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Mark's Nanobox Powered 40B -retired-


markalot

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21 hours ago, vlangel said:

@markalot and @Tamberav, you two just need a lot more fish.  Actually goby and blenny type fish that need to eat multiple times a day.  My 56 aio tested at least 50 ppm for nitrates last time! (which is a little scary).  Of course it has no sump or skimmer.  I am trying to cut the food back but with 12 hungry fish plus acans, a nem, a sun coral its tough to know everyone is getting enough.  I will up the water changes before I let my fish lose weight.  I like my fish plump 😆.

 

Hi Dawn.

 

I have a tang in there who I know eats the algae because I see it coming back out.  :lol:  The big guy (Basslet) won't allow any more fish, he likes the way things are now and that is that.  Seems the older he gets the less tolerant he is.  He even gave the little wrasse a hard time the other day, which I'd never seen before.  Not chasing, but heading in it's direction with the mouth open.  I think my main issue is the tolerance for algae, which I let grow wherever it wants.  I need to pull most of it out and then see what happens to nitrates.

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9 hours ago, markalot said:

 

Hi Dawn.

 

I have a tang in there who I know eats the algae because I see it coming back out.  :lol:  The big guy (Basslet) won't allow any more fish, he likes the way things are now and that is that.  Seems the older he gets the less tolerant he is.  He even gave the little wrasse a hard time the other day, which I'd never seen before.  Not chasing, but heading in it's direction with the mouth open.  I think my main issue is the tolerance for algae, which I let grow wherever it wants.  I need to pull most of it out and then see what happens to nitrates.

Yeah, sometimes it's just as well to leave things be.  After all algae is natural and your tank is beautiful, so why mess with the balance by eliminating the algae.  Of course the algae is probably sucking up some of those nitrates so maybe pull just controlled amounts out at a time rather than going crazy on the whole tank.

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8 minutes ago, vlangel said:

Yeah, sometimes it's just as well to leave things be.  After all algae is natural and your tank is beautiful, so why mess with the balance by eliminating the algae.  Of course the algae is probably sucking up some of those nitrates so maybe pull just controlled amounts out at a time rather than going crazy on the whole tank.

Just box up your fish poop and start charging for it 🤑

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  • 1 month later...

It's an ugly mess, but the corals are all doing well and color has returned.   

 

I removed, and I wish I had a picture, a full half gallon of algae growing on the pumps and side walls.  This tank creates its own export system.  :)  

 

hQbcomc.jpg

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Argh.

 

The HOB sump pump failed sometime Sunday night.  This is the one glaring weakness, the heater and temp probe are in the sump.  The real killer is I have an alarm set at 76 and it almost dropped that low due to lack of circulation near the heater, but not quite.   I estimate the tank dropped to near 70.

 

IZjOeSZ.png

 

 

The basslet died, his big purple body stuck the the MP10.  The Blenny is missing as is the little wrasse.  The goby, tang, and Chromis survived and all the corals look unaffected.   

 

I reset the alarm to 77.  Looking over the temp graphs this tank never dropped below 77.6 for months until 15 days ago when you can see what appears to be the pump quitting and then restarting.  Phooey.    

 

 

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1 hour ago, markalot said:

Argh.

 

The HOB sump pump failed sometime Sunday night.  This is the one glaring weakness, the heater and temp probe are in the sump.  The real killer is I have an alarm set at 76 and it almost dropped that low due to lack of circulation near the heater, but not quite.   I estimate the tank dropped to near 70.

 

IZjOeSZ.png

 

 

The basslet died, his big purple body stuck the the MP10.  The Blenny is missing as is the little wrasse.  The goby, tang, and Chromis survived and all the corals look unaffected.   

 

I reset the alarm to 77.  Looking over the temp graphs this tank never dropped below 77.6 for months until 15 days ago when you can see what appears to be the pump quitting and then restarting.  Phooey.    

 

 

Ah Mark, I am sorry to hear this.  That stinks when a fluke thing like that happens.  I will say I am surprised that your fish were so drastically affected.  In my 36 bowfront, I had an old chiller stick on overnight once and the tank went down to 49° F.  All the fish were swirling lifelessly on the sandbed and I figured they were all goners.  I slowly brought the water up in temperature by doing warm WCs.  The clownfish, 2 anthias and a purple firefish all revived and lived normal lives after that incident.  I did lose 2 green chromis and a damsel which surprised me since those are all tough fish but I was shocked any survived that chill.

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3 hours ago, vlangel said:

Ah Mark, I am sorry to hear this.  That stinks when a fluke thing like that happens.  I will say I am surprised that your fish were so drastically affected.  In my 36 bowfront, I had an old chiller stick on overnight once and the tank went down to 49° F.  All the fish were swirling lifelessly on the sandbed and I figured they were all goners.  I slowly brought the water up in temperature by doing warm WCs.  The clownfish, 2 anthias and a purple firefish all revived and lived normal lives after that incident.  I did lose 2 green chromis and a damsel which surprised me since those are all tough fish but I was shocked any survived that chill.

 

The basslet likes to live in darker areas, which I assume means colder as well.  Very odd now that I think about it.  If he was swirling lifelessly he might have been sucked into the MP10 and maybe that's what did it?  Eyes were gone so death must have been hours before I found him.  

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Polarcollision

Dropping by to see your outstanding tank and am not disappointed. Truly I feel like you've been the most consistent of all of us over time with your 'blue thumb'. I'm sorry to hear about the fish loss though. So frustrating when stuff like that happens. Every tank is different but I can say that I also don't have any ill effects from temperature dropping low. We get power outages for half a day or more where temp is super low and coral/fish have been fine. It did occur that oxygenation from skimmer and water flow in sump was also cut off to the display. Low oxygen would affect fish first... thoughts?

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2 hours ago, Polarcollision said:

Dropping by to see your outstanding tank and am not disappointed. Truly I feel like you've been the most consistent of all of us over time with your 'blue thumb'. I'm sorry to hear about the fish loss though. So frustrating when stuff like that happens. Every tank is different but I can say that I also don't have any ill effects from temperature dropping low. We get power outages for half a day or more where temp is super low and coral/fish have been fine. It did occur that oxygenation from skimmer and water flow in sump was also cut off to the display. Low oxygen would affect fish first... thoughts?

 

Hi Polar,  thanks.

 

Both in tank pumps stayed on as did the skimmer.  The gyre regularly sucks in some air during the few seconds it runs at full speed so I don't think so?  No idea though.  Black cap temp range is 72 to 78, on the cooler side, so temp issue doesn't make sense.  

 

Happy to say the little wrasse is alive and well, so only the blenny is still missing.  

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Very strange....I had the power go out from a blizzard and the temp drop to 68 for about half a day with no losses except a cardinal.

 

They also get pretty cold in shipping some days.

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  • 2 months later...

Heater died early this morning.  Temp didn't drop too low but my only backup is a 500W.  lol.  It turns on for a few seconds, heat in the HOB sump goes from 77 to 78, and off.   A little overkill.   

 

Sorry no pics but the tank is hanging in there.   I dosed some diluted goat dewormer and it harmed the Xenia but did not kill them after a month.  I added one more drop and the leather started to wilt.  3 bags of carbon later and all is good but the Xenia is still suffering, which is a GOOD thing.   I don't think I can kill it like I did in my 150 but I can slow or halt the growth.  Unfortunately as it partially melts it overloads what little nutrient export I have in here so the algae bloom has been epic.  

 

One of these evenings I'm going in and trimming off anything algae is stuck too and I'll get some pictures.  

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22 hours ago, markalot said:

Heater died early this morning.  Temp didn't drop too low but my only backup is a 500W.  lol.  It turns on for a few seconds, heat in the HOB sump goes from 77 to 78, and off.   A little overkill.   

 

Sorry no pics but the tank is hanging in there.   I dosed some diluted goat dewormer and it harmed the Xenia but did not kill them after a month.  I added one more drop and the leather started to wilt.  3 bags of carbon later and all is good but the Xenia is still suffering, which is a GOOD thing.   I don't think I can kill it like I did in my 150 but I can slow or halt the growth.  Unfortunately as it partially melts it overloads what little nutrient export I have in here so the algae bloom has been epic.  

 

One of these evenings I'm going in and trimming off anything algae is stuck too and I'll get some pictures.  

At least the heater died in the off position.  Nothing worse than when they die on the On position although I guess your alarm would let you know the tank was heating up.  I really should get at least a temperature controller one of these days for my reef.

 

I will look forward to those pics when you post them.

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  • 2 months later...
  • 4 weeks later...
On 8/27/2019 at 10:51 PM, Sharbuckle said:

Update ? 🙂 

 

 

End of the line, the tank is sitting in the backyard de-stinking.   It never recovered from my attempt to kill the Xenia, worse the Xenia retaliated by having a huge growth spurt due to the nutrient spike induced by trying to kill them.  In short, the tank was thrown out of balance and I did not have the time or patients (patience !)  to try and recover.   

 

The two remaining torch heads and two hammer corals are in the 150 now, as is anything else I liked that was still alive.   I even moved a few unique shrooms over.

 

Tang is back at the fish store, chromis, the little wrasse, and the clown goby are in the 150.  The chromis did not survive, the clown goby is right at home with no issues, and the little wrasse seems to be avoiding any aggression due to his size, but we'll see.

 

Unfortunately the green leather coral looked like food to the foxface so I traded it for peppermint shrimp and a bunch of live plants at the LFS.

 

This nice rimless is now in the same location as I move back to planted tanks.   

 

Lsa2o5B.png

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Wow bummed to see this go.. really enjoyed this tank and your other tank too.. I really hope your other tank is still going strong it is one of my favorites.... 

 

Funny I was just thinking the other day that i havent seen many updates from you or teenyreef.. hope to see more updates on your other thread as well as teenys..  you guys are like reef royalty, you guys cant leave us hanging without updates 😉

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Wanted to make one final post here.  The little wrasse survived and seems to be loving all the space.  Incredibly he is unafraid of the sixline and even dares him to do anything.  I don't know if it's because he's so small or just the fact my sixline has been beat into submission by mama clown but I was thrilled to see putt putt cruising around the big purple stylo in my 150 last night.  

 

 

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On 10/1/2019 at 11:23 AM, Tamberav said:

Gasp! Loved this tank but would love to see pictures of what you do with the planted!

 

Thanks.  Here's the planted tanks.   The 29 gallon is aging well.  It's gone through green algae and poor plant growth but is now starting to pick up and look nice.  Unfortunately I still can't keep shrimp alive in here and I'm not sure why.   

 

The current scape is a little haphazard.  I let a fast growing plant (hygro) take over and lost a lot of my early plant purchases.  Along with that the co2 ran out and I delayed exchanging tanks.  I didn't lose the Rotala 'green' which has the curious habit of both shooting up and creeping along the substrate.  New plants include a very nice red stem plant which is either Rotala red or a form of Ludwigia.  Very unique leaf and seems to be a good grower, I've already trimmed the tops to place in the new 50 gallon.  Lighting is a Finnex planted+ 24/7 CRV and a Current USA Satellite.  I bought an used Reefkeeper Light years and years ago and never used it, it's now in use to control the lights and CO2.  Works perfectly.

 

QagRWHW.jpg

 

Here's the 50.  Still fungus growing on any old food in the substrate.  I added all the snails I could catch from the 29 to help with cleanup while the tank matures.   Washing the filter pads from the 29 in this tank did some good to kick start the cycle.  So far no ammonia but I'm dosing Prime and doing big weekly water changes just in case.  In a month or so, once the tank is more mature, it will be time for some Rainbows.  I'm undecided on what else to add but I know I want dwarf neon Rainbows.  I had these way back when the 46 bowfront was planted.  Lighting is a TwinStar 900SA.  This is a BEAST of a light, and uses a diffuser panel so the output is nearly identical to T5.  No shimmer and great plant colors.  

 

TMqVcB0.jpg

 

Sunset Hygro would look great in both tanks, unfortunately it's banned in just about every state.  Extremely invasive in the wild.  That green hygro in the back right corner is what took over the 29.  I must keep it trimmed!

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