Added a Porcelain Crab. These guys are pretty cool to watch (when they're out in the open). They use these two arms to "scoop" the water for food and then eat what they catch.

I love my porcelain. It's one of my longest living inhabitants..

Well, things aren't going so well with my tank at the moment. Just recently I added a Coral Beauty. However, I did not quarantine it before putting it in the Solana... big mistake. I'm now battling a serious marine ich outbreak. The poor angel is covered in it and my six-line and one clown are starting to show signs of infection. So I had to make a decision on a course of treatment. My old 12g Aquapod was empty so I decided to put all the fish in it, along with some live rock and pvc pipe, and start a hyposalinity treatment. Now, I could have done this in the Solana. However I was afraid that I would lose all of my inverts if I did a hyposalinity treatment in there. And I couldn't catch the two shrimp and crab to put in the Aquapod. So now all the fish are in a much smaller tank. Fortunately they seem to have adjusted to the hyposalinity ok, a SG of 1.010. This probably wasn't the best course of action but it is the one I have taken and now I have to follow through with it. I'll have to keep a sharp eye on the parameters of the 12g and be ready to do daily water changes if necessary. I plan on keeping the fish in the 12g for at least 6 weeks. This will ensure that the fish will be parasite free and that the tank will be as well. Anyway, the moral of this story is always quarantine any new additions to your display tank.

Good luck bro!!!

Sorry for the troubles!!!

I had the same problem with a small hippo tank. She had ich and ended up in a twelve gallon fish tank for a week.

She turned out ok.

EDIT: This was a very small hippo tank

Thanks! I'm going to need a lot of luck to get through this.


Glad your tang recovered. Unfortunately I have 4 fish in my 12g and it may not work out. I've been warned by a fellow reefer in my local club that my ammonia readings will probably be off the charts in the morning. I hope he's wrong but with my luck that's exactly what will happen.

Well all 4 fish are still alive in my 12g and I've been doing twice daily water changes to try to manage the ammonia level. Problem is that I can't tell exactly how much ammonia is in the water with this damn API test kit. Although I know that any amount is not good. So my options are: 1 - Leave the fish in the 12g and try to continue the hyposalinity treatment hoping that I can get the ammonia level down to zero. 2 - Put the fish back in the Solana and just hope that the ich goes away on its own. 3 - Put the fish back in the Solana and do a hyposalinity treatment in there despite the possibility of losing my inverts. 4 - Buy a larger tank to quarantine the fish in, like a 20L or 20H and throw an Aquaclear and a heater on it and continue hyposalinity treatment. What would you do and why?

I bought some API Ammo-Lock for the 12g. But I haven't used it yet since I don't know how it would affect the live rock I have in there with the fish. Any thoughts on this?

In catching the fish to put them in the 12g I messed up my aquascape. And unfortunately I couldn't get it back the way it was. So with the fish in the other tank I took the opportunity to completely re-do my aquascape. Here are two timelapse videos of the first try and then the current scape:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2CHa0mpFNhc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nIfnBp9Kd8Q

I think your snails are turbos! (because they're fast, for those of you that didn't get it!)
ha, nice look.

-Mike

LOL!

Well unfortunately this tank looks like trash at the moment. And I'm not exactly sure why either. All I did was take most of the rock out, catch the fish, and then put the rock back. I may have stirred up the sand a bit in the process but it looks like I'm having a major diatom outbreak or something. It's just this stringy brown stuff all over the place. I took a few pictures to illustrate:

FTS:


GSP rock all closed up:


Any ideas?

Also, I was bored yesterday and came up with this:
http://www.mnosam.com

I had an old laptop laying around with a dead screen. So I threw it under my stand with a cheap webcam attached to it. Still working on it to improve the quality...

I got the wood frame kit, as I broke the glass top it came with. Actually like it better since I don't need to remove the glass anymore to feed my tank.

how's the gsp doing?

I like it better too. All I have to do now is push my light back and then pull open the glass door. Whereas before I had to take the light off to get that glass top that came with it off.


Well it was doing great until it got covered in this algae. I haven't seen it open in a few days.

So after seeing a local reefers tank that had MH lighting I'm now seriously considering selling my Nova Extreme Pro and going with a 250w Sunpod. That shimmer you get with MH is amazing. After seeing that it's hard to look at my tank with the T5's the same way again...

I did it! I ordered a 250w Sunpod! My bank account hates me!

Sweet, I did the same. Now which bulb to choose? I am running an aqualine 20K and the colors are simply amazing. But keep in mind its less light that the NEP. I also have a phoenix 14K and the stock 14K, but haven't popped either of them in yet to compare. Also, I will be getting a pair of Evil's sunpod LED's. And may then try popping in the Phoenix 14K. But in short, I absolutely love the Aqualine 20K. Oh keep in mind, you're gonna want to use an AZOO fan on the back blowing down between your new light and the water(i use a 4x, but if I did it again would opt for a 2x). Otherwise this light will rise your temps a couple degrees while it is on.

good luck, Mike

I have the 150w Sunpod and the 108w NEP. Definitely the sunpod. Shimmer is amazing

I wonder if having the wood frame kit with the glass top will make a difference heat-wise.


Nice. I want the shimmer!

Let us know how the new light works for you. How many pounds of live rock do you currently have in there?

I have about 35-40lbs.

Move the gsp up on the rock work in a higher flow area for the time being (it will help keep that algae off).

Your tank just looks to be cycling again.

Coral Beauty is dead. Not sure why. Water parameters test out perfect and the other fish seem fine. Maybe I just stressed it out too much. I don't know. Anyway it's a bummer because I love the Centropyge angels. But I won't get another one. I'm going to stick with the fish I have for awhile. And then maybe at some point down the road I'd like to try training a mandarin to eat frozen food. Mandarins are possibly my favorite fish. But I'm well aware of the issues relating to their care. So we'll see...

In other news my Sunpod should arrive later this week. When it does I'll post pics.

-Matt

LMK what you think when you get the sunpod....I'm thinking of going w T5's....

You're gonna love the MH. Now I gotta sell my NEP.

-Mike

Sunpod arrived! This thing is too cool. I'm a metal halide convert... until I can afford an LED fixture (in 20 years!).











Pics of it on the tank later.

Awesome, always wondered what a sunpod looked like on a hardwood floor... lol

It'll look great on your tank!

Wondering how the stock 14K looks? I have a stock 14K,a phoenix 14K,and a aqualine 20K, the aqualine is the only one I have tried, and I love it. Post some pix so we can see the color, i'm curious?

thanks, Mike

The stock bulb looks pretty good to me. But I have nothing else to compare it to. So it could look like crap and I wouldn't know!

I'll try and get a shot of it on the tank. I'm just embarrassed at the state my tank is in at the moment.

less typing more shooting!!!!

Just send the pik to me, i wont tell anybody else! haha.... Actually, I'll see if I can get a shot of mine with the aqualine 20K, hopefully 2nite. btw, let me know how the 14K MH light intensity(brightness) compares to the T5. FWIW, the 20K is not as bright, but colors are amazing. And my corals seem to be growing well. (you'd think i could compare myself, but I'm afraid I'll just leave the 14K in! and piss off my corals, cuz there used to the 20K)hhaha...

-Mike

-Mike

Here you go!

Looking good, but not as nice as the Solana picture on pg 4 with the 4 pairs of clowns (lol, I'm sure someone has commented on that before, but I never noticed it and wow that's pretty ridiculous on the part of Current USA).

I'm finding that the Sunpod and Nova Extreme Pro both have their pros and cons. One major annoyance with the Sunpod is that it doesn't quite fit on the Solana with the wood trim top. I don't want to hang it so I'll have to play with it and maybe "fix" it to make it fit correctly. Also, the Sunpod doesn't cover as much area as the Nova did. Which makes sense because the Nova is a much wider fixture. So I liked the Nova in that respect. And the Nova also seemed brighter, but that may have just been because the light was spread out over a larger area due to the width of the unit. But one major reason I switched to the Sunpod is not only lack of bulb choices for the Nova, but also the cost factor. To replace all 6 bulbs in the Nova would cost around $100. And when you take into account the fact that T5's really only last about 8-12 months I wasn't too thrilled about having to pay so much money yearly to keep the Nova running optimally. Yes, a new HQI lamp costs about $50-70. Not much cheaper, but still a significant difference to me. Especially when you can choose from many different lamps and colors.

Overall despite the size of the ballast (thing is HUGE, I had no idea), the fact that it doesn't fit right on the Solana wood trim top, the amount of heat it puts out, and how much more electricity it uses (debatable?)... I'd say I like the Sunpod more than the Nova Extreme Pro. Don't get me wrong, the Nova is a GREAT fixture and there is nothing wrong with it if you don't mind the lack of bulb choices and the cost to replace them. Hopefully I'll be able to sell the Nova locally. If not, I'll put it up here in the classifieds and reluctantly ship it.

Video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AjbzIbOBeis

Sweet, how are you liking the color of the 14K vs the color of the NEP?

-Mike

I like it. I'm thinking a 20k might be too blue for me. But I plan on eventually getting a 14k Phoenix bulb as I've read so many good things about them.

A video of the Sunpod firing up:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5GxiYuo89yc

I think it depends on your taste, i was expecting my aqualine 20K to be much bluer than it is. My friends has a Radium SE 20K, and it is way bluer than the Aqualine. But its kinda like comparing apples to oranges, cuz ballasts matter in the way a bulb looks + SE vs. DE matters too. I will throw in my Phoenix 14K soon, and let you know what I think.

-Mike

Hey did your sunpod not come double boxed? where did you get it from?

It was double boxed. I ordered it from MarineDepot.com.

Good, in your pic it didn't look double boxed so i found it rare. enjoy your pod.

Firefish seems to have disappeared. No clue what has happened to it. It couldn't have jumped out as I have the lid on the tank. I'm not having good luck with fish lately...

Well I found a nice Purple Firefish at my LFS. And as you can see I'm having a bit of a GHA problem. At least I think it's GHA. I got behind on my water changes. But now that I'm back on schedule hopefully it will go away in time.

Beautiful fish bro!!!

Well things aren't going so great with my tank at the moment. I'm battling what is either GHA or bryopsis. I'm not sure what it is and I don't really know what the cause could be. Here are some pics:

Definitely not a fun time in the maturing of a reef tank. I went through it and I'm sure you did in your other tank(s); probably everyone here has. I tried everything and finally beat it. Good luck.

looks like Hair algae. emerald crabs ftw

Emeralds are hit and miss, keep that in mind. My last one also took a liking to my soft corals! Don't worry he's is happy in heaven! HA.... A small lawnmower blenny will do a much better job on Hair Algae, imo.

good luck, Mike

your right mike, i'm lucky cuz mine behave. but a few additions to the CUC will help