CronicReefer Posted October 1, 2017 Author Share Posted October 1, 2017 On 9/29/2017 at 9:13 AM, Subsea said: Very nice tank. I like your methods and enjoyed reading thru the thread. How did you fare during the hurricane? On a side note, I have been in the eye of two hurricanes. One as a child in Lafayette, Louisiana. During the worst of the storm at night, everything went quiet. Went outside and could see the moon and stars. Very erie to hear the eyewall approaching. My second hurrican eye experience was in the Gulf of Mexico on a drill ship operated by ODECO. We had completed the well and were preparing to move the ship to another location. With 10,000' pf drill pipe in the bottom cargo decks, we were as stable as we could be, instead of being top heavy with pipe in the derrick. Everybody on the rig was evacuated but ten critical personnel that remained. Our anchor handling boats had removed 4 of 8 anchors but left to beat the storm into port. In the middle of the storm, the two anchors on the bow broke and we got into the trough of 30' - 40' waves. It was touch and go for about 12 hours. With the stern into the seas things settled down somewhat. At about 3AM, the wind abrutely dropped but not the waves. When the wind reversed direction it beat the waves down and we realinged with the bow into the wind. The next morning, there was 3' of diesel fuel in the cargo compartment next to the engine room. Not a good place to be. Sorry about rambling. It sparked a memory. That sounds pretty intense, dealing with 30-40' waves is just ridiculous on any ship. I guess it would good you had such a low center of gravity. As for the hurricane I only lost power for about 18 hours. I have a battery backup that lasts for about 2.5hours if I run my pump constant. I live in an apartment so they don't let us use a generator but I still do if I need to, not going to let my tank die over a silly rule :). In tank related news, just came to post a FTS to show the tank is still alive and doing much better. My anemone stopped eating about 3 months ago and has deteriorated since then. Not really sure what caused the issue but unfortunately I'm just waiting for it to release itself so I can remove it. My chalices and brain corals are all doing extremely well and so are the zoas when not being attacked by asterinas. I've decided to stop focusing on SPS and keep more chalices and varieties of favia/favites/acans. Since changing my filtration to be 100% biological (apart from protein skimmer) I've seen amazing improvements. ZERO algae issues, this is what the glass looks like after not scraping for 8 weeks. Corals are all much healthier and my fish continue to breed regularly. Quote Link to comment
MarieH Posted October 1, 2017 Share Posted October 1, 2017 Interesting story! I have never experience more than a severe snowstorm, lol You have lots of nice flat places for lps like acans and blasstomussa. I would fill it with lps, softies and zoas. 1 Quote Link to comment
Subsea Posted October 4, 2017 Share Posted October 4, 2017 For a reliable air pump that is automatic backup get a Penn Plax self-contained air pump. It uses two D cell batteries and plugs into wall. When electricity goes off the air pump comes on. It was less than $20. After Hurricane Rita hit us in DeRidder Louisiana a doctor's office maintained his tanks for over 1 week before he returned to his office. The bubler was running at reduced speed. 1 Quote Link to comment
CronicReefer Posted October 8, 2017 Author Share Posted October 8, 2017 On 10/3/2017 at 8:52 PM, Subsea said: For a reliable air pump that is automatic backup get a Penn Plax self-contained air pump. It uses two D cell batteries and plugs into wall. When electricity goes off the air pump comes on. It was less than $20. After Hurricane Rita hit us in DeRidder Louisiana a doctor's office maintained his tanks for over 1 week before he returned to his office. The bubler was running at reduced speed. Thanks for the info. I'll have to look into one of those next time a hurricane comes this way. Thankfully because I'm on the same power grids as most of the hotels/theme-parks I've never lost power for more than 24hours. On 10/1/2017 at 8:58 AM, MarieH said: Interesting story! I have never experience more than a severe snowstorm, lol You have lots of nice flat places for lps like acans and blasstomussa. I would fill it with lps, softies and zoas. Yeah I'm planning on going with more brain coral/chalice varieties with some zoa colonies on the large flat overhang. I would like to get my new pocillipora to grow into a larger colony so I can add a panda goby pair. Quote Link to comment
CronicReefer Posted October 18, 2017 Author Share Posted October 18, 2017 Just a small update for a new FTS with my new corals placed on the rocks. I also got some unknown orange SPS that I'm about 99% sure it is not a setosa montipora but that is the only coral I can find that looks similar. If anyone can identify I would greatly appreciate it as I would like to know its growth pattern as a colony. I'm still being lazy about scraping the front glass. I'm pretty sure the last time I did it was in July so I'm sure that green coralline is going to be a b!&*# to clean off. Quote Link to comment
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