GodfatherNikki's 29g Tax Return

[JamesHL88]

Looks good! How big is your resivor?

[godfathernikki]

Looks good! How big is your resivor?

 

Well temporarily I'm using a 1 gallon water jug that I have on hand, but I definitely want something bigger. Right now it lasts about 3 days, but it has actually been humid and we've had some rain here in the last week that has really cut down on the evaporation, so I don't think it will be nearly enough in the long term.

 

Ive got a small cabinet that I can fit a bigger res into to keep everything looking nice, I just have to find a container the right shape.

[godfathernikki]

I found some aptasia.... grrr. Only one, but it has me worried because it was on the dry rock and not the rubble I used to seed my tank. My train of thought is that if it managed to get on the new rock, it was dispersed through the water column some how and in turn could easily pop up anywhere else in the tank.

 

I guess I'll just have to keep a close eye on things and stay vigilant if any more pop up.

 

Oh yea, and the fix for the one I found was just to pull the rock out and let it dry out. It's a small piece so you can't even tell it's missing from the tank.

[godfathernikki]

UPDATE: Added a hardware list to my front page.

[godfathernikki]

My tank's ph has been boarderline since I set it up, dropping to 7.75 at night and the high point being around 7.85 -7.9. It isn't causing problems yet, but I wanted to crank it up a bit to get it a little more into the safe zone.

 

Initially I thought it was because the tank was just coming out of a cycle, but now that it's a few months old I know that is not the case. I also pushed my ALK CA and MAG up to see if that would help, but it raised it only a little..

So I did an air quality test by leaving a cup of tank water in the house, and one outside for a while. The outside cup had a much higher ph, so it turns out the co2 levels in my house were elevated causing the low ph.

 

I live in the desert, so opening a window is really only an option a couple months a year, and the tank is in the middle of the house so running an airline through a window or wall isn't much of an option either.

 

My fix: http://www.bulkreefsupply.com/store/medica...t-low-dust.html

A co2 scrubber! I put some of that media in a cartridge and hooked that up to the air intake of my skimmer. So far it's working like magic. This morning (after a little over 24 hours of use) my tank ph is at 7.88, which is .13 higher than it normally is!

 

I have no idea how much this will actually raise my ph, but I suspect it may be a couple days before it starts to level out.

[godfathernikki]

CO2 scrubber is still doing its job, ph this morning (low point) is 7.93, that is about a 0.2 increase over the last 2-3 days

[godfathernikki]

A ricordia I fragged and moved over from the old tank a couple weeks ago:

[godfathernikki]

A hammer that was also moved over:

[godfathernikki]

New FTS:

Aug 15 2012

[godfathernikki]

I managed to find another frag of rastas from a user here that came in almost a week ago. They were a little beat up but it looks like these ones are going to make it.

[godfathernikki]

I lost my cleaner shrimp Yesterday afternoon I glanced in the tank to find the new emerald crab munching on the corpse.

 

Alk is at 8dkh which is a little low but still in range(i'm working on bringing this up), and everything else is fine. Not sure what the COD on this one was. He was small when I got him and only had him for about 5 months, so I doubt it was old age. My current guess is the emerald crab got him, but I'm not 100% sold on that theory, compared to the crab the shrimp was pretty speedy.

 

Those shrimp are great fun because you can actually interact with them in the tank, and they look cool. I'll definitely be getting a replacement for him at some point, so I'm hoping whatever happened was a fluke.

[slickwill613]

If I could send you mine I would. I hate him.

[godfathernikki]

If I could send you mine I would. I hate him.

Lol, I'm guessing he steals food from your corals? Seems to be what most ppl complain about.

[godfathernikki]

A couple shots of the co2 scrubber:

 

the skimmer mod

 

aaand the scrubber itself. As you can see it's just a basic filter chamber, and has a reusable cartridge filled with soda lime. It works well enough for my needs so far, and has added about 0.2 - 0.3 to my ph.

[godfathernikki]

Received some new corals a few days ago from reefgardener:

^^That's about half of the new ones. The tank is really starting to fill out. I should probably start thinking about updating my FTS...

 

The YCG wasted no time in munching on the new sps. I thought they would be fine because he left the monticap I've had for a while alone. I siphoned him out, and he is now keeping watch over my softie frag tank

[godfathernikki]

Just received my PAR meter from apogee. I originally thought my lights were too strong, because some of my soft corals were reacting negatively. I now believe it was probably light shock from changing lights. Par just under the surface of the water was about 100, so that is def not too much light. The good news is they were running at around 30% so I have plenty of room to brighten things up.

 

I also finally got around to getting a heater. It's still in the 90s-100s here, but I will definitely need it in a couple months.

[godfathernikki]

The par in my tank seems to be pretty good. The highest point on the rock directly under the lights gets around 500par, and Ive got several areas on the sides/corners that are 50-100, so I should be able to find a decent spot for just about everything

 

I could go higher if I needed too, but I don't really want to push my LEDS past 700mA.

[Weetabix7]

My tank's ph has been boarderline since I set it up, dropping to 7.75 at night and the high point being around 7.85 -7.9. It isn't causing problems yet, but I wanted to crank it up a bit to get it a little more into the safe zone.

 

Initially I thought it was because the tank was just coming out of a cycle, but now that it's a few months old I know that is not the case. I also pushed my ALK CA and MAG up to see if that would help, but it raised it only a little..

So I did an air quality test by leaving a cup of tank water in the house, and one outside for a while. The outside cup had a much higher ph, so it turns out the co2 levels in my house were elevated causing the low ph.

 

I live in the desert, so opening a window is really only an option a couple months a year, and the tank is in the middle of the house so running an airline through a window or wall isn't much of an option either.

 

My fix: http://www.bulkreefsupply.com/store/medica...t-low-dust.html

A co2 scrubber! I put some of that media in a cartridge and hooked that up to the air intake of my skimmer. So far it's working like magic. This morning (after a little over 24 hours of use) my tank ph is at 7.88, which is .13 higher than it normally is!

 

I have no idea how much this will actually raise my ph, but I suspect it may be a couple days before it starts to level out.

 

I'm curious, can this be used without a skimmer?

Is carbon dioxide the only thing it removes?

Unable to find out more from that link.

[godfathernikki]

I'm curious, can this be used without a skimmer?

Is carbon dioxide the only thing it removes?

Unable to find out more from that link.

When I was researching, I did not find that it removed anything other than c02. If I remember correctly, it somehow turns c02 into calcium carbonate. Apparently it is also the same stuff scuba divers use in re-breather systems.

 

You can use it without a skimmer, but the air pump will need to have an intake line to connect to the canister. So something like maybe an aqualifter with the scrubber on the intake and an airstone on the output might work if it can pump out enough air for the tank size.

[godfathernikki]

Well it only took me 3 months, but I updated the FTS! - See the front page

 

I had a couple of mishaps since my last post- lost an acro frag due to an alk swing while trying to get my dosing pumps setup, and I bleached a birdsnest by adding purigen/carbon and clearing up the water too quickly. The acro frag died off a while ago, luckily it was a cheap one but it's still unfortunate to lose a coral. The birdsnest started recovering fine after I moved it and reduced the led PWM slightly, although i did have to cut off one of the branches that did not recover.

[Orangutran]

Any update on this? I like 29g tanks.