RFBF's 90 Gallon Déjà vu All Over Again

[redfishbluefish]

With the uglies and nasties showing up, preformed a 50 gallon water change. For documentation purposes, emptying the entire sump and the DT down 4 1/4 inches from the bottom plastic trim equals 50 gallons.

Might have to do another one of these in a week or so.

 

[redfishbluefish]

So I’m finally sitting down in the living room from the unending jobs my wife has given me (she’s now retired, so no free time for Paulie!), and I hear this crackling sound coming from the fishroom. By the time I get there, no noise, but that rather strong and distinctive electrical burning smell. I immediately go into panic mood trying to find what electrical component is burning. Everything appears to be running just fine. My noise brings me down to the sump where I eventually isolate the refugium light, which is still ON…..an old (everything I have is old) Eshine 24 LED light. With my tank down, I had spruced up this light by removing as much as possible and sanding off the rust and repainting.

BEFORE

FYI, I could not remove the circuit board and just carefully sanded inside and out and then painted the rusty parts.

AFTER

When I opened up the unit, D3 (whatever that is) was cooked. I'm thinking rust particles fell around this "D3" and caused it to arc and cook itself....but just a guess. If I knew what D3 was, I’d simply unsolder and replace…..I liked this old light.

So I just happen to have a bulb I purchased months ago from China….a 54 watt, 18 LED spot light for about 12-13 bucks…..I have noticed the price has more than doubled. I was going to supply the link, but for some reason I’m being denied….I think the seller is no longer on ebay.. It was listed as, “E27 PAR30 LED Full Spectrum Coral Plant Grow LightBulb Fish Tank Aquarium Lamp”

So I re-installed my old spotlight fixture and put the bulb in…..here it is without the dome:

And what I found is that it truly was a spotlight. I only got light right in the middle of the bulb location….and it wasn’t very bright to the eye.. FYI, the bulb was about seven inched above the waterline of a 50 gallon tank.

Tomorrow I’ll pull this out and try one of the Fathom fixtures I have. I still have to finish emptying the 20 long tank of the last remaining corals.

 

[count krunk]

so you wouldn't recommend one of those bulbs? I was thinking about using one for my fuge in the future. Thanks for your input.

 

[redfishbluefish]

What do you do when you can't find your algae clips and your tangs are looking at you saying, "Where's my dinner?"

I have a MAG Float with a razor blade scraper attached. Using the holder for the razor blade, I put the folded algae into that holder and cut the thin strips I usually cut. Turned the holder around from how it's typically used and put the MAG Float in the tank. Tangs (and others) went right to the algae.

All is well!

 

[redfishbluefish]

so you wouldn't recommend one of those bulbs? I was thinking about using one for my fuge in the future. Thanks for your input.

Certainly not the one I got.....the very inexpensive one right from China. Now maybe others would work better. But this one definitely spotlighted and didn't look bright. When I have a chance I put my LUX meter under it to get an estimate on PAR.

 

[redfishbluefish]

@count krunk , I should have mentioned that when I originally used this standard light fixture, I had a Home Depot bulb in it (I think 5400K) to grow algae. But I now use my refugium for corals, so that's why I originally changed it out.

 

[redfishbluefish]

Floodlight fixture was removed and now replaced with a Fathom LED

Much better as far as spotlighting…..and this isn’t up to full lights yet....and it's lighting up the edges.

The only problem is that I have three of these fixtures and only one controller (and the company is out of business), So I’ll eventually have to come up with something else for a refugium light.

 

[redfishbluefish]

Why does it always happen when you're on vacation!!!!!!!

If it's not the tank, it's the cement pond. Returned from a week in Virginia to find this swamp:

I knew it was happening because the person watching the pool told me it was turning green. Had it shocked and the auto-chlorinator turned all the way up. Chlorine level was off the charts, and that's when I knew it was Black Algae. Black Algae laughs at chlorine like that kid on The Simpsons....HaHa!!!!! I don't know why they call it Black Algae, because it's green and thick like split pea soup. Only one thing kills it. Out came the copper sulfate and I'm now treating......probably take a week to kill and clean it up. What fun!!!

 

[count krunk]

haha of course! I use pinch a penny to maintain our pool here. As in I just bring in my water and they test it and tell me if it needs anything. Super easy, super cheap!

 

[redfishbluefish]

Oh you Florida people with your Lanais or pool in the center of the house totally surrounded by building....I've lived there....I've seen it.....nothing gets in the pool No natural products blown into the pool....other than Palmetto bugs....which we call cockroaches.....which are everywhere. My pool is fully open. I get leaves from trees I didn't even know we had in the neighborhood.....Ginkgo Biloba....I don't know of a tree in out neighborhood, yet I find these leaves in my pool!!!! American Dogwoods in the front of my house....in the pool!

My pool needs to be vacuumed every day. I don't do it, because nobody swims in it. I have it to please my wife....says the Grandkids will swim in it some day.....we have one grandchild. It's been open since Memorial Day and not a person has been in the pool. Maybe I'll vacuum tomorrow.

 

[count krunk]

Our pool is exposed no bird cage here haha. It needs vacuuming about once a week and it gets used weekly most of the season.

 

[redfishbluefish]

It’s been a while since I’ve updated because not much has happened. Still dealing with the nasties. I’m convinced it’s just a part of a new tank that no matter what you do, it goes through the nasties.

So the only change is that I’ve moved the UV down from the DT to the sump. In addition, since the reviews on my unit weren’t the greatest, I added a second UV unit connected serially, a Coralife Turbo Twist.

Still need to add more fish and corals, but wait for the nasties to get under control.

 

[Flippers4pups]

Well I hope the nasties go away soon for you. For the longest time, we’ll around five years to be exact, I was battling dinoflagellates and just this year I finally beat them. All I did was raise my tank temp up to 80 and bam, they left!

 

[redfishbluefish]

Here's yet another one to add to my long list of DOH's.....

Making my bi-monthly 25 gallons of saltwater in a Brute, carrying five gallon jugs up from the basement and dumping them into the Brute that contains two powerheads and a 300W heater. On the third jug, it slipped out of my hands into the Brute.....

And this is what a heater looks like after a jug falls on it....

 

[redfishbluefish]

Sounds of Silence

My skimmer started with an intermittent loud humming. More correctly, the Atman 2500 pump was making the noise. I've lost count on how many pumps I've replaced, but otherwise, I love this skimmer (SWC160). I have a backup....it's an Atman!!!!.....but ordered up another to still have a backup. The newer ones I've been ordering come with a needle wheel impeller,

while the original pump had a mesh wheel impeller.

I've always switched the impeller with this original mesh wheel. This time around I'm going to give the needle wheel a run for it's money, with the thought that the impeller is the problem. I say that because I suspect the hairline crack on the magnet is the issue. I didn't originally see this, but first felt it while washing.

On startup, the needle wheel looks promising, without any adjustment.

Now here's the thing that scares me. This "new" one I ordered was date stamped 2014. A number of years ago I had heard Atman was out of business. The replacement pump I put in was date stamped 2012. I know SWC is no longer being made, but I really wish there was a replacement pump for this skimmer.

 

[redfishbluefish]

Two new acropora corals added today. No fancy names, that's not my thing, a green slimer and a red dragon. Also, no
fancy picture, just my phone, no filters, under full lights.

 

[redfishbluefish]

What has our hobby turned into!

I received a text from a friend after he saw the above post, where he basically berated me. He told me that in today’s saltwater world, you can’t have regular old corals without fancy-pants names. With the spoofy names, you’ll be able to charge ten times the price of what otherwise is a no-name regular coral. He also told me that he’ll stop by when this virus thing calms down, and take pictures that he’ll manipulate/photoshop to make them look fantastically unreal. Oy vey!!!

So from this day forward, the corals I just acquired are now Ghostbuster Green Slimer and Draco Red Dragon.

 

[redfishbluefish]

So I've learned my lesson! The last time I purchased salt, I bought an approximate two year supply (7 200G cases). Getting down to the last case, what do I find.....the last three bags solidified into bricks:

So the plan was to go to a not-so-local LFS about an hour away and only purchase a year's supply. For years they have sold "my salt" for $35 a case. Looking at their website, I no longer saw the salt being listed, so I was planning on calling before making the trip. Procrastination set in, never got around to calling, and before you knew it I was finishing up my last good bag. Checking the web, found that Chewy was selling a case for 40.72, and with two cases, free delivery. Can't beat that. However, especially with today's economy, I still plan on checking the local LFS, and prefer to spend my money there. Maybe some time this summer. Now I only need to worry about my FedEx guy cursing me out as he delivers those 63 pound boxes today.

 

[Smirkish]

What do you do when you can't find your algae clips and your tangs are looking at you saying, "Where's my dinner?"

I have a MAG Float with a razor blade scraper attached. Using the holder for the razor blade, I put the folded algae into that holder and cut the thin strips I usually cut. Turned the holder around from how it's typically used and put the MAG Float in the tank. Tangs (and others) went right to the algae.

All is well!

Clever. Those little scrapers are handy! Do you find that the thinner strips work better? I have several tangs and sometimes they gang up on one clip. The result is always them tearing the nori loose and I have to grab it and reattach. This looks like it would be way more effective.

 

[redfishbluefish]

Thinner strips without question. I use to clip quarter-folded pieces of nori, and as you stated, the tangs would rip off these pieces, which would then float around the tank. I now use THIS METHOD to fold and cut my Asian nori.