~ TJ's Reef, the new and much improved making of the 187gReeftank~

[TJ's Reef]

To many photos for above post so here's the rest... Our friends up for the 4th with their two girls and a quick trip 50 miles out from the Washington coast in search of Albacore.... this is why we call the Summer up here in the Pacific northwest Reeftank Neglect Season... lol

 

[TJ's Reef]

By end of July the Reeftank was going great even with little effort on my part. Got great seats to the Roger Waters Pink Floyd show and even made it back to North Idaho to further the shop and our campsite. Plus do a family float trip down the Priest River in our kyaks.

 

[TJ's Reef]

August went swimmingly for the Reeftank and even after installing the Kalkwasser Reactor my daily dosing through the Neptune DOS was up to 330ml for Alk and 280ml for Calcium. A Nori resupply run was in order to keep the Tangs in veggies and a almost daily harvest from our garden for us. Made a quick 6 hour trip over the mountains to retrieve our trailer, did a bit of flyfishing in the creek and then a rather tenuous drive back in wild weather with a 35-40 mph headwind... 27-28 mpg over there and 6-7 mpg back... yikes.

 

[TJ's Reef]

September, my birthday month and when my Salmon fishing season really takes off and sadly the end of Crabbing. Reeftank is going strong with everything dialed in. Getting jazzed about our upcoming trip to Maui, renewed my collection permit back in early August.

 

[TJ's Reef]

Last week of September and first week of October we joined our friends on a Maui vacation, 9 days on the Kaanapali coast and 5 days near Paia to be in the jungle and closer to Hana. Beautiful Island and was amazing to explore most of it. Kauai is still our favorite though so doubtful we'll be back. Not nearly as familiar with this island so between that and some unusual rough seas we didn't spend as much time in the water as planned. Only was able to catch a few smaller fish so let them go and only collected inverts like Hermit Crabs, Cowrie, Nerite and Drupe Snails, small Cucumbers, macro algae and a Banded Coral Shrimp which is still a model citizen... for now.
To be continued...

 

[TJ's Reef]

What little snorkeling we were able to do was either at the Marine Reserve North of us and a small park a hundred yards away from our condo which was to rough for my wife to feel comfortable in. All photos with a cheap-ish waterproof camera and the clearer ones from the Marine Reserve with

others near the Condo.

 

[TJ's Reef]

We made it to the Aquarium in Lahaina and was well worth the price of admission...

 

[Nancy PIchette]

Beautiful job!!!

 

[TJ's Reef]

North shore of the Island was most definitely to rough to swim so off on the road to Hana leaving from our very damp and dank jungle house

... even the normally tranquil pools in all the streams along the way were a bit turbid to enjoy.

 

[TJ's Reef]

By the end of October going into November everything still going extremely well, even needing to do some pruning on a few corals to keep them off the glass. Possibly my first big mistake in fabricating a small magnetic frag rack with some acrylic scraps for the display, going against my "chiseled in stone" Reefing Rule # 3 or 4 NO FRAG RACKS IN DISPLAY !!! ever, just going to be very temporary... lol
Typical years, Oct/Nov is my favorite and best time to pursue Salmon in our coastal rivers and have a hard time focusing on the Reeftank for that time period... so purchasing a fragile fish however desirable is not and certainly was not a particularly responsible move on my part... anyhow, picking up a Potters Wrasse is exactly what I did. Beautiful fish that even with a less then warm and fuzzy welcome by the rest of the "Wrasse Gang" did quite well for the first couple of weeks that I was there to feed multiple times daily. Oh, and not to just make a small mistake also picked up a 4" Raccoon Butterfly to help me out with a ever growing population of Mojano Anemones (at least the purdy lil green ones) adding to the stress and aggression of the tank. So things didn't go well, and lost the Potters on an extended weekend trip and the Raccoon was dislodging many of the Mojano's so they were even more distributed throughout the display including in the midst of several colonies. Some did fine, other's like my fragile Red Dragon not so much.

 

[TJ's Reef]

Looking at these photos on my PC versus phone I can now see that this is when the coralline algae maintenance fell way behind to...

 

[TJ's Reef]

With the now wider spread issues of STN going on in the more sensitive Corals, some from the spreading Mojano population and some from some dosing mishaps in forgetting to fill reservoirs before leaving on fishing trips I was forced to deal with it. I realized that what was once an abundance of flow was now not cutting it with current Coral mass so I ordered in a new Maxspect Gyre XF280 and an additional magnetic frag rack for all the Red Dragon frags recently made. HUGE difference of flow and improvement in aesthetics over having two Jeboa RW15's in there. A close up of the Montipora spongodes I've had for many years in my systems, probably the fourth or fifth time it's gotten this large before needing to reduce or move.

 

[TJ's Reef]

A fun side project and a Christmas gift for our youngest son or actually mostly for his Turtle... poor thing in a 20 long aquarium. I picked up a 50 Breeder and drilled it for a sump setup and also made a sun basking platform out of scrap slate tiles from my fireplace project. used the 20L for the sump and bought a small Eheim for the return. Had built him the stand a year earlier in anticipation that "he" would purchase a 40B.

 

[TJ's Reef]

Early January 2017, trying my best to get water chemistry in check and keeping up with fragging up and dipping the colonies with any STN/issues. A second frag rack now in the display arghhhh... so added a couple of Kessil A150's in between the Ethereal fixtures to spotlight them. Tried another Potter's Wrasse and didn't make it a week, wasn't eating when I purchased it and never really started to in my system either.
My other favorite fishing season is late Winter Run Steelhead and my favorite home waters the gorgeous Skykomish River.

 

[TJ's Reef]

I have no idea how the last photo above got attached to my post, have tried to edit/delete it out multiple times without success ????????

 

[TJ's Reef]

The 1 year anniversary of the transfer to the 187g came and went without fanfare and with chemistry back in check was getting excited about the upcoming Bob Moore Frag Swap event. Came home with a few gems including my best score ever for this system, a gorgeous Rainbow Trachyphyllia for only $75.... gotta love the "last minute deals" of a frag swap. And.... upgraded to a new Reef Octopus VarioS 6 DC return pump from the Pan World. A cool top down image showing the multi chip emitters in the Ethereal fixtures.

 

[TJ's Reef]

I ended up losing all of the Red Dragon that I kept for a restart, but at least some survived in other's tanks that I traded with or sold to. The VarioS 6 pump went in without much difficulty only having to partially rebuild the manifold. I cannot remember exactly when I removed the Raccoon, but you can see some of damage he was causing to the LPS Corals in the image with Acan and Nuke Green Palys.

 

[TJ's Reef]

In March I decided to thin out some of the Euphyllia, Lobophyllia and Caulastrea to change things up a bit. Traded most for a new Maxima clam, Acanthophyllia and some interesting zoanthids since the Butterfly was no longer a issue. Bought a new to me Vertex Calcium Reactor (still not installed) as finally confident enough to trust one. And upgraded my ro/di unit to a 150gpd going from 60-70 minutes to fill a 5g jug down to 30+-.

 

[TJ's Reef]

Random images from mid March with all going well again

 

[TJ's Reef]

Latter half of April evening ramp down on lights pic followed with a fully lit from a few days later showing the aftermath fix of a aquascape avalanche. The large Red Planet took a serious tumble and was no easy task standing up on a stool for 30 minutes armpit deep holding it while the epoxy set. And once it did and I stepped down could see that I misjudged the angle a bit....
Finally nice enough weather to finish the deck project and install the new aluminum railings. And yet another start to the Garden in the background you can see. A new toy for the shop so I can start a new stand and canopy build for the 60 Cube addition.