arcs and larger pieces with one or more holes through it. A few flat pieces as well. They come together into a nice structure that my wife said was better (more interesting) than the old one.

There are a lot of sponges of various sizes and colors, orange, grey, white, green. Years ago the sponge that came died away. Might happen again, but now I’m dosing phyto and will dose silicate so those may help it.

Coralline coverage varies but is generally quite good. A few are almost completely covered except where it was sitting on the bottom. Since some pieces show more then others, I arranged the best ones to face up/out.

I put about 1 bucket’s worth of rock into the refugia (Brutes 1 and 3) joining about 1 bucket of the base rock. Should be good places for pods and such to colonize, and maybe the sponge will grow there as well and help filter the water (I know some folks think that is useful, but there’s not much evidence to support it, but I like them anyway).

Pictures are worth a thousand words in this case, and they will come later.

 

[strich]

I'll not have you sully the sponge! They may be slow and pointless at filtering but they can harbor life and they're cool!
I hope they survive your bins.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Tank Pictures

Normal iPhone pictures, all lights 50%. Might turn down the blue a bit in the future, but I’m quite happy with both the lights and the TBS rocks!

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

More:

 

[BeanAnimal]

That is certainly nice looking rock.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Hitchhiking Cucumber

On the bottom of one rock bucket was a small sea cucumber hitchhiker. Assuming it was alive (I wasn’t sure), I assumed it was a sand eating type, like the 2 TBS sent that are cruising the sand.

But this one climbed the glass and presumably is a filter feeding type. Hard to get a pic where he is, but it’s about 2” long, brown with darker stripes, and somewhat furry looking. I didn’t see matching photos online.
Any ideas?

 

[KrisReef]

I have been in detention and just dropped in to see the rock and hitchhikers looking great!

What are your plans for lights and rocks going forward?

 

[jonelder68]

Looks good! You did get some really good pieces. I’m excited to see what life pops up in the next few weeks. Keep an eye out for them evil crabs :confused: as well. Still haven’t figured out a good way to catch my last 1-2. Glass cup with shrimp just catches a dozen hermits for me.

 

[BeanAnimal]

Hitchhiking Cucumber

On the bottom of one rock bucket was a small sea cucumber hitchhiker. Assuming it was alive (I wasn’t sure), I assumed it was a sand eating type, like the 2 TBS sent that are cruising the sand.

But this one climbed the glass and presumably is a filter feeding type. Hard to get a pic where he is, but it’s about 2” long, brown with darker stripes, and somewhat furry looking. I didn’t see matching photos online.
Any ideas?

East coast?

Check Pentacta

or

Euapta lapp

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Yes, pentacta is it! Good to know.

Red Footed Cucumber - Pentacta pygmaea

ID: Dark brown to greyish body with burnt brown to reddish legs. These cucumbers are smaller and have stiffer bodies. They hang out tucked into crevasses of live rock and are not the typical sand dwelling cucumber. At night it will climb the tank wall and hang out just below the water...

tbsaltwater.com

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Automatic Water Change

Got my AWC up and running today. It consists of two BRS 50 ml per minute pumps on a single timer. I set them to run for three x one hour periods spread through the day and night. They will change about 9 L (2.4 gallons) of water per day, which is close to 1% per day, maybe a bit more.

One draws from the 88 gallon new salt water reservoir (2 Brute cans) and delivers to Brute #2 by the skimmer.

The second draws from Brute #1 and sends the water along the ceiling of the basement to a sink drain in the laundry room. I tried to have it share a drain hose with a basement dehumidifier, but that ended up with water on the floor and that plan was short lived.

Instead of worrying about mismatched pumps, I’ll just keep an eye on the tank salinity and adjust the new water salinity as needed to keep it on target. I need to make up some conductivity standard to verify that my Pinpoint conductivity meter is accurate, but I already tested it in some old commercial seawater standard in a sealed glass bottle, so I’m sure it is close enough for this purpose.

 

[Hairyteeth]

Very exciting I just hooked up my auto water change, I never hated water changes but what a game changer!

 

[BeanAnimal]

I would not worry too much about the mismatch. I pump in 500ml or so a day of fresh SW to replace what the auto testers take out, even a large mismatch when testers are offline takes weeks to show a swing large enough to correct. When that happens, I don’t adjust makeup salinity, I simply draw a gallon or two and let the ATO make up difference.

You could do similar by a manual run of either the full or drain pump.

 

[LiverockRocks]

Hitchhiking Cucumber

On the bottom of one rock bucket was a small sea cucumber hitchhiker. Assuming it was alive (I wasn’t sure), I assumed it was a sand eating type, like the 2 TBS sent that are cruising the sand.

But this one climbed the glass and presumably is a filter feeding type. Hard to get a pic where he is, but it’s about 2” long, brown with darker stripes, and somewhat furry looking. I didn’t see matching photos online.
Any ideas?

Sounds like the behavior of red-foot cucumbers. Stripes, firmer spikes then typical Florida cucumbers, brownish red and grey tones. Cruise glass at night, then retreat to hug live rock for the day.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Sounds like the behavior of red-foot cucumbers. Stripes, firmer spikes then typical Florida cucumbers, brownish red and grey tones. Cruise glass at night, then retreat to hug live rock for the day.

Thanks, yes, that’s it!

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Floor Support

Another thread reminded me of this topic. The tank system probably weighs around 1500 pounds. The house is more than 100 years old, which means full dimensional lumber, but who know what might have weakened it over that time.

The support joists are running lengthwise along the front of the tank (not the best) so I decided to support them.

The tank is along an outside wall, which is supported by a very strong stone foundation. So it is the joist(s) along the front of the tank that needs support.

It was actually very easy to do, and was already in place from the last tank. It consists of a doubled two by four from the cement floor up to another 2x4 that runs from the top of the stone wall to the top of the doubled 2x4. This cross piece is tight up against the joists. Pictures are probably clearer than a description: