The list gets longer . . .

Since being home Sunday my days have been filled so the list of work is starting to pile up.  Hopefully, I can get it done next week:

water change
Iwaki pump clean
vacuum sump
rinse sump LR
adjust Ranco controller temp
catch Banggai babies in sump
cut frags

Interesting note:  I changed to 250 watt Radiums from 400 watt Radiums and then I brought the interval for the Radiums down from 10 hours to 8 hours and my corals never looked better.  Just today  I am adjusting the interval down to 7 hours, and we'll see how it goes.

Also, a picture of the new Scoly as well as two corals I thought I had lost.  The acan I got way back in 2007 when I changed from the 280 to the 240 and the Tubs I have been trying to grow for years.  Both corals seemed to have virtually disappeared and the Tubs were shut tight for the longest time, but now everybody seems to be recovering.  Sometimes it's just a mystery . . .

Hi ho Hi ho, It's off to work i go. . .

Once again the slight nervous trepidation as I prepare to leave my baby alone for 3 days.  Heading off to Rome, but I'll be back late Sunday night.  Cleaned the glass and the skimmer, dosed 1L of B-Ionic, and topped off the RO bucket before leaving.  Also got a new coral, but I'm worried about a tiny amount of damage on the rim.  It's a Scoly, and I'm a wee bit ashamed to say what I paid for it, but hey it's beautiful!  Can't seem to get the photo from email right now so I'll have to wait until I get back home Sunday or Monday.

Cheers All!

Joe

Testing and dosing day.

Started the morning by dosing 1L B-Ionic because I knew it had been a while since my last dose and figured the tank would need it.  Now this afternoon I just finished testing all the parameters:

Ca            450 ppt
Mg        1450 ppm
Alk           8.0 dKH
pH            8.3
I             above NSW
NO3       0.25 ppm
PO4        0.00 ppm

That says to me that the PO4x4 stuff works incredibly well.  I still can't believe that a mere 250 ml treats a 700 gallon system with no trouble.



Also did some aquascape rearranging today.  I was on ORA's webste reading up on my Ponape comments and noticed they recommended lower light for more green tinging of color and darker purple so I broke up the piece I had been growing and put frags at a couple different levels in the tank.  That also made the high light, high flow spot that it had been inhabiting available for a new frag.  It's a piece of $500 Efflo that is not looking to $500ish right now but I have high hopes!

Check out my new Facebook page!

I recently thought that to connect to more people, I should set up a Facebook page so if you have a chance, please go on and check it out, like it, and tell your friends about it!

http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/The-Coral-Gardener/260898250643419

Photos of the Day.

Playin' around with the camera again after cleaning out the water change bin.  The Agway container always gets a red slime in it.  Not sure if it's the container, the salt, or the RO water or something altogether different.  Anywats it doesn't seem to have any bad effects, but I keep cleaning it with clorox anyways.  What's an extra hour of work . . . .

Tunze cleaning.

About 45 minutes of work this morning cleaning 2 of the Tunzes from my main tank.  It's truly amazing how much loss in flow there is as they get dirty.   Forgot to mention the added saga yesterday as the skimmer wasn't working when I went to check on it before cleaning it.  Seems a piece of salt creep broke free from the outside of the venturi air intake and blocked the airflow so no bubbles.  Don't know how long it was like that, but it seemed to me that the water had gotten slightly greenish with excess algae.  Now 24 hours later everything is crystal clear again.  Such a delicate balance we keep.

Today's photo is a picture of my Tunze cleaning kit :)

Project corals.

I think I promised photos of corals that I'm hoping will become good candidates for farming.  The Gemmifera I bought way back in 2007, and it went brown for the longest time, but with my recent change to an ULNS (Ultra-low Nutrient System), it's been getting back the spectacular yellow with blue highlights it had when I first got it.  It's also a fast grower so it coulb be ideal.  The Tenuis is old school, but I love it when it's doing well, and the yellow with blue polyp is awesome, and not something I've ssen in anyone elses tank, though I'm sure it's out there somewhere . . .

Work, work, work.

Spent from 8 to 11 AM this morning doing tank chores.  Cleaned frag tank, cleaned skimmer, dosed 1 L B-Ionic, cleaned display tank, cleaned 2 tunzes for basement system with Muriatic acid, setup a new Tunze multicontroller in the basement so as to create back and forth flow, cleaned PO4x4 reactor and restarted PO4x4 on the system.  Haven't actually tested the water yet to confirm that it needed it, but I have a sneaking suspicion.

Tomorrow I need to clean the upstairs Tunzes.  I also have made a big change in the flow upstairs.  I was using 4 Tunzes simultaneously (2 x 6105s and 2 x 6055s), but they were all set to their lowest power.  Now I put them on max power and run one pair at a time so I can go back to creating an alternating flow pattern.  I had been noticing some anomalous growth formation with my monti's and after talking to Jason I decided it was because I had too much flow in one direction.  We'll see . . .

Going to work.

I always have some slight trepidation as I go to work since I'm gone from the house for 3 or 4 days.  Today is no different.  Cleaned the glass, siphoned the sand bed, added 1L of B-Ionic, and adjusted the RO top off drip (winter dry air) before heading out.  We'll see how it looks on Monday night when I get home : )

Joe

The Banggai Gardener

Never meant to be a fish breeder, but heck if my Banggai Cardinals don't keep producing viable offspring.  Sold 5 last month and I'm taking another 3 month old to Greenwich Aquaria today plus I've got 6 in the sump that are only a couple weeks old and by that I mean living out of the parents mouth.  Don't know how long they hang out in the parent mouth.  Guess I should figure that out and maybe pay a little more attention.

Did some reaquascaping the other day as my anemone moved a couple inches to one side and was encroaching on my latest favorite, my tenuis.  Also took some updated shots of "project" corals.  My Gemmifera is of particular interest as it's getting some amazing coloration and is a relatively fast grower.  After reading the article in CORAL magazine about Dustin Dorton and ORA, I'd love to be able to give him a viable mother colony to create a new commercially grown coral!  Wouldn't that be AWESOME?!?

Today's Maintenance.

8:45 AM.  The whole family is still asleep, but I've been up since 5:33 (trouble with getting older - you can't sleep in)  So far I calibrated a new pH probe and tested my tank water at about 7:30 AM - pH 8.3 then cleaned the basement frag tank and the skimmer.  I also retested the alkalinity since yesterdays reading was so low, and I added 1 L of B-Ionic as a result.  Today's reading was 8.5 dKH

Cleaning the frag tank is a big chore because I'm still getting a large amount of cyanobacteria in that tank.  Not sure why, but it seems to collect some type of spiky detritus.  I have no idea what the stuff is, but the tank has a bare bottom with 2 tunzes blowing on it continuously and it still builds up a layer of hair algae with red slime on the outside.  Fortunately I keep the tank almost empty so it's relatively easy to clean.  At the moment it's slightly more difficult than normal because I am keeping my buddies corals and fish in there until he gets his new tank up an running. 

On another side note if anyone is looking for me on RC, I am no longer there as I have become disenchanted with what I believe to be their heavy hand of censorship.  I was involved in a discussion regarding Red Sea's new product NO3:PO4x, but Randy Holmes-Farley, an Harvard and Stanford educated chemist highly regarded in many fields, felt that the discussion had become too tilted towards "how to use" the product versus a discussion worthy of "his" chemistry forum, and so the moderators decided to shut down the thread.  This was not the first time I have witnessed what I considered excessive interference with RC discussions so as a result I have said "Good-bye" to RC.


Joe

Daily Maintenance.

Yesterday's Chores:

clean glass upstairs
dose 1L B-Ionic
test water parameters

Test Results

• I+              normal
• NO3         0.25 ppm
• PO4          0.04 ppm
• Alk           6.0 dKH
• salinity     35 ppt