Seafurn's Old School Pico Gets An Upgrade - 365 Day Challenge

[SeaFurn]

Day 84

 

Mid-ish month FTS - in mid day lighting (more white, less blue). 

I’ve found that putting a black mat in front of the tank cuts down on glare. 

 

Hopefully I can get the new corals, the zoas, and the frogspawn glued in their spots by the end of the month. Would also like to get the hammer back in the tank. 

[SeaFurn]

Day 85

 

Glued some of the ricordea frags that are small rubble onto frag plugs. This should keep them from getting flipped over and moved around less often. I also moved them to the back of the tank where they aren’t getting blasted to see if that helps them return to their original size. 

 

Going to visit some family in FL for a few days for a little quarantining change of scenery. They have pool so it will be nice to stare at that and swim instead of being at the house all the time. Hopefully we will take some walks on the beach too. 

In preparation for being away, I went through tank care instructions with my oldest son tonight who will be sticking around here. Don’t expect there to be any problems but there was a lot to explain. I guess I take these simple daily tasks for granted. 

Not sure what I’ll be posting the next several days...

 

In other non tank news - we just sat through my daughter’s virtual high school graduation. Such strange times we live in. As part of it, all the kids made 10 second videos and that substituted as their walk across a stage to get their diploma. I gotta say - it was way more entertaining than the normal graduation. It was fun to get to see what each kid did for theirs - and what they had to say. 

Congrats to the class of 2020! 

 

[SeaFurn]

Day 86

 

Tested the water before we left this morning and everything looked good - except alk. It’s higher than several of the last measurements and I haven’t dosed or changed any water.  Not sure what would be causing it to creep up.  If anything, it should be going down slightly day to day. I don’t think I did the last tests incorrectly. 

 

Checked in with my son on the tanks this evening and he said everything looked good.  So...back to vacation! 

[SeaFurn]

Day 87

 

Vacation Day

Nokomis Beach, FL

Despite the look of this picture - it wasn’t too bad of a day.

My son said the tanks are good. 🤞🏻

 

[debbeach13]

Looks good to me. But I believe a bad day at the beach beats a good day anywhere else 

[devaji108]

22 hours ago, SeaFurn said:

Day 87

 

Vacation Day

Nokomis Beach, FL

Despite the look of this picture - it wasn’t too bad of a day.

My son said the tanks are good. 🤞🏻

 

looking nice and warm. it snowed here the other day sooo. yeah beach sounds nice about now. 

[SeaFurn]

Day 88

 

Did a little beach combing today looking for shark’s teeth. I guess this beach is known for that. I didn’t find any of those but I did find a couple of rocks and a mangrove propagule that I may add to the tank! 

[SeaFurn]

Day 89

 

Found some shark’s teeth today!  I also found a small piece of a

coral skeleton that was still encrusted on a small stone. I’ll post a picture of it sometime. Pretty cool find. 

 

Heading home tomorrow and anxious to see how things are looking in the tank. Should get home before the lights go out.

 

I’ve had a chance to think where I want to glue the rest of the coral down so that might be part of this coming weekend’s activities. 

 

[SeaFurn]

Day 90

 

I’m home but I need some quick advice. The ATO overfilled the tank and salinity was 1.015. How quickly can I raise it? 

 

I’ll explain what I think happened in another post. I did not need this set back...

 

[RedTheReefer]

On 5/28/2020 at 7:01 PM, SeaFurn said:

Day 90

 

I’m home but I need some quick advice. The ATO overfilled the tank and salinity was 1.015. How quickly can I raise it? 

 

I’ll explain what I think happened in another post. I did not need this set back...

 

Any update? I hope everything is ok. 🤞

[SeaFurn]

Day 91

 

Spent the day gradually raising the salinity. I’ve been raising it 0.003g/mL per hour and monitoring the corals’ reaction continually. It’s now at 1.022 and the corals are looking much better. I’m going to hold it here overnight and then evaluate what to do tomorrow. 

The zoas seem least impacted by the swing. The acan, psammocora, and smaller rics seem to be most impacted. I’m surprised I haven’t seen any negative reaction from the acro - but I’m guessing it will, but will be a delayed reaction. 

I started seeing a little polyp extension on the digi and the stylo this afternoon. 

I think what happened was the floss in the 1st rear chamber began restricting the water to the pump which sits in the 3rd chamber. The sensor for the ATO is in the 2nd chamber and as the water dropped the ATO kept refilling to its shut off point. In the meantime, the water level in the 1st chamber kept increasing. I think when the water level increased higher than the fill tube, the pump would run and then a small amount of tank water would back siphon into the RODI container - even though there’s a siphon break installed. Basically the water was getting continuously diluted at that point. At least that’s what I think was happening. 

[debbeach13]

Glad to hear some real progress was made on getting back to normal. I hope it continues to go well.

[SeaFurn]

Day 92

 

Raised the salinity another 0.001 g/mL to 1.023 today. Will probably raise it to 1.025 over the course of the day tomorrow. 

Here’s a FTS from earlier today - for April. Corals look ok considering what they’ve been through but not the best. If they look better tomorrow, I’ll take another picture. 

Didn’t accomplish all I wanted to this month but there’s always next month. Just hoping that the corals won’t be too negatively impacted by the salinity swing. 

April FTS

 

[SeaFurn]

Day 93

 

RIP Butt Kisser zoas. I really tried so hard to keep that little polyp alive all this time. I’m sure this latest set-back was just too much for it. 

 

The good news is salinity is at 1.024 and the other corals are looking ok - except for a couple of the small ricordea. 

 

Will raise salinity to 1.025 tomorrow and then 1.026 on Tuesday. After that, I will try to hold parameters as stable as possible. I may increase feedings this week. I think the corals could stand a little extra nutrition. 

 

[SeaFurn]

Day 94

 

Salinity is at 1.025.

Nitrates - 0.2

Alk - 9.35

 

I fed the corals heavy and am happy to report they are all looking pretty good tonight. 

 

I also reset the ATO this afternoon. Out of curiosity, I tested the salinity of the water in the ATO container. It was 1.017!! Unbelievable! So water from the tank had absolutely been back siphoning into the container and then getting pumped back into the tank. Salinity had basically equalized in both the tank and the ATO container. I’m not sure when this transpired but if we would have been gone one more day I’d probably have a lot more losses.

[debbeach13]

So glad things are looking better. 

[SeaFurn]

Day 95

 

I kept salinity at 1.025 today and have turned off the ATO. I’m going to let evaporation over the next day take it back to 1.026 and then turn the ATO back on. 

I noticed that I have a bit of green fuzz (algae) growing on the back glass. Just going to let it go for now and let the snails take care of it. 

 

What is consensus from everyone about gluing corals down this coming weekend? Or should I just let the corals settle a little more after the salinity swing and do it in 2 weeks? 

[SeaFurn]

Day 96

 

I think the Bam Bam zoas that have been closed for a few weeks might be opening up. I saw a little bit of red today. That would be nice. Here’s a picture of the sun shining in this morning. Part blue part sun. 

 

[SeaFurn]

Day 97

 

A week later, salinity is back to 1.026. The ATO is back on. I have moved the ATO full tube to the 2nd chamber. That should keep it from getting submerged if the problem ever happens again. 

Update on the frogspawn-2 of the heads recovering nicely. The third is taking a little longer but there are some tentacles showing as you can see. 

 

 

[teenyreef]

I love that daylight shot! That's a relief that everything seems to be recovering from the low salinity, too.

[SeaFurn]

Day 98

 

Plans for the weekend: I think I’m just going to glue the acro and the frogspawn down and leave the others for next weekend. Doing that should make room to move the hammer back into the tank.

As much as I just want to get things in their spots, there’s really no rush. 

And hopefully I can get caught up on some other tank threads this weekend. I’m so far behind. So, if I haven’t been to yours in awhile, I apologize. 

[SeaFurn]

Day 99

 

Let me first say that I HATE GLUING DOWN CORALS! I dread it every time I do it. But I got through it with only one (hopefully) minor issue - I got super glue on an upper part of the acro - just a micro amount but right where a polyp would extend. 🤦🏻‍♂️

So will the coral grow over that glue like it usually does at the base? I just have never got it up so high on one. You can see a little white spot on the left side in the picture. 

But check it out - the frogspawn is back in its spot and welcome back hammer! It looks so much better now. Remember what it used to look like?

I’m going to leave it on the bottom for a couple weeks. I did scrap off some of these little tube worms (can’t remember what they are called) but I don’t want them in this tank. They get a little out of control in the 45 and they would be a disaster in this tiny tank. So I’ll monitor it and make sure they don’t come back and then if not, will glue it just right if the utter chaos zoas (top right side of tank). But I’m done messing with the tank for today! 

 

 

[SeaFurn]

Day 100

 

In the picture above you’ll see the ABS is pulling up at the corner. It’s happening in the opposite front corner as well. I initially used silicone to adhere it to the bottom of the tank but that’s turning out to be an obvious fail. The snails now crawl under it and detritus gets trapped under it. So, one more thing to add to the to do list. The question is how to fix it? Use silicone again-and more of it? If yes, do I have to empty the tank and dry it out completely before reapplying it? Or, does silicone adhere to wet surfaces?How long does it take to dry before I could put everything back into the tank safely? Would super glue work? Maybe I should just remove the ABS completely? (I do like the white look on the bottom of the tank though) 

Any other ideas for me? 

[Tired]

I can't help you with most of that, but do NOT put silicone in your tank wet. It leaches fumes that will kill everything. Silicone has to be used dry, and you have to wait until it's completely cured, until there's no silicone smell at all, for it to be safe. 

 

Superglue might work. Or just weight it down with a tile in each corner? I don't know how stiff it is, but if it's relatively flexible, I'd imagine you could just put something on top.

[Ratvan]

5 hours ago, SeaFurn said:

Day 100

 

In the picture above you’ll see the ABS is pulling up at the corner. It’s happening in the opposite front corner as well. I initially used silicone to adhere it to the bottom of the tank but that’s turning out to be an obvious fail. The snails now crawl under it and detritus gets trapped under it. So, one more thing to add to the to do list. The question is how to fix it? Use silicone again-and more of it? If yes, do I have to empty the tank and dry it out completely before reapplying it? Or, does silicone adhere to wet surfaces?How long does it take to dry before I could put everything back into the tank safely? Would super glue work? Maybe I should just remove the ABS completely? (I do like the white look on the bottom of the tank though) 

Any other ideas for me? 

Remove the ABS and place it under the glass if you still want the look without much of the bother of cleaning?