RDA’s 6 Gallon Long

[The Rainy Day Aquarium]

I had a credit at my LFS so I decided to pick up a few more frags this evening after work. Ended up getting a mixed bag of things to put in this tank, some of which will be moved over to the UNS 45L once that finishes cycling.

 

On a side note, I've been such a scrooge on testing my water (aside from salinity) and dosing. With religious water changes I have had a good amount of success so far with this tank, but I'm feeling a little pressure to start testing and dosing as my SPS growth tends to coincide with my water changes now. 

 

I think I have also decided on using a canister filter with lily pipes for this tank as well. The HOB filter and heater are too distracting and to be honest the surface skimmer (which is half the reason I got this particular filter in the first place) really doesn't do anything hardly. That and I am really craving a super clean look with this aquarium. I have some tidying up to do on the sand bed, moving frags, removing old shells, etc. but I think I am on my way to completing that goal.

 

Anyways that's pretty much it for now. I hope to post some photos when everything settles in and opens up.

 

Thanks for stopping by and happy Thanksgiving for those who are celebrating 🦃

 

 

 

 

 

[The Rainy Day Aquarium]

Bad news gang.

 

I got home from work yesterday to see everything closed up and looking pretty sickly. All of my sps has the dreaded RTN. Ugh, things were growing so nicely too! I almost was wondering if my alk was low but seeing everything including my zoas closed up and not happy leads me to believe something is in the water. I did a 50% water change and if things don't look better soon I'll do another one. Makes me sick to have most of my sps wiped out, I just wonder what happened? I did add a blue sapphire damsel and a small skunk cleaner shrimp (so fun to watch those two) but other than that, the feather duster, and a few small frags, I haven't messed with the tank. Either way this misshap pushed me over the edge. That's right, I caved and bought a few test kits.

 

I decided to go with salifert for now. I have a set of Brightwell Aquatics reef code A and B along with a few other supplements that I won a few months back, from our late sponser Marine Depot, which I intend to start using more. Hopefully I can nail down chemical stability in this tank.

 

As we are on the subject of caving in, I also ordered an Oase canister filter and a set of small lily pipes to clean things up in the display. Reminds me of my planted tank days. Haha I'm actually pretty excited. It's only the small thermo 100, but I think the added water volume as well as extra filter media/space for bacteria to grow will really help the stability of this tank (which apparently needs some help in that department right now ha). I was also tempted to swap the light out for something stronger, but decided against it as 1.) It's fun to see corals grow with a cheap light and 2.) I'm finishing up some details on a potential replacement for this tank, but enough about that.

 

Everything said and done it was a good reminder of how fragile this hobby can be (and how taxing on the wallet it can be too 😅) At this point it's just damage control and trying to save what I can. That and waiting for things to come in the mail. I guess I know what I'm asking Santa this year for Christmas; SPS 🤗

[The Rainy Day Aquarium]

Well most of everything is dead/dying/looking really bad haha. A few of my zoas look kind of okay so I might could save those? Water changes haven't seemed to help much (checked my source water just to be sure and everything checks out) the evening the tank crashed I came down with a severe cold so I guess everything is going down the tubes lol. I'm tempted not to restart this tank and just focus on the 45L, but I'm still undecided. Either way my head is pounding right now and I'm going to go stick a straw in some Nyquil and drink up. Great start to my week 🤧💯 

 

Make it a good one everyone 🤙 

 

[debbeach13]

Hope you feel better soon 

[A.m.P]

Low nutrients with high Alk and PAR maybe causing issues? Just a shot in the dark.

[Squid_reef]

I can't imagine how that feel, I'm sorry to hear that. 

 

I hope you'll manage to get some of the Zoas back on track and you get better soon.

 

 

[The Rainy Day Aquarium]

When it rains, it pours.

 

This past week I have been trying to get this thing back on track. Since the tank crashing, I was amazed to see how much algae and gunk has grown. Even with water changes it was looking pretty bad, but with persistence I was expecting a full rebound. Like I mentioned earlier I got a canister filter and some glass lily pipes to get equipment out of the display and clean things up a bit. At least that was my plan.

 

Enter this morning.

 

I was preparing to hook up the canister filter; rinsed everything out, etc. I happened to look behind the tank (sometimes some salt spray gets back there and I like to clean it up, when to my dismay a healthy stream of water was flowing from underneath the tank and onto the floor behind the cabinet. I busted a seam. I have no idea how long it has been leaking, my guess is a day or two as I burned through my ato water pretty quickly.

 

I promptly moved the damsel and cleaner shrimp to my UNS 45L and finished draining the tank. Everything else was already dead from the crash before so I didn't have to deal with corals and such lol.  I'm not going to lie, this was a pretty sour experience for me, but like all things we move on. I don't have any plans to replace this tank, and I think it's safe to say that this build is now done (as a split seam on the tank is kind of the nail in the coffin).

 

I do intend to keep my 45L up and running for as long as it will so go check out my shenanigans there!

 

Thanks for following along everyone, what a ride it has been!

 

 

[M. Tournesol]

Very sad. Was the aquarium brand new?

[The Rainy Day Aquarium]

2 hours ago, M. Tournesol said:

Very sad. Was the aquarium brand new?

Yeah, I'm not very happy about how everything transpired.

 

The tank itself was about a year old I think?

[A.m.P]

Damn, that's awful... I'm really sorry to hear about such a string of terrible luck.

[debbeach13]

So sorry. This is a tank owner's worst nightmare. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[The Rainy Day Aquarium]

On 12/5/2021 at 3:00 PM, A.m.P said:

Damn, that's awful... I'm really sorry to hear about such a string of terrible luck.

Yeah... 

Haha I guess things had to go out with a bang right? 

[The Rainy Day Aquarium]

On 12/6/2021 at 5:30 AM, debbeach13 said:

So sorry. This is a tank owner's worst nightmare. 

 

Thanks. I honestly was hopeful that I could go my entire aquarium hobby without an issue such as this, but I was wrong. Luckily no real damage was done besides a busted tank.

[The Rainy Day Aquarium]

It’s spooky season, and what better way to celebrate than raising a journal from the dead👀

 

[TheCoffeeReef]

Resurrections are good viewing options this time of year haha, look forward to seeing what madness ensues this time. Worlds smallest acro tank 😁👍🤔

[debbeach13]

Unfair. 10 Months for an update. What's in the box? Open the box! Show us what's in the box.

Seriously it is great you got a new set up. Looking forward to a new build.

[The Rainy Day Aquarium]

6 hours ago, debbeach13 said:

Unfair. 10 Months for an update. What's in the box? Open the box! Show us what's in the box.

Seriously it is great you got a new set up. Looking forward to a new build.

Oh that wouldn’t be any fun if I did that now would it!😁

 

Thanks, I’m really looking forward to this one too! 

 

 

[The Rainy Day Aquarium]

Mail day 😁 

( @debbeach13 I opened this box for ya 😉)

 

[debbeach13]

I appreciate it. 

[The Rainy Day Aquarium]

~~THE RESTART~~

 

I still have a ways to go until this tank gets wet, but figured it was time to spill the beans on some details of how this thing is going to be thrown down. 

 

Thinking how I wanted to go about setting this tank up, an idea ran across my mind that I really want to try. I've always been fascinated by using sunlight in the aquarium hobby. I've had the opportunity to see a few naturally lit aquariums in my life and they were always so interesting to me, howbeit not without unique issues to deal with. Talking with @daisies_for_darby about saltwater ponds was interesting and ended up filling my browser history with a lot of forum searching on well documented, long lived reef aquariums/setups using sunlight. Not a whole lot out there but enough to build my confidence in trying it out. 

 

I had a previous plan outlined for this tank which was quickly scrapped when I saw that glorious windowsill in our new home. Haha easily justified as I don't have to worry about a stand or how I was going to hang lighting, etc. I suppose this will make tank number 2 along with my 26 bowfront that will be setup. As for stocking this tank. I would like easy low maintenance corals; a softy tank? Anyways, Once the 26 is rolling I'll come back to this project and give it a whirl.

 

Thanks for stopping by!

 

 

Equipment:

Tank: Lifegard Aquaitics 6 gallon long 

Lighting: AI Blade

Filtration:  Oase Filtosmart Thermo 100 + Glass Lily Pipes

 

 

Corals:

• Pending

 

Fish:

• 2x Bluegreen Chromis

 

Inverts:

• Red brittle seastar 
• Handfull of cerith snails

[The Rainy Day Aquarium]

Lights came today. Tested them all out and made sure they worked before packing them up again for the move haha (I hate moving). These versions have an app to control them which is nice, although a little different. It’s kind of like Noopsyche’s old controller aka awkward to use, but functional (and really how often do you mess with your lights anyways?) Also did some general cleaning up and packing today and came across some old photos of when I had a 36 gallon Bowfront. Some simple corals and a small golden tail moray. Miss that tank a lot.

 

 

 

[The Rainy Day Aquarium]

Still waiting on some equipment to come in. The tank isn't going to be set up anytime soon, but I'm being impatient about thing shipping so slow haha.

[The Rainy Day Aquarium]

Not much of an update, but everything that I ordered is finally here. I have to say the Chihiros doser is a really sleek little gadget!  Now it’s just making the stand… which I’m honestly kind of putting off 🙃 but also work has really picked up and I now am holding down more than double the workload, so I think I’ll be a little sparse around here for the next while. I was at petco the other day getting some stuff for my doggo and spied a lifegard aquatics 4.1 gallon on sale. I would be lying if I said I didn’t think about giving that tank another shot haha.

[The Rainy Day Aquarium]

Soooooooo….

 

Our new place that we’ll be moving to has a few windows. Looking around, there was a decent sized, west facing window where my office will be at. And the window bay from the looks of it would fit this little aquarium. Natural light/low tech reef tank anyone? Could be a fun experiment. 🤔

[Tired]

Title change makes me think this hypothetical experiment is a lot less than hypothetical.