Violinist's 20 Long - 3 Years!

[nemmy]

When does dosing become a necessity? When the need for WC's becomes too frequent?

 

When you cant keep up with the demand of the corals with water changes.

Say a newly mixed salt water is 450, and your tank is at say 440, and after the water change your tank is back to 450. Then i wouldnt worry about dosing.

 

If your newly mixed salt water is 450, and your tank is 370, you might only get up to 380, and its just going to get lower and lower. Thats when its time to dose. Getting under 400 in your tank is pretty low, i wouldnt let it go under 400 personally, but natural sea water is like 420.

[violinist]

Got it. Hopefully not a concern for some time yet... Thanks!

[Oats]

I agree with Spanko about your best picture. Very Nice Setup!!!! What did you do for a RO/DI purifier?

[violinist]

RO/DI unit I got is Aquamaxx (or IWF) WRU 4. Think I got the 50gpd unit, maybe the 75. I forget. It spits out a couple 5 gallon buckets worth every Saturday morning which is what I need it to do

 

So I made it down to Midwest Coral Farm this afternoon. Great place, I put a small write-up in the reviews forum here.

 

Tried to restrain myself, but of course ended up spending a chunk. Decided to try that Neomarine salt mix as they said it's a higher calc/alk mix than what I've been using.

 

Also finally bought a mag test kit...

 

Picked up a sleeve of Rod's food as well as some phyto.

 

Now on to the critters...

 

I've been trying to learn a lot of about inverts while waiting for the tank to mature enough to get into some of the higher end/more difficult corals. So I was happy to see MWC had a good selection of them, and I picked up this feather duster:

 

 

They also had a few different macro's which I'm always ready to check out. Bought two of these pieces of this Mermaid's Fan which is a calciferous algae:

 

 

Broke down and picked up a few more softies as well, all shrooms. These are all pissed off, but thought I'd take some snaps of them anyway.

 

Tiny frag of St Thomas:

 

 

Couple heads of a really cool looking Yuma:

 

 

I also bought a rubble rock with some nicely colored palys on it. Shots of those and a FTS later, once everything settles down.

[Arkayology]

Those are some awesome yumas

[violinist]

They do look damn cool. I'm sort of kicking myself for not buying more of them.

[Arkayology]

They do look damn cool. I'm sort of kicking myself for not buying more of them.

 

I want to go out and get some acans and duncans but my gf said no

 

BTW, a new FTS is now mandatory

[adam87]

Did you get the yumas at Midwest Coral Farms?

[violinist]

Don't think they get financial veto power (or the delusion of having it) until they move from gf to wife status, so just go buy it.

 

Did you get the yumas at Midwest Coral Farms?

 

Yeah. And don't go and buy the rest of them! lol

[adam87]

Yeah. And don't go and buy the rest of them! lol

 

I am going their Sunday.

And you know what I am buying.

[violinist]

Punk!

 

They had some stuff I hadn't seen before. Two or three of these Tounge coral which were pretty neat but too darn big for a 20L.

[adam87]

I like tounge corals too. But, I really want those Elegance Corals.

I also got more pics up.

[violinist]

So I watched 5 of my snails gangbang one of the red flame algae's I got the other day. Tore it up to the point that there is now a 2cm piece dangling from the rubble it was glued to. Worse yet, a large chunk of it was torn off and sucked into my mp10, so I had to net out a snowstorm of little red algae pieces from the tank. I'm sure I didn't get all of it, wonder if it will grow where it lands.

 

Tried the Rod's food tonight. Tank went nuts for it, both fish and corals. Even had a hitchhiker crab come out of the rocks for some. Not sure when he arrived, haven't seen any since the other one got the Tweezers of Death when I was busting apart the LR last week.

 

There will be a snail apocalypse in the near future if my remaining flame algae turns into dinner.

[HernandezJ35]

that sucks flame algae is awesome...hopefully it will grow in random empty places

[latteslave]

Coming along great! You have really done a great job so far!

[HernandezJ35]

yeah awesome tank man

[violinist]

Thanks guys. WC tomorrow, try and get a good FTS after it settles down.

[violinist]

WC day and preceded it with a really good cleaning. Turned the mp10 up to full blast and sat there with a net for twenty minutes just catching all the #### that started blowing around (still a god awful amount of that flame algae ). Then broke out the turkey baster and blasted all the dust and detritus off the rocks and out of the caves.

 

Took the pain in the ass skimmer off and gave it a cleaning as well. Really getting irritated with it. It will pull out an entire collection cup of lightly colored water at its highest setting over a 24 hour period. So in a week, it took the tank down from 1.025 to 1.023sg because the ATO keeps filling the gap with rodi. Gotta get this figured out or just dump the thing entirely and start thinking about how I can get a sump plumbed in w/o having to drill or move the tank.

 

I had also added a second heater to the tank just for redundancy. But it was a stealth and after reading a nightmare story here of a stealth exploding and wiping out a tank, I yanked it back out...

 

Looks like my peppermint shrimp molted for the second time in the last month. Taking that as a sign it's healthy and growing. Also found a few zoas/palys showing up on the rocks in spots where I've not placed frags so that's neat to see.

 

Words, words, words. I'll put some pics up later today. Contemplating a run down to midwest coral farms as well...

[adam87]

I got a yuma today from Midwest Coral Farms.

 

I have a big Birdsnest frag you can have. I'll take pic for you.

[violinist]

They were arguing the prices written on the frag tanks? That's weird.

 

That yuma I bought was two heads, so 29 bucks or whatever. When I was cleaning today it scrunched up and underneath each head is a baby yuma already growing on the rubble lol.

[adam87]

They were not arguing, they just don't know the price.

 

That yuma I bought was two heads, so 29 bucks or whatever. When I was cleaning today it scrunched up and underneath each head is a baby yuma already growing on the rubble lol.

 

 

Wow, they grow fast.

[violinist]

I made it down there and picked up another feather duster worm as well as a mushroom rock with about 8-10 green irridescents on it (25 bucks). I like the shrooms and wanted to add some next to the hitchhiker shroom I have, but the real reason I wanted the frag was the two feather duster worms on it lol. So now I have 4 in the tank.

 

Tried to stick a filter sock on the skimmer return and was going about it in the laziest way possible. All I managed to accomplish was shooting a bunch of bubbles into the tank. I'll have to take the box off to put the sock on. So, pictures delayed till the bubbles dissipate a bit.

 

Btw the chubbier of the two guys working there was in when I went Friday. He's a good guy but said he works one day a week so he's definitely learning the ropes there. The manager was showing him how to use the checkout when I was there. Got the feeling his helper today was newer yet.

 

Wow, they grow fast.

 

They didn't pop two babies off, I think they were always there just hidden when the big yumas are all spread out. Just saw one getting blown around the tank so it must have detached in hope of finding a better home. Will be cool to see where it ends up attaching.

[violinist]

Ok, less words more pics:

 

FTS - click here for the full size version

 

 

Couple of the right side -

 

 

 

Couple of the left side -

 

 

 

Blasto -

 

 

Inadvertently frag'd candy canes -

 

 

A little patch of palys -

 

 

The 5 mouth ric that will never split -

 

 

My only sps -

 

 

Pair of worms on the shroom rock I picked up today -

 

 

The big feather duster worm bought today -

 

 

Yuma -

 

 

Some zoas -

 

 

Some zoas -

 

 

Some zoas -

 

[hlander]

I really really like your feather duster!!

[Apoptosis]

That is a great looking tank. I am often jealous of the longer and shallower tanks.

 

I like the new dusters, I had considered getting a couple while I was there and just got a peppermint shrimp instead. I'll be adding dusters at some point though. They look great and are too interesting not to have.