Gilroy 425g Build Thread (All Apex, all the time)

[Terence]

View of my tank - from Hawaii!

The glass is a bit dirty but everything looks AOK from 2500 miles away!

 

[Terence]

And another from the other side

 

[lolgranny]

And another from the other side

The PB is showing you some booty

 

[lolgranny]

View of my tank - from Hawaii!

The glass is a bit dirty but everything looks AOK from 2500 miles away!

What’s the green stag / blue tips? Looks awesome

 

[Terence]

What’s the green stag / blue tips? Looks awesome

Bule-tip green slimer is what the person that gave it to me called it. Love it!

 

[Terence]

So I went on vacation last week. Of course two days into it, my CO2 went empty on the CaRx. This is why you do both dosing AND CaRx. All I did was remotely double my Triton dosing and was able to catch the crash - it got down to about 6.1 dKh. When I got back it was back up to about 7dKh. I put the new CO2 back on (or at least one I borrowed from a colleague here at work) and kept the Triton at the same increased rate. I have watched the dKh rise back up to about 7.95 now so all is good. No losses yet. couple of LPS corals looked unhappy. The interesting thing is how you can see the effect of rising (or falling) dKh by just looking at a weeks worth of pH data. Notice the direction of the pH trend. Also, notice the difference between the high and low. With proper dKh there is a buffering effect and your swings will not be as dramatic. That is clearly visible in this graph. So cool!

 

[markstubb]

What, no overlay of the dKh data on the pH graph?

 

[Terence]

What, no overlay of the dKh data on the pH graph?

It wasn't running the entire time of this graph - out of reagent ;Facepalm

 

[Terence]

So I have been a bit lazy with the tank maintenance this summer so far. Yesterday I knocked out some things.

First, my skimmer pump has been working, but it would not reliably come back on after a power outage - required a hard restart with the button and sometimes even blowing into the air intake. The guys at CoralVue are awesome. Just a couple of emails and a new pump was on its way. Very impressed. I exchanged it out yesterday and on a hunch I lifted my skimmer to see if I could get it to produce more foam at a shallower depth. Boom! It was at about 9" before. Now I put two 2" salt lids under it and it sits at about 5" underwater. I am getting much more bubbles and foam production in the main body now. Expecting better skimmate production.

For about 6 weeks my WAV pumps have needed attention. And the tank is feeling it. The combination of the summer sun coming in and hitting the tank for a few hours in the morning along with reduced flow from the dirty (and one non-working) WAVs, I have a bit of a cyano outbreak - not on the sand, on the rocks and mostly on the bottom left (sunny) side of the tank.

I am right now cleaning up two of the WAV (using citric acid in one and acetic acid in the other jug) by letting them run in cleaning solution for half a day. When I take them out, I will brush them off, wipe them down, and put them back in. Never even have to remove them from the system or turn them off. When I take them out, they shut off, when I put them in the jug, they come back on! Love these things. I have one not working, but after inspection of the impeller, it looks like something got lodged down in there. I will retest after cleaning and reassembly.

I am again running without a filter sock. That was a shortlived return to them! Ugh, what a total PITA those things are. Also, without the turbulent drain action, the Triton dosing tubes for 3a and 3b where getting huge stalactites again.

This Tuesday we will be doing a live stream at Neptune Aquatics so I will be harvesting at least 5 gallons of macro to take to him. It is totally out of control now.

A number of the LPS I had to rescue from the display and put down in the sump did not make it. But a bunch of others are doing well. I still think ultimately I will have to pull those heniochus out of the tank. Ugh!

After the WAV cleanup, I will blow off all the rocks and stir the sand and call it a day/weekend for the tank maintenance.

In SLC next weekend so maybe the weekend after I will take on pulling the Abyzz for its first cleaning as well as find out what got stuck in my flow meter.

 

[Reeferdood]

What a thread, took me 2 hours and 3 cup of coffee to go through it. Beautiful home, family and system, I will be using a couple ideas for sure.
As for now, I guess I'll just wait until the next Reefapalooza in Orlando to meet up with you again. Hopefully Vic and Lou will get the go cart hookup again so I can kick your butt again on the racetrack...
Rick from Rob's Reef...

 

[Krazie4Acans]

@Terence I think we need an update on battle Heniochus.

 

[Dxpert]

Time for an update

 

[psirex]

Come on give the people what they need!

 

[flagg37]

Time for an update

From what I hear, everyone at Neptune is getting the trident ready to go out.

 

[Salty_Box_Reef]

Why is it that your the only one running the philips lights?

 

[s2nhle]

Thank you for posting.

 

[Terence]

Things are going great. I have some photos and content saved up I need to post. I even have some new fish in the QT!

 

[txreefer]

Well I stumbled on this thread last night. Got to bed at midnight and was only to page 23. I didn’t accomplish much at work today but I read the whole thread. A lot of amazing info in here even attempted to figure out how to import the coral care lights. Thanks Terence for all the info it is a huge resource and will be very helpful for my 220.

 

[Terence]

I need to update this thread - been lazy - all is going great in the tank - here is a snap from my live cam today!

 

[Terence]