Swedish fish - behind the scenes rebuilding a public aquarium

[Dr. Dendrostein]

That is gonna take a LOT of refrigerators!

You had to sneek that in didn't you.

 

[Dr. Dendrostein]

I must be on Swedish time, for last 30 days been waking up 2am or 3am. Not good

 

[Dr. Dendrostein]

One more, one day I will legally change my name to Dr. Dendostein Kaplan. Wonder if fit on Drivers license?

If you only knew what I've had to do to get my children of the sea to thrive.

 

[Dr. Dendrostein]

Hh

 

[Sallstrom]

Hh

nicely done

 

[Dr. Dendrostein]

nicely done

I thought i spell wrong. Its fine

 

[Dr. Dendrostein]

I need to get my corals to thrive like this avocado in Hawaii. That's a lot of avocado toast

that avocado can feed a family easily

 

[crusso1993]

Hh

Welcome to R2R, Dr.!

 

[Dr. Dendrostein]

Welcome to R2R, Dr.!

View attachment 981574

That looks like my great uncle!!!! Thank you

 

[NY_Caveman]

Here are my thought on taking notes!

The great benefits of taking notes

Running a reef tank might be a walk in the park for some and for some it’s a real challenge. I’m somewhere in the middle of that scale, but I always want to improve my husbandry skills. Working at a small public aquarium, maintaining, starting up and rebuilding reef tanks, I have had the chance of try many methods and products.

The first years at my job we unfortunately didn’t keep that much record on what we did. We did keep record on the animals and some measurements, but not much else. If we did write anything up it was on paper. Paper and water aren’t the best combination, so often I didn’t take notes when trying something new or changing light bulbs etc. As I see it now, we lost a lot of data and observations those years.

Seven years ago my colleague installed an old computer in our kitchen (which also serves as a lab). At that time we started one excel document for each aquarium system at our Aquarium. Since the computer stood just where we sat and did the water tests, it was easy to write the numbers down while sitting there doing the tests. It’s also nice to listen to music while doing water tests.

I started at the top of my excel documents just writing the date and then the measurements or the observation or any other thing I thought mattered. The next note I took I wrote underneath, so it would be a chronological order. Nothing advanced at all.
After a while we found more things than the water parameters that would be good to mark in the notes, like the dates when we change T5 or MH bulbs, CO2 for the calcium reactor, dosing amounts and many more things.

The advantage with these documents is that you don’t need to rely on your memory solely. For me who has a limited memory, these notes are essential. Specially when it comes to troubleshooting. If the corals one day don’t look happy, you could go back and see what have been done the last couple of weeks. If you see Cyanobacteria starting to grow on the sand, you can go back and check if the parameters have changed or if any changes have been done on light schedules or if any other things have changed. This way we’ve figured out a lot of stuff that we shouldn’t have without the notes.

An example was when we had evening event and changed the light schedule for that evening. A couple of days later it started growing Cyanobacteria on the sand. At that time I tried to vacuum the sand, but the red mat just came back the next day. A week or two later I was looking through the notes and saw the note on the evening event and the temporary change in light time. Somehow we hadn’t changed back to the regular schedule, so the tank got three extra hours of light a day since that event. When discovering this I changed to the regular schedule. Two weeks later the Cyanobacteria was gone.

I also like to keep all notes in the same document, just add more sheets on the excel file. Here are some of my sheets: ”Everything”, ”CO2 and CRx media changes”, ”lights”, ”stocklist”, ”water changes”, ”dosings” and ”recipe and formulas”. I like to keep all the records on the sheet "Everything", just to be able to scroll through it all chronologically. Then add the details in the sheet for fish or bulbs for example.
View attachment 979378
Sorry, we write in Swedish at work. But I'll translate if anyone wants me to!

My colleague on the other hand likes to order everything on the same sheet.
View attachment 979379


It's also a good idea to write something when the tank looks it's best, not only when something is wrong. To be able to go back and see all the settings when everything worked well.

I hope you enjoyed this little "article". Have a good weekend!

Very nice @Sallstrom !

I have recently been using Google Sheets instead of Excel. I can use it on the PC or any device that way. A little less customizable than Excel, but works well.

I have my main log

Maintenance schedule

Chemistry and dosing data

And several other sheets for expenditures, dimensions and charts.

 

[Sallstrom]

Very nice @Sallstrom !

I have recently been using Google Sheets instead of Excel. I can use it on the PC or any device that way. A little less customizable than Excel, but works well.

I have my main log
View attachment 981911

Maintenance schedule
View attachment 981912

Chemistry and dosing data
View attachment 981913
View attachment 981914

And several other sheets for expenditures, dimensions and charts.

Wow! That's great documents. Thanks for sharing.

One thing I forgot to mention is that we also do this documentation for the case that any of us goes away on holidays or gets sick etc. Then the other colleagues could get all the info they need to take care of the tank just by reading the excel file for the tank.
I felt that reading your notes. Your tank would have been "easy" to take care of if you went on a holiday and someone else took care of it while you were gone. Just follow your protocol

 

[Dr. Dendrostein]

This was brought up to my attention by Dr. Dendrostein. One Coral is actually twisting itself going around a different one so it won't touch it. Each color mark on photo, is a coral

 

[crusso1993]

Very nice @Sallstrom !

I have recently been using Google Sheets instead of Excel. I can use it on the PC or any device that way. A little less customizable than Excel, but works well.

I have my main log
View attachment 981911

Maintenance schedule
View attachment 981912

Chemistry and dosing data
View attachment 981913
View attachment 981914

And several other sheets for expenditures, dimensions and charts.

Very nicely done!

 

[Sallstrom]

Sometimes I clean the pumps.

And some days I get the feeling I'm a prepper..

 

[Dr. Dendrostein]

Sometimes I clean the pumps.
View attachment 982735

And some days I get the feeling I'm a prepper..
View attachment 982740

No wonder we can't get Triton here in the States, you got it all. Answers all my questions.

 

[Sallstrom]

No wonder we can't get Triton here in the States, you got it all. Answers all my questions.

 

[najer]

My scopas would have a field day with that!
... as long as I freed them from the pump, it is a bit of a prima Donna but loves it!

 

[Sallstrom]

My scopas would have a field day with that!
... as long as I freed them from the pump, it is a bit of a prima Donna but loves it!

I need to turn off the pumps more often then!

 

[Sallstrom]

Now most of the stands and tanks are in place! Even started with PVC work today. So things are moving on with the temporary Aquarium
In the middle of the room there'll be another 4 meter long propagation tank, two tanks on one stand. But we need to get some other containers like RO water and sumps in first.
We will probably start 4 systems. One cold water, one SPS, one "everything from our tropical tanks" and one for the seahorses. Might connect the two coral systems together later but start this way I think.

 

[Brew12]

Now most of the stands and tanks are in place! Even started with PVC work today. So things are moving on with the temporary Aquarium
In the middle of the room there'll be another 4 meter long propagation tank, two tanks on one stand. But we need to get some other containers like RO water and sumps in first.
We will probably start 4 systems. One cold water, one SPS, one "everything from our tropical tanks" and one for the seahorses. Might connect the two coral systems together later but start this way I think.
View attachment 984044 View attachment 984045

I've seen the size of some of those colonies. Are these tanks going to be deep enough to hold them?