WVNeds's Tanks

[WVNed]

I was going to post what would have become a rant in somebodies thread. Instead I will put it here where no one will see it.
rant deleted

What I do

Skim with a good skimmer, keep it clean and empty it twice a week.
Lots of flow.
A good light.
Change some water once a week. Between 15-30 gallons
Feed good stuff 2 times a day.
clean the glass twice a week
ATO with a pickling lime to keep the ph up. 3 tsp to 6 gallons of ro/di. Lots of CO2 in our house with all these dogs. I clean out the reservoir once a month.
I am using NOPOX. I dont think I have enough rock in my tank for my bioload so I am cheating a bit. It is holding my nitrates at yellow/orange. Nitrates are the only thing I test right before the water change.
No other secret magical things. No complex stuff to check every day. What is my Alk and Ca. It's enough. All I need to know.


I have kept fish for going on 40 years now. But I remember when I had horrible disease outbreaks and killed stuff. That was 35 years ago. Tanks with stainless frames and slate bottoms.
Then I figured out what actually mattered and it stopped. It never happened again. Not once, no matter where I get my fish from. Not when I switched from fresh to saltwater more than 10 years ago.

My daughter plays saxophone. There was a magical day when the screeching stopped and music started coming out. It is exactly like that with keeping a reef tank.
It's not magic. You have to learn how. The most expensive setup in the world will not teach you how. It might make it a lot harder. I haven't decided on that yet.

The purpose of my tank is to make me happy. If it was a lot of stress and work I wouldn't be happy. I would probably get rid of it. I am continually amazed at the number of things people worry about in posts here.

But I am just some **** in the middle of nowhere that fell in love with the sea in about 1962.
On the Outer Banks. I am the one in white.

We have always returned there though it is a very different place now. A place of people instead of crabs, seagulls, starfish and live things in shells that crawl across your hand.

Miss you Mom and Dad.

I wanted to have a bit of it in my house.
So I do

 

[WVNed]

Spooky fish

 

[Katrina71]

Not spooky. Beautiful. What is it?

 

[WVNed]

Nighttime colors of a foxface. He is hiding for the night. You cant see him.

In the daytime it looks like this.

 

[WVNed]

 

[WVNed]

Moving on up

to a deluxe basement in the sky
well,
on a hill

 

[WVNed]

It's here and everything is working again. It did not go smoothly. My tub crashed and I lost a lot of stuff. I broke my overflow box putting it in the truck and that set me back just long enough for everything to go bad.
The aiptasia are fine though.
FYI soaking a rock in RO/DI water for 1/2 hour does not kill aiptasia.
Further experimentation is required.

I had to build a little infrastructure to keep a tank here. T-11 siding and a sink from Home Depot my son and I installed. So I now have a proto-fishroom.

More to come later but we haven't even got all the stuff out of the other house yet.

 

[WVNed]

So time to try it out
1st water change at the new house

My new carefully planned random aquascape.
I set the largest rocks in the middle of the cloudy water from the new sand. I put the rest around than on the bottom. I didn't rinse the sand at all at all. The next day I piled all the ones that were near the glass on top.

 

[WVNed]

and it worked. A little tweaking is required but the water change is done..

The uniseals are coming to build a mixing station. Maybe in a month or 2. Lots to do yet, both on the house and the tank.
I need to find a small cabinet to clean up the wiring.

 

[WVNed]

Undoing the damage from the move.
Got some more macro algae, gorgonians, feather duster, snails
and a few fish from Petco.

 

[Ruben's Reef]

Tank looking great. Like your water change system.

 

[WVNed]

Tank looking great. Like your water change system.

Thanks
It works. I used it this morning.

 

[WVNed]

Release the Berghia nudibranchs

I have some tasty aiptasia for you.

 

[Ruben's Reef]

Thanks
It works. I used it this morning.

I'm working on my 75g upgrade and making an small fish room so carrying water buckets are not acceptable... LOL

 

[WVNed]

So far I have done 8, 20, 30, 56 and 75 gallon tanks.
Now it is time for the last one. 285 gallons. The one to grow old with until I cant do this anymore.

It's a conundrum trying to decide if I will hang all the stuff off the tank other people use like reactors, UV, algae scrubbers, dosers, ozone, ...........
or just set up to do a 100 gallon water change every week.

That is all I do now. I don't even do any testing now that it is going.

 

[WVNed]

Well the camera wouldn't connect to the computer and now it wont turn on

Time for a new one

 

[mmw64]

Fun weekend. All the kids came in so there were lots of people and 12 dogs here. After 2 am Saturday morning there where only 11 dogs.

RIP Toby

He was a great friend and we had many good times.
One of those things you always know is coming but never gets any easier.

I didn't get everything done but it has water in it. The rocks got pitched in and everything is alive.
and I did get it painted this time.

Losing a dog is losing a part of your heart. Sorry for your loss.

 

[DSC reef]

Tank is looking great @WVNed

 

[WVNed]

I got a Canon T7i. I still stink though. The focus seems better with this body though.

I am finding it almost impossible to get a good picture. The lights look so much different to my eye than to the camera. Horizontal objects are very bright but the sides are dark.

I am boring my friends to death fooling with the camera

 

[norfolkgarden]

Lol, nice depth of field on your friends. [emoji846]

The tank looks great!