Texas Waterbox 220.6 +Plus HD

jstephens24 · May 7, 2020

Visited FJW here in Houston and picked up a couple cheaper torches and a hammer. They already look so much better than my previous ones

TheShrimpNibbler · May 7, 2020

Those torches are awesome!

jstephens24 · May 12, 2020

Used Tunze coral gum and some regular super glue to start placing the corals in their place. All the corals are back to normal except the bam bam. Placed an order with TSM for some anthias so they will be shipping out tomorrow. Looks like it will be awhile for fish supply to get back to normal

jstephens24 · May 12, 2020

I guess I did leave out the recent coral purchases.

Won these from WWC eBay : scrambled eggs zoa, green aussie lord acan and wwc graffiti favite. I don’t think they sent the green acan though b/c it has a lot more purple in it which I’m fine with.

Won these from TSA live sale: TSA frozen apples zoas, Bam Bam zoas, Green Bay packer zoas, my clementine zoas.

jstephens24 · May 14, 2020

Anthias are here! We got 6 dispar and 2 purple skunk queen.

jstephens24 · May 16, 2020

Well we now see 7 of the 8 anthias we added. The last one is a pretty small one so hopefully it makes it. Unfortunately 2 of the 7 have their tail fin ripped off. One of the is pretty gone and is on the sand bed. It can still move b/c I touched it while feeding coral and it swam on ground. The other fish is less severe and it can still swim. I’m assuming the PBT is the one who got ahold of their tails.

jstephens24 · May 21, 2020

So cool seeing coral grow. We picked up this scrambled egg zoa with 2 heads. It now has 5 little ones also

diatoms has a second wave recently. I have been changing out the pillow floss every couple days because it’s been brown. Protein skimmer has been doing a great job also. Very happy with it

esther · May 21, 2020

Have you done an ICP test at all? Just curious.

esther · May 21, 2020

Tank is looking great, by the way. Fun to see yours grow alongside ours.

jstephens24 · May 21, 2020

esther said:
Have you done an ICP test at all? Just curious.

I have not. Never really planned on doing one

jstephens24 · May 30, 2020

The second wave looks like it has finally cleared up. I screwed up and messed with the protein skinner trying to get it thicker and then UV got sideways got had bubbles coming out. Then I went out of town for couple days and when I got back the glass was covered in film, sand was pretty brown and tank cloudy. First got the UV back to working. Just never messed with it so just put it back to vertical and turned it back on. I’ve been slowly messing with protein skimmer to get it back to where I had it and finally got it today. It would constantly make foam and no matter what I did. Gave up and turned everything off and fed corals. Then when I turned it back on the water level was finally low where I could close micro adjustment to raise water level

jstephens24 · Jun 1, 2020

Just adverted disaster. Luckily I got home from work early today and went to check how the protein skimmer was doing. When I looked under pump I smelled a burning smell. After looking around frantically for a few moments I noticed the Return pump area way low. The heaters were out of water and on. The temp sensors are where the protein skimmer is. Not sure why they were on but it was on long enough where the black coating on temp holder melted to the Cor-20 cable. I was able to pull it off. Looks like the ATO pump died so just amazon primed a new one and now looks like I need new heater or heaters

Ugin · Jun 1, 2020

Hey bud, fellow Houston reefer here! I saw you got that frogspawn from FJW -- great guys! Dennis is always very helpful.

I was curious, have you addressed your aiptasia issue? I found that berghia nudibranch were the sure-fire way of getting rid of those pests.

jstephens24 · Jun 1, 2020

Ugin said:
Hey bud, fellow Houston reefer here! I saw you got that frogspawn from FJW -- great guys! Dennis is always very helpful.

I was curious, have you addressed your aiptasia issue? I found that berghia nudibranch were the sure-fire way of getting rid of those pests.

I boiled water on one and superglued another. I haven’t seen another yet. Thanks for checking out the thread

Ugin · Jun 1, 2020

Good to hear! I'll be following your build

Thespammailaccount · Jun 1, 2020

jstephens24 said:
Just adverted disaster. Luckily I got home from work early today and went to check how the protein skimmer was doing. When I looked under pump I smelled a burning smell. After looking around frantically for a few moments I noticed the Return pump area way low. The heaters were out of water and on. The temp sensors are where the protein skimmer is. Not sure why they were on but it was on long enough where the black coating on temp holder melted to the Cor-20 cable. I was able to pull it off. Looks like the ATO pump died so just amazon primed a new one and now looks like I need new heater or heaters

O no. I have a ATO but still yet to install it afraid it will malfunction. Glad you caught it in time before the return pump ran dry

jstephens24 · Jun 10, 2020

Looks like I am battling cyano. First time I have ever messed with it. Talking to a couple other people I am stopping pellets and will feed twice a day frozen cubes. I had to buy a gravel vac and sucked up a majority of it today.

my other hobby is sports cards which the market for those have heated up these last few months. I sold a few of them and decided to bid on WWC eBay auctions. I won the following: fruit loop zoas, LA lakers zoa, Gatorade zoas, whammin watermelon zoas, AOI zoas, blueberry Aussie lord, Cotten candy Aussie lord, WWC bullseye micromussa, and purple ring Aussie lord.

TexAgReefer · Jun 11, 2020

jstephens24 said:
Looks like I am battling cyano. First time I have ever messed with it. Talking to a couple other people I am stopping pellets and will feed twice a day frozen cubes. I had to buy a gravel vac and sucked up a majority of it today.

my other hobby is sports cards which the market for those have heated up these last few months. I sold a few of them and decided to bid on WWC eBay auctions. I won the following: fruit loop zoas, LA lakers zoa, Gatorade zoas, whammin watermelon zoas, AOI zoas, blueberry Aussie lord, Cotten candy Aussie lord, WWC bullseye micromussa, and purple ring Aussie lord.

That's a nice score!

esther · Jun 11, 2020

I would just make sure that you have time to commit to keeping Cyano at bay. The last thing you want is for it to kill any of your coral. That stuff can get nasty. Good luck and great score!