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Sleeping with the Fishes [a pe(s)t project]


holy carp

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Thanks everyone!

 

And I just realized I never introduced Bialetti the Mochavinci clownfish.  He joined us on April 1st.  I finally found a little guy to replace Lenny who jumped 9 months ago.  Bialetti immediately paired up in twitchy fashion with Bruce Jenner.  :D 

 

Here he was on his first day in the tank with Bruce (and Bandido the dottyback):

29cubsj.jpg

 

11qolyc.jpg

 

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17 hours ago, DaveFason said:

Lovely tank. I need to stop by next time!

Definitely.  Any chance you're coming to NYC for Reef-A-Palooza?  Hard to believe it's less than 2 months away!

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26 minutes ago, holy carp said:

Definitely.  Any chance you're coming to NYC for Reef-A-Palooza?  Hard to believe it's less than 2 months away!

As of now yes. I would stay in the UWS. 

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 3 months later...

It's been a while since I've had a chance to update here, so here we go... 

 

On May 23rd, I got home from work to find my return pump had stopped.  I don't know how long it had been off, but it had to have been for a number of hours at the very least.  The way my plumbing is configured, the water level drops about 1"-1.5" when the pump is off.  This isn't a big deal for normal maintenance, but there are a number of corals that are partly out of water when this happens: Cyphastrea, Oregon Blue Tort, a bit of the Rainbow Montipora, Garf Bonsai, Purple Torch, Green Slimer, and some of the Optimus Prime Acro.

 

I tried to jump into emergency action, but may have grazed stress mode by accident.  As quickly as I could, I got an old return pump running again.  I started preparing water for a water change just to be safe, since it seemed the corals had been releasing who knows what into the water, clouding it slightly.  In haste as I managed the return pump and siphon, I accidentally bumped the cord that turned on the refill pump and it started flooding the sump.  As I jumped to unplug it, the siphon flopped out of the waste bucket.  Now about 1am and finally finished with the water change, cleaning up gallons of saltwater from the wood floors was the last thing I wanted to do.

 

So fast forward, and overall the impact was less devastating than I feared.  I lost the top of the cyphastrea, about 6 heads in the crown of the torch, and most of the top of the green slimer bleached and many parts died.  Remarkably, the blue tort and bonsai that were mostly out of water seemed to suffer negligibly and appeared fully recovered after a few days.  The torch heads were gone for good, the green slimer took a few weeks, but re-encrusted the dead areas, and the cyphastrea is quickly reclaiming its turf.

 

Now rewind: On May 9th, I had contacted Coralvue that my pump was performing oddly - it did not respond to the Apex 0-10V or the control buttons on the unit itself.  At the time, I rushed to contact them, since there was a 2 year warranty that was to expire on May 16th.  I hadn't heard a response from them, and ironically, earlier on the day that the pump stopped, I had reached out to them again since I got an automated message saying they were closing the ticket, but I was now 2 years and a week after the purchase date.  In the end, Coralvue honored the warranty and sent me a new pump controller a few days later; (knock wood) it has been performing normally ever since.  

 

Anyway...  the green slimer recovered and I chopped it off and sold it - it was just too big for the tank anyway.  I still have some frags to regrow it.  Where it was I am also contemplating Hawkins Echinata or Electric Limeade Acropora (or more famously Katropora)

 

After sucking out the vile dead torch slime, the torch's dead heads started growing a feathery bryopsis I had never seen before.  Fluconazole to the rescue!  I've removed all the dead heads and have since been slowly fragging it up so I can start over with a small frag of 4-6 heads and some room to grow.

 

Otherwise, everything has been going fine, and 12 gallons keeps getting smaller and smaller.

 

Here's an FTS without the slimer...  It still had some leftover slime from getting sawn off.  It's gonna take me a while to get used to the new look.

 

125gdqb.jpg

 

 

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Whoa! Quite an update. 

It sounds like things could have been a lot worse. Does this event make you contemplate getting a controller that could notify you when things like that happen? 

 

I’m amazed how some corals are more resilient than others - and ones you wouldn’t expect to be. 

 

I’m glad they honored the warranty on the pump.

 

Despite the change in look, you still have an amazing looking 12 gallon!  And I vote for the Katropora! 

 

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I actually have an Apex, but it isn't currently set up with anything that that would be able to detect this condition.  I suppose their ATO would do it, but the unit is too large to fit in my sump.  I will have to see if there's something else that could be configured.  I'd rather just have a couple of those light sensors at different depths

 

 

And I totally agree.  I would have expected the green slimer to come through unscathed since it would protect itself from drying with all that mucous.  And at the same time, the bonsai always appears to have thinner skin, so I would have thought it would suffer the most, but it appeared unfazed. 

 

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On 8/15/2018 at 6:28 PM, holy carp said:

I actually have an Apex, but it isn't currently set up with anything that that would be able to detect this condition.  I suppose their ATO would do it, but the unit is too large to fit in my sump.  I will have to see if there's something else that could be configured.  I'd rather just have a couple of those light sensors at different depths

 

 

And I totally agree.  I would have expected the green slimer to come through unscathed since it would protect itself from drying with all that mucous.  And at the same time, the bonsai always appears to have thinner skin, so I would have thought it would suffer the most, but it appeared unfazed. 

 

FMM module (or the old school breakout box) with optical sensors in the display or sump (or both) would do the trick.  I've got it configured  on my AIO to notify me if the return pump is off by detecting the higher water level in the return chamber.    
 

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On 8/14/2018 at 6:03 PM, holy carp said:

It's been a while since I've had a chance to update here, so here we go... 

 

On May 23rd, I got home from work to find my return pump had stopped.  I don't know how long it had been off, but it had to have been for a number of hours at the very least.  The way my plumbing is configured, the water level drops about 1"-1.5" when the pump is off.  This isn't a big deal for normal maintenance, but there are a number of corals that are partly out of water when this happens: Cyphastrea, Oregon Blue Tort, a bit of the Rainbow Montipora, Garf Bonsai, Purple Torch, Green Slimer, and some of the Optimus Prime Acro.

 

I tried to jump into emergency action, but may have grazed stress mode by accident.  As quickly as I could, I got an old return pump running again.  I started preparing water for a water change just to be safe, since it seemed the corals had been releasing who knows what into the water, clouding it slightly.  In haste as I managed the return pump and siphon, I accidentally bumped the cord that turned on the refill pump and it started flooding the sump.  As I jumped to unplug it, the siphon flopped out of the waste bucket.  Now about 1am and finally finished with the water change, cleaning up gallons of saltwater from the wood floors was the last thing I wanted to do.

 

So fast forward, and overall the impact was less devastating than I feared.  I lost the top of the cyphastrea, about 6 heads in the crown of the torch, and most of the top of the green slimer bleached and many parts died.  Remarkably, the blue tort and bonsai that were mostly out of water seemed to suffer negligibly and appeared fully recovered after a few days.  The torch heads were gone for good, the green slimer took a few weeks, but re-encrusted the dead areas, and the cyphastrea is quickly reclaiming its turf.

 

Now rewind: On May 9th, I had contacted Coralvue that my pump was performing oddly - it did not respond to the Apex 0-10V or the control buttons on the unit itself.  At the time, I rushed to contact them, since there was a 2 year warranty that was to expire on May 16th.  I hadn't heard a response from them, and ironically, earlier on the day that the pump stopped, I had reached out to them again since I got an automated message saying they were closing the ticket, but I was now 2 years and a week after the purchase date.  In the end, Coralvue honored the warranty and sent me a new pump controller a few days later; (knock wood) it has been performing normally ever since.  

 

Anyway...  the green slimer recovered and I chopped it off and sold it - it was just too big for the tank anyway.  I still have some frags to regrow it.  Where it was I am also contemplating Hawkins Echinata or Electric Limeade Acropora (or more famously Katropora)

 

After sucking out the vile dead torch slime, the torch's dead heads started growing a feathery bryopsis I had never seen before.  Fluconazole to the rescue!  I've removed all the dead heads and have since been slowly fragging it up so I can start over with a small frag of 4-6 heads and some room to grow.

 

Otherwise, everything has been going fine, and 12 gallons keeps getting smaller and smaller.

 

Here's an FTS without the slimer...  It still had some leftover slime from getting sawn off.  It's gonna take me a while to get used to the new look.

 

125gdqb.jpg

 

 

 

Sorry about the devastation but I think it looks great.......everything looks nice and tight. 🙂 

 

 

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  • 3 months later...

Hi!

 

I hope youre still here. 🙂

 

Your tank is beautiful. I’m planning for an almost similar build, and have a couple questions for you.

 

Are you happy with the way you placed the overflow/return holes, and if you are, can I have the measurements from that short side?

 

Second, are you happy with the Current USA light? If so, which version is it?

 

Best regards

Samuel Horn af Rantzien

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I'm pretty pleased with the plumbing. I don't have the drilling measurements handy, but I'll see if I still have the old plywood template I used.

 

Things I like:

  • It's extremely silent - most importantly at a pretty wide range of flow rates.
  • Small Footprint in the tank.
  • Don't have any powerheads taking up additional space

 

Things I don't like:

  • Water level in the tank drops by almost an inch when the pump is off, which is more than I'd like
  • I can't get my glass scraper all the way to the corner next to the return and drain bulkheads
  • My water level is just a tad higher than ideal, so I get some salt creep (especially in the dryer wintertime) around the edge of the cover

 

If I were to do it again:

  • I would probably consider moving the return and drain in another half centimeter from the glass to make it easier for my glass scraper to fit into the corners. 
  • I have thought about having the center 1" bulkhead a bit lower so I could slightly lower the water level to avoid the salt creep.  I might be able to fix this with a different screen cover, but haven't explored that yet. 
  • I'd probably use a wet-side slip bulkhead instead of thread for the 1" so I could more easily remove and adjust the elbow.  However, this might risk it getting stuck, so I'm not sure it's worth it.
  • I would leave the bulkheads full length on the outside instead of sawing them shorter.  It thought having the plumbing close to the glass would look sleeker, but it really interferes with magnetic glass scrapers

 

 

Here's some older comments if you missed them in this thread.

Plumbing:

 

Light (I have the original orbit marine and like it better than the Loop version):

 

 

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