🐻’s Reef — Still Trucking Along

[BearTheSquare]

8 hours ago, Mystichrome said:

I've had the XP aqua ATO and so far its been excellent. 4 months roughly.

I’ve been looking those, did you get the duetto or the lite? Heard there’s not much of a difference except for the price point. I’ve been manually topping off my tank for so long I bought the cheap one to see how much more convenient it is before dropping money on it.

[debbeach13]

My one and only ever ATO is a Aqua smart micro ATO. One of the best investments for my tank. No problems steady rock solid SG about 2 years now still running the original pump. 

[Mystichrome]

4 hours ago, BearTheSquare said:

I’ve been looking those, did you get the duetto or the lite? Heard there’s not much of a difference except for the price point. I’ve been manually topping off my tank for so long I bought the cheap one to see how much more convenient it is before dropping money on it.

I have the Duetto

[BearTheSquare]

4 hours ago, debbeach13 said:

My one and only ever ATO is a Aqua smart micro ATO. One of the best investments for my tank. No problems steady rock solid SG about 2 years now still running the original pump. 

I’ve been looking into this one a lot, glad to hear the pump is running strong for you. 
 

1 hour ago, Mystichrome said:

I have the Duetto

I’ll definitely be keeping that in mind, I’d rather have your experience/review than reviews on Amazon. 

[Mystichrome]

2 hours ago, BearTheSquare said:

I’ve been looking into this one a lot, glad to hear the pump is running strong for you. 
 

I’ll definitely be keeping that in mind, I’d rather have your experience/review than reviews on Amazon. 

 Initially, I was scared because of all the ATO disasters I've read about so I had it on a timer to go on for set amounts of time per day, but found that it was less safe that way because now if it runs for longer than normal it shuts off and alarms (learns the normal time it takes to refill after a few refills). That feature gets reset every time it gets unplugged or turned off via the timer I had.

[BearTheSquare]

Yuma 🍊

 

[I'm Batman]

I have both autoaqua Micro and Duetto xp ATO. I simply bought the Duetto because it was on sale for $100. The pumps are identical and the connection between the pump and the sensor is very similar. Unltimately they’re basically the same thing, the duetto has the dual sensor.

 

Have had the autoqua for 3 years and the Duetto for 6 months. I just bought another Duetto on the Black Friday sale. Reviews only give the Duetto about a years worth of operation before they fail, so we’ll see. Either way, I’m at the tanks 2x a day so even if I slept in, as long as the pump doesn’t get stuck on, a little extra evaporation between sensor failure and when I notice it’s not working shouldn’t hurt.

[BearTheSquare]

53 minutes ago, I'm Batman said:

I have both autoaqua Micro and Duetto xp ATO. I simply bought the Duetto because it was on sale for $100. The pumps are identical and the connection between the pump and the sensor is very similar. Unltimately they’re basically the same thing, the duetto has the dual sensor.

 

Have had the autoqua for 3 years and the Duetto for 6 months. I just bought another Duetto on the Black Friday sale. Reviews only give the Duetto about a years worth of operation before they fail, so we’ll see. Either way, I’m at the tanks 2x a day so even if I slept in, as long as the pump doesn’t get stuck on, a little extra evaporation between sensor failure and when I notice it’s not working shouldn’t hurt.

3 years sounds pretty promising, my main concern is flooding 5 gallons of water into a rental on top of killing my tank. From what I’ve heard about the autoaqua I think it’s probably the way to go. Thanks for sharing!

[BearTheSquare]

So far no complaints about the Hygger Wavemaker that I just received from Amazon. Dead silent, programmable, and an absolute beast of a pump in a small reef.

 

Controller:

[BearTheSquare]

Happy New Years!

 

 

[billygoat]

21 minutes ago, BearTheSquare said:

Happy New Years!

 

 

Some beautiful fireworks there! Happy new year indeed. 🎉

 

Really glad to see this beautiful tank is still rolling.

[BearTheSquare]

2 hours ago, billygoat said:

Some beautiful fireworks there! Happy new year indeed. 🎉

 

Really glad to see this beautiful tank is still rolling.

Thanks for stopping back in here! I’ve really been thinking of upgrading later this year, but really want to see this tank all grown in. Will definitely be keeping this tank running at least until graduation in May and the first couple months after my move. I’ve been thinking of an IM 20 or maybe even something shallow.

[BearTheSquare]

Some unedited pictures from tonight:

 

[BearTheSquare]

Protein buildup, increased surface agitation from new pump, or Dinos coming back? Is it time for a water change or should I leave it and continue dirtying up the tank?

[BearTheSquare]

Evening on the reef (only thing keeping me calm before the Browns game currently):
 

 

Hammer coral has grown to be over 30 heads:

[debbeach13]

Tank looks great. Congratulations on the win.

[BearTheSquare]

11 hours ago, debbeach13 said:

Tank looks great. Congratulations on the win.

Thanks! Still can’t believe it happened as a lifelong browns fan. Only took 22 years of my life to see a playoff win. 

[dferrari13]

Congrats...the tank is killer

[BearTheSquare]

Well this is long overdue, but between school, my internship, a move, and a pandemic life has been pretty hectic for the past 7 months.
 

Good news: I managed to keep the tank running with very minimal effort. I’m very happy with how it’s looking after moving it 3 days ago (9th move in 2.5 years!). Added a mate for my clownfish, should be full black and white when it matures (maybe black ice I’m not sure). And finally I beefed up my cleaning crew with an emerald crab, 10 hermits, and 3 snails. Oh yeah, and my polyclad must’ve finally starved out because the C.U.C. is doing great.
 

Bad news: I lost a lot of my zoas to an algae that seemingly popped up out of nowhere, only on their rock. I would pull it off once a week during a water change only for it come back immediately (looked a lot like bryprosis which I’ve struggled with before on that rock specifically). In the end I ditched the rock as I’ve always had problems with it. So currently I’ve got a tank without my favorite coral in it and I’m going to have to change that pretty soon.

 

Some pictures-

 

Left Side:

Right Side:

 

A Little Top-Down for your Sunday?:

[BearTheSquare]

Blurry, but here’s the new (so far nameless  clown) that’s looking pretty comfortable with my 2 year old black ice:

 

 

[BearTheSquare]

Still impressed with the growth of this hammer coral (from 2 to 50+ heads in 2 years), it’s probably a bit bigger than a softball after starting with 2 heads a little over 2 years ago. I’ve been debating on potentially removing the SPS rock that has gotten overtaken by the Yuma’s and giving it to someone local, then filling the new empty space with hammers/frogspawn. 
 

I do miss the extension I got when the hammer was smaller. But I’m pretty sure it doesn’t extend its much due to 1 of 2 things, maybe a mixture of both. 1. Trying not to shade itself out? It’s underside heads puff way out to get light. 2. Increased flow when I know they prefer light to moderate. 
 

May 12, 2019:

 

Top down for reference size:

 

August 2, 2021:

 

Top down for reference size:

[BearTheSquare]

Pretty rough day in the tank, got home from work around 3am last night after a 12 hour shift to find the new baby clown stuck to the power head (he passed sadly but looked fine when I left). After checking out the baby, I decided it had to be internal parasites as there were no physical problems.

 

Today I noticed my 2 year old clown has some white stringy poop, so not happy about that. It’s still eating at the moment so I’m hopeful things stay the same for now. Following instructions and soaking the food in seachem metroplex and binding with focus (thanks old humblefish comment) starting Sunday when it gets here. Hopefully the clownfish stays eating until I can get the meds in her. 

[BearTheSquare]

The older clownfish is still alive and well, think I caught the problem pretty early on. Here’s a pic of the tank from tonight. 

[debbeach13]

Hi Bear. Happy New Year. How is the tank doing?

[BearTheSquare]

On 1/6/2022 at 11:07 AM, debbeach13 said:

Hi Bear. Happy New Year. How is the tank doing?

Sorry I’m super late to responding, but the tanks still up and running! I finally have more time to take care of it and I’m finally getting back into the swing of things. Happy belated new year to you as well 😂