Caulastrea

Taken with the flash on. The colors are way off but without the flash it is just a white smudge. The Caulastrea is about 1/3rd of the way up the tank. It should not need really high flow and the Halides may be to much light. I tried to get it glued in in a lower spot but it wouldn't stay. Good sign is that it seems to have really opened up compared to when it was on the bottom of the tank.

Glued the Montipora to a "Reef Plug" and managed to wedge it into the rock. Shouldn't fall down as easy now.

Getting used to the lights. Kept him in the sand for a few days.

Side Shot

Friday Vacation = get some stuff done i've been putting off

• The Lazy Electrician Wired 4 new basement lights so i can see down there
• He also Added a dedicated 20A circuit for fish junk in the basement
• Got rid of the old windows and put in some plexiglass to cover the sump.

Hopefully this will cut down on the condensation better then the previous set up I had. It steamed up and seemed to start working right away. We might have cut a little to wide around the skimmer but I'm not to worried. The plastic curves in a little so hopefully the condensation will drip off back into the tank. This may not work to good with my idea of having egg crate in the sump for a frag tank running a light above the glass but whatever.

Skunk

Taking turns getting cleaned

Ick

Lost the Powder Brown and Clown to ick.

Things I learned:

• Even though everyone seems to put fish in their tanks on day one quarantine them anyway because even if you lose your fist few fish ick can infest your tank for months. So No adding anything for a few months.
• Put a Skunk shrimp in before you add tangs
• Chromis seem to be pretty hardy and were my only fish to not get any ick
• Yellow tang did get hit pretty hard but the shrimp cleared off most of the white spots
• The powder brown got infested 3+ weeks after bringing him home. I think the cleaner shrimp would have taken care of things if it was in there first.
• Lowering the salinity by adding RO water didn't work for me, after 3 days the Powder Brown died in a 10 Gal quarantine

The skimmer was falling apart because I connected the pump wrong, due to the lack of instructions that I wouldn't have read anyway. That may have cause parts of the ick and the brown algae, but now that i reconnected it, what I am assuming is the correct way the algae is clearing up and I get more bubbles in the skimmer.

Brown Algae

Well I guess it is technically not algae but diatom, or something. According to this site
http://saltaquarium.about.com/cs/algaecontrol/a/aa071103.htmit my be my cheap kolorscape sand I added but we'll see if it lasts. The tangs are eating it off the side of the tank so that is all cleaned up now. I'm going to do 20G weekly water change for the next few weeks. Vacuuming the bottom doesn't seem to help much more then just sifting if with this fancy comb. Here are some shots of the ugly.

Vinegar Cleanup

Both powerheads were really dirty, after dumping the bottom one in vinegar for one night it looks new.

Nightlights in the Morning

Secondary Heater / Fresh Salt Heater

basement

List:
1 Trash Can for Fresh RODI
1 Trash Can for Fresh Salt Mix with 2nd heater and a MJ 1200 to mix
Rubbermaid Sump - with old windows and another rubbermaid (raised for protein skimmer space) on top to slow evaporation
Black Flex PVC are downspout 1 and return
downspout 2 is partially flex PVC and regular PVC (next to the gray/red temperature meter)
Water Change Pipes - To the right of the return, still need to finish that
RO Unit

Nov 18 2007

Next Day

Best shot i could get. Orange in green and some green in green.

Black Friday?

Tangs! Insane deals at Hidden Reef and Pets Plus. Both stores had 20-50% off on supplies and fish.


Yellow Tang (and some claws)


Powder Brown Tang (yes horrible shots)


Out of focus zoo (will try for better shots soon), several colors, not sure what kind


Ricordia, Yellow Tang, and 45% of the Powder Brown Tang.


DOH - Powerheads blew the recordia into a cave so some rocks had to get moved. Super glue was dried up and and as hard as a rock. Recordia is now on the opposite side of the tank where there is less flow.

Tangs are noting fighting at all. They are different body shapes and I put them in at the same time so that should help. They spent the first hour swimming together but seem to be exploring on their own now. Yellow seems to be only interested in eating junk off the bottom of the tank. Powder seems to like exploring the rocks. Neither have hit the Nori.

Xenia

Xenia from BBQBobThis piece attached itself to one of my snails

October Update

Clown Fish

Frags

backing up Ron's junk...

montipora capriconis - orange one
some kind of acropora. - can't see that one in the picture

conch eyes

Equipment

Sump stuff moved
Filter bag
Kent Top-Off
Overpriced Heater - PRO-HEAT D-58 TEMP CONTROLLER

Update

Photo's in 1024x768 just for Keith...

Chromis

Blue Green Chromis

Hydor Koralia 4

Nightlights

Nori

From Redners Market

Top Off Parts

Kent Float Valve
0.25" Tube Bulkhead
0.25" Shutoff

Clean Up Crew