Randy's Tank and Learn Thread

[Subsea]

Everything in the display is TBS live rock. :)

You are going to be very happy with that decision.

When I first bought the Package, I ordered from a drilling rig 100 miles south of the mouth of the Mississippi River in 5000’ of water while the owner of Tampa Bay Saltwater was on a fishing yacht near the rig competing in July 4th fishing tournament sponsored by Biloxi casinos.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

You are going to be very happy with that decision.

When I first bought the Package, I ordered from a drilling rig 100 miles south of the mouth of the Mississippi River in 5000’ of water while the owner of Tampa Bay Saltwater was on a fishing yacht near the rig competing in July 4th fishing tournament sponsored by Biloxi casinos.

lol

Besides a well, what’s on the bottom 5,000’ down?

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Some pics from today:

 

[Subsea]

lol

Besides a well, what’s on the bottom 5,000’ down?

Not much but flat mud.

Once in 3000’ of water, a large grouper > 500 lbs decided that the wellhead was his nest and it laid in the guide funnel and prevented us from lowering 1000 tons of blowout preventer & marine riser and latching up to wellhead. Oceeneering attempted to intimidate fish with robotic manipulator arms on ROV but the Fish disabled the ROV. When the Shell company man asked me for my recommendation, I said the fish will move. At that time, our day rate was $20K per hour and ROV retrieval & rerun was 4 hours. Everybody agreed to lowering BOP and latching to wellhead. My job as Senior Subsea Engineer was to assure pressure integrity of the BOP at the wellhead connector. Without camera from ROV, we could no longer visually see wellhead connector position indicator rod or if fish evacuated guide funnel. Nevertheless, we lowered 100K pounds of weight onto the wellhead and hydraulically locked onto it and over pulled 100K lbs. Once this was done, we pressure tested the 18.75” diameter wellhead connector to 10,000 psi.

I am convinced that the fish swam away.

PS: The dynamically positioned drillship, Discoverer 7 Seas was the Queen on the Fleet for Transocean Drilling. In 1977 she set the deep water drilling record in 7800’ of water off the coast of Ireland in North Atlantic.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Not much but flat mud.

Once in 3000’ of water, a large grouper > 500 lbs decided that the wellhead was his nest and it laid in the guide funnel and prevented us from lowering 1000 tons of blowout preventer & marine riser and latching up to wellhead. Oceeneering attempted to intimidate fish with robotic manipulator arms on ROV but the Fish disabled the ROV. When the Shell company man asked me for my recommendation, I said the fish will move. At that time, our day rate was $20K per hour and ROV retrieval & rerun was 4 hours. Everybody agreed to lowering BOP and latching to wellhead. My job as Senior Subsea Engineer was to assure pressure integrity of the BOP at the wellhead connector. Without camera from ROV, we could no longer visually see wellhead connector position indicator rod or if fish evacuated guide funnel. Nevertheless, we lowered 100K pounds of weight onto the wellhead and hydraulically locked onto it and over pulled 100K lbs. Once this was done, we pressure tested the 18.75” diameter wellhead connector to 10,000 psi.

I am convinced that the fish swam away.

PS: The dynamically positioned drillship, Discoverer 7 Seas was the Queen on the Fleet for Transocean Drilling. In 1977 she set the deep water drilling record in 7800’ of water off the coast of Ireland in North Atlantic.

Maybe it’s living inside the pipe now. lol

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Chemistry Update

Temp 78-79
PH 7.84
Alk 7.4 dKH (need to start dosing)
Nitrate 24 ppm
Phosphate 0.24 ppm
Salinity 33.6 ppt. (Sg = 1.0254)

I dosed 0.06 ppm iodide as KI.
Dose some iron and manganese

Salinity did not move much in the past week. May need to boost the AWC salinity.

 

[jonelder68]

Livestock Update

All fish (yellow tang, 3 green chromis and mandarin) seem to be doing fine. My wife says the little mandarin is larger now. Tang is nicely yellow. Looks just as I remember the wild one I had years ago.

All corals also seem good, with no apparent issues.

I expect that with the existing large milka stylophora and the two SPS frags (WWC Slimeball anacropora and either Bubblegum or Forest Fire digitata) , and a bunch more hard corals coming Wednesday from TSA (ORA cherry Red goniopora, oregon blue tort, TSA blood red leptoseris, Red sentosa montipora), alk demand is going to tick up and at some point soon I'll start AFR.

I haven't measured alk yet, but will later today. Reef2Reef member exnisstech gave me a BRS 1.1 ml per min doser and timer that he was not using (Thanks, exnisstech!). I'll set it up to begin dosing AFR when needed.

On the down side, there's a too much brownish algae growing on some of the rocks. Probably diatoms from the silicate and nutrient dosing to beat back the possible dinos, although I did not try to identify it. The TSA order has 7 trochus snails in it that may help with that. I also have a bunch of macroalgae coming in the Gulf Coast Ecosystems order to beef up the refugium. Ulva is one of them, which I will also hope to use to feed the tang after it grows out in the refugium.
FWIW, the refugium has a thin layer of green algae growing on the egg crate, and thats where the new macro will help fill up. No sign of the dino-type stuff there now, which is where it was bad before.

Tank lights have been raised to 39% intensity all channels.

I love we’re progressing at same time on our tank stages and similar methods. I’m along for the ride and thank you as always for what you contribute to us all

 

[jonelder68]

lol

Besides a well, what’s on the bottom 5,000’ down?

The gulf of? America? Mexico? Who knows now days. But man is the gulf full of life! I’ve dove every square mile around the keys and it’s mind blowing! Haven’t been last few years due to having children. Scared to see after last years record setting ocean temperatures. Before that everything was repopulating since BP disaster. Cuba is insane! See what happens when man kind doesn’t destroy it

 

[Subsea]

The gulf of? America? Mexico? Who knows now days. But man is the gulf full of life! I’ve dove every square mile around the keys and it’s mind blowing! Haven’t been last few years due to having children. Scared to see after last years record setting ocean temperatures. Before that everything was repopulating since BP disaster. Cuba is insane! See what happens when man kind doesn’t destroy it

As a child, I grew up fishing on the surface of the Gulf. Growing up in Louisiana, we went 150 miles south of Lafayette and because I often got seasick, I would transfer to unmanned production platform and fish from stationary deck. Little did I imagine then that I would be an instrument technician in production then a subsea engineer in drilling for 30 years.

Yesterday, I spoke with diver/owner of GCE. Russ spoke encouraging words about the offshore reefs bouncing back, however, the inshore reefs are not. Last August, in shallow reef flats, he detailed water temperatures > 100 degrees with worse damage than any “red tide” that he has ever seen.

I suspect that after 2 back to back hurricanes in September, the mangrove estuaries would be flushed of pollutants.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Last August, in shallow reef flats, he detailed water temperatures > 100 degrees with worse damage than any “red tide” that he has ever seen.

I suspect that after 2 back to back hurricanes in September, the mangrove estuaries would be flushed of pollutants.

That’s sad to hear.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Chemistry

I mixed up a batch of AFR from powder in a glass milk bottle. I manually and all at once dosed 91 grams to the sump which should boost alk by about 0.5 dKH over the course of the day.

I’ll keep that up for a few days, remeasure alk, adjust as needed, and set up auto dosing using a BRS 1.1 mL per min doser.

I think 9 dKH is a reasonable target, but with incoming hard corals the needed dose is a moving target.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Updated stocking list (anticipating arrivals tomorrow, 6/11)

Organism	Date Added	Source	Date Lost
Live Rock	4/16 and 5/15/2025	TBS
Live Sand	4/16/2025	TBS
Fish
Yellow Tang (tank raised)	5/21/2025	Dr Reef
Green Chromis (5)	5/21/2025	Dr Reef
Mandarin Pair (tank raised)	5/21/2025	Dr Reef	one disappeared 5/2025
One spot foxface	coming soon	Dr Reef
Coral
Cali Tort	5/20/2025	dwest	DOA
Green leather	5/20/2025	dwest	disappeared 6/2025
Aussie Elegance	5/20/2025	dwest
Fiji Yellow Leather	5/20/2025	DIYreefer
Large milka stylophora	6/3/2025	CNDReef
Digitata (bubblegum or forest fire)	6/3/2025	CNDReef
WWC slimeball anacopora	6/3/2025	CNDReef
Koji Wada Nephthea	6/11/2025	Thunderstrick34
ORA Cherry Red Goniopora	6/11/2025	Top Shelf
Oregon Blue Tort	6/11/2025	Top Shelf
Red Setosa Montipora	6/11/2025	Top Shelf
Other Inverts
Astrea snails	5/15/2025	TBS
Florida hermits	5/15/2025	TBS
sea cucumbers (2)	5/15/2025	TBS
peppermint shrimp (2)	5/15/2025	TBS
Brittle stars (2)	5/15/2025	TBS
Trochus snails (7)	6/11/2025	Top Shelf
Yellow Ball Sponges (2)	6/11/2025	Gulf Coast Ecosystems
Red Tree Sponge (2)	6/11/2025	Gulf Coast Ecosystems
Purple Sea Fan	6/11/2025	Gulf Coast Ecosystems
Laurencia iridescens macroalgae	6/11/2025	Gulf Coast Ecosystems
Botryocladia macroalgae	6/11/2025	Gulf Coast Ecosystems
Ulva macroalgae	6/11/2025	Gulf Coast Ecosystems
gracilaria macroalgae	6/11/2025	Gulf Coast Ecosystems

 

[Reefering1]

Updated stocking list (anticipating arrivals tomorrow, 6/11)

Organism	Date Added	Source	Date Lost
Live Rock	4/16 and 5/15/2025	TBS
Live Sand	4/16/2025	TBS
Fish
Yellow Tang (tank raised)	5/21/2025	Dr Reef
Green Chromis (5)	5/21/2025	Dr Reef
Mandarin Pair (tank raised)	5/21/2025	Dr Reef	one disappeared 5/2025
One spot foxface	coming soon	Dr Reef
Coral
Cali Tort	5/20/2025	dwest	DOA
Green leather	5/20/2025	dwest	disappeared 6/2025
Aussie Elegance	5/20/2025	dwest
Fiji Yellow Leather	5/20/2025	DIYreefer
Large milka stylophora	6/3/2025	CNDReef
Digitata (bubblegum or forest fire)	6/3/2025	CNDReef
WWC slimeball anacopora	6/3/2025	CNDReef
Koji Wada Nephthea	6/11/2025	Thunderstrick34
ORA Cherry Red Goniopora	6/11/2025	Top Shelf
Oregon Blue Tort	6/11/2025	Top Shelf
Red Setosa Montipora	6/11/2025	Top Shelf
Other Inverts
Astrea snails	5/15/2025	TBS
Florida hermits	5/15/2025	TBS
sea cucumbers (2)	5/15/2025	TBS
peppermint shrimp (2)	5/15/2025	TBS
Brittle stars (2)	5/15/2025	TBS
Trochus snails (7)	6/11/2025	Top Shelf
Yellow Ball Sponges (2)	6/11/2025	Gulf Coast Ecosystems
Red Tree Sponge (2)	6/11/2025	Gulf Coast Ecosystems
Purple Sea Fan	6/11/2025	Gulf Coast Ecosystems
Laurencia iridescens macroalgae	6/11/2025	Gulf Coast Ecosystems
Botryocladia macroalgae	6/11/2025	Gulf Coast Ecosystems
Ulva macroalgae	6/11/2025	Gulf Coast Ecosystems
gracilaria macroalgae	6/11/2025	Gulf Coast Ecosystems

Excellent!

know it more effort(and a bit intrusive), but it would be nice if you continue to disclose prices paid (full, discounted, pro bono). It's nice to see someone of your stature being completely transparent and upfront about acquisitions and completely disregard that while giving opinions/ recommendations of products used (as you have been :-)

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Excellent!

know it more effort(and a bit intrusive), but it would be nice if you continue to disclose prices paid (full, discounted, pro bono). It's nice to see someone of your stature being completely transparent and upfront about acquisitions and completely disregard that while giving opinions/ recommendations of products used (as you have been :-)

Sure. I can add that in the future, but the TSA corals, tsa snails, the milka stylo, and the Koji wada were all bought at the asking price. The two coral frags that came with the stylo were unexpected freebies.

The yellow leather, Aussie elegance, green leather (missing) and the Cali Tort (doa) were donated by reefers.

The fish were donated by Dr Reef. The upcoming one spot foxface to deal with algae was donated by Dr Reef, though I will pay shipping.

All of the sponges, sea fan, and macroalgae from GCE were bought at asking price.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Dino Fears

I’m concerned that at least some of the brown pest I now see in the display is perhaps the same thing that I thought might be dinos.

I cannot get a close up picture to detail it, but there also clearly is some green turf type algae under the brown, and in a very few places by itself. The brown stuff does trap bubbles like folks report for dinos. Pics below.

I gave the system another 3 grams of the sodium silicate solution to promote diatoms over dinos.

One change, aside from upping nutrients a while back is switching to phyto feast live from the Dinkins phyto, but I have no idea in the significance of that.

The uv lights have not been used in a week or more.

Any thoughts or ideas are appreciated .


Tank rock

Side glass not scraped

 

[FishLvR]

I would like to use tampa bay for my refugium I am starting however you have to order a minimum of 20 pounds. I only need 10 pounds of rock and maybe 5 pounds of sand since my refugium area is so small. Is there maybe a better option for something like that for me? Or should I throw caution to the wind, order 20 pounds of each and toss it all in my tank? I like how you skipped right over the uglies and all the weird cycling issues and I think after my dinos and all the BS I am just going to do it. What should I do?

Edit: Treasure chests, DUH! Nevermind ordering now!

 

[rtparty]

Put the UV bulbs back in place if it can be done safely. If they are Ostreopsis dinos, they will send out stringers which the UV will catch and sterilize for you

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Put the UV bulbs back in place if it can be done safely. If they are Ostreopsis dinos, they will send out stringers which the UV will catch and sterilize for you

Would you stop dosing the phyto? The bulbs will kill that too. I can put the bulbs in the return brute that houses no intentional organisms.

 

[rtparty]

Would you stop dosing the phyto? The bulbs will kill that too. I can put the bulbs in the return brute that houses no intentional organisms.

If you think it will impact the phyto, I would stop dosing. I’ve tried phyto so many times over the years and never see anything good or bad. So I just stopped dosing it

 

[FishLvR]

Oh crap you have dinos now? Same as mine too. I'm on day two of blackout with two UV running. I was going to add the refugium to help combat but it would appear it doesn't matter if I use live rock or not, I'll probably still have dino just a lighter wallet. POOOP