Kijho Posted June 4, 2014 Author Share Posted June 4, 2014 Very frustrated today.. Birdsnest just went pure white overnight, it's out of the tank. I'm not frustrated with that though, I expected it was going to happen. Just not cut out for SPS in my tank - atleast for now. My big ricordia florida basically began to droop down from the frag plug as it had no support beneath it and it got super stretched / looked gooey like it was melting. Took the ricordia out and decided to cut the frag plug from the bottom and just glue the frag plate to the rock. Yeah... what the hell are these plugs made of? Couldn't cut it even with a dremel. Ended up with shavings/ saltwater everywhere. In the process I guess the rocks that the ricordia were on - which were glued to the frag plug - basically began to crumbled. I thought the ric' was going to rip in half so I got gloves on and held it together with my fingers. It's okay now, but it fell off the frag plug... Placed it on the top of my rock and did a 30% WC. I knew it wasn't going to stay. Put some super glue but that didn't do sh*t. Turned on the powerheads and the ricordia became an airplane and ended up wedged in a crevice in the rocks. Will see if it's alive tomorrow or not... dunno why this is such a pain in the ass. How do I cover the rocks in ricordia when they come on these plugs.. Link to comment
ninjamyst Posted June 4, 2014 Share Posted June 4, 2014 ouch, sorry about the ric. I will tell you that I have killed at least 3 rics trying to get them off of plugs. It's not a fun process. Most of mine comes attached to small rubles that are then glued to the frag plug. So I just take a knife and jimmy the ruble off the plug. Sometimes it's glued so tight that I end up slipping and cutting the ric in half. Not fun. Hope yours survive. Do you have a tweezer to take the ric out of the rock? Is the ric attached to anything at all right now? Link to comment
Kijho Posted June 4, 2014 Author Share Posted June 4, 2014 ouch, sorry about the ric. I will tell you that I have killed at least 3 rics trying to get them off of plugs. It's not a fun process. Most of mine comes attached to small rubles that are then glued to the frag plug. So I just take a knife and jimmy the ruble off the plug. Sometimes it's glued so tight that I end up slipping and cutting the ric in half. Not fun. Hope yours survive. Do you have a tweezer to take the ric out of the rock? Is the ric attached to anything at all right now? It's not attached to anything now it seems. Except some broken up crumbled rubble... I can't am having a hard time super-glueing them. Can I dry off the entire Ric ? I tried to dry off the rubble but it didn't work and the ric released so much slime. I'm using some sort of super-glue reef glue by seachem. It comes out thicker than regular super glue... The problem is putting the ric on the rock in the water once the glue is on the ric. I don't know if this superglue is waterproof?? By the time I got it in the water it stuck to part of the tweezer... Link to comment
Reefkid88 Posted June 4, 2014 Share Posted June 4, 2014 I think the tank is just way to new and not stable enough for sps of any kind still. I'd say that's why it kicked the dust,which sucks. As for the ric,just give it some time. Don't let little things like that frustrate you. Look at ninja for example,with both of his crashes. He stuck with it and now everything is amazing. Softies are pretty hardy. Usually what I do is saw thru the bottom stick part of the plug just leaving the disc which makes for easier placement. As for the glue,from what I've read and my experience,saltwater helps super glue of all types cute faster and harden up. If when you glue something to rubble or a plug,have a seperate container with tank water in it and sit it in the container for a few minutes and let the glue "set" then put it in the tank. Hope that helps. Link to comment
ninjamyst Posted June 4, 2014 Share Posted June 4, 2014 try using ur hands instead of a tweezer to glue the ric down. IMO, it's easier. and hold the ric down for a couple of seconds. Link to comment
Kijho Posted June 4, 2014 Author Share Posted June 4, 2014 I think the tank is just way to new and not stable enough for sps of any kind still. I'd say that's why it kicked the dust,which sucks. As for the ric,just give it some time. Don't let little things like that frustrate you. Look at ninja for example,with both of his crashes. He stuck with it and now everything is amazing. Softies are pretty hardy. Usually what I do is saw thru the bottom stick part of the plug just leaving the disc which makes for easier placement. As for the glue,from what I've read and my experience,saltwater helps super glue of all types cute faster and harden up. If when you glue something to rubble or a plug,have a seperate container with tank water in it and sit it in the container for a few minutes and let the glue "set" then put it in the tank. Hope that helps. Thanks mate for the feedback! I'm not 100% sure on what caused it to die. When I brought it up home it got shaken up really badly in the car and ended up going completely white for a few days. After that it came back fully swing and was covered in green polyps! If you check some the last few pages you can see the timeline on it. Parameters have been steady with no changes or sudden spikes or anything with the only exception being my average tank temp. has gone from 77*F to 79.5*F. Waiting on the AC to be fixed. Just put a fan on it though.. Hopefully this keeps it steady. Sidenote: I just f'n realized I got superglue on my finger as I'm sitting here typing this... cooooooool... try using ur hands instead of a tweezer to glue the ric down. IMO, it's easier. and hold the ric down for a couple of seconds. Will try next time. Are ricordia's pretty safe? I pretty much hate hand-holding anything from my reef... especially now since I've got zoa's in there and I know they can release the toxins. Right now I've moved the ricordia to more "flat" spot in the rock. It's pretty much IN the little "cave" on the RIGHT rock. It's expanding out now a bit. I've noticed it does indeed have two mouths' though. Perhaps if things continue poorly I'll give my first go at fragging and just slice it right in half to split the two mouths apart and have two ric's Link to comment
cswan19 Posted June 5, 2014 Share Posted June 5, 2014 Yeah its usually not easy to glue rics because they slime like mad. My ric gets carried by the flow at night when it is all closed up and I find it face down in the sand every morning and I have to reach in and move it and gets super slimy even then. I've got it in a small plastic container sitting on some small LR waiting for it to hold on. Nanoclown suggested it too me, the container keeps the flow minimal so it doesn't move around while securing itself to the rock. Once it is secure I'll take the rock with the ric on it out of the container and either put it back in the sand or glue it up on one of my rocks. Maybe try that? It may be easier to glue a small rock that the ric is on instead of the ric itself, less slime. Link to comment
Kijho Posted June 5, 2014 Author Share Posted June 5, 2014 I can't f*cking win today guys...... Temp was 79* when I left home. The sh*tty city I live in decided to go from +28*C outside down to only +12*C within 3 hours. Not being home, I wasn't able to monitor or see anything. Tank is currently sitting at a blistering 73*F. Lights went out a few hours ago. I've got a second heater in the middle of the reef right now in an emergency effort to bring the temp back up to around 78*F. This heater w/ thermostat I have is such a piss off. The Spec V isn't easy to keep level because the thermostat will shut off the heater when the SUMP is up to temp, but the rest of the tank might not be..... ugh. Everything is closed up and my clownfish are acting sluggish and swimming down near the sand bed - I've never seen them like this before Edit/ aaaaaaaaaand one of my snails just decided to be an as*hole and went into the shrimp/ goby's cave and literally collapsed the entire thing.... Link to comment
Kijho Posted June 5, 2014 Author Share Posted June 5, 2014 Edit2/ So I've got it back up to 77*F after 40 mins gradually. I've put the heater in the middle of the front of the tank now and going to leave it overnight. Hopefully this doesn't burn any of my fish or anything that might bump into it .. it's pretty damn hot when it's on. I think the problem is that having a themostat heater in the sump/ false wall behind with the pump only reads the temperature of the water within the sump/ false wall. It's not a direct flow and it's a very confined snug fit. I presume the heater heats up the water in the sump / false wall to the set temperature and then auto shuts off... problem is that it heats up so quick since it's such a small amount of fluid right? Might need to adjust my heater - perhaps putting it to 80*F will keep the entire tank around 77*F ?? I'm not sure. I just know forsure this is a problem. The heater shuts off in the back while the front of the sump/ wall is a colder temp. Going to leave it overnight and see what the temp is at. Hope nothing is dead in the morning... already lost my birdnest today and nearly killed a ricordia Link to comment
NanoClown Posted June 5, 2014 Share Posted June 5, 2014 I handle everything with my hands lol Just make sure they are very clean before you do anything in your tank Link to comment
Kijho Posted June 6, 2014 Author Share Posted June 6, 2014 Day 74: Well..I made it through that disastrous (potentially fatal) night. I think the super rapid temp. drop outside / inside my house was too fast for my heater to keep up.. I guess. Not sure why though, I mean - what's the point of a heater if it can't keep things stable... Had to run a second heater for about 40 mins next to my power-head to get everything back up to around 78*F. Things have been stable all day now thankfully and everything opened up this morning without hesitation. Let's begin with some parameter tests. Everything still perfectly on par and stable compared to the past 2 months: Ph: 8.1 Ammonia: 0ppm Nitrite: 0ppm Nitrate: 10ppm Alk/ Kh: 160ppm Calcium: 450mg Avg Temp: 78.5*F Salt: 1.026 Currently receiving 8 hours of daylight (12:00pm to 8:00pm) Time for the fun stuff.. shot a quick 30 second video today of what happens every single time I take the lid off my tank, haha. My Clowns go crazy during feeding time. They have never nipped or bitten my fingers while in the tank - however they constantly swim into my hand/ fingers and "nudge" them. Funny to see how excited they get at feeding time.. (No color correcting done in video. White balance is off.) Top down FTS: https://flic.kr/p/nA6hFJ'>https://flic.kr/p/nA6hFJ'>IMG_1678 by https://www.flickr.com/people//'>kijho6, on Flickr Font FTS: https://flic.kr/p/nSrzJC'>https://flic.kr/p/nSrzJC'>IMG_1684 by https://www.flickr.com/people//'>kijho6, on Flickr https://flic.kr/p/nShvu2'>https://flic.kr/p/nShvu2'>IMG_1682 by https://www.flickr.com/people//'>kijho6, on Flickr Zoanthid's doing well. It's funny to watch these, especially at feeding time. They've grabbed pellet and mysis now. Sometimes the clowns will bump into the zoa's and they close up really quickly but open back up again shortly after. https://flic.kr/p/nA5Q8c'>https://flic.kr/p/nA5Q8c'>IMG_1660 by https://www.flickr.com/people//'>kijho6, on Flickr Hammer coral doing well as usual. It's become pretty established where it is.. https://flic.kr/p/nSrzeQ'>https://flic.kr/p/nSrzeQ'>IMG_1693 by https://www.flickr.com/people//'>kijho6, on Flickr The Clowns hangin around my yuma. You can see where I've moved the ricordia florida in the back of this photo. It moves around within that cave but I like it there. https://flic.kr/p/nA6NoM'>https://flic.kr/p/nA6NoM'>IMG_1667 by https://www.flickr.com/people//'>kijho6, on Flickr About to give my LFS a call as I'm hoping for some new frags in stock, check out my recent MotoVlog on my main Youtube channel to see my recent (boring) trip to the LFS. (They had nothing new in stock.) I'll try to record when I head there tomorrow for you guys if interested!! (LFS is about half way through) ~ Cheers Link to comment
NorthGaHillbilly Posted June 6, 2014 Share Posted June 6, 2014 With the temp issues you might want to hold out on coral for a while and get a controller, RKL are cheap and would allow you to put the temp probe in the tank and better control temp, that being said it might kill the astetics alittle. Glad things came through alright, Ive found that one paramter getting out of balance can usually be worked through, but when two or more swing the results can be exponential. Link to comment
Kijho Posted June 6, 2014 Author Share Posted June 6, 2014 With the temp issues you might want to hold out on coral for a while and get a controller, RKL are cheap and would allow you to put the temp probe in the tank and better control temp, that being said it might kill the astetics alittle. Glad things came through alright, Ive found that one paramter getting out of balance can usually be worked through, but when two or more swing the results can be exponential. My heater has a thermometer in it, so it shuts off once the water is up to the set temp - and maintains that temp. I think the problem with the Spec V though is that we all place the heater in the sump/ false wall with the pump. The heater gets a false-sense of the temperature as it's only really getting the temp. of the water within the sump walls. It's a much smaller space / amount so it thinks it' up to temp, but really the rest of the tank is under-temp. I think the way to counter this is to set the thermometer higher. I've found if I set it to 80*F I can keep the rest of my tank around 78*F. Problem is when my indoor house temp. drops from 26*C to 12*C (and then 6*C in the morning) - it's just too fast for my 50watt heater to kick into gear and keep things stable. Even at 80*F, the amount inside the sump might get up to 80*F, but the rest of the tank cooled off very rapidly last night. I'm not sure how to add a controller. I guess I could set the heater to the maximum (90*F) and have the controller be the thermometer and have the heater kick in at full swing when it drops below temp... Link to comment
NorthGaHillbilly Posted June 6, 2014 Share Posted June 6, 2014 The thermostat in most heaters are pretty primitive. The water in the sump area is getting turned over pretty quickly, so I doubt its that much of an issue, I could easily be wrong tho. If you get a controller I think most folks set the heater a degree or so above where they are going to run it, so that you have a redundancy for safety's sake. From what I've seen there not difficult to manage, and with as few plugs as you have you can control the lights and everything from it. Link to comment
NYR Posted June 6, 2014 Share Posted June 6, 2014 Hahah had to edit the kids face didn't you Link to comment
ninjamyst Posted June 6, 2014 Share Posted June 6, 2014 most heater sucks and rarely keep the temperature you set it to. in my spec v, the temperature is constantly 82-83 even my heater is set to 75.... Link to comment
Kijho Posted June 6, 2014 Author Share Posted June 6, 2014 It's been <15*C outside yesterday and now today - my tank's been stable sitting at 78*F. (Right now 77.5*F) We're getting our AC hooked up today thank god so I shouldn't be having any more temp. troubles. Will maintain the inside of my house to stay around 75*F and have the heater in my aquarium to approx 82*F to maintain 78*F Should work well ... we'll see how it goes! Link to comment
Kijho Posted June 6, 2014 Author Share Posted June 6, 2014 ehhhhhhhhhh I found a 1/2" YCG for $14.99. Also. My LFS lied to me. They recevied all the new frags today - but won't be in the tanks until tomorrow I saw the shipment though behind the counter. Probably 150+ bags floating!! Can't wait to see tomorrow... ricordia's!!?!? Link to comment
pmang6 Posted June 7, 2014 Share Posted June 7, 2014 I really love this tank!!! I haven't touched NR for almost 2 years and this thread gave me the reef bug!! Looking forward to a Spec V build of my own. This thread is a huge inspiration. Cant wait to see what corals you pick up from the LFS hoping the vlog of it turns out well!! Link to comment
NYR Posted June 7, 2014 Share Posted June 7, 2014 Rics would be sweet, they're one of my favs as well! Link to comment
Kijho Posted June 9, 2014 Author Share Posted June 9, 2014 Fairly upsetting news today guys Sorry for the lack of updates - I took the week off and was very busy with friends and such.I did make it to the LFS a few times though and managed to snag some of their new shipment when it was released. I picked up a gold ricordia yuma, a small purple frogspawn, and a 12 headed Acan colony. To put this into perspective for you, the 12 headed Acan was $34. Every single one of my other Acan frags with 2 - 3 heads was $24. Pretty stoked. It's a purple/ green color. I also picked up a 2 cm long tiny YCG. For the first 2 days he was very shy and liked to go in the rockwork where none of the other fish could fit in. I was pleased and managed to get some nice photos of the little guy. He came out during feeding and ate mysis. Sad news is I woke up this morning to find the pistol had gotten the YCG... wasn't a nice sight. Very sad for the poor guy, I wish I didn't put him in there. At the LFS the YCG's, Orange Spotted, and Pistols' were all in the same display tank for sale. There were 5+ orange, about 6 YCG's, and 5 or so pistol's in that 9G tank at the LFS. So I'm pretty bummed out that it didn't work for me. I think the YCG was such a baby and still a slow swimmer Anyways, I'll try to post some pics up later tonight when I'm home from work. Link to comment
Kijho Posted June 9, 2014 Author Share Posted June 9, 2014 Thanks guys. It's okay, I should have known better. It's a bit upsetting and I feel sorry and sad that I did that but I gave it my best effort. The fish has been removed ofcourse. The Pistol is a real ass. I've begun to think about eventually planning an upgrade to a longbox 15G custom tank with two built in false walls / filtration setup and rotating spinners. Basically, I'd like to get a custom BIGGER version of the Spec V made. I'm estimating around $250 for the tank from the shop. This might not happen for a few months though. I'd keep the Spec V for the Goby / Shrimp to be ass's together in haha.. Link to comment
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