My diary of a Biocube 8

[Phixion]

Kimberly, use the same method as before to get rid of it...

 

This is the RO/DI system I have, $127 shipped to your door, and after a year it's still giving me 0 TDS water, be sure to get a TDS meter with it though!!

[gavilaso]

Hey kimberly! did you try ebay?!!! sometime you get good stuff and good prices!!!!!! post a pic to see how its going!

[Kimberly63]

Kimberly, use the same method as before to get rid of it...

 

This is the RO/DI system I have, $127 shipped to your door, and after a year it's still giving me 0 TDS water, be sure to get a TDS meter with it though!!

 

Would I have to get an adapter to hook up to my kitchen sink? That would be the only place I can hook it up to and I'm not sure how these units work. Would it just screw onto the faucet?

 

 

 

 

 

Hey kimberly! did you try ebay?!!! sometime you get good stuff and good prices!!!!!! post a pic to see how its going!

 

Thanks! I'm gonna take some pictures today because I need to go get some developed for the frag swap sunday, so later I'll post some new ones.

[Phixion]

Would I have to get an adapter to hook up to my kitchen sink? That would be the only place I can hook it up to and I'm not sure how these units work. Would it just screw onto the faucet?

 

Yes, they sell a faucet adaptor for about $8 extra. You can totally use it this way and wouldn't have to plumb or drill anything for it to work.

[nano_regi]

My pom-pom crab molted today - I wasn't sure if it was a molting or he died so I kinda cut the molting and it was hollow but I can't seem to find him in any of his favorite hiding spots so just curious where he is...

 

My pom pom always hides for a few days after a molt, wait a few days before worrying, I've been told it's completely normal.

 

But if your anything like me, I worry until i see him agian

[Kimberly63]

I posted about this in the disease section, but I wanted to post about it here as well:

 

I've been having problems with the rust-colored flatworms and I was gonna order Flatworm Exit but wanted to try a non-chemical alternative so I decided to try the flashlight thing where you shine it on your sandbed with the lights out and the flatworms migrate to the light.

 

Well I set everything up and it's been about 15-20 minutes and look - It does work!

 

I'm so excited! I turned off my pump and I'm gonna wait about another 10 minutes or so and siphon out what's on the glass and keep doing it for the remainder of the evening.

[Lalani]

How cool is that! I plan on using that same technique to collect sexy shrimp larvae.

[Kimberly63]

Oh my I'm soooo tired. Today was such a long day but it was a good one so I thought I'd post about it.

 

Today was the Ohio frag swap near Cleveland so it was about a 3.5hr drive for me. I ended up taking my friend Holly. She has no interest in reefing, but I owe her big time because she sat there and sold my frags for me while I scoped out the place for stuff to buy.

 

I got a ton of -mostly zoas. I even got some free ones!

 

$10 pink and violet button polyps

$5 pastel pink zoas

$10 fire n ice zoas

$0 plain brownish zoas (free for getting the pink zoas)

$20 armor of god zoas (which are awesome but were $10/polyp )

$5 huge chocolate brown palys.

 

I also got:

 

$10 GSP

$10 torch coral

$5 pretty pink ricordea

$20 Pro-Coral Cure by Tropic Marin for coral dips

 

I also sold all my frags I had as well there. I had a large colony of green zoas that I sold for $15 and four frags of eagle eyes that I sold at $5 and my piece of ricordea that I cut off I sold for $3 (which I spent all that money as soon as I got it).

 

So I made out very well I think. I technically only spent around $50 from the money I brought and around another $50 for what I made off of my frags so I didn't break the bank at all. I can't imagine what I would've spent at the lfs for all that.

 

 

The swap itself was great! There were a ton of people there-probably a couple hundred. Everyone was so nice. I didn't stay the whole time because it started snowing and I figured I had spent enough money and wanted to get a head start home. I bought mini disposable tupperware containers to put frags in and packed them into coolers with handwarmers.

 

When I got home I set up a QT tank and dipped and acclimated all my frags (What a pain in the neck). Took close to two hours to get everything dipped and situated - stupid me ran out of water so I didn't have the QT tank up and running for me when I got home (NOTE TO SELF: Never, ever do that again). A guy there was nice enough to give me a couple gallons of his unused water - I offered to pay for it but he didn't want to lug it home anyways.

 

Now I'm exhausted and I've rambled on and on. I don't have any pics yet of my corals but I'll get them up asap tomorrow sometime.

[Kimberly63]

Well got some pics to show!

 

Here is the QT tank I setup for all my frags:

The sunlight was free

 

 

Today I decided to move everything to my main tank since everything looked okay in QT. Took me a little while to acclimate everything and some of my polyps aren't too happy being messed with but thank goodness I got everything done!

 

Top down shot of my armor of god zoa:

 

Fire and Ice zoas along with another breed - can't remember the name:

 

My chocolate brown super-sized palys:

 

My cotton-candy colored pink zoas with some unopened violet and pink button polyps on the right:

 

Shot of small pink ricordea - tried to bury the frag plug:

 

And my purple and green torch:

 

Finally an FTS:

 

Edit: yes, I'm having some more red-slime algae issues from using distilled water. I'm going to treat with chemi-clean tonight.

[Phixion]

Looking awesome!

[phil121]

Your tank is looking great! Those are some nice frags you picked up.

[dabman]

Your tank is looking pretty sweet. I just started up an 8gallon biocube as well. Looking forward to it! Your new frags are lookin nice!

[Weetabix7]

Looking good.

Frag swaps are awesome, aren't they??

What makes you so sure that the red slime is from using distilled water as opposed to something else?

I ask because I've been using distilled for quite a while and just purchased and started using an RO/DI. I'm curious to see if my tank shows any difference after a month or so.

[Kimberly63]

Looking awesome!

Thanks Matt!

 

Your tank is looking great! Those are some nice frags you picked up.

 

Thanks! Yeah they had so much stuff at the swap! Kinda glad I didn't have more money - I'm running out of room to put stuff

 

Your tank is looking pretty sweet. I just started up an 8gallon biocube as well. Looking forward to it! Your new frags are lookin nice!

 

Thanks! Yeah I really like the biocube although I'm kinda running out of room and now planning a bigger tank.

[Kimberly63]

Looking good.

Frag swaps are awesome, aren't they??

What makes you so sure that the red slime is from using distilled water as opposed to something else?

I ask because I've been using distilled for quite a while and just purchased and started using an RO/DI. I'm curious to see if my tank shows any difference after a month or so.

 

That was my first swap and I loved it so much! It was out of state so that was the only downfall.

 

I just hear people saying that they've had problems using distilled - I guess depending where you buy it. Do you get cyano at all while you're using distilled?

[Weetabix7]

I used distilled for the last 2 yrs. up until about a week ago when I started using my own RO/DI.

I didn't really have problems with cyano.

I did have a few other issues, but they could have been caused by other things.

I need to use the RO water for a little longer before I can say I have a decent standard of comparison.

[Kimberly63]

Here is a picture of my chocolate colored paly fully open. I absolutely love it. The polyp is about 1.25" in diameter.

 

 

I used distilled for the last 2 yrs. up until about a week ago when I started using my own RO/DI.

I didn't really have problems with cyano.

I did have a few other issues, but they could have been caused by other things.

I need to use the RO water for a little longer before I can say I have a decent standard of comparison.

 

Hmmm. It might be from the box water I buy since I don't mix my own. I'm going to buy a RO/DI here soon.

[Kimberly63]

I'm pretty mad at my torch coral right now . I was sitting there watching everything and that stupid torch took his tenticle and stuck the tip right into the middle of a zoa polyp and stayed there. So I took something and moved the tenticle now the little zoa doesn't look too good . I bought it hoping my clown would host it but it seems that all he's interested in is hunting pods all day. I'll keep an eye on the torch and if it does it again I'll probably take it out.

 

If the torch stings something, does the victim have a chance of living?

[Phixion]

I'm pretty mad at my torch coral right now . I was sitting there watching everything and that stupid torch took his tenticle and stuck the tip right into the middle of a zoa polyp and stayed there. So I took something and moved the tenticle now the little zoa doesn't look too good . I bought it hoping my clown would host it but it seems that all he's interested in is hunting pods all day. I'll keep an eye on the torch and if it does it again I'll probably take it out.

 

If the torch stings something, does the victim have a chance of living?

 

It all depends. zoas can technically sting stuff that touches them too, but it just really all depends. Torch, hammers and frogspawn are all very aggressive corals. Is there any way you can move the torch over further, or move the zoas further away?

[Kimberly63]

It all depends. zoas can technically sting stuff that touches them too, but it just really all depends. Torch, hammers and frogspawn are all very aggressive corals. Is there any way you can move the torch over further, or move the zoas further away?

 

No, I moved the torch in the back left corner on the sandbed and there is nothing in that area except 3 zoa polyps a few inches above it:

 

 

I mean, it won't upset me too much if I lose those 2 polyps (the 3rd one he stung is pretty much a goner) since I have a bunch in other spots of my tank but that rock that it's beside is pretty much the last open spot I have to place new frags . Maybe I'll have to upgrade my tank sooner than I thought - or get something less aggressive.

[Phixion]

Upgrade talk already! hehe With their night time sweepers, it's hard to keep them away from everything unfortunately.

[Kimberly63]

Upgrade talk already! hehe With their night time sweepers, it's hard to keep them away from everything unfortunately.

 

Lol. Yeah, I've been planning out my upgrade for about a month or so . It's kinda weird because the torch shrivels up at night and it's fully extended during the day. I'll just have to keep an eye on it.

[Kimberly63]

Okay today I decided to do take action against my cyano. Last week I used chemi-clean again and it didn't really do anything for my cyano. It worked the first time for about 3 weeks so I figured since my water parameters test okay I need to try something else. I decided to remove the sponge in my 3rd chamber - it was filled with muck so I didn't put it back in. Since I removed something that was obviously getting the crap out of my water I wanted to find something to replace it so I remembered I had I huge bag of poly-fill fiber (for stuffing pillows and other crafts) so I put a small handful of it below my chaeto in my second chamber. I needed something in there so my chaeto wouldn't get sucked through the bottom to chamber 3 then clog my pump. If it helps with filtering out my water - I'll be a happy camper because it's really cheap (about $4 for a huge bag).

 

I also heard from somewhere that some carbon actually leaches something in your water - can't remember if it was phosphates or not - and you're supposed to check the carbon package to see if it says it doesn't leach it into your water. So I'm hoping my carbon isn't causing the algae outbreaks.

 

On another note - it seemed like my clown was going to host my torch coral last night. It has never noticed it since I put it in my tank but my clown kinda hung out above it all evening and even slept against the back wall about half an inch above it last night. He usually sleeps against the back wall, but it's usually up by the power head. Today he showed no interest though except to casually graze by it lookin for pods.

[Phixion]

Floss can definitely be better than sponges. I'll be tearing down my 10g tank this week and setting up a brand new custom AIO tank I got. I won't say anymore than that about it, so keep your eyes peeled. My 10g is quickly going downhill as was evident when this past thursday night after I got home from work, I discovered my new adopted picasso lifeless on the bottom of the tank, and my other clownfish I had for a year and a half now had tried to escape (?) by jumping out. Not sure if he jumped before or after the picasso took it's last breath. I also this past week got a nice little blue spotted jawfish for my 30g tank which is doing great so far.

[cmador]

It's kinda weird because the torch shrivels up at night and it's fully extended during the day. I'll just have to keep an eye on it.

Looking good. Glad you liked the swap, it was really crowded, wasn't it? Just wanted to let you know that your torch's behavior is perfectly normal.