Joe's IM 20: Got a couple clowns, call it a circus 🎪

[Joevember]

5 hours ago, Christopher Marks said:

How's the battle going this week? I bet they're getting close now!

 

Don't feel too bad about cable management! If it's all working fine, why rock the boat? 🙂 

 

We'll need some doggy updates too! 😄 

They've been creeping closer by the day. The GSP has been growing closer to the light more than toward the acro though.

Doggy has had a few health problems (worms and infections), but nothing that's not treatable.

 

[Joevember]

Tunze Osmolator finally went kaput. Don't know what the problem is and I'm tired of trying to figure it out. 

Went ahead and picked up a duetto ATO that'll be coming in next week. I wanted to get the BRS 7lb calcium chloride bag too, but every time I go on it's always out of stock. I even got an email yesterday that it was back in stock... Just give me my elements!

[Joevember]

Installed the new duetto ATO on wednesday, and it was a breeze to set up. Just plug in and that's it. I thought that the pump wouldn't be able to push water all the way up to the tank (about 4ft) but it sends it up there with no problem. I can't even tell when it goes off, the osmolator pump was 50 times louder.

I scraped all the gunk off the glass, and the water got pretty cloudy, so I'll take pictures tomorrow. Nothing out of the ordinary about any inhabitants, although my halloween hermit may have died, or he's just taking a while to molt.

Here's a dog pic to look at while waiting for more tank pics. 

[Joevember]

I'm comin' through with pics!

Here are some good looking corals

And some corals having a hard time. Acros on my rocks always have algae growing on the tips. I blow it off every day and recently I've been hitting it with peroxide. The cynarina has been shrinking as well, it's either too much flow or not enough light.

Progress on the war. GSP has invaded more northern territory, and has started flanking tbe acro from above. Acro has been slowly expanding its territory in all directions. 

And finally, a FTS for the front page.

[Joevember]

Finally going to invest some time making acan island. I have tons of dead rock fragments lying around and found this good size chunk to mount all the acans on...... rock n roll......

I'll finally take some stuff off the frag plugs too. I really hate the way frag plugs detract from the look of a tank. Makes it all look artificial. 

If I get through this by tonight I'll definitely post something here. Maybe things will feel like opening up too.

[Joevember]

Finished 👌

Except for this frag. Some new growth right on the plug, don't want to hurt it too bad.

[Fish_Wiz]

Looks great! Cannot believe that little frag of GSP I gave you blew up lol

[Joevember]

3 hours ago, Fish_Wiz said:

Looks great! Cannot believe that little frag of GSP I gave you blew up lol

Yup, getting thicker by the day!

 

More acan rock pics too

[Joevember]

Here are the pics someone asked for. I believe they wanted ones that "were taken at night with the flash on, and also make them extra shitty"

I think I delivered! These are my cynarina and symphyllia eating some dried phyto. The cynarina has been shrinking steadily, so I got him on a more steady solid food diet to supplement the light (or lack of light). I've been doing this for a few days and he's been looking slightly better since yesterday.

 

[Joevember]

Cynarina feeding top downs

[Poison Dart Frog]

It's looking really stunning. I love the colors, especially in the top down shots. 

[Joevember]

8 hours ago, Poison Dart Frog said:

It's looking really stunning. I love the colors, especially in the top down shots. 

Me too, I don't know what it is about them, they just look so much better than shots through the glass

[Joevember]

Decided to put up the cynarina for trade in a local forum. Got too tired of dealing with it constantly complaining about flow, no matter where I end up moving it.

I have someone looking to trade that has some digis and acro frags that look ice cold 👌 I'll update when I lock in a deal.

 

The acan rock is also looking especially acany, glad I finally got around to gluing the frags together.

And a FTS for all you 'bigger picture' thinkers

[Joevember]

Just traded the cynarina, got 3 different sps frags. Also turned up flow a notch or two on the mp10.

I got a bubblegum digi (very orange polyps!)

A red planet acro

And a random green/blue acro

 

The tank is filling in nicely (excuse the dirty tank, i didnt want to scrape near the sand and have the tank cloud up before taking pics) And, of course, fishy elliott is blocking the new frag...

[Joevember]

Here's what I was treated with when I moved in to my apartment on the first day gone from the tank...

[Joevember]

Protein skimmer stopped working a couple days ago apparently. The air tube got clogged, my tank caretaker didn't see it as that big of a problem so they didn't convey the importance of it. Came home to fix everything up and the whole tank was covered in brown stringy algae/bacteria/dinos. Lost a lot of sps and nothing is looking particularly good at the moment. I'm making more water as I'm typing this to do a water change.

[Joevember]

Realizing now that I brought my 'dirty water' bucket with me to my apartment to do water changes on my freshwater tank. No clue what I'll do with all the toxic, radioactive, biohazard water once I start my water change. I'll just burn that bridge when I get to it I guess.

 

 

[Joevember]

Welp I found out that where the air intake tube attaches to the intake water line had a leak, so I just put some glue all over it to seal it up. Not a regulation move, but it was crunch time and it held. Now the skimmer is pulling some deeep brown stuff out (even after a water change).

Just blew off algae from the sand and have the mp10 blasting it around until it gets through the filter pads. Water change got rid of so much crud around the tank.

The losses were the two cooler frags I traded for the cynarina, an acro I've had forever (don't remember how I got it), a leptoseris frag, the huge green seriatopora (had some living bits but a lot of flesh was falling off), some hermits, and probably a torch in a week or two. The big leptoseris also got completely bleached out in the middle.

Nothing is happy right now, and I have to go back up to get back to studying organic chemistry, so I'm not happy either. At least we're on the same page.

[Joevember]

Came back home for thanksgiving and everything looks fine now. The skimmer has been skimming. I set the cup a little low, so the skimmate has been a little watered down, so I adjusted it a little. There was also salt creep everywhere, so I might do a salinity check later today and a WC. 

The lepto has made a full recovery. No bleached parts anywhere. Even got a little growth from it.

The acros on the rock have some furry tips, but I've always had that problem with them so as long as they're alive I'm happy. The one on the back wall is growing very big. I'm really happy with it, doesn't even have algae on it anywhere. I can't really get a good shot of it through the glass since it's all the way on the other side of the tank, I'll figure out something because the pics don't do it justice and colors on it are awesome.

Symphyllia still rockin out. 🤙

More pics when I clean things up 😅

[Fish_Wiz]

Good to see your tank still rolling! Is it finals szn yet?

[Joevember]

1 hour ago, Fish_Wiz said:

Good to see your tank still rolling! Is it finals szn yet?

Finished up last week 👌

Won't go home to see the tank much because I got my other pet to take care of.

[Joevember]

Tank hasn't been looking good while I've been over for my winter break, finally figured out why. The calcium dosing tube that hangs into the calcium resivoir was only in half way up, so the doser has been pumping air into the tank. Tested all my chemical levels with my red sea kits and everything is normal, but Ca was below 200. 

I've gone ahead and situated the tube to where it's actually able to draw up liquid and I've started slowly increasing the dosages until it gets normal. No clue how long it'll take. Hopefully before any corals kick the bucket.

[Joevember]

Boutta do a 3g water change and clean up the rear chamber of the tank. I'll clear out as much detritus that piles up back there, but I also want to see the mussle/clam  hitchhiker that I found on the heater a while back. If anyone with an Innovative Marine tank has an innovative way to clean out the rear chambers please let me know because it's always a PITA for me. 

 

Pics will come. In the meantime look at the mystery macro that popped up on my rocks a month ago.

Also please help me out IDing this thing:

 

[Joevember]

Whole lotta gunk in the trunk this time around. Clam thing grew a bunch too, nice to see somebody's happy in here... if only I could see it in the display 😒

I also took of the black film on the sides of the tank that IM puts on their tanks. Get a cool view of the filtration, probably ended up shaving money off the tank's resale value but I think it's cool to have a filtration window.

Here's the gang getting ready to go to bed. Ca levels are also on the rise.

[Joevember]

Tank is looking cleaner than ever!

A few corals have tissue recession from, I'm guessing, the Ca levels, but they're expanding better today. I also took out a bunch of GSP that was covered in algae last night. You know you're an experience reefer when you have trouble keeping GSP... 🙃

Got some side angle shots of the tank this morning too.

Also got a FTS and a top down for ya. You can really see the acro on the back wall's growth.