no694terry Posted February 15, 2016 Share Posted February 15, 2016 After about 3 years of this tank getting not so much as a water change, its time to make it nice. It's a 90 gallon with a cherry stand/canopy I bought off a guy who sold tanks, coral and fish out of his house in Slippery Rock. It originally held cichlids but after we moved I set it back up with the contents of my old 40 gallon hex, and added a 30 gallon sump. Since then nothing has really changed. I never treated the tap water i used to top it off, never changed the salt, nothing, it just sat neglected and yet pretty healthy besides some GHA for 3 years, in my basement with my kids always getting there dirty mits all over the glass. Occasionally my wife would put decorations on top for the holiday, which drives me nuts because i need to lift lid to add water, but i only add it when the pump would start sucking air. So a week or so ago I order the BRS RoDi and set up a tank system in the utility room. This will supply for the 90 and the 15g in my office at work. I also order two 165w Wifi chinese LED fixtures to replace the oddysea fixture that has two working 4 year old bulbs. This weekend I picked up a bucket of reef crystals and a new 300w heater and started doing water changes. I did about 20 gallons worth so far. The bigger clown and the Yellow watchman goby, I have had about 5 years. The small clown is maybe about a month. I lso have a banded coral shrimp and a pistol shrimp, both molting and doing pretty well. I would gander that the reason the tank is still doing well is that theres a small bioload and the GHA keeps the water contaminant in check. But my tap water is actually pretty good quality. With the BRS, I'm only at 1 or 2 ppm before the membrane through 1 micron filters. Current..ish How it sits after this weekends maintenance, new LED's arent in yet - - and my RoDi setup 1 Quote Link to comment
no694terry Posted February 15, 2016 Author Share Posted February 15, 2016 this is also the home of the GHA eating Birstlesaurus, previously mentioned in my 15 gallon thread. And this tank houses a number of peanut worms, strange little guys, at night it looks like the rocks have elephant trunks Quote Link to comment
Newstead Posted February 15, 2016 Share Posted February 15, 2016 Wow, how big is that guy? What are your plans for the tank? Quote Link to comment
no694terry Posted February 15, 2016 Author Share Posted February 15, 2016 Wow, how big is that guy? What are your plans for the tank? in scared form he's about 1/2" wide and 6 inches long. In reach mode he spans over 12" at least. I'm pretty sure it's the only one in the tank because I actually cured the rocks when i moved yet its still there Plans for the tank are to added 1 or 2 more small fish, couple more inverts. For coral I'm not going to be picky, I visit LFS from time to time and see what they have. Right now I actually want to get these $25 Hammer corals they have, they're about golfball size heads, one for work and one for home 2 Quote Link to comment
no694terry Posted February 16, 2016 Author Share Posted February 16, 2016 The Evergrow 165w LED WifI fixtures arrived at my office today. I'm making some plates to hold the lights where the glass is in the canopy. They seem pretty nice. Manual mode works, theres a nice push/twist to adjust the 3 channels. BUT Wfi control is what I'm after to set up sunrise, sunset, clouds, lightning, moonlights etc. And no more timers 1 Quote Link to comment
vlangel Posted February 16, 2016 Share Posted February 16, 2016 It will be nice to get your home tank back into optimal condition. I used to have a 90g AGA with a stand and canopy in 2004. Back then I ran (3) 48" VHOs. It was a great tank for LPS and softies and I had some awesome fish. My favorite was a Navarchus angel, named Big Al. I had that tank until 2012 but caring for my mom in law who was confined to bed necessitated me selling it. I will enjoy seeing the direction you take with yours. 1 Quote Link to comment
no694terry Posted February 16, 2016 Author Share Posted February 16, 2016 Thanks, I;m looking for some more live rock for it, Hoping to find some with good hitchhikers. Saltwater Sanctuary had some but pricey, same with Wet Pets, I might try Aquaworld again, i think i got some from them in the past. I used to have stomatella's serpent starts, and amphipods all over the place but after i cured the rock I just have Bristlesaurus, some peanuts and little fan worms. I added some chaeto to the sump and a 19.5w 5k LED but the nuisance algae down there is smothering out the chaeto. The main reason I had to cure the rock when we moved was a massive Halimeda outbreak. I had to harvest it out of my 40 hex constantly. 1 Quote Link to comment
no694terry Posted February 17, 2016 Author Share Posted February 17, 2016 These lights are fantabulous. The Wifi Control took a few minutes to get the hang of but connection was simple and the app from the Evergrow "brand" has very nice features for setting up a day simulating fade, rather than just on and off. I also set it up to get "cloudy" around 5pm with some lightning between 6 and 610. Each side is independently controlled but you can sync them together one you get the hang of it. The brightness of them is ridiculous, I have my high noon setting at 30% blues 20%whites with dusk and dawn at 10/5%. Theres four moon light LEDs that i have set at 3% and its still a little too bright. My only issue with them is the short cords. I'm going to try and find some longer right angle cords.. The lights on the right is stretch to reach and I have no drip loop at the moment I made some trim pieces for them and weld on some angle clips so the lights sit down inside the trim a little. I should have put them a little closer together instead of in the middle of each window but oh well, i can grow LPS in the middle up higher now. sorry for crummy cell pics lights on low 1 Quote Link to comment
no694terry Posted February 22, 2016 Author Share Posted February 22, 2016 Since I've added the Rodi, I have been changing out hte water in the 90 with rodi water and reef crystal salt. In the last week I have probably changed 30% by now. Other than the GHA, it s a really healthy tank and i didnt want to risk too much change at once. I just try to pull out as much GHA i can during the change which is not much now so I'll have to get physical on it and start scrubbing i guess. I think today I'm going to darin another 3 gallons into a bucket and start removing rock to scrub in the change water I tried getting a picture of my pistol shrimp but i had very poor cooperation so then i tried to video tape him/her, which led to more video's. sorry for quality, i have to manually focus my dslr in video mode, feature i rarely use http://www.shotbyterry.com/Underwater/Corals/i-zHrxRNL/0/1280/IMGP4715-1280.mp4 http://www.shotbyterry.com/Underwater/Corals/i-fTRrJfz/0/1280/IMGP4716-1280.mp4 http://www.shotbyterry.com/Underwater/Corals/i-jnjwZFh/0/1280/IMGP4717-1280.mp4 Quote Link to comment
no694terry Posted February 23, 2016 Author Share Posted February 23, 2016 Tired scrubbing GHA off rocks in a bucket of change water last night. It helped but the ole tooth brush no where near stiff enough for the job, plus i was afraid bristlesaurus was going to pop out from somewhere. It helped though, the bucket with about 3 gallons of old water in it was complete turned opaque green. from just 4 or 5 rocks on left side 1 Quote Link to comment
vlangel Posted February 23, 2016 Share Posted February 23, 2016 Ha ha! enter Jaws music! Quote Link to comment
no694terry Posted February 24, 2016 Author Share Posted February 24, 2016 scrub some more last night. I have removed maybe 60-70% so far. The rest is on larger rocks on the bottom I cant move without jeopardizing the pistol shrimp so hopefully the algae car start to starve out now that i have about half the water changed with rodi water Quote Link to comment
no694terry Posted February 26, 2016 Author Share Posted February 26, 2016 me and the kids added a pincushion urchin to the tank last night. It's pretty boring so far. Quote Link to comment
no694terry Posted March 2, 2016 Author Share Posted March 2, 2016 The urchin died, . And the wifi lights seem to go on the fritz with the cloud effect so i turned it off. No more cloudy afternoons, or urchin Quote Link to comment
no694terry Posted March 8, 2016 Author Share Posted March 8, 2016 I have an idear, recall pic #2 in my first post. Right now I get a tremendous amount of algae growth were the light shines down into my sump. Lately i been using this as a harvest area for GHA and i have noticed the GHA in the display is disappearing. So my new idear is instead of climbing inside my sump to clean it out and cloud up the water, im going to put a removable panel there flat in the water to the algae to grow on, then i can remove it for easier cleaning. Like a scubber but a little different 2 Quote Link to comment
vlangel Posted March 9, 2016 Share Posted March 9, 2016 I have an idear, recall pic #2 in my first post. Right now I get a tremendous amount of algae growth were the light shines down into my sump. Lately i been using this as a harvest area for GHA and i have noticed the GHA in the display is disappearing. So my new idear is instead of climbing inside my sump to clean it out and cloud up the water, im going to put a removable panel there flat in the water to the algae to grow on, then i can remove it for easier cleaning. Like a scubber but a little different Let us know how it works, I would be curious. Quote Link to comment
no694terry Posted March 13, 2016 Author Share Posted March 13, 2016 no algea growth on the removable glass panels yet. The remaider of gha, while looking weaker and easier to vacuum during water changes, is still holding on. I rearranged a few rocks today to create higher spots under lights for future sps. I also too a heavily covered coralline rock and sanded with my angle grinder throwing millions of spores into the water. Quote Link to comment
no694terry Posted March 16, 2016 Author Share Posted March 16, 2016 The GHA continues to retreat, only doing water changes, and vacuum what i can in the process. I added the led light in the fuge to help focus its growth in there rather than the display until all the old phosphates and nitrates are gone from the rock and sand 2/18/2016 3/15/2016 1 Quote Link to comment
no694terry Posted April 12, 2016 Author Share Posted April 12, 2016 little update. The GHA in this tank continues to fade out, Lately its been turning a transparent green and easier to vacuum. I had a run in with my pistol shrimp yesterday vacuuming, He does not care for the vacuum stick and came out firing like a machine gun at it. SNAP SNAP SNAP SNAP, pretty cool actually. He's the boss of the underground so to not hurt his ego, i moved the vacuum to another part of the tank. 1 Quote Link to comment
vlangel Posted April 12, 2016 Share Posted April 12, 2016 Ha ha! He at least has felt like he's been the sole propriator so I guess he's rebelling against any interference. Anyway, that is funny! Quote Link to comment
no694terry Posted October 23, 2016 Author Share Posted October 23, 2016 Im still losing the GHA battle. I have a new CUC coming from RC.org. hopefully 200 snails and hermits can help. It came back when i turned the lights up for the coral i brought home from work. I just found all the peices for my old reactor. Im gonna try hitting ut hard with phosgaurd, the gfo along with the new cuc. 1 Quote Link to comment
vlangel Posted October 24, 2016 Share Posted October 24, 2016 I hope your new cuc do the job. I have never really had gha but I guess it can be a bear. Quote Link to comment
no694terry Posted October 24, 2016 Author Share Posted October 24, 2016 Im pretty sure all my trouble is in the rock. Pretty certain at this point that it was saturated with phosphates. I always used tap water until about 8 months ago when i got the Rodi. 1 Quote Link to comment
vlangel Posted October 24, 2016 Share Posted October 24, 2016 Im pretty sure all my trouble is in the rock. Pretty certain at this point that it was saturated with phosphates. I always used tap water until about 8 months ago when i got the Rodi. I don't know if that would be the cause? I too always used tap water until about a year ago and I am still using the same rock that was in my tank. Maybe the gha hitched hiked on something you bought? Quote Link to comment
no694terry Posted December 24, 2016 Author Share Posted December 24, 2016 Comin along, i started dosing algeafix which stopped the growth and today i went in and hand scrubbed and rinsed every last rock. And did about a 50% water change in process I got another 5gal bucket full of rock from my office tank cooking tbat ill add into this tank when its done 1 Quote Link to comment
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