Water Change, New Media
Did a 5-gallon water change and replaced the carbon and GFO last night. I should have planned ahead better on my last Bulk Reef Supply purchase, because I only have enough GFO remaining for one more batch. I also pulled some nuisance algae; caulerpa, red cotton algae, and some halimedia.
unruly called me on my way home from work last night and told me the vermiculata was looking a bit bleached. Sure enough, it’s faded! Very pastel lime-green looking. That happened overnight. Tied to the skimmer cleaning? How bizarre. All the other corals look the same. I fed a fair amount of Rod’s Food after lights out last night, maybe the extra nutrients will help it color back up.
No idea if the new purple granulosa is doing ok, or if the tips are experiencing STN (slow tissue necrosis). Some of them look to have new growth, and some look to have tissue loss. I’ll just be patient and let things run their course in due time. It’s too small of a piece for me to frag the bad tips off, so I don’t have too many options anyway.
The maximod impeller I put on the MJ powerhead I have in the sump is driving me nuts. It keeps stalling, and restarting it is like starting up a prop plane in the 30’s. Try to give the prop a spin and quickly clear your fingers! Try again, and again, and again as it starts to take but not quite, and then finally starts spinning. If I was relying on this for flow in the tank I’d be very unhappy.
Skimmer Maintenance, Observations
Cleaned the skimmer pump yesterday, since I had noticed reduced production recently. There wasn’t a lot of build-up on the impeller, shaft or volute but there was a thin film and some precipitated calcium. Gave everything a good vinegar bath and scrub and put it all back together. Refilled the skimmer, switched it on, and… Nothing. Just a humming noise. Had to drain the skimmer again (pump it dry with an aqualifter) take the pump apart and reassemble. This time it fired right up. And despite not having broken in yet and a perfectly clean neck, it produced a wet skim right away. Nice!
Been noticing some nice growth on the Vivid blue gomezi. The branches are starting to take off, which is nice because it’s supposed to be a slow grower. Conversely, the new blue “granulosa” I picked up looks like the tips are burned. I am baffled, with alk beteen 8 & 9 DKH and all other SPS looking normal, I don’t know what’s causing this. If it’s new growth it’s odd looking.
Moving the purple and yellow torches was a good decision! The yellow torch is looking fantastic, although it’s still adjusting to the higher flow. The purple torch is starting to gain a deeper color. I think this is one of the first times I’ve switched placement of corals in this tank!
Sometime today I’d like to do a water change and replace the GFO and carbon media.
Rearranged some pieces, new supplements
Last night I made new batches of 2 part (recipe 2). That is all I have to say about it!
I saw online that people get better coloration out of their yellow Aussie torches by placing them in higher light. I have ours along the back wall in the most indirect light in the tank. So i decided to move it! Swapped locations with a purple torch that was closer to the halides but looked like it was a bit over lit. We’ll see how they respond.
The red planet frag has gotten beat up this week. Something broke it free from the epoxy holding it in place. Two days in a row I picked it up off the sand bed, and this morning I had to recover it from on top of a torch – not cool! I tried re-epoxying it in place tonight and accidentally broke a piece off. Jammed that piece into a rock crevice next to the main piece where it will get less light and flow; curious how it will respond in coloration and growth – if it can take hold before a snail or crab knocks it loose.
WP Upgrade, Testing, Cleaning, Sighting
First off, unruly upgraded the version of wordpress we’ve been using. So far it seems great and most of the changes (if not all of the changes) should be on our end. If you come across something not functioning or looking correctly please let us know.
Tested the alk and ca tonight for the first time in a few weeks. I tested before doing my evening doses which would raise the numbers a full point (ie alk up 1DKH). Alk measured in at 7.5 DKH and ca at 350 ppm. I decided to up both levels a bit. I would like to keep calcium between 380 & 400 all day, and keep alk between 8 & 9 DKH. This will improve once I set up some dosing pumps of course, and not dose manually twice a day.
Cleaned the vortech MP40 tonight in a vinegar bath. It was laying on the sandbed when I got home from work. A littlebit of precipitate on the moving parts but not much. Not sure really if that’s what caused it to break away from the dry side but at least it’s back up and running now. And jet black clean, unlike the background of the tank.
And finally, the sighting. The eunicid worm is alive and well. Still living in the same section of liverock. I’m Ginger to try to capture it I think. Not sure if I’ll be successful… I’ll post up whatever happens. Probably a few weeks before I get motivated enough to try it.
New DI Resin
I did some maintenance on the RODI system tonight. Took out both DI stages and did a quick visual. The first stage was definitely exhausted but the second looked like there was some life left. I swapped the second stage cartridge into the first stage canister, and then replaced the DI resin in the first cartridge and placed it in the second stage canister. Got everything hooked back up and under the sink and measured 0 TDS coming out of the first stage (great) and 0 TDS out of the second stage (to be expected). When I measure 3 TDS or so out of the first stage I’ll swap the cartridges again with fresh resin going into the final stage.
I need to calibrate the TDS meters. My inline meter doesn’t read the same as my hand held. Not surprising since they’re only so accurate, but I want to calibrate them anyway. I also need to ask on a forum, is it bad that I had some algae/bacterial growth on the DI cartridge gasket on the incoming side? The outlet side of the gasket was clean. I washed and scrubbed the gasket in a bleach solution this evening. I wonder if I should be changing the prefilters and carbon blocks more frequently…
Hopefully the 0 TDS water will help me knock back the nuisance algae in the tank! Making fresh topoff and water change buckets as I type.
New Frags, New Links, New Flow, New Water…
As part of my wedding anniversary gift unruly gave me a nice budget to go coral shopping with. Took a ride up to Midwest Coral Farms with our son on Saturday. They were having a nice sale, all their frags in the front tank were $9.99 regardless of marked price. Nice! We picked up a favia and a purple/green hued SPS frag. The SPS frag wasn’t on sale, but it was decently priced. I would have spent a bit more time browsing, maybe pick up some clean up crew, but somebody started getting fussy and it was time to go home and see momma :) I’m waiting on an ID on the SPS frag, then I’ll get some photos up. I think I’m overdue on photos of some other “recent” additions too.
I updated some of the links in the blogroll, in the sidebar to the right. You’ll also see that there’s a new “medal” on the far right sidebar, from The Reef Tank. Click on the Vote For Us link!
Our blue millepora is mounted in the middle of the tank, just off the sand bed. Given the lagoon-style rockwork and the placement of the Vortech MP40 it’s difficult to get decent flow to this coral. Two of the closed loop outlets are located at the outside corners of the tank, facing in towards the rockwork. After fixing the OM valve last week I had one of the outlets directed along the surface of the water, but I wasn’t happy with the deadspots that existed in the middle of the rockwork. I pointed this outlet down and towards the mille, not really sure if it would have enough oomph to get flow to the coral. I guess it does – absolute sand storm down there now, and there’s a great big bare spot in the middle of the tank. The coral looks happy so I can live with the bare bottom tank there for now. Maybe as the coral grows it will reduce the water flow along the sandbed and I can get some sand to stay put again. If not, no big deal. I also may try pointing the other outlet in the same direction; that may result in a bigger sand storm though.
Finally, did a water change last night. I did 5 gallons and didn’t change any filter media or clean the skimmer neck, so it was done in less than 10 minutes. Nice and quick. I did siphon out a fair amount of algae that I had scraped off the tank bottom before starting.
