Grog

Mick Jagger is a good name for a parrot fish or a trigger fish, something with a pronounced mouth.

Everyone is doing well and playing nicely together, which is a relief. Peppermint shrimp is hiding somewhere (I hope). He was hanging out under the rockwork yesterday. No sign of him today. I try to name my pets. Helfrichi firefish is now Mr. Fantastic. Still need to come up with names for the others. Swapped out the larger powerheads for the nano sized one. The nano power head and the 110G rated HOB filter provide enough flow now. Nice surface agitation and not causing the poor fish to run a treadmill all day. I approve and the fish approve. If I need more flow, I'll add a second one of these HK nano heads later but, this should work for now.

Tank parameters still looking good, so I treated myself to a Helfrichi firefish today. Added him, a peppermint shrimp, and a royal gramma to the tank. They are all eating spirulina mysis without issue. The flow was definitely too much. Turned off the power heads and everyone is happy and being friendly. Pic of Mr. Fantastic attached. I'm going to switch out the HK heads I have for one of the nano HK heads. I'll repurpose the larger HK heads over to the WIP 75 gallon tank. I just noticed that all the fish in this tank are purple. I need a red fish to balance it. Six line is next, but it isn't really red. Something small and red. I'll admit, I'm kind of inclined towards purple. Purple tomatoes and peas etc. always end up in my garden.

Thanks again Tim! He will have a buddy soon. The Helfrichi is next but I'm waiting a few days to make sure I don't get any drastic spikes in my ammonia or nitrites. Looking good so far though. Numbers are the same as when I added him.

Hmm... Turned off the HOB and powerheads to feed. Little guy came out. I don't think he is 'trained' yet to know "Hey its feeding time." I'm wondering if there was too much flow for the little thing. Leaving powerheads off and turned down the HOB to low. I'll see how this works out, and gradually ramp it up. May need to wait till he's bigger. That will give me time to get the tank to a mature state.

Tested everything today. No change in parameters after adding the tiny Pygmy Cherub. Took the time to make a screen for the top. Build a frame out of 1X2 materials and screened it with some window screen I had left over from a porch project. Stapled it with stainless staples and painted black with Krylon Fusion. Daily picture below. The purple look is due to the phone. Lighting is blue. Yes, it will block some light but I'm not too concerned. IMO this Kessil LED is total overkill for this tank anyway. So, I can crank it up if needed. If it becomes a low light situation, I can replace the screen with some metal square 'fencing' materials that have 1" gaps. Not really a fan as that is galvanized. I think this will work and help me keep that Helfrichi safely. I'd be sad if it jumped. And Tim, I took it to heart years ago when I was told to have surface agitation. This probably causes more of my salt creep, and higher evaporation, but my gas exchange is likely very good.

Tested the water this AM. Called the tank cycled. Just a trace of nitrates, ~.25. Way less than expected. Tank is cycled, so one fish gets added. Cherub Angel is the first addition. Very tiny OMG. I don't use this word much, but it is 'cute'. Installed the Kessil AP9X and the HK wavemaker. Kessil installation was super easy as I purchased the gooseneck mounting arm. Very happy with it even though the app was a bit fiddly to connect. Once the app was set up it is easy to use. The Kessil has amazing color, and the shimmer does look like old school halides. I'm happy with it and glad I'm not drawing 1200W and making all that heat like my halides used to. Video attached, hope there is not dog noise in the background. I did forget one thing in my vacation from the hobby. Salt creep is real. I'm doing good with my maintenance though. Tonight, or tomorrow, I'm going to make a custom screen top for the tank. I've changed my stocking plans a bit and want a Helfrich Firefish now. Saw one at Aquadome today and I have to have one. VID_20230311_115533844.mp4

Trip to the coast got cancelled. Home all weekend, which is not a bad thing. It will give me more time with the dogs. I couldn't resist so; I tested nitrites just now. They are definitely coming down. Hard to tell from the test but it is lower than 1 PPM and greater than .5 so I'm calling it .75 PPM. Progress. I should sing it like Tom Petty, "the waiting is the hardest part." I'll work on getting my 75G set up, and some stock plans while I'm home. Yes, I'm doing two builds at once. In my mind I can do both for about the same effort. I'll start a separate thread for that one. It will have different goals and slightly different setup. Also, need to hook up the HK wavemaker thingy that is just sitting in the box. -Grog

That chalice really looked sad. 57F is not a good temp. Losing 15-year-old fish sucks. Cool to see so much stuff made it through. FWIW I know hindsight is 20/20. I'm not trying to be that guy. Just offering ideas. The generators at Harbor Freight are great for the price and use very little fuel. My mid-range one runs for like 8 hours on ~2g of gas. Super quiet. I bought it for RV and construction work. It's came in super handy. I've run my RV air conditioner and microwave off of it. (For reference, the RV is 30A and the gen is rated at only 20A and did fine for many trips. Never tripped the breakers.) Something like that would be more than enough for an Eheim heater and a power head for a few days. It may not run the full system but can handle emergencies and keep the temps up and some flow going. Also, good for summer/hurricane season. Great to have a window unit in one room, and plug in the fridge, when the power is out. The catch with those generators is you have to use them. Don't let them sit up unused and let the fuel dry up. You will have a carb job on your hands.

Now I'm in the waiting zone. Ammonia at zero. Been like that for days. Nitrites were super high. Solid dark purple in the test. Wanted to get it to mid-range so I can see if it is actually coming down. 25% daily water changes. Finally, today it is at 1 PPM. Suspect it was between ~10 PPM a few days ago, when the ammonia got cleared up. This is based on quick math on water change volume, no way to really tell. It was off the chart. Now maybe I can see how it is progressing with my tests. Not just that it is, 'really bad'. Still no livestock. Not adding anything. I'm just going to wait and go to the coast Friday and Saturday. I'll test it again when I get home Sunday. I'll post an update then. Have a good weekend.

Thanks TIm! More details on what I'm doing, and why. Plans and Goals In my last experiments, I tried to do way too many things. I want this tank to do a few things very well this time. Not a tank that does everything. This tank will be mainly rock, sand, and coral. Minimal bio load from a critter perspective. This should be more of a garden. Design / Theory Zero livestock so far. If you read the list below and wonder, yes there is no sump, refugium, or skimmer. I'm going back to my roots and doing what has worked for me before. This is a very low-cost build except for the lights. I went high-end on lights so I could have whatever coral I decided upon. I intend to do 20-30% water changes every week or two. I already have a large RODI system with storage tank from previous hobby excursions. This takes up almost no time and should replenish various elements and remove any junk in the water. The HOB filter provides surface skimming. See the small inlets in the attached image? "Tidals" are great there. I can add carbon, media, etc. as well. They even put the pump in the water, so it self-primes which was a major issue with other HOB filters. These are way better than the HOB filter and setup I had to work with in the past. I used Krylon to paint the blue bits black, so they don't stand out. The power heads provide flow. I still need to hook up the wave maker. Between the above and the live rock, it should get the job done, as far as filtration and cleaning. Cementing Rocks Built an aquascape from CaribSea LifeRock kits. PIcture attached. I liked the color and seemed easy. It was. Used some Marco Rocks mortar to 'glue' it all together dry. Not my normal method but it was fun. Took about an hour and cured overnight. Next day it was SOLID. I was happy with the mortar and would recommend. I think this was a cool way to build a scape from dry rock but with live rock it may be different. Great for dry rock. Pro tip, wear latex gloves. It aint good for your hands. Palacios Sand I have another house down in Palacios. I harvested about a gallon of sand off of the deep end of the beach and brought this home and, added it to the tank. Should add some diversity, but maybe some odd organisims, but oh well. Honestly, I don't think it did a whole lot other than volume and color. But I may be wrong. Tampa Bay Saltwater Rock Ordered 8# of base live rock from TBS. Used their rocks in prior builds. Here I wanted the base low-end rock for bacteria and pods, not rock with algae and sponges etc. I want filtration for now, not showy rocks to start with. These will be moved to the next tank after they sit in here for a month or two and seed this one. This rock is ordered. Not added yet. Pending delivery. Time Before Lights Keeping the tank 'dark' for now. It is in between the kitchen in dining area so it gets light but doesn't have a T5, halide, or LED on it. It is essentially dark. I intend to keep it like this for a while to avoid pest organisms. Will it work? The idea is cycle, add fish every few weeks, and then turn on lights after about another month. Let's see how it goes. Gear List Imagitarium Brooklyn Stand Aqueon 40 Breeder Seachem / Sicce Tidal 75 HOB Power Filter Hydor Koralia P29301 (750-850 GPH) X2 Hydor Koralia Wavemaker Basic Controller, Dual Pump, 12V, DC (not installed yet) Eheim Jager 3615 125W Starter Stuff Dr Tim's 60 gallon Fishless Cycle Bundle API Bacteria in the bottle ARC Pink & Purple Live Coralline Algae Kit Rock and Sand and Salt CaribSea LifeRock Nano Arches CaribSea LifeRock Nano Reef Kit CaribSea Aragonite Aquarium Sand, 10 lbs X4 Instant Ocean Reef Crystals Salt Marco Rocks E-Marco-400 Aquascaping Mortar Complete Kit - Pink Lighting Kessil AP9X LED Lighting Panel Kessil AP9X Mounting Arm Stocking Plans All that planning and no talk of fish or corals..... Royal Gramma x1 Pygmy Cherub Angel X1 Cryptic 6 Line Wrasse x1 Helfrichi Firefish X1 Peppermint Shrimp X1 CUC Conch Snails x1 CUC Other Snails X2 CUC hermits X10 Porcelain crab X2 Hollywood Stunner Chalice Birdnest Coral Orange Monti Cap Mystic Sunset Monti TCF Flurry Acro Garf Bonsai Acro

Hi, Been a long time. Didn't realize how long until I looked at my post history and PMs. 7 years I've been out of the hobby but I'm back for another round. Time really does fly. I was doing a LOT of international travel when I left the hobby. Definitely the root cause for my tank decaying. Spending a week, or two, a month overseas means the tank is neglected. Not good. It started to decline, and I lost interest. Now, I have a normal travel schedule. Just family holidays so maintaining a tank will be more feasible. I've got the itch to have some aquatic pets so I'm starting with a 40 breeder this time around. I'll add more pictures, details, and progress notes below. This picture was from the tank's launch on 2023/02/23 Hello to everyone! Grog

That fixed it, thank you! Back to normal now. And yes, I was using my phone earlier....

So, I was using the darker forum theme until today. Now I'm back on the standard theme/skin. Not by my doing, it just reverted for some reason. Now I can't seem to find where to switch it back. Is the alternate skin/theme still an option? Not a big deal if it isn't, just wondering.