Taller is better: Kev's 80g column

[Dj City]

Cheers! There are actually two clowns and they sure do love having the tank to themselves. It’s cool to see them play in the flow and enjoy swimming up and down in the extra-tall tank. They seem to like sticking to the glass and don’t really interact much with the rockwork.

As I plan my next livestock additions, I’m finding it hard to find a practical guide to quarantining things like CUC. There are just as many people out there staunchly advocating a hard-line “QT everything for 76 days” as there are saying “don’t bother” - it’s hard to gain insight into the actual/ relative risk levels that I’d use to guide my decisioning re: QT’ing corals and inverts. I feel like a zero-risk policy is unrealistic for me right now, but I don’t want to make an avoidable mistake...

KJ

For what it's worth, I've never quarantined a CUC and never developed a problem from adding CUC straight to the tank.
Fish, corals and anemones are a different story though.

There is a school of thought that says not to QT any fish because it weakens them to what is probably already in the water. It made a LOT of sense.
If I can find the thread, I will post it for you.

I sometimes QT fish but not always.
NEVER have I QT'd a clean up crew and i'm about to add a LARGE cuc to both my tanks.

As far as the clowns staying close to the glass...
That will change in time. Clowns are weird but cool fish. They often play the glass close until they get good and settled in.

 

[Kevin Jaako]

Uh oh, I think I may have introduced some hitchhikers with my clean up crew... looks to me to be a cleaner & fire shrimp how’d that happen??




KJ

 

[Dj City]

I wish I could get hitchhikers like that!

 

[Kevin Jaako]

Tank warfare: Came home and noticed the tank was “snowy” — found the cleaner shrimp shelling out an astrea snail and sharing it with the tank. The other inhabitants loved it, so I let him finish...



...and then started a batch of RODI. KJ

 

[jrlg]

Structural testing: PASSED.
KJ

Liking the build thread, also I'm glad that I'm not the only father who placed their kid in an empty fish tank

 

[Kevin Jaako]

It’s been an interesting week...

My cleaner shrimp molted, one of my clowns spent the day in the overflow box and I lost a yellow and a hippo tang in QT.




They were babies. My 80g column is 2’ x 2’ x 3’, so my son picked out the smallest ones the store had, after I explained that the blue would eventually outgrow us...

They acclimated fine and settled in, but it turns out someone came home with ich and they both succumbed after a few days in QT. I’m crushed and relieved at the same time. QT is weird.

I got the clown back into the DT. It took some creative herding with a placemat, a spatula and a fishnet but he’s home safe.

Levels are in check, diatoms are contained, tank goes on...

KJ

 

[Kevin Jaako]

Let’s not make a habit of this...



KJ

 

[Janci]

Another day, another trip to the hardware store!

It took me about 30 mins to cut 2 lengths of pipe, glue ‘em up and get it all pieced back together. Not too painful, as far as leak-repairs go and… it holds!! I setup a closed loop again between the sump and the overflow box and let it run overnight. I woke up to a dry floor

Tonight I’ll replace the power outlet with a GFI, drain the tap water out of the sump and push the tank back against the wall.

My boys were so excited to finally see water trickling through the sump. My eldest is CONVINCED that we’re gonna get a whale, a shark and a turtle in our tank. I managed to persuade him into considering fish instead, to which he agreed – but only if we get a blue fish. Any suggestions?




KJ

That is some clean plumbing.

Let’s not make a habit of this...



KJ

Great thread Kevin.
Give that clown some super food so it get too fat to jump/cross the weir.

 

[Kevin Jaako]

Cheers, @Janci @jrlg.

Did another 40% WC today and finally knocked NO3 below 10.



Picked up new blue & yellow tangs at the LFS yesterday. Couldn’t help myself and came home with a longspined urchin too! My wife thinks he’s gross, but I think he’s pretty cool



KJ

 

[Dj City]

Urchins are soooooooo helpful.
They also have a habit of knocking things down and out of their way.

Where are the pics of the tangs?

 

[501Reefer]

Rock scape looks great

 

[Kevin Jaako]

Thx, @501Reefer.

Where are the pics of the tangs?

Ha, they were still pretty spooked from the trip home & kept avoiding the camera. In fact, they’re pretty skittish in general... is that a tang thing?




KJ

 

[Kevin Jaako]

Our long-spined urchin is now named Funny.


KJ

 

[Kevin Jaako]

Well hello there...
KJ

 

[Jason boles]

Nice scape!! Following along.

 

[Preme]

Very nice tank!

 

[Dj City]

How's the reef tank coming along?

 

[Dennis Cartier]

Great looking tank and nice build. You mention it is a custom tank, is it from Miracles by chance? I noticed some similarities with my tank from Miracles and was wondering. I love your columns and may use similar ones in my current build. I was planning thicker columns, but your slender ones look awesome.

Keep up the good work.

Dennis

 

[Kevin Jaako]

A lot can change in a month...





Last week I asked my wife to swing by the LFS to pick up some salt and she texted back: "should I grab a coral too? ", which tells me I've reached spousal-hobby approval level #4. She grabbed a cool little pipe organ, so we now have 5 corals. The neon green hammer has grown a ton and the chalice is slowly encrusting onto the surrounding rock.

Our blue tang, Frankenstein II graduated out of Quarantine, but the yellow tang didn't make it. Again So we now have the ultimate Nemo & Dory cliche...

I've been doing 20%-40% water changes every 2 weeks or so. I keep wanting to set up my kalk doser on the second DOS head, but my water changes have been keeping up with my dKH demand. I'm using Reef Crystals, which is ca/alk fortified. I wonder if I should switch to a "standard" salt so I can start dialling in alkalinity using kalk as planned? I just bought a new bucket, too!

I've had a pretty decent dusting of diatoms on the sand pretty much non-stop for the past 5 or 6 weeks. I finally vacuumed the sand, which made my tank look PHENOMENAL for about 3 days, but they slowly came back. Do I have a silicate problem? I'm using RO/DI...

The fire shrimp molted again. The long-spined urchin is spending less time on the glass and more time on the rocks. He's been making some real progress on the algae... Oh yea, I've had a dusting of green algae on the rocks for the past month. It's very short (not hairy, not long. Almost encrusting-like) and doesn't really brush-off. It almost looks grey under the Kessil. It's not too gross-looking, thankfully, but it's there... It looks like it might be slowly disappearing from the unlit parts of the rock? Maybe that's wishful thinking.

Coralline algae is just starting to grow. There are a dozen little purple spots starting to form on the rocks.

I pulled out the Gyre & the MP40 and gave them their first vinegar bath. I had my first skimmer cup overflow. Man... the Vertex 180i is difficult to dial-in with such a small bioload. My ATO reservoir ran dry one night, oops.

We hosted the boys' birthday party this past weekend (their b-day's are 2 weeks apart, so we have one combined party ). It was the first time showing off the tank to a bunch of the friends I'd been bragging to over the past couple months. While my wife was putting up decorations and food prepping, I was cleaning the glass on my tank... I probably brought my hobby approval back down to #3, but the tank looked amazing. It's always nice to get a little tank flattery from your buddies

Thanks @Dennis Cartier, @Preme, @Jason boles! My tank was originally built by Concept Aquariums in Calgary, AB. It was designed to fit a MarineLand Ventura stand and came with a custom sump. I bought it off a local reefer who decided to move houses before he'd gotten around to the build, so it had never even seen water. He actually planned on having two... one on either side of his fireplace, so this tank has a twin somewhere out there in Vancouver! I hear the other buyer went freshwater.

KJ

 

[Dj City]

You are right on the money. Soooooooo much can change within a month.
Nice to see the tank going well and even better to have the wife on your side and in your corner with it.

Sorry to hear thor yellow tang did not make it but happy the hippo is doing well.

We win some, we lose some but we live to reef another day.