Looking good man, seems like the skimmer is working good. Most of these nano skimmers don't do too much so thats awesome.
TheWB’s IM Lagoon 50
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TheWB
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Thanks, it does seem to be doing alright. When it removes gunk it’s usually pretty dark. It does have its quirks though. It vents too much foam out the holes in the lid so it always looks bad. It also needs to be repositioned up or down from time to time. That’s a little annoying but altogether I think it’s doing a good job. How’s you’re tanks doing, haven’t seen a post in a while?
Looking good! Sorry to hear the favia and acan have not turned around. I just ordered an old Nikon A12 filter for my DSLR. It's a sort of light orange and is used in color correction. Can't wait to give it a try. The colors seem to have rendered pretty well with the filters you're using. How dark is the orange color of the filter itself?
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TheWB
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Thanks, I feel pretty good about the tank right now. It’s not perfect but other than those two corals and a little algae things seem to be settling in pretty well. The tank has been up since Jan of 2019 and I’m coming up on the 1 year anniversary of adding the clowns and dartfish at the end of May. So far, so good but I’m not on autopilot yet. Still need to up my game as far as regular testing and cleaning/maintenance. My return pump, for example, is overdue for a cleaning and I just cant get motivated to dig it out and do it.
I’ll let you judge how dark it is. It’s the Icecap filter kit. The orange lens is 15k and the yellow is 20k.
Awesome, thanks! I think the A12 will be close - it's not one of the very deep orange filters used for b&w photography. Seems to be pretty close match to the orange one you have. We'll see on Tuesday when it arrives! Thanks for taking the time to snap a picture for me!
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TheWB
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No problem. I’m anxious to see your photos with the new filter. I’m sure they’ll be great.
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TheWB
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I think I’m starting to get nutrients somewhat under control. I have not done a water change in almost 4 weeks now. Tested N and P yesterday, N was at 5 on Seachem (had to switch from Salifert and Seachem was the only Nitrate kit I could find locally other than API) and P was at 0.07 on the Hanna Checker. Those were both down from 7.5 and 0.10 respectively 4 days earlier. I started adding Nopox back into the routine after that previous test at half the amount I was using before, 2ml per day instead of 4ml. If Nitrate still goes lower I’ll cut it back to 1ml per day. I don’t want Nitrate bottoming out again, ideally I’d like to keep it between 5-10. Might need to add a little gfo to see if I can get the phosphate down just a little more and then maintain with the Nopox. It’s been a juggling act trying to keep the fish happy and well fed while keeping the nutrients manageable. There is green algae in the tank that nobody on the cleanup crew, including the tang, seems to like or eat. Vibrant has been dosed at 4ml per week to try and keep that at bay and hopefully eradicate it since nobody is eating it. I think if I can keep throwing in food the way I am and still manage to keep N around 10 and get P down to between 0.05 and 0.03 consistently without having to do water changes I’d be pretty happy with that. I didn’t set out to stop doing water changes, I originally skipped one when the N showed zero on a test and haven’t done one since then, but it’s been interesting managing the nutrients while not doing them. I don’t have much coral so I’m not too worried right now about depleting Cal or Alk.
I know I have been lazy lately but just put up an update. Overall things are going ok but could be better. This hobby is always a challenge.
Glad to see you getting your levels where you want them. It would be great to not have to do water changes weekly. I’m trying to get to that point as well. I have skipped them a few times and nothing bad has happened lol. On my newer tank it will be awhile before I try. For nitrate tests I was using Nyos which I really like because it was easy to read. Recently I switched to Redsea nitrate pro though and really like it because it has better ranges and you can kind of tweak it to get an accurate reading with what your levels are at. When your out of the seachem I would check it out. If you do, get it from saltwateraquarium.com, for some reason it’s a lot cheaper then everywhere else. Only downside is it takes like 11minutes to complete.
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TheWB
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I just read your update, the pics you posted look great. My nutrients aren’t exactly where I want them but their not out of control. I have more algae than I’d like. A certain amount is expected and natural but it’s starting to get into some places that bother me. There’s some growing right out of the middle of the Zoa patch now. I tried to get it with a toothbrush yesterday but that didn’t go so well. I added a bag of gfo to one of the overflows to see if I can get Phosphate down around 0.03. I’m hoping that will help with the algae. The Seachem Nitrate kit is real simple to use and the color strip is easy to match up. The little mixing tray and the somewhat imprecise pipette leave a little to be desired. I wish the instructions listed an exact amount of water to test so I could measure it out instead of using the pipette. Overall it works but I might look for something different next time.
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TheWB
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I did a water change today, first one in over a month. Parameters were fine but the tank needed a little cleaning so I changed out 4.5 gallons after a thorough sand vac and algae scrape. Pretty basic boring stuff. Skimmer is acting up. It’s difficult to keep it foaming constantly enough to produce skimmate. I might try to find a way to use hard tubing for the air intake and see if that helps. My diy skills are not good though so it will be a challenge.
Current FTS, Dartfish absent as usual.
Current FTS, Dartfish absent as usual.
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TheWB
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Thanks. No changes to feeding, livestock or anything else really. The skimmer is just inconsistent. It’s not surprising with these lower end models. It would be easier to deal with if it was located in a place where I could see the airline without having to lift the whole thing out of the rear chamber. Soft tubing that has to bend really isn’t a great design choice. It would have been much better with a hard tube elbow or something to straighten out the soft tube. I think eventually I’ll try the cadlights skimmer with the pump exposed at the bottom. Seems like it would be easier to maintenance and maybe even replace the pump with something a little more powerful if needed. That’s probably not happening soon with the reefing budget on hold until business picks back up. It’s essential purchases only right now.
Thanks for checking in.
Looking good! How is that acan faring? Still hanging in there? I love dartfish. Wanted to get a blue one, but never see any of the more exotic ones locally. My purple firefish has such a neat personality. He pushes the orchid dottyback around a bit - which the dottyback needs - otherwise that fish gets too pushy. Glad to hear things are going well!
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TheWB
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Thanks, things are going fairly well for the most part. The Acan and the Favia both receded to nothing. I’m bummed but I don’t think there was any saving them. I don’t know how long the Acan was face down on top of the Favia but obviously it was long enough for them both to sustain fatal injuries.
l really like the looks of the zebra dartfish but I don’t see them much. They stay in their hiding places a lot lately. They look good and eat well at feeding time but they just don’t spend much time swimming around anymore. A little bit at night but not as much as before.
It’s good that your firefish stands up to the dottyback, they can be such punks. I do love the coloration of the orchid though. If I had a larger tank it might be cool to have one.
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TheWB
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I just remembered that it’s the one year anniversary of fish going into my tank. Two clowns and two zebra barred dartfish. Pictures of the dartfish pretty much aren’t happening.
Here’s the clowns with the misbar snuggled in to his Zoa patch.
Seems like I can never get a picture of the hungry Acan anymore that’s not a little blurry. This coral has extension all of the time. I’ve almost forgotten what it looks like when they are retracted.
This blasto, on the other hand, I always seem to get a good picture of. It has three nice heads but the other two are in the back and shaded. It’s hard to get a good pic of all three at the same time.
The Frogspawn is looking pretty good today.
Here’s the clowns with the misbar snuggled in to his Zoa patch.
Seems like I can never get a picture of the hungry Acan anymore that’s not a little blurry. This coral has extension all of the time. I’ve almost forgotten what it looks like when they are retracted.
This blasto, on the other hand, I always seem to get a good picture of. It has three nice heads but the other two are in the back and shaded. It’s hard to get a good pic of all three at the same time.
The Frogspawn is looking pretty good today.
There I go not getting notifications again. I was thinking to myself, I have seen you online but haven't got notified in awhile smh. Maybe i'll try unfollowing and following again. R2R really needs to fix that. Bummer the skimmer isn't consistent. Im telling you the K1 nano is good, it may be a little undersized for your tank but would probably still work well. If I end up keeping my 30L after I take it down ill probably sell my cadlights and if I set it up again get the K1. It works well but the K1 is just so easy to tune and adjust. My zebra dart fish does swim in the water column but only in one end of the tank. You are right about them eating though, he is a pig. Have you ever thought about a midas blenny? Probably my favorite fish, they swim around, go in holes and have a cool personality. Really need to be proactive with keeping a top on though. Also those mollies and pretty active and they have some that are semi colorful.
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TheWB
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Hey Rob. I know that sucks right, not getting notifications. Every once in a while when I don’t have anything in the notifications I’ll click the All Forums Read button. That seems to help with resetting things although I’m not sure why. If you’re signed up you should get the notices.
I have not looked at the K1 because its rating is too small for my tank but maybe I should consider it. I’ll give it a look.
The dartfish are actually out and about more lately. I think they were hiding for a while because they were not well. I saw some frayed fins And started feeding some medicated food and now they are out more. My fish doctoring is kinda scattershot but this time it appears to have worked. None of my fish were quarantined because I just don’t have the space to do it. Practicing disease management so far hasn’t been to cumbersome (Knocks on wood). The tang gets a spot or two of what I believe to be lympho every once in a while and occasionally there a frayed fin or two on the wrasse but overall I’ve been very lucky (knocks on wood, again). The clowns have never shown any signs of sickness either. It’s the main reason why I’m reluctant to put more fish in. I don’t want to introduce anything bad and I’m afraid of what a new fish might get from my tank. I’m pretty happy with my fish right now though.
I have thought about a Midas Blenny but I’ve never owned one. It’s always been below wrasses and angels on my stocking preference list. Maybe someday though. If I add anything to this tank right now it will probably be a Royal Gramma or a trio of green banded gobies. I was sorry to hear you’d lost some of yours, they seem like such cool little fish.
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TheWB
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Aww man!!!!!!! I got aptasia!!!!!!
I’ve been really lucky so far with pests. I only used dry rock and there have only been 6 coral frags so far. No coral has been added in several months but here are the pests so obviously they snuck in somewhere. I’ll be pulling that rock tomorrow and giving it a peroxide bath for some algae and then I’ll scrub the area with the aptasia and paint on some super glue over that spot. There are also some babies in the sand so I’ll be carefully scooping some out some of that as well. It’s been over a year so this had to happen sooner or later. Luckily I think I’m catching it fairly early before it becomes a huge outbreak. I hope so anyway.
I’ve been really lucky so far with pests. I only used dry rock and there have only been 6 coral frags so far. No coral has been added in several months but here are the pests so obviously they snuck in somewhere. I’ll be pulling that rock tomorrow and giving it a peroxide bath for some algae and then I’ll scrub the area with the aptasia and paint on some super glue over that spot. There are also some babies in the sand so I’ll be carefully scooping some out some of that as well. It’s been over a year so this had to happen sooner or later. Luckily I think I’m catching it fairly early before it becomes a huge outbreak. I hope so anyway.
Aww man!!!!!!! I got aptasia!!!!!!
I’ve been really lucky so far with pests. I only used dry rock and there have only been 6 coral frags so far. No coral has been added in several months but here are the pests so obviously they snuck in somewhere. I’ll be pulling that rock tomorrow and giving it a peroxide bath for some algae and then I’ll scrub the area with the aptasia and paint on some super glue over that spot. There are also some babies in the sand so I’ll be carefully scooping some out some of that as well. It’s been over a year so this had to happen sooner or later. Luckily I think I’m catching it fairly early before it becomes a huge outbreak. I hope so anyway.
Oh man that stinks but it’s almost impossible not to get them buggers. Good plan with pulling out the rock. I have them pop up here and there. None yet in the lagoon(knock on wood) but in my chalice tank for sure. Best thing I have found is F Aiptasia, works so much better then Aiptasia X. You squirt it over them with the flow off and it forms a hard crust over the Aiptasia. During WC you just suck it out.
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TheWB
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Hopefully my plan works. There’s one that’s really big, I can’t believe I didn’t notice it before today. They are out of the way but not that out of sight that I shouldn’t have noticed.
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