The Maroon Lagoon V2.0

[Christyef]

Acro power? Is that a brand name?

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[Gig 'em @ NDstructible]

Hey Gig'em, where'd you get those cowries?

I got them while I was in LA last week. I rarely see them for sale, so I pounced on them real quick haha. If you're interested in some, RCA knows where to get them.

That's the biggest majano I've ever seen in my life!

Don't be jealous Ty.

Acro power? Is that a brand name?

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Yes Acro Power is an amino acid supplement. Here's a link at BRS

[FarmerTy]

Jealous? I was planning on shooting it with a laser for you!

[Gig 'em @ NDstructible]

You shoot a laser at this beast and it will reach out of the tank and grab you.

[FarmerTy]

How ironic, the man who survived palytoxin poisoning was eaten by an anemone later that month.

[Gig 'em @ NDstructible]

You just have the worst luck this year

[FarmerTy]

You just have the worst luck this year

I think it's because I hang out with you too much.

[Gig 'em @ NDstructible]

Here are two additions I will hopefully add to my display tank one day. I vigorously QT and treat Heteractis magnificas before adding them to my display due to their delicacy and difficulty in keeping alive. They will remain in QT/treatment for a couple of weeks until I am confident that they are strong enough to make the transition into the DT.

I'm very excited about these two anemones. One has a dark maroon colored foot with purple tips on the tentacles and the other has a redorange foot with green tips on the tentacles. I was able to get them through RCA and I hope they both survive through treatment and start coloring up. I think they'll be quite spectacular if they do.

[Bluemoon]

That's the biggest majano I've ever seen in my life!

You bite your tongue ty!

Great looking mini colonies!

[+BobcatReefer]

Help me out here - how big are those?

[Gig 'em @ NDstructible]

How big are the anemones in treatment?

[+BobcatReefer]

I guess so - the ones in the picture 4 posts up. Just going off of what I see, I'm thinking like 1" diameter, but that seems overly tiny and you can't trust fish tank photography!

[Gig 'em @ NDstructible]

Haha yes, it is very tricky photography. H. magnifica anemones are very difficult to transfer into captivity successfully and they are not happy right now. The smaller one is about 3" wide and the other is about 5". This is as small as they will ever be and will be over a foot in diameter when they are healthy and happy. I saw some while diving that were about 2 feet in diameter...

[+BobcatReefer]

Thanks - very cool looking!

[Gig 'em @ NDstructible]

Yeah, I really hope they survive to color up. Purple and maroon and green and orange would be really neat anemone additions to the tank.

[Gig 'em @ NDstructible]

A rare glimpse of my smallest tank inhabitant, my red headed goby. It's always exciting to get a picture of a fish you rarely get to see.

[Gig 'em @ NDstructible]

Since the weather is starting to warm up and I can no longer keep windows open at night I have begun to see elevated CO2 levels in the house surpassing 1,000 ppm each night. This is obviously bringing the pH of my tank down more drastically at night and I would like to compensate for this and keep it as stable as possible.

I didn't want to drill a large hole in my wall to allow a line large enough for my skimmer, so I drilled a 1/4" hole and ran a line through it to an air pump outside. I placed a wooden air stone in one of my overflows to inject outside air into the tank at night as the water falls into the sump where the bubbles can be removed by the baffles.

Oddly enough though, I am seeing steeper pH dips in the few nights I have been running outside air at night. I did remove some chaeto this weekend, which could be the cause of the steeper dips, but other than this I have yet to identify why the pH would drop more when injecting outside air at night.

Edited May 16, 2016 by Gig 'em

[FarmerTy]

Drill the larger hole I say. That air pump is just adding another point of failure in my eyes.

You have your pH graph by chance off the Apex?

[Gig 'em @ NDstructible]

There are some funky things going on with pH this week, I would suggest you focus on the highlighted area [emoji849]

The 13th had no air input, and the lowest the pH was recorded at was 7.87. The 14th was the first night air was pumped in and the lowest pH was 7.72. Oddly enough the pH was 7.96 and very stable on the 15th. And the pH dropped last night down to 7.83.

Interestingly the "stable" pH of 7.96 on the 15th was when I moved the air stone over to the opposite over flow that feeds into the skimmer area of the sump. I may try placing the air stone in there again tonight to see if I can replicate the higher/more stable pH.

I'm going to keep the small 1/4" with air stone because I only want to pump fresh air in at night. There's enough photosynthesis happening during the day to raising O2 levels and pH. I am simply trying to keep things stable and at a constant equilibrium. So I have staggered my refugium light and outside air pump to run at night when the oxygen and pH of the tank takes a dip.

Edited May 16, 2016 by Gig 'em

[FarmerTy]

Hmmm, perhaps there just isn't as great of turnover in the first overflow that doesn't feed the skimmer to make as much of an impact on the pH of the tank, even with outside air being pumped in.

I can see you feeding it into the skimmer chamber having a much greater effect on pH. That makes sense.

I'm curious to see how long that indoor rated air pump will last you... especially in the heat of the summer.

[Reburn]

Ive done exactly what you did. I found that the airstone didn't make as much as an impact as I hoped and it basically turned the area I had it in into a skimmer compartment where the Skimmate just formed on the walls and was a pain to clean off. I have had much better success running an 3/8" airline outside for my skimmer.

[Dan H]

This is just a theory, but I saw similar things too when experimenting. I only got good results when the skimmer was pulling in the fresh air. I suspect this may be because of the contact time with water, the skimmer producing microbubbles so dramatically more surface area for air/water contact, and volume - the skimmer is holding close to 1 cubic foot of water/air vs a tiny column of air from the air stone.

[Gig 'em @ NDstructible]

Yeah, my guess is since it travels down to the skimmer it gets dissolved even further. Still doesn't explain why pH drops more in the other overflow vs. no air stone at all

I'm hoping since the pump only runs at night and is underneath my patio roof where it never gets sunlight that it won't be adversely affected by heat. I'm more worried about dust and other foreign particulates clogging the air intake than anything. Been thinking about building a box around it out of air filter material and also running the air through a scrubber chamber that we use on air analyzers at work.

Hmmm, perhaps there just isn't as great of turnover in the first overflow that doesn't feed the skimmer to make as much of an impact on the pH of the tank, even with outside air being pumped in.

I can see you feeding it into the skimmer chamber having a much greater effect on pH. That makes sense.

I'm curious to see how long that indoor rated air pump will last you... especially in the heat of the summer.

Dan did you ever see drops in pH when running outside air? I'm sure the ambient air has more CO2 at night, but surely it is still less than what is inside the house with people in it. I might try putting the air stone in the sump close to the skimmer intake and see if that makes any significant changes.

This is just a theory, but I saw similar things too when experimenting. I only got good results when the skimmer was pulling in the fresh air. I suspect this may be because of the contact time with water, the skimmer producing microbubbles so dramatically more surface area for air/water contact, and volume - the skimmer is holding close to 1 cubic foot of water/air vs a tiny column of air from the air stone.

[Gig 'em @ NDstructible]

Here is the pH graph from last night with the air stone in the overflow that feeds the skimmer. I'm pretty pleased at how stable the pH was all night. I'm not sure if it's possible to keep the pH at day time levels with outside air, but maybe those of you who run outside air into your skimmers can post pictures of your pH graphs throughout a day. You can tell when the air stone shut off this morning and the pH started to drop after no outside air was being supplied.

[Dan H]

I've seen inconsistencies in the pH, but there are so many factors that affect it that I'm not always sure what is the cause. I have noticed that pulling outside air for the skimmer definitely raised the pH overall - both the upper limit and lower limit. So that would suggest the opposite of what you're seeing.

I recently added CO2 scrubber to the air intake for the skimmer as well, and that brought it up even further. On my tank, the 3 biggest influencers of pH are the skimmer, the lighting, and the ambient CO2 levels. Obviously when the lights are on, CO2 is being consumed by the photosynthetic creatures so the pH goes up. If the skimmer isn't working efficiently, the pH goes down - sometimes a LOT. If the CO2 in the house goes above 1000ppm for a while, then sometimes the tank's pH will start to go down.

Interestingly if you are seeing the pH go down when the pump is on, then perhaps it's getting stale air? Is it well ventilated where the pump it?

Here's my charts.