Non-Garbage Picked 210 Journal - Page 6

stunreefer · #76 (**permalink**) 09-10-2008, 02:19 PM

Lookin' great! The thread title cracks me up every time I read it....as I was an avid follower off the "Garbage Picked....." tank. Look forward to seeing new pics - your anems are awesome and Im a sucker for bangaiis!

Skimmer looks to be doing a heckuva job...yummy!

Quote:

Originally Posted by scooby doo

Sometimes just a little poke, but others a handful of spike!!!

Completely off topic...but on my last dive I leaned back to snap a pick of some people that were down for their first time, and as I leaned to brace myself I felt something.....well I managed to brace myself (for the pic) with my right hand right on top of an urchin....that was well over a foot in diameter. You should've seen their faces when i turned around with several 8" urchin spines sticking out of my palm

After the dive several drinks took care of it

demeyer2 · #77 (**permalink**) 09-10-2008, 02:53 PM

Looking good Steve. I'd been waiting for an update

fishgeek88 · #78 (**permalink**) 09-10-2008, 02:55 PM

Sounds good...go with a Magnavore those things are great definitely worth the money

tekknoschtev · #79 (**permalink**) 10-02-2008, 10:03 PM

This update was going to be much more depressing than I turned out that it will be! For the last few weeks, we've been losing fish. Not a lot, but even one is disheartening. My folks did find the body of the powder brown tang, but the foxface and one of the clownfish disappeared without a trace. I just assumed something was going on and that the cleanup crew got 'em, especially since the clownfish was so small.

On a whim, I grabbed my new flashlight (its also the headlight for my bike) and started poking around looking from underneath at the overflows. The glare was horrible though and I couldn't really see anything. A quick balancing act later, and guess what? I FOUND THEM! They're, oddly enough, in the one overflow with the cover on it.... go figure.

Tomorrow morning I'm going to get a longer net and try to fish them out. If that doesn't work well, I'll shut the tank off for a few and slowly drain that side to make it easier.

So instead of asking "what's wrong with our fish tank" I get to report "Everything's AOK!" I'm excited too because I've been wanting to get a new fish for the tank since its been quite a while since I've been home.

tekknoschtev · #80 (**permalink**) 10-03-2008, 10:10 PM

Text posts don't seem to drum up the excitement like picture posts (that's even for me!) so here's some photos - FINALLY!

This one is cool because I have photos of when we first got it as a 2 poly frag of the same thing. We nearly lost it in the 150 fiasco, but its obviously making a come back!

I still need to get some epoxy to attach this to a larger rock. This used to be a large colony like the blue candy cane above, but it slowly took a dive and we fragged it to save it. It wound up as about 3 polyps when the 150 split, and now there are at least 7 fully formed polyps and a number of polyps with multiple mouths.

Personally, I believed that the galaxia was a goner after the 150 split a seam because it was exposed to the air for so long, was bleaching in the frag tank and the tissue was receding. Now, the polyp extension is crazy, and its growing like a weed.

The happy couple, reunited at last. Literally seconds after I rescued the little guy from the overflow he found his mate. They're swimming together now, despite having two anemones.

This is another one which I was worried about. Not many people appreciate it like I do, but its still a nifty coral - especially when the actinics come on. Its grown from the size of a quarter or half dollar.

FISH FISH FISH! There are two of the scats, and no its not a perspective issue - they really are huge. You can also see the foxface - that goof ball was stuck in the overflow too.

The corals are growing explosively. The fish seem to be doing well. There are still a couple of aiptasia but I'm sure that the scats will get to 'em in short order. I'm probably heading to the pet shop tomorrow to check out either a fish or some colorful or cool corals to get some pop into the tank. I'm home for the weekend so I'm going to try and find the alkalinity and calcium tests so I can get that regiment started back up since we've got a lot of stony corals taking off in here as well as the coraline (which is looking great by the way). This is the most excited I've been about the tank(s) in a long time. Now we just need to get some color and movement in the tank.

ereefer · #81 (**permalink**) 10-03-2008, 11:20 PM

Looking good steve! Glad to see everything is going much better for you! Look forward to seeing more pics!
Eirik

tekknoschtev · #82 (**permalink**) 11-29-2008, 09:02 PM

Its time for an update again. I haven't been home in a while, but was for Thanksgiving and I snapped some photos while I was at it.

This colony grew from literally two polyps that we bought from Turtle OH SO MANY years ago, back when we had the 40 gallon tank that we gave my mom as a Christmas/Birthday present.

Here are the clownfish - goofy little buggers.

I can't believe how quickly and how well this bugger is growing.

Despite the fact that this colony once was probably 40-50 polyps, and the crashes nearly wiped it out, this frag is making a strong comeback.

And here's a new show piece for our tank, but I'm worried about it. This morning I checked it out and the flesh under the coral was sloughing off. I fragged that spot to try and prevent the tissue recession from continuing but the report tonight is that the flesh is still kind of sloughing off. We moved the coral to a slightly lower flow area of the tank, so we'll see how it goes.

Other than that, things seem to be going well. Very well :-D We need a new actinic bulb though.

DLBerlin · #83 (**permalink**) 11-29-2008, 09:17 PM

Looks great Steve!

lilwillywilly · #84 (**permalink**) 12-03-2008, 09:21 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tekknoschtev

YUCK!

I vote this one for the "show your foam" trophy.

tekknoschtev · #85 (**permalink**) 01-25-2009, 04:31 PM

Quick update - things sound like they're kind of shaky with the tank as of lately. The candy cane corals have begun to receed and we can't quite pinpoint why. The calcium was a bit low but we're fixing that now. The next course of action is to do a water change (a good one) but our RO unit needs a complete overhauling. Note to self: don't let the filter get this bad ever again! I just ordered the stuff I think we need - total came to $95 and some change

Other than the candy canes receeding, everything else sounds like its doing well. I recently started a real, honest to goodness job after graduating in December so my time to be able to get home to check things out has been limited, but I will likely be headed back home to check things out and likely setup the RO DI filter. I'll try to snap some photos of how things are coming along when I'm there. We did have another skimmer full of crap like the previous photo, unfortunately our hosting account was hacked and so it was suspended until its cleaned up - just waiting for them to reactivate it....

tekknoschtev · #86 (**permalink**) 02-02-2009, 11:37 PM

HUZZAH! It turns out that a water change and some adjustment of the calcium and alkalinity was all that was needed to get things back on track. The blue candy canes are now on their way to recovery and don't look deflated with recessing tissue. Instead, they are very healthy looking and puffed out. We did have some tissue loss, but its nothing we haven't been able to recover from before.

I was home this past weekend to clean some things up and get a water change in. With the new RODI parts, we were able to make 60 gallons of water faster than we could make 10 previously. I vow never to let it get that bad again! I think we're going to try and get in the routing of a 30 gallon water change every other week, and adjust from there if we need to.

As of right now, Calcium is at 395 ppm, Alkalinity is at 8 dKh, and everything else is on par

I'm glad we were able to get things back on track. I have a couple of photos, I just haven't had time to edit and upload them - maybe tomorrow.

acerhigh · #87 (**permalink**) 02-03-2009, 07:16 AM

Looks good Steve, glad things are going well this time around...

demeyer2 · #88 (**permalink**) 02-08-2010, 12:55 AM

Any updates Steve?

JB63 · #89 (**permalink**) 02-08-2010, 08:58 PM

What skimmer are you running? I just got a 210 and will be setting it up 'slowely' over the next few months.

Tim! · #90 (**permalink**) 02-08-2010, 09:23 PM

Just FYI - this thread's last post is about a year old at this point...

Steve hasn't been around for quite some time. Not sure where he's off to other than college...

I'd love to hear how he's doing too!