SPS dominated TOTM quality 6' tank on a $1k budget challenge; AKA a really bad idea.

[five.five-six]

So my last accounting was $36.85 cash on hand everything else zeroed out

Since then I bought:
$120 3X new 20K radiums on RC
$89.98 Jebo dc6500 for skimmer pump amazon
$15.29 gloves so I can stick my hands in tank after surgery amazon
$9.85 DIY fish food 99 ranch
$40 frags from another reefer
$30 O3 generator on FB
$32 hermit crabs and a lousy fake OC orange crush from LFS

I have sold

$85 various colonies and frags on facebook cash on hand

$154.92 in paypal from selling remora AquaC other fish stuff on FB after shipping costs


Since last accounting
Total spent: $337.12

Total assets $276.77

Overage: $60.35

With all the time on disability and SDI not paying me we have been living off savings and net 30 and net 60 accts receivable and the fish tank money in paypal and cash on hand has been used to cover household expenses, it’s gotten prety jumbled up but I believe this to be an accurate accounting of what I have spent. Going forward I’m just going to keep a running total.

I was pensive about how much I had spent but after adding it ll up, all I have to do is sell $61 in stuff and I’m back in the green. I really don’t need to buy anything. Tank is cruzing along.


Dinos are all gone About 2 weeks ago they dissapeared and I did 25% WC 3 days ago and nothing. What got it for me was siphoning off what I could with my DIY dino trap, running O3 2 hrs a night and wayyy overfeeding

 

[five.five-six]

I am a tinkerer at heart.

One of the items I got in my original lot of stuf was a 6105.050 tunze safety connector. I had a 18AH lead acid valve regulated battery and charger from a job so I hooked that all up for the eventuality of a power outage. Test it and it works great!

Next step: unplug the whole tank for test and NOTHING! It seems that when the Apex loses power the 0-10V port goes to 0 and regardles of power the pump goes dead

Neptune says that the 14.2V float voltage on my battery system is too high for the auxiliary power port so I buy this:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00XM8SM66/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

And figured, what the heck.. in the case of emergency I’ll need to see under the sump so got this too and will connect it through a reed switch to come on when the stand door is opened.


https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00HSF66JO/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

$34.65 shipped. Overage is now $95.00 exactly

 

[five.five-six]

Bought a 50ml BRS pump to replace my warn out aqualifter $50
Aquastick $11.26
= $121.61 over

Dealing with really high alk 11.68 DKH
Ca is 440 and MG is 1560

I just turned the caRX off and will check again in a few days


The odd thing is that I never add alk suplement, just kalkwasser and cARX. I do sometimes have to bump the CA and the MG gets a 100PPM bump once a month or so. But my ALk has always run high. To make matters stranger, my pH always runs low. Generaly 7.8 to 8.1. And it doesn’t matter if the doors are left open all day and the wind blows through the house, that’s just what it runs at.

 

[chevegan]

man after 6 months of battling dino's in my nano I threw in the towel. Bought a 200 gallon custom acrylic show tank and have gone fish only after on again off again reef keeping for 14+ years. Dino's weren't even a problem that long ago. Back when nobody used dead rock and everything was live and included parasites and nasties. I don't know, if I were to do it again I'm going back to old school reef keeping. For now fish will do. Nice read though i'm following

 

[five.five-six]

man after 6 months of battling dino's in my nano I threw in the towel. Bought a 200 gallon custom acrylic show tank and have gone fish only after on again off again reef keeping for 14+ years. Dino's weren't even a problem that long ago. Back when nobody used dead rock and everything was live and included parasites and nasties. I don't know, if I were to do it again I'm going back to old school reef keeping. For now fish will do. Nice read though i'm following

Thanks

I believe that dino plague are a result of insufficient biodiversity at it’s root.

I’ve bee reefing so long that my first skimmer had a air pump and a wooden airstone in it and Dino’s were never a problem like today. About 15 years ago we figured out how to keep po4 and no3 to 0 but didn’t have Dino’s But we were using live rock fairly freshly pulled from the ocean. Biggest fear was a manits shrimp back then.

 

[five.five-six]

The tank is setteling down, alk, calcium and mg are really stabilizing and the corals show it. Alk was getting high a month ago so I shut off the CARX for a week then raised the pH inside to 6.75 and that seems to meet my consumption now.

On to accounting

Sold $285 in stuff
Spent $100 with steve Garrett
Spent $30 on eBay moon lights
Spent $221.77 on battlebox

Overage $330.18

 

[five.five-six]

Mystery battle box arrived

9 corals!

 

[coseal]

Mystery battle box arrived

exciting! whacha get?

 

[five.five-six]

exciting! whacha get?

I got this hooked the hell up is what I got

I worked 17 hrs today (9:00P to 3:00P) got home at 3:30 and have been acclimating and dipping. Need a nap befor I take my son to Boy Scouts.


https://imageshack.com/a/img923/6505/xSid5R.jpg

 

[coseal]

nice! cant go wrong with battlecorals...

 

[five.five-six]

nice! cant go wrong with battlecorals...

I am thrilled.

I’m AEFW-phobic. I have a fairly extensive dipping protocol Frags take days to recover. These looked great right in the tank

 

[five.five-six]

I came up on 2 pair of ATI 80 watt blue plus lamps from another reefer. 2 of these should really even out the 10K halides. I have to help the kids with school projects this weekend so it may be a few weeks before I ge them installed

$80 cash

New overage $389.32

 

[five.five-six]

Bought some stuff: T5HO ATI blue plus and other things

and sold some stuff: a chiller, GFO reactor and frags

New overage: $304.32

Learning how to use and old but new to me DSLR. I have a 105 F/2.8macro on the way but played around with a cheep kit lens while I’m waiting. Not much good shots but found the composition of this photo interesting:

 

[five.five-six]

playing with the camera, it's a lot harder to use than a phone

 

[five.five-six]

hashtags: #reef2reef, #worldwidecorals,#mywwccontest

 

[five.five-six]

hashtags: #reef2reef, #worldwidecorals,#mywwccontest

 

[blackizzz]

Photos and tank looks great! Interesting project you have going, and you definitely know what you're doing from the looks of the corals

 

[five.five-six]

Photos and tank looks great! Interesting project you have going, and you definitely know what you're doing from the looks of the corals

Thank you!

the budget is slowly getting blown but the tank is starting to settle down. Several of the brown corals that people have given me are starting to really settle down and color up. I'll have to do a photo shoot of brown corals people gave me in a week or so. It takes me about 2 hrs to take the photos, sort through them and upload them I don't have photoshop so there is very little I can do in post with ViewNX 2

Bought coral snow and a new KH test kit $60.54
Bought a frag of something high end $120 [WD]
Sold ASM skimmer and neptune temp probe $150

New overage: $379.86

 

[Daniel@R2R]

@five.five-six how's the reef? Any new pics?

 

[five.five-six]

So, I found a small patch of Bryopsis on a frag plug. Under advice, I removed the rock it was mounted to and cut a 1” margin around the infected area with a dremal tool and toss the plug, clip the frag and re mount that.

I had already ordered fluconazole and proceeded to treat the tank as a prophylactic mesure. I saw no signs of any other Bryopsis but really didn’t want to take any chances.

A week into the treatment, last friday, I noticed a sunsett monti looking stressed, then a few days later an acro colony mucusing a lot. Last night on my way out to Boy Scouts I see that my setosa starting to bleach.


This morning I got up early to run some water tests and bring carbon back on line and I’ll do water change this evening

DKH was 8.5 and No3 was 50ppm, not ideal but not enough out of wack to cause these problems

I go to put carbon back on line and find that the cord plug for the reactor pump had fallen into the sump at some point probably last week.

Hopefully I caught it in time to avoid a major crash



fluconazole Was $ 39.00 shipped

New overage:$418.86