Anselth's 70 Gallon Tech Tank upgrade

[Dentoid]

Adam, I knew we'd rope you into the BSC with our animated stories and charming pictures!

Shells are easy to find. Often LFSs will sell them or have buckets of them as hermit homes. You can also go to the Jersey shore and collect all kinds of rubble, shells etc. I've have collected from the Outer Banks and boiled the daylights out of it before giving it to Spotty. In fact, even if I get rubble from the bottom of the LR tank at my LFS, I always boil it to kill any nasties I don't want in my tank.

When you getting back buddy?

 

[Anselth]

Scott, that's kind of what I figured, head down to the shore one day while I'm off and pick up some clamshells, boil them, and drop them in the tank.

I'll be back playing with the tank in mid-may.

 

[Anselth]

Woo! I'm back in the States. In North Carolina right now, about two weeks before I get to play with the tank. It feels good to be home though.

 

[Dentoid]

Welcome back Adam! Glad to have you back where you belong! Have fun with the tank.

 

[BarbMazz]

WELCOME HOME! That is wonderful news, Adam! It's good to know you're here and safe and sound.

I'll bet you're really anxious to get close to that tank!

 

[Anselth]

Thanks Scott and Barb. It's great to be back. Barb, your tank is looking great!

 

[BarbMazz]

Thank you, Adam! To say I'm thrilled would be the understatement of the year. Now, hopefully I can keep it healthy and looking like this. I have all my test kits in hand and lots of water ready for changes.

 

[shale]

Counting the days until Adam’s home….. any day now……

In the meantime, the tank system has decided to act up. I had dozed off, but thankfully Adam’s roommate and his girlfriend were up watching tv. I had been filling the ATO reservoir (and dozed off) so they turned off the water. Next thing I know, it’s 12:30 and I wake up to a commotion, to find that the sump was overflowing. Ack! The floats for the ATO have been a little squirrelly in the past, but usually the sump level gets too low, rather than too high. I can’t think of how almost overfilling the reservoir would make the high and low floats act up, but has anyone had a similar experience?

Kept an eye on the SG; it got to about 1.023/1.024 (from dumping all that fresh water in the sump… total panic moment) so Adam had me mix up a pitcher of 1.035 and slowly add it in last night. SG is back to 1.025 now, but still planning on trying to do a water change this weekend.

Hey Adam, you coming home to help out soon?

 

[Dentoid]

Was he really that calm, cool and collected!

 

[Anselth]

At 1230 in the morning, I was more barely awake than calm, cool, or anything else.

 

[shale]

heh, it was 12:30am and we had both just woken up. Maybe that helped . :}

 

[Anselth]

Home! Shale did a great job with the tank, but she decided to leave the buckets of new water for me to do the wc. But I will, cause I need to

 

[Woodstock]

Welcome home Adam!!!!

 

[Dentoid]

:hallo:Adam!

 

[AQTCJAK]

Welcome back

 

[Anselth]

So this morning I did my water change, and finally got the phosban reactor/uv sterilizer up and running. Hopefully this will help with the outbreak of brown hair algae that we've got. I think between the phosban and the sea hare, it'll be gone in relatively short order. Now I just need to run my parameters.

 

[lcstorc]

Welcome back. Glad to know you are safe and sound.
Shale was a wonderful tank sitter while you were gone.

 

[Anselth]

Yes she was Lynn. I was lucky to have someone taking care of the tank that loves it as much as I do.

 

[Anselth]

Parameters from tonight:

Ammonia: 0.0
Nitrate: <5.0
Phosphate: 0
pH: 8.05
Calcium: 380
Alkalinity: 4.9 dKH
Magnesium: 1140
Temp: 79.7-80.3

I need to raise the Calcium, alk, and magnesium. Does anyone know of a good two part? I'd use RHF's improved two-part solution, but I don't really have the time to make my own right now.

Caught a gorilla crab hanging out in my caulastrea tonight. I pulled the caulastrea out to force the crab out of the branches, and while I was looking for it, the bit of skeleton I was holding broke off in my hand, and I watched in horror as the poor coral fell and broke into several small pieces. I got the crab, but now I have somewhere in the neighborhood of 10 frags of what was once a 20+ head colony. I was meaning to frag it, but not quite that much...-sighs- On the bright side, it looks like all of the individual polyps survived, it'll just take a while to grow it back to what it was before.

 

[Dentoid]

Sorry to hear that Adam!:cry1:

I have been using the Two Little Fishes C-Balance for supplementing Ca and Alk. Soon I will switching over to the Balling Method. I have everything but the dosing pump and I have it ordered. It's on a slow boat from Holland.