TheBig053 Posted March 3, 2018 Author Share Posted March 3, 2018 Electric range unfortunately. Our hot water heater and heat are both gas but controlled by some sort of electrical component so neither are working. O guess I could try boiling water on the gas grill. Quote Link to comment
Lugmos12 Posted March 3, 2018 Share Posted March 3, 2018 that sucks. Yesterday we had a winter storm: highs winds + snow and our power went out 3x for a few seconds. Quote Link to comment
sugar Posted March 3, 2018 Share Posted March 3, 2018 Wishing you the best. This is a regular nightmare I have, which is foolish since the tank is at the office (at a hospital, so no need to worry). If I had the tank at home I would need to have several backup measures in place. Power outs are inevitable! Good luck!!! 1 Quote Link to comment
Rene Posted March 3, 2018 Share Posted March 3, 2018 Ugh, I have my fingers crossed for you and your tanks! This is such a miserable situation. In times like this, if you have neighbors with power and you don't have a gas stove, consider asking to go over to their place to boil some water and float it in bottles in the tank (when it's cooled down a little). They may not understand exactly what's going on but people like to help others in need. 2 1 Quote Link to comment
fishfreak0114 Posted March 3, 2018 Share Posted March 3, 2018 Is the power still out? I really hope everything makes it through alright! Power outages are my worst fear! It seems like you’ve managed to keep the temp up somewhat so far Quote Link to comment
TheBig053 Posted March 3, 2018 Author Share Posted March 3, 2018 Yes, power finally came back a little after 11AM. I had to frag a frag of sapphire mille, but everything else seems to be okay. 5 Quote Link to comment
k4ndyk1ng Posted March 3, 2018 Share Posted March 3, 2018 3 minutes ago, TheBig053 said: Yes, power finally came back a little after 11AM. I had to frag a frag of sapphire mille, but everything else seems to be okay. Glad everything seems to be alright, I hope that mille bounces back. Quote Link to comment
TheBig053 Posted March 4, 2018 Author Share Posted March 4, 2018 Now that I'm done stressing about the power outage I was able to enjoy my tank a little this evening. I'm always surprised by the number of critters that come out at night. I snapped this photo a little earlier this evening of some of these inhabitants on the AIO false wall. 1. Baby Turbo Snail - first I've seen in the tank. The ceriths and limpets reproduce like crazy, why not the turbos! 2. Baby Limpet - these guys showed up several weeks ago and are now all over the rock and false wall every night. 3. The Chiton - I call it "the" chiton because to my knowledge it is the only one in the tank. I see it about once a month at night on the false wall. Sorry, the picture isn't great but was the only one I was able to capture all three in while shooting blindly into a dark tank. 3 Quote Link to comment
TheBig053 Posted March 30, 2018 Author Share Posted March 30, 2018 I missed my tanks first birthday... oops! Well here it is. The tank is a year old and its been quiet the journey so far. In typical self destructive fashion I decided to go SPS dominant a few months. Why? Because my 2nd grade teacher told me I could do anything! Thats why! Here are some awful photos my beautiful disaster and by some I mean fet ready to sit down with grandma for an afternoon of family albums. You’re welcome! Now for for some awfule blue cell phone photos! Top down RMF Acid Trip Mille Frag WWC Whiskey Tango Frag Myagi Tort mini colony. Love this coral. Grows fast in my tank. Pink Lemonade. Encrusting quickly. Blue sarmentosa. Another fast grower. Clambo Slice! The growth lines on this clam indicate he’s moving out of this foster home sooner rather than later. 4 Quote Link to comment
TheBig053 Posted March 30, 2018 Author Share Posted March 30, 2018 More crappy cell phone pics! I recently went on a coral addict binge during the Fraghouse live sale on reef2reef. JF Burnin’ Banana WWC Heartbreaker. This looks way better than the wysiwig photos! FHC Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. My photography skills dont do this childhood memory service! 2 Quote Link to comment
TheBig053 Posted March 30, 2018 Author Share Posted March 30, 2018 Well apparently i’ve reached my limit on photos here... Quote Link to comment
JcSH2o Posted March 30, 2018 Share Posted March 30, 2018 49 minutes ago, TheBig053 said: Well apparently i’ve reached my limit on photos here... Haha nice photos! Although that was a shirt afternoon with Grandma... ?? Quote Link to comment
TheBig053 Posted March 30, 2018 Author Share Posted March 30, 2018 7 minutes ago, JcSH2o said: Haha nice photos! Although that was a shirt afternoon with Grandma... ?? There’s so many more but the site wont let me post them and imgur keeps flaking out. Photos must be too good. 3 Quote Link to comment
mitten_reef Posted April 9, 2018 Share Posted April 9, 2018 did you get the gyre 1k? if so, how is it? Quote Link to comment
TheBig053 Posted April 10, 2018 Author Share Posted April 10, 2018 On 4/8/2018 at 10:25 PM, micoastreefing said: did you get the gyre 1k? if so, how is it? Nah, after some more consideration I decided to pass on the 1K gyre. I felt the pumps foot print just wouldn’t work well in my tank. Also, as corals grow in (hopefully) space will become even more limited and I was afraid things would begin growing into the direct stream from the pump. However, my SW-2 began to act up a few weeks ago and no amount of cleaning/dismantling/reassembling fixed the issue. It would continously lose power and very little flow was being produced. I replaced it with Aqamai KPS wifi controlled pump last week and so far I am happy with this pump. I think the SW-2 is a stronger pump at the high end of the flow settings but the Aqamai has a lot more program options including variable flow settings over a 24 hr period. My one complaint is that the app to control the pump is not very intuitive. It was easy enough to connect but selecting settings and making sure they are saved and/or knowing the differences between each setting is a little challenging. 1 Quote Link to comment
mitten_reef Posted April 10, 2018 Share Posted April 10, 2018 1 hour ago, TheBig053 said: Nah, after some more consideration I decided to pass on the 1K gyre. I felt the pumps foot print just wouldn’t work well in my tank. Also, as corals grow in (hopefully) space will become even more limited and I was afraid things would begin growing into the direct stream from the pump. However, my SW-2 began to act up a few weeks ago and no amount of cleaning/dismantling/reassembling fixed the issue. It would continously lose power and very little flow was being produced. I replaced it with Aqamai KPS wifi controlled pump last week and so far I am happy with this pump. I think the SW-2 is a stronger pump at the high end of the flow settings but the Aqamai has a lot more program options including variable flow settings over a 24 hr period. My one complaint is that the app to control the pump is not very intuitive. It was easy enough to connect but selecting settings and making sure they are saved and/or knowing the differences between each setting is a little challenging. Thanks for the KPS feedback. I actually have a KPS pump, and like it quite a bit. I never messed with the program, haha, it looks very daunting to program something from scratch. I just picked pre programmed SPS schedule. But as the tank gets crowded with corals, it doesn’t work as primary flow very well. Quote Link to comment
TheBig053 Posted April 10, 2018 Author Share Posted April 10, 2018 1 minute ago, micoastreefing said: Thanks for the KPS feedback. I actually have a KPS pump, and like it quite a bit. I never messed with the program, haha, it looks very daunting to program something from scratch. I just picked pre programmed SPS schedule. But as the tank gets crowded with corals, it doesn’t work as primary flow very well. Yeah, I just set it to the "SPS max 200l" preset until I have some more time to fiddle with it. This setting seems to be working well though, so probably better off to just leave well enough alone. I tinker too much Quote Link to comment
bigben1730 Posted May 16, 2018 Share Posted May 16, 2018 Wow, your tank journey has been awesome! Love the Evo. I'm currently in the process of cycling mine and am trying to abide by the "patience is the key to reefing" mentality. question for you, I'm also in NOVA, Arlington to be precise. Could you shed some light on the reef clubs/local reefers that you reference throughout your thread? Looks like you've gotten some awesome frags from swaps and I'm newly back into the hobby so I'm trying to get plugged in! Again, great work with the tank! Quote Link to comment
TheBig053 Posted May 16, 2018 Author Share Posted May 16, 2018 2 hours ago, bigben1730 said: Wow, your tank journey has been awesome! Love the Evo. I'm currently in the process of cycling mine and am trying to abide by the "patience is the key to reefing" mentality. question for you, I'm also in NOVA, Arlington to be precise. Could you shed some light on the reef clubs/local reefers that you reference throughout your thread? Looks like you've gotten some awesome frags from swaps and I'm newly back into the hobby so I'm trying to get plugged in! Again, great work with the tank! Hey thanks man! Yeah its gone through a lot of changes in the year and two months since it started. I’d highly recommend joining WAMAS http://wamas.org/home.php so you can access the For Sale forum. There are always people selling frags on there. You also have to be a member to attend the summer FragFest meeting. Club members will donate a bunch of colonies and frags that they give out for free at the meeting. There are also members that sell frags at the meetings. If you are looking at getting into SPS I can recommend some other members that have some awesome frags at a reasonable price. Not sure if you are familiar with the LFS scene in the area but Ben over at Supreme Reefs has some really awesome corals and recently set up his shop for fish. Vince over at Quantum Reefs also has nice livestock but is a bit more pricey than Supreme Reefs. Both are located in Springfield near the 495/395/95 interchange. Reef Escape out in Ffx is also a nice shop. Quote Link to comment
TheBig053 Posted July 13, 2018 Author Share Posted July 13, 2018 Loooong time since my last update. Tank is still going strong but we’ve had some trials and tribulations. The tank was a bit neglected due to some major life changes. These include a new job, the birth of our second child, and most importantly the Washington Capitals winning their first Stanley Cup! My attempt at a SPS dominant nano crashed and burned after 5 months. It began well as I had my dosing zeroed in and all acro frags were growing at a steady pace. I ran into an algae issue and began dosing vibrant which pounded the algae issue but also bottomed out my nutrients. NO3 and PO4 hit true 0 and my acros faded. I tried increasing my fish feeding to raise it naturally but my Derasa was growing espontentially and I assume sucking every spare bit up. Eventually my acros stopped consuming Ca and Alk and they both spiked which led to to STN disaster. All in all I lost 11 frags that had all begun encrusting and some throwing up new branches. All the life changes led to not being able to devote as much time to the tank. Anyway, lesson learned, right? Nope.... just gotta simplify! With a new baby... I’m just going softie and LPS for the time being. I began dosing NO3 and everything seems to be reacting well. Here are some of the new additions and oldies but goodies! The blenny hammock is headed to a new home next week. My tank just can’t keep up with it. Its grown an inch of new shelf since February. New zoas. Supreme Reefs killmongers! The BTA finally popping the bubbly! New ranbow acan with lots of new heads sprouting. New RFA. I am going to add some more and try to get them to spawn. More new zoas. Sold as utter chaos but I don’t think they actually are. Interested to see how they do. Radioactice dragon eyes, gorilla nipples, and pink zippers. Button scoly from Aqua SD Orange and blue lobo I have some more acans sprouting heads that I’ll document later. I’ve shut down my doser until its necessary to turn it back on. I also tried to pair my female occy with my smaller picasso clown but after two weeks of her bullying him with all signs of submission from the picasso, I had to pull her. She would have eventually killed him and I really like the little guy, so I couldn’t let that happen. As soon as I removed her from the tank he came out of hiding and began playing in the return stream again. That’s all for now. Go Caps! 2 Quote Link to comment
bigben1730 Posted July 16, 2018 Share Posted July 16, 2018 updated FTS? Also GO CAPS! Did you make it to the parade? 1 Quote Link to comment
TheBig053 Posted July 17, 2018 Author Share Posted July 17, 2018 Ask and ye shall receive. Here is an FTS from last night. The just so happens to be the last FTS with the Derasa Clam. Clambo Slice went to his new home (a local reef club member) last night. When I added it back in early February I really did not anticipate it growing so quickly. I figured I could keep it for a year or so before it got too large. It went from ~3.5” to almost 5” in that time and was a complete nutrient hog. While the clam will be missed I am excited for the new addition joining the tank today. I found an awesome little Onyx Picasso at my LFS yesterday that I purchased. I am going back today to pick it up and hope to pair it with my Picasso after a short QT stint in the 20L. I’ll share some photos tonight after I get the new addition home and acclimated/in the tank. Unfortunately I could not get DT for the parade due to work conflicts. However, I was at Capital One for the Game 5 viewing party when they clinched. The scene DT around the arena was insane. Probably the best sporting event experience in my life and I wasn’t even at the actual game, hah. 4 Quote Link to comment
TheBig053 Posted July 17, 2018 Author Share Posted July 17, 2018 Here’s a quick video of the new Onyx Picasso with my reg Picasso hogging the camera. Guess its jealous already.... 3 Quote Link to comment
TheBig053 Posted July 20, 2018 Author Share Posted July 20, 2018 I’ve turned the free realty acquired by the vacated clam into a RFA garden. Here are some crappy photos. This one is a wander/loner 4 Quote Link to comment
bigben1730 Posted September 11, 2018 Share Posted September 11, 2018 tank is looking great! I'm digging all the LPS! Are your clowns still hosting the BTA? Quote Link to comment
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