Mark's Nanobox Powered 40B -retired-

[Cannedfish]

Hall of fame induction class nominee. 

[mitten_reef]

11 minutes ago, Cannedfish said:

Hall of fame induction class nominee. 

Since you've been throwing around HOF ideas, you're now nominated to help @Christopher Marks comes up with HOF criteria....

 

my one recommendation - a long lasting engagement with NR members. 

[Cannedfish]

2 hours ago, micoastreefing said:

Since you've been throwing around HOF ideas, you're now nominated to help @Christopher Marks comes up with HOF criteria....

 

my one recommendation - a long lasting engagement with NR members. 

I appreciate the ill-placed faith in my abilities, however, as you should know by reading my tank thread, I'm generally cast as the 'bad-ideas guy' rather than the 'responsible guy.' Occasionally, I'm cast as the 'ridiculously-good-looking -'80's-villain guy' and on one misbegotten occasion I was cast as a toaster. That aside, I agree with your criteria recommendation!

 

[got2envy]

On 5/28/2018 at 8:59 PM, markalot said:

In bad need of a trim.  

 

WOWZA!!

[Kellie in CA]

I love the rich colors of this tank.  Very nice!

[markalot]

For those who don't follow my big tank ...

 

We had a very unexpected power outage on the evening of May 31st due to some storms that rolled through.  It lasted 20 hours!  I have enough battery backup to run both tanks for 4 hours.  To save the tanks I had to break out a generator I bought 2 years ago that had never been used.  I expected to use it over the winter, not in the spring.   Since I didn't have to heat the tanks we used the extra power to keep a freezer cold.  :D   

 

Obviously this won't work if we were on vacation.  

 

Tank Savior.  This little generator was $250 list, I got it on sale for $200.  

 

 

 

 

[DaveFason]

Glad to see things survived just fine. Was that one of your first bad storms to knock out power for that long?

[Sharbuckle]

Thank god for that generator. I had a similiar experience recently, 12 hours.. what a nightmare

[markalot]

1 hour ago, DaveFason said:

Glad to see things survived just fine. Was that one of your first bad storms to knock out power for that long?

 

It's an interesting case.  Our outage was not storm related, it was an equipment failure that happened just before storms knocked out a lot of power.  This tweet was 6 hours post outage. 

 

Quote

Evening update: As of 9 pm, we are down to 102 outages affecting 2933 members, down from 5600 following the storms. Crews will be working through the night and into tomorrow. Many broken poles, trees down that slow the process. We appreciate your patience.

 

We have all underground lines so rarely do we lose power.  Just horrible timing. 

 

[markalot]

On 5/31/2018 at 1:27 PM, Kellie in CA said:

I love the rich colors of this tank.  Very nice!

 

Thanks Kellie.  

[markalot]

On 5/31/2018 at 1:19 PM, got2envy said:

WOWZA!!

 

Thanks g2e, nice to see you around again.  :)  

[markalot]

Fathers Day / Birthday gift to myself ... Nikkor 10-20mm wide angle lense.

 

Really good contrast, so much better than the kit lens.

 

[teenyreef]

4 hours ago, markalot said:

Fathers Day / Birthday gift to myself ... Nikkor 10-20mm wide angle lense.

 

Really good contrast, so much better than the kit lens.

 

Wow! I've always been happy with the kit lens, and I haven't really noticed much improvement with the 35mm prime. But that wide angle looks sweet!

[jSully]

Beautiful. It looks like you put a bunch of frags in and walked away for 2 years. Lol. Love how they’ve all grown into each other and filled the spaces. 

[Christopher Marks]

Nice new lens @markalot, what a great gift! I love rectilinear wide-angle lenses, no distortion at the edges 👌

 

You can really see the width of the tank with your new lens, longer focal lengths compress that sense of depth when photographing aquariums. So cool!

[markalot]

This tank has been hooked up to a doser, for the first time in its life, since mid July.  Good grief are things now growing fast.  I had to trim the green and purple caps because they were shading corals, plus aptasia and extra algae has made an appearance.  The algae is from the feeder overfeeding while on vacation, I'm guessing, and the aptasia is because it appears Big Fred found the shrimp and had a meal.  

 

 

The sad torch coral does appear to be stable now so I suspect it simply could not handle the constantly low alk in here.  

 

[pgrVII]

Crunchy lookin in here brother Mark. Nice work as always,had to catch up a little since last time I was in here.

[DaveFason]

Looking great Mark. You will soon be serving dinner with how large those caps are!  

[Clown79]

Your tanks are beautiful! 

 

 

[markalot]

On 7/15/2018 at 9:16 PM, pgrVII said:

Crunchy lookin in here brother Mark. Nice work as always,had to catch up a little since last time I was in here.

Thanks!

On 7/16/2018 at 9:05 AM, DaveFason said:

Looking great Mark. You will soon be serving dinner with how large those caps are!  

 

Yea, a tank devoted to just montipora caps and maybe digitata would be quite cool.

On 7/21/2018 at 10:24 PM, Clown79 said:

Your tanks are beautiful! 

 

 

 

Thanks Clown!

[Clown79]

6 minutes ago, markalot said:

Thanks!

 

Yea, a tank devoted to just montipora caps and maybe digitata would be quite cool.

 

Thanks Clown!

Yw!

 

 

 

 

[markalot]

Still going.

 

Salinity rose to 39!  The green cap browned, which was the only thing to really show much change.  You can see the return of the green in the FTS below.  I lowered it pretty fast and didn't observe any stress.   The bird obviously likes the doser, this is the second set of new growth buds.  lol  Can't complain about the colors in here either. 

 

KH is 6.2, really struggle to keep it up to 7 in here as well.  I've gotten used to running Alk chronically low and still getting good growth and color.  I do not want faster growth.

 

I tried a couple of doses of PhosphateRx to see if I could knock back the rampant algae.  The Nepthea DID NOT LIKE and shrunk way down for a week.  It's just now starting to stretch out again.   

 

 

PINK

 

 

Look closely under the spongodes and you can just make out the big guy.  Always watching, waiting ..... 

 

Aptasia is starting to reach plague levels so it's almost time to feed the big black cap ... I mean add some more peppermints.    

 

All fish alive and healthy, including the ever reclusive wrasse.

[vlangel]

I just can't believe how vibrant the colors are in your tank.  I feel like I need sunglasses to look at them.  I love hearing that your fish are fat and healthy too.  So how old are your oldest fish?

 

And hey, what is a few aiptasia.  That just makes your tank more like the ocean, right?  After all, isn't that what we are all trying to replicate?

[WV Reefer]

10 hours ago, markalot said:

Still going.

 

Salinity rose to 39!  The green cap browned, which was the only thing to really show much change.  You can see the return of the green in the FTS below.  I lowered it pretty fast and didn't observe any stress.   The bird obviously likes the doser, this is the second set of new growth buds.  lol  Can't complain about the colors in here either. 

 

KH is 6.2, really struggle to keep it up to 7 in here as well.  I've gotten used to running Alk chronically low and still getting good growth and color.  I do not want faster growth.

 

I tried a couple of doses of PhosphateRx to see if I could knock back the rampant algae.  The Nepthea DID NOT LIKE and shrunk way down for a week.  It's just now starting to stretch out again.   

 

 

PINK

 

 

Look closely under the spongodes and you can just make out the big guy.  Always watching, waiting ..... 

 

Aptasia is starting to reach plague levels so it's almost time to feed the big black cap ... I mean add some more peppermints.    

 

All fish alive and healthy, including the ever reclusive wrasse.

 

Soooo pretty.  That pink is ridiculous! 😍

[markalot]

1 hour ago, vlangel said:

I just can't believe how vibrant the colors are in your tank.  I feel like I need sunglasses to look at them.  I love hearing that your fish are fat and healthy too.  So how old are your oldest fish?

 

And hey, what is a few aiptasia.  That just makes your tank more like the ocean, right?  After all, isn't that what we are all trying to replicate?

 

Thanks Dawn, colors go up and down, right now in an up phase.   :)

 

I purchased the Basslet around May 2014 so he's the oldest.  The first Tailspot died a little over a year ago and I took the yellow clown goby back to the LFS.  The first possum wrasse jumped through a small opening near the back of the tank. The top almost fully sealed now to prevent any more accidents.  

 

The Basslet lifespan says 2 to 4 years, possibly longer.  He looks healthy all the time, big and fat and super purple.  Hopefully he continues to live.   

1 hour ago, WV Reefer said:

 

Soooo pretty.  That pink is ridiculous! 😍

 

Thanks Christy.