Rebuild and recovery of a dead tank

[Paul B]

So, either she's not as stressed anymore, the garlic I've been soaking the meaty foods in helped,

Last night I had linguini with clams and plenty of garlic. I have not seen any ich on me either.

[jason2459]

Originally Posted by capn_hylinur

Good show with the rugf
I had a pair of banner fish that were fresh off the boat--they both got ich but the other fish in the tank never had a sign of it. It was definitely stress in this case.
This was a real goof on my part---fresh off the boat fish into an existing tank--what the heck was I on that day

Yeah, I always quarantine ALL my fish. I throw them in the tank with a shirt with a big "A" on it so everyone avoids them. (Wow, that's an old time reference. Paul B might get it since he's so old. Maybe even Waterkeeper.)

Originally Posted by Paul B

Last night I had linguini with clams and plenty of garlic. I have not seen any ich on me either.

Well, if you do show any signs of ich just put on a snorkel and jump in your tank. The RUGF will take right care of it for you.

[Paul B]

Ich, whats that?

[jason2459]

Turned the skimmer on today as the pH levels in the tank have steadily dropped. Was at 7.71 tonight. Could be because of two factors. One is the skimmer is not aerating the water and the other is the refugium with the macro algae is not flowing into the main tank which is another oxygen supply. I'm still dosing melafix and pimafix which I think has really helped a lot with the spots on the Angel and has come a long way to getting healed up. Down side is that they make the skimmer foam up REALLY badly. So, I just have it overflowing right into the refugium. So, basically it's just aerating and moving water through the refugium now. Useless as a skimmer.

Looks like at least two of the million little nerite eggs survived. I now have two little nerites that I know I didn't add any that small. Pretty cool. They have been kind of ****ed off about the dosing of all these things lately but they are still alive but not laying eggs anywhere like they were.

Since turning off the skimmer/refugium it looks like the copepod population has multiplied back there by x 9392939293492394932492399239294923492394929010010020099394993999

Now that I turned the skimmer back on my display glass is absolutely covered in copepods. Can't wait for the angel to get 100% again so I can start getting some more stuff in the tank.

[Paul B]

Since turning off the skimmer/refugium it looks like the copepod population has multiplied back there by x 9392939293492394932492399239294923492394929010010020099394993999

Maybe the noise kept them awake at night

[jason2459]

Originally Posted by Paul B

Maybe the noise kept them awake at night

I already had a ton of pods. Now I believe I have way to many. I almost need to get that mandarin now to keep this population in check. I've never seen such a thing. The YWG is happy as he's the only fish that eats the copepods right now it seems. The angel and cardinals like the isopods and the clowns like the amphipods. Haven't seen any one but the YWG eat the copepods.

[ROB2005]

Jason, how are Bonnie & Clyde (YWG and TPS) doing?

[Paul B]

I already had a ton of pods. Now I believe I have way to many.

When I have too many Pods, I put them out by the curb and they get picked up to be recycled.

[jason2459]

Originally Posted by ROB2005

Jason, how are Bonnie & Clyde (YWG and TPS) doing?

Doing great and fully teamed up now. Wherever the tiger is digging the YWG is there watching. Wife has a lot of fun watching the tiger landscape and relandscape constantly. It can be very comical to watch. Looks like he's gotten into the habit of putting shells over his holes at night. And he is surprisingly good at being picky and choosing just the right sized shell to fit over the hole.

Originally Posted by Paul B

When I have too many Pods, I put them out by the curb and they get picked up to be recycled.

That's it!! I have to give them a call to pick up a few pods for me!

[jason2459]

Got video of the Tiger Pistol and the YWG hard at work. Or at least the pistol hard at work while the YWG supervises. You can see the different shells around. All but the one in the very front is covering a hole. He was about to grab the one in front but the flame angel came by and told them to take a break.


Original Video - More videos at *******

[jason2459]

Couple days now since the skimmer/fuge combo has been back on and the pH is back up to 8.09. I'm done dosing anything for now and will watch and wait. Will do a water change this weekend.

I picked up a used reefkeeper lite. It's just the base unit, temp probe, and a single 4 outlet strip. Did have the system interface so if I want to do a firmware upgrade I'll have to get one of those I guess. Got a good deal on it and using it to run my heater and lights. Have it programmed to turn the heater on at 78 with a .1 deviation as was recommended on digital aquatics website in there user manual for the unit. Also have the unit set to turn off two of the lights if the temp hits 84 and sound an alarm if the temp hits 86. Not sure if those are good numbers or if I should bump them down another degree? It's really easy to program and pleased with it so far.

I guess it can do a lot more stuff and can monitor and control pH, ORP, Temp, Salinity, Wave maker, ATO, custom Sensors... etc. Of course each piece costs more money but is nice that it is so modular and you can put together just what you need. Only thing is the lite version is limited to four major modules and supports all modules but the one that would give it network capabilities with a built in web server.

[Aquarist007]

Originally Posted by jason2459

Couple days now since the skimmer/fuge combo has been back on and the pH is back up to 8.09. I'm done dosing anything for now and will watch and wait. Will do a water change this weekend.

I picked up a used reefkeeper lite. It's just the base unit, temp probe, and a single 4 outlet strip. Did have the system interface so if I want to do a firmware upgrade I'll have to get one of those I guess. Got a good deal on it and using it to run my heater and lights. Have it programmed to turn the heater on at 78 with a .1 deviation as was recommended on digital aquatics website in there user manual for the unit. Also have the unit set to turn off two of the lights if the temp hits 84 and sound an alarm if the temp hits 86. Not sure if those are good numbers or if I should bump them down another degree? It's really easy to program and pleased with it so far.

I guess it can do a lot more stuff and can monitor and control pH, ORP, Temp, Salinity, Wave maker, ATO, custom Sensors... etc. Of course each piece costs more money but is nice that it is so modular and you can put together just what you need. Only thing is the lite version is limited to four major modules and supports all modules but the one that would give it network capabilities with a built in web server.

If you have lots of dough go for it however the only thing I monitor on my system is salinity when I do a water change. Temp fluctuates as I am sure pH alk mag and calcium do but my system goes on just fine.

[jason2459]

Originally Posted by capn_hylinur

If you have lots of dough go for it however the only thing I monitor on my system is salinity when I do a water change. Temp fluctuates as I am sure pH alk mag and calcium do but my system goes on just fine.

Wish I had the money for all that. I'm a like a little CUC scavenger and wait for really good deals in the used market and take other people's scraps. There seems to be a lot of controllers out there right now in the used market. Mostly the previous generation of what has just come out but there's also been a few of the newest generation of controllers to hit the used market as well. I see there's a reefkeeper lite basic package in the used forum here that hasn't looks to be still new for $88. I got my setup for $45, it was fully used and didn't have the SID to do firmware updates. The person that had it got a reefkeeper Elite v2.

If I did get anything extra for it would probably be the SL2 module with a salinity probe. Unless I found other modules really cheap. I already have the handheld pH and ORP probe.

[Paul B]

I was cleaning out some cabinets last night and found some test kits. One was still in it's wooden box. I figured I would test for nitrate, pH, phosphates, calcium etc. But most of the stuff in the kits looked like peanut butter and I could not get it out of the bottle so I just figure I will make up the test results and throw the kits out. I can test the temperature though, I have a big brass temperature guage that was on my old boiler, it has a brass tube with a copper bulb on the end. I incased the bulb in plastic and that has been hanging in my tank for about ten years. Maybe thats why I don't get ich in there

You can see it here, looks like 80 degrees

[jason2459]

That's awesome! Love the boiler temp gauge. Also, I love that skimmer. If I ever get time again to do extra projects I would definitely get into making a skimmer. I've been researching all different types of them now and how they work. Very intresting stuff, at least to me.

I just posted this in another thread but wanted to update my little on going log here. ...

here's the latest thing I've done with this skimmer. I just picked up a surface skimmer as an open item at an LFS so I have no idea what brand it is but I have seen it at marine depot and DFS. $5 for it and thought it couldn't hurt to try it out.

[IMG]http://i37.*******.com/10oi3ch.jpg[/IMG]
[IMG]http://i34.*******.com/53wtx0.jpg[/IMG]

So far it's much better then my original contraption that I made out of my old SS65's bubble trap. Before I had a small film around around the modified bubble trap and would grow and shrink in size. Since putting this new surface skimmer in I see absolutely no film what so ever. I have it dialed to where it just starts sucking in water off the surface. So, it's taking in most of the water from the bottom but definitely enough from the surface to remove any and all traces of surface film. Dialing it in to much towards pulling surface water makes the pump get erratic. I believe it's because it starts sucking in air as well. This surface skimmer the way it's dialed in right now is dead silent. My lighting fans are still nosier then the skimmer as well. Old attempt at surface skimming setup is in the video above.

I plan on playing around with replacing all tubing with some vinyl tubing or something. Right now it's a flex tubing like you can pick up at a hardware store for a washing machine drain and the flex tubing shoved into it that came with the surface skimmer. If you do look for the flex tubing there seems to be at least two sizes I've seen and I got the smaller size. I believe about 3/4in or smaller. The bigger size is definitely bigger then 3/4in.

[jason2459]

Got the camera fixed as you can see above so I took a few quick snapshots of my fishies while I was working on the skimmer.

[IMG]http://i35.*******.com/29pcbo8.jpg[/IMG]

[IMG]http://i38.*******.com/28akxvp.jpg[/IMG]

[IMG]http://i34.*******.com/258cykl.jpg[/IMG]

[IMG]http://i38.*******.com/23vlteq.jpg[/IMG]


You can see in this last picture what the poor Angel has kind of gone through. Those grayish patches were white and some black and now healing. Much better looking then she was but not 100% yet.

[IMG]http://i34.*******.com/19uvdd.jpg[/IMG]

[jason2459]

Here's another one. That little patch above the eye was the original spot (fluke) that I noticed before and started the downward spiral into HLLE(the patch below the eye) and Ich. Much better then it was.

[IMG]http://i35.*******.com/2mqpw61.jpg[/IMG]

[Paul B]

Jason, my homemade surface skimmer is something like that, most of the water enters from the bottom but some enters from the surface. I have found that horizontal slots at the top of the surface skimmer work better than those vertical cuts because the surface film gets stuck trying to get through a verticle cut. The horizontal slots are about 3/16" so the small pipefish don't get through but it removes all of the surface film. It all goes into my skimmer and from there into the algae trough.

[jason2459]

Interesting about the horizontal slots. I like that the actual surface skimming component floats up and down with the water level. So, I can do a small water change and not have to stop the skimmer now. I like to blow everything off with the baster and get siphoned out or skimmed out.

Going to call up my LFG and see if he'll QT the dwarf angel. Ich showed up again I think it was Wednesday or Thursday. I tried out this stuff called Ich Attack and all it's done is give my tank a break out of cyano. I guess it's 100% natural = organic = turn into phosphates and nitrates = cyano.

If the angel keeps getting stressed out like this I'm afraid she just wont recover with out a true full QT. She's still eating good so that's good. I'd rather get her and my tank back to normal though and at this point I think my best option for this is to pull her out and get into a full QT.

[Aquarist007]

Originally Posted by Paul B

Jason, my homemade surface skimmer is something like that, most of the water enters from the bottom but some enters from the surface. I have found that horizontal slots at the top of the surface skimmer work better than those vertical cuts because the surface film gets stuck trying to get through a verticle cut. The horizontal slots are about 3/16" so the small pipefish don't get through but it removes all of the surface film. It all goes into my skimmer and from there into the algae trough.

that's an interesting concept---can you post a picture of it?

[Paul B]

I guess I can but I need to get my camera, walk over to the tank, lift the front wall, put the picture on Photobucket then copy it here. Just imagine a horizontal slot on the top of a surface skimmer.
Oh, Ok, I will take a picture.

[jason2459]

I actually cleaned out the HOB refugium yesterday as it was just slimmed over with cyano. Had a few rocks with aptasia on it and put them in my main DT. Crazy right? Well, as I was hoping all signs of aptasia were gone by the morning. The peppermints in my tank really love that stuff. I put the rocks back into the refug. this morning all nice and cleaned off. There are still a couple aptasia stuck to the sides of the fug so I'm sure the rocks will get some more on them as they multiply. I'm sure the group of peppermints will like another treat like that again later. I got some polyfilter to help clean out the water after all the dosing of crap over the past month and a half. It fit right in the area in my refug. where there used to be bioballs and is used to trap most of the bubbles from the skimmer now. Curious to see what color it will change to.

I'm also going three days lights out for the main tank. Lights have already been off for Saturday and Sunday. The substrate is already completely clear of cyano and most of the rocks as well.

Ozonizer is not working. Red Sea is sending me a new one.

[jason2459]

Looks like I just got myself a pair of Koralia 4's!! That was totally am impulse buy but got both with shipping for around what one would be. Says that they are still new in box and never touched water so think I got a pretty darn good deal. Will take out the mj1200(surface agitation) and the three seio's. Then play around with the koralia's to see how it compares. Would be nice to have just two powerheads in there instead of four. We'll see if they are to obtrusive or not though. I figure if they don't work out I can resell them and get most my money back.

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/sh....php?t=1733142

[reeferoo]

I have two of these and they have made me very happy (I used to a Koralia 1 and a koralia 2 and I switched them out for two 4s.)

No problems- a little noisy at turn on. I bet you will be pleased :-)

[SaltLifeLove]

If they don't work out for you, I will take one I have been bouncing back and forth between a 3 or a 4 for my 75. RC wont let me post in FS forums yet because of the 90 day thing. I have Pay Pal and I am an avid eBayer, so if you could keep me posted I would appreciate it.