Turtle's Fairy Tale

[SashimiTurtle]

Mind if I attempt a similar DIY?

That would be awesome.

 

[Katrina71]

That would be awesome.

I said attempt. I have some really cool rock from KP that I think would make a nice version.

 

[SashimiTurtle]

I said attempt. I have some really cool rock from KP that I think would make a nice version.

You can see it's made of several table rocks, and cemented together or something. Thing was heavy, between 25 and 30 lbs. It's FULL of tunnels too tho. My eel is having a blast.

Sapphire photobombed me...

 

[Katrina71]

I think I'm gonna do ours as a rockkabob.

 

[RichtheReefer21]

Adjusted some camera settings. These are under full daytime lights, Kessils+T5.

Looking good ;)

 

[SashimiTurtle]

Thanks to a one @MrWheelock, we have a new toy... hehehe. He saw that we were wanting a shiny 'nused' light, after we lost one of our A160s. He knew exactly what light we were looking for too. We didn't want just another A160, because they just didn't have the punch we were after. They are great for LPS, but not quite enough for SPS.

I know I've drug you along long enough. We got a Kessil AP700... Turtle is excited. We took a few PAR readings before and after, just to know what kind of power to set the new light up and what kind of acclimation we needed to do. Needless to say, the AP700 is WAAAAAAYYY more powerful than the 2 remaining A160s were. Here, look for yourselves...

A160 + T5

AP700 + T5

 

[SashimiTurtle]

And now that we're back on the smell phone... heres a new FTS with the AP700 a top down view of the light in the T5 fixture, a photo thru orange glasses(look ok to me, not the camera) and a few coral shots.... finally captured the true to life blue color of my stylo.

 

[That Crusso Kid]

Thanks to a one @MrWheelock, we have a new toy... hehehe. He saw that we were wanting a shiny 'nused' light, after we lost one of our A160s. He knew exactly what light we were looking for too. We didn't want just another A160, because they just didn't have the punch we were after. They are great for LPS, but not quite enough for SPS.

I know I've drug you along long enough. We got a Kessil AP700... Turtle is excited. We took a few PAR readings before and after, just to know what kind of power to set the new light up and what kind of acclimation we needed to do. Needless to say, the AP700 is WAAAAAAYYY more powerful than the 2 remaining A160s were. Here, look for yourselves...

A160 + T5

AP700 + T5

W for the win!

 

[RichtheReefer21]

Those are some great readings so deep under the 700/t5's.

Grats on the new upgrade. Your scape is so balanced. Beautiful!

 

[Magellan]

I love the look of the new turtle tower! Time to grow some Walt Disney ;)

 

[SashimiTurtle]

Turtle got crabs...

 

[SashimiTurtle]

Ok, so we got our CUC order in from @reefcleaners. Everything looks great. On the list were;
25 astrea snails
10 blue leg hermits
4 tongan nassarius snails
1 conch(think it's a tiger)
5 emerald crabs
2 peppermint shrimp

3 seconds in the tank and already eating algae.

Two of the emeralds and the peps are for my friend. She had me add on to my order. We got 3 male and 2 female emeralds. If you dont know how to tell, flip um upside down and look between their legs. The peps also look to be a male and a female. Well, one looks female for sure. I saw eggs or egg sacks.

They are so small I didn't want to risk them in the sump and have them go over the overflow into the return chamber and get turned into shrimp salad... so we made a shrimp tank and put it in the display. Yea I know what you're thinking, how do you put a tank in a tank. Like this...

 

[SashimiTurtle]

Wanna see something pretty amazing? Check out the stem of this frag plug...

That's right, Aiptasia gone. In one night. Got aiptasia? Get some peppermint shrimp from reef cleaners.

 

[Brew12]

Wanna see something pretty amazing? Check out the stem of this frag plug...

That's right, Aiptasia gone. In one night. Got aiptasia? Get some peppermint shrimp from reef cleaners.

I think I ordered 15 and it took a few weeks, but the tank is clean. The sump has a few but not many.

 

[MrWheelock]

Thanks to a one @MrWheelock, we have a new toy... hehehe. He saw that we were wanting a shiny 'nused' light, after we lost one of our A160s. He knew exactly what light we were looking for too. We didn't want just another A160, because they just didn't have the punch we were after. They are great for LPS, but not quite enough for SPS.

I know I've drug you along long enough. We got a Kessil AP700... Turtle is excited. We took a few PAR readings before and after, just to know what kind of power to set the new light up and what kind of acclimation we needed to do. Needless to say, the AP700 is WAAAAAAYYY more powerful than the 2 remaining A160s were. Here, look for yourselves...

A160 + T5

AP700 + T5

Found it! Looks great! Amazing par numbers, and I'm very glad you like the light :)

 

[SashimiTurtle]

Found it! Looks great! Amazing par numbers, and I'm very glad you like the light :)

Love it, thanks for the hook up. Had to install a firmware update so I could connect to it from my phone, but everything works great. I was shocked when I got 500+ in that spot. I only put down a few numbers, but most of the tank is a flat blanket of 300-350. The sand is 250 all over the place. The acans are kinda shaded at 100, but they'll do just fine there.

 

[MrWheelock]

No prob, glad to hook up you and turtle! A blanket of 300-350 is perfect. Looking forward to more happy coral pics

 

[SashimiTurtle]

Things are continuing to improve slowly. Nothing good happens overnight.

I put my skimmer back in. I dont have a reliable test for pH, but my kH had dipped to 6.4. Like its stuck at 6.4dKH with Ca at 410ppm. Dosing doesn't raise it. I'm betting on low pH from CO2 buildup.

The smell from the sump was... concerning. Smells like rot mixed with that funk bubble algae gets out of water. Water changes aren't touching it either. It's probably a combination of decomposing waste and the smell from ulva and bubble algae.

So, I decided that skimmerless probably wasnt the best option for me. I'm running the Somatic 60s we got from a "mysterious stranger." The air inlet is loud. I can hear it sitting on the couch with the stand doors closed. I may look into getting a CO2 scrubber to see if that will quiet it down. Maybe I can stuff some floss in the silencer to quiet it a bit.

My wonderful wife baby sat the skimmer last night while I had to work as it overflowed a good 5+ gallons of water out. I had a hose hooked up and draining into one of my totes when I left for work. She kept up with it and refilled any lost water with fresh salt water from the mixing barrel.

I've managed to get my alk up to 6.9 now. I've got the dosing pump set to 4ml per day split into 6 doses that happen every 4 hours. That was what it was at when we neglected the tank and ended up turning the doser off because, well most everything died off. I've also dossed 15ml of BRS soda ash twice, not budging Alk. Jumped up to 6.7 after the skimmer ran last night. I added 30ml this morning and my wife tested 6.9dKH tonight. I had her dose another 30ml which should hopefully bring me up around 7.5dKH. I'll see how the tank looks tomorrow night and will probably bump it with another 30ml to get up close to 8.0dKH, which is where I try to run.

This guy looks happy tho given the current state of the tank, and I've even noticed some growth on the tips.

 

[SashimiTurtle]

Edited post #3 to reflect current livestock and equipment.

 

[SashimiTurtle]

And also realized we have not updated the current FTS since March.