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Walker's 90g - brb nuking algae


Walker

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The move was painless, especially with my wife helping. She was concerned about all the saltwater splashing on the wood flooring, but it was cleaned up relatively quick.

 

I didn't quite realize how BIG some of my corals have grown. I ended up not having a lot of negative space in the new 90g. The green birdsnest was especially surprising. I didn't realize it had grown to the size of a bowling ball! I'll definitely need to trim it down in the next few weeks.

 

Basically, I was fairly sure the parameters were close, so I just grabbed rock from right to left and tried to figure out on the fly where everything goes. I was hoping to have some open space but the amount of rock precluded it. I was going to leave a few rocks out but I couldn't as I couldn't find my tailspot blenny! I ended up putting all the rocks in, but I plan to remove at least one large rock to create some space.

 

Fish were frightened last night, although the clownfish were none the worse for wear once they moved in. The skunk cleaner was fairly happy. It took some doing to catch the yellow watchman (and my wife was stressing out about it too), and we couldn't find the blenny at all! After everything was moved over I left the light on for an hour to wait and see if the blenny hitched a ride in one of the rocks. Lo and behold, right before lights out, the tailspot peeked out of one of the rocks. Everything is accounted for.

 

In a big move like this, there's inevitably some coral breakage. The green birdsnest was probably the worst in terms of sheer breakage volume, with its thin branches and just massive size. The worst break for me was my orange chalice, which I snapped in half clean off the rock. Luckily, both sides look like they have enough eyes to survive.

 

The clam is exceptionally annoyed and is starting to move from its perch. I suspect it will eventually fall onto the sand, in which case I'll move it over to a new rock.

 

Temporary configuration FTS:

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So far, so good. I've transferred over the ATO into the sump as well so I don't have to worry about evaporation on the 90g while the lights are running. Next up will be the "equipment closet" build, to hide all of the electronics and cables that have been vomited out onto the floor.

 

Any suggestions on how to optimize my aquascape? My initial plan was to have open space in the middle, but it's now occupied by the clam rock. If the clam moves, I can rotate the rock more to open up the space. I am also going to remove one rock from the left to open up the sandbed, and push the toadstool rock in to create essentially two "islands", right larger than left, with open space in the middle.

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I found a cheap plastic display-only cabinet with the same dimensions as my 35g's cabinet at Canadian Tire. I had the idea of screwing on pine boards to the back to allow me to attach EB8s on the back:

 

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A little blurry, but you get the idea. All Apex modules screwed in and ready for wiring.

 

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ATO container ready:

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I was in a bit of a rush to get everything done so it's a rat's nest of wiring and tubing. I will slowly work on this to clean it up all nice and tidy-like, once the 35g is completely decommissioned.

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Now, the inhabitants:

 

Clowns checking out their new digs:

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Yellow watchman... watching:

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Blenny after hitching a ride with the LR. Skunk cleaner is very amused and happy:

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Porcelain crab setting up shop:

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Some coral shots: middle of the aquarium. I actually like how open it is in the middle now, I might just keep it that way.

 

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New position of the cali tort and its frag (now much larger):

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My (unexpectedly) large green birdsnest. Seriously, this thing is as big as a bowling ball:

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Duncan all happy-like:

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Side shot of the aquarium:

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And because I mentioned it before, it took me a while to figure out how to silence the Tunze 9410 skimmer outflow. I ended up using the sponge from the Eheim 1260 (which I did not use):

 

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I also had to clamp down the air intake almost all the way closed to let it break in. Now, it's generating some nice skimmate at probably 1/5 open. I'll open it up as it breaks in more.

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It was a huge pain the butt to cut and build the jag to let the return pipe in, but I've managed to make a clear screen cover with leftover BRS mesh:

 

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And in livestock news, I've added a new cleaner shrimp to accompany my older one, and (drumroll) a yellow coris wrasse. This was the one fish that I was sure I wouldn't QT (because of the sand requirement), so I was fairly concerned about getting one. I finally bit the bullet when there was a set of yellow coris at the LFS that have been there for weeks without any problems.

 

One thing that NO ONE tells you is that a yellow coris wrasse can play dead. Yes, really. Convincing enough to let a shrimp carry it off for dinner. The little bugger was jumping and thrashing in the acclimation bag right before... then my wife and I netted it and put it in. BAM! The fish was stiff and sloooowly floating down. I was so shocked that I thought it was the prazipro bath that I put it in. I netted it again and positioned it right in front of the vortech to aerate its lungs, sorta like a fishy CPR. I thought I saw some movement but then it floated out of the net and the new cleaner shrimp promptly grabbed it and dragged it under a rock. I thought it was a complete goner, but then I looked and the fish was twitching enough to get the shrimp off of it, and then wedged itself between a couple of rocks. An hour later and it was swimming like nothing happened. Stupid bugger, gave my entire family a heart attack.

 

So, pictures!

 

The new cleaner shrimp pair:

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Coris wrasse starting to pick over the rocks:

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Happily both fish and shrimp are complete hogs and eat frozen mysis like it's going out of style.

 

I check my calcium and alkalinity once a week, and this was my second data point. Seems like calcium has dropped 20ppm since last week. I suspect that because the lights are much better and brighter, the corals have put on a growth spurt. I now have increased my daily dosing from 19mL of B-ionic 2-part to 35mL to compensate.

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This is really coming along, I've had a Yellow Coris play dead as well. I was trying to catch him in a 5 gallon bucket that I had thrown together as a makeshift tank to medicate in. Needless to say after about 5 seconds of me chasing him around with the lid off, he jumped a solid 6-8 feet from the bucket. I picked him up and put him in the display, but he just fell to the bottom like you described. Didn't burrow for about 2-3 minutes just lay on the sand, drifting with the current. Was out and about the next day with no issues, great fish with tons of personality

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TLF 150 now online. I am using a mix of BRS GFO and ROX carbon. I know I should use separate reactors but I only have one TLF 150 :P. I am driving it with an MJ400 clamped almost all the way down so there's no tumbling. I'd be surprised if I'm running more than 10 GPH into the reactor. So far so good - next month I'll change it out and get a separate sponge pad so I can split the carbon and GFO and run the pump a little more open.

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Usually I see small groupings of dove snail eggs, but this is a first for me: big clump of cerith eggs. I guess they're happy in their new home.

 

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Just a small update. I found a pinhole leak in the emergency drain - in the join between the bulkhead and the 1" tube coming out of it. After some reading, what I did was cut a piece off of an extra 45 degree elbow, cut it in half, and then liberally put solvent cement on the top and sides of it. We'll see if this fixes it.

 

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I've also found a 22 litre square bucket (used for salmon packing I think), and painted it black for a bigger ATO container:

 

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And finally, I've plumbed in my extra doser to pump vinegar. Automated carbon dosing!

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One more: plumbed in larger 2-part containers. Don't mind the chemical formula error - I went off what I thought it was and I missed a second sodium atom and a third oxygen atom :P.

 

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In other news, the coris wrasse hid today *mad*. It probably got scared when I tripped the breaker yesterday, dove into the sand, and hasn't come out since then.

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I feel the need to redeem myself:

 

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And to distract you from the ineptitude... he's a sketch mode shot of the clowns done by my wife :).

 

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That's really cool! Don't worry about the wrasse, it's a hardy fish it'll be out and about in a day or two. I'm just glad they shoot for the sand bed and not the top when they're startled

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Right now my old 35g (devoid of LR but still have live sand and the AC70/heater running) is still running alongside the 90. I wanted to break it down today but didn't have the time or the heart. If this keeps going on I'll see if I can use it as a QT for a tang. I have a laundry list of fish I want to add and the tang is the hardest to QT in a bucket :P.

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I went back to the LFS and got the other two wrasses I was looking for: a McCosker's Flasher and a Lubbock Fairy. I'd made up my mind not to QT wrasses as I'm afraid I'd kill them. It's a calculated risk, for sure. The rest of the future additions will be QT'd as tangs and anthias are prone to ich.

 

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I also got a tiger pistol shrimp buddy for the watchman. This time they paired up within 5 minutes - previously in my 35g a Randall's pistol had no interest in the watchman. No pictures though as they are camera-shy buggers.

 

Danger signal though - seems like the yellow coris suffered an eye injury during his transfer last week. I was wondering why he was hiding out, and I found out why. He has pop-eye.

 

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He's otherwise eating well. I did some reading and it seems to be consistent with eye trauma, probably from being netted. I'll put some vitamins in his food and hope that it subsides in a week or so.

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Your wrasses are getting along?

Yup, no chasing, even. Seems like the coris likes the rockwork and the two fairy/flasher wrasses like it in the water column. I'd be more worried about the clowns being territorial but so far they actually swim with the newcomers.

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Sadly, I have to report that the yellow coris wrasse has passed away :(. I'm going to let the other wrasses settle in before trying again.

Sorry to hear this news. Sucks to loose fish. :(

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Last night was the first night that the Apex controller glitched on me (after a year of operation). At midnight my wife asked me why the aquarium lights were not off. Huh, so I went downstairs to check the controller. The software was fine and logging data, but the EB8s seemed to have fallen back onto their FALLBACK modes and are unreachable via web interface. I used the local display to edit an outlet to force it to resync with the EB8s, and the lights promptly turned off.

 

I think there was a freak surge (we are currently in the middle of a windstorm) that unsync'd the EB8s from the main controller. No biggie except that it happened sometime during the day and we caught it at night. That meant that my dosers were not running all day. I'm not too worried about the vinegar doser but I'll have to play catch-up with the 2-part.

 

One interesting thing to note is that I think it's a good idea to set FALLBACK ON for heaters. My heaters had FALLBACK OFF and my tank didn't have heat all day without me noticing. On the plus side, a 90g loses heat so slowly (especially with a 6-bulb sunpower going full blast) that it only dropped half a degree below my threshold.

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Maybe a little obsessive about Apex programming...?

 

CrestMed - Reef crest 90%

CrestLo - Reef crest 50%

LagNite - Lagoonal 60%

 

MP10:

Fallback CrestMed
Set CrestMed
If Time 06:00 to 11:00 Then CrestMed
If Time 11:00 to 13:30 Then TSMMorn
If Time 13:30 to 21:30 Then CrestMed
If Time 21:30 to 23:00 Then CrestLo
If Time 23:00 to 06:00 Then LagNite
MP40:
Fallback CrestMed
Set ASyncM10
If Time 00:00 to 01:00 Then SyncMP10
If Time 01:00 to 02:00 Then ASyncM10
If Time 02:00 to 03:00 Then SyncMP10
If Time 03:00 to 04:00 Then ASyncM10
If Time 04:00 to 05:00 Then SyncMP10
If Time 05:00 to 06:00 Then ASyncM10
If Time 06:00 to 07:00 Then SyncMP10
If Time 07:00 to 08:00 Then ASyncM10
If Time 08:00 to 09:00 Then SyncMP10
If Time 09:00 to 10:00 Then ASyncM10
If Time 10:00 to 11:00 Then SyncMP10
If Time 11:00 to 12:30 Then ASyncM10
If Time 14:00 to 15:00 Then SyncMP10
If Time 15:00 to 16:00 Then ASyncM10
If Time 16:00 to 17:00 Then SyncMP10
If Time 17:00 to 18:00 Then ASyncM10
If Time 18:00 to 19:00 Then SyncMP10
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