So what happened? Guys and girls, please read this post as it will save you from a disaster.

For those who have their skimmers in their sumps and don’t have a mod on their collection cup, skip this post as it doesn’t pertain to you. For the rest… buckle up.

So I found a great way to dump my skimmate from the collection cup by modifying my skimmer. All I did was reinforce the bottom of the cup, drilled a hole and tapped with with a HP fitting. Plumbed a 1/8″ HPF hose into it, and on the back end, attached a valve for control. As the new vat settled in, my skimmate improved and didn’t need to keep the valve closed. Without any worry, the valve was fully open and the skimmate was fairly dry. That was until this morning.

As I walked in to do my regular fish feeding, I noticed a wet floor. That is usually not a good sign unless you were washing it. And I wasn’t. I took some precautions when I was setting up the vat. I placed all of my electrical above ground, and believe me, thank God that I did. The floor was wet all around the vat, where the electrical usually is. I hope this opens some eyes, as you should never leave any electrical above or under your fish tank. My rule of thumb is 3-5 feet away from your tank.

Back to the situation at hand. As I trailed the source of the water, I realized that my 5 gallon waste collection bucket was full of water… clear water. I immediately knew what had happened and opened the valve on the skimmer (that’s the other mod that I have). This allowed me to lower the water level in the skimmer’s neck. I ran to check what the salinity read in the vat….. 1.021. HUH?!? Holy $h!T!! Don’t worry, my salinity was 1.023 to begin with. A 0.002 change in salinity is pushing the threshold of susceptible levels. I caught it in the nick of time. Absolutely nothing seems to be affected by this event.

To bring the salinity up to standards, I will add small batches of salt over a period of a week.  Don’t want to do anything to quickly as it will have negative effects on the whole system.

You don’t think that this can happen to you? Have you heard of OregonReef? Have you heard how it crashed? Read on.

It can happen to just about anyone with that similar skimmer setup.  For the novices, keep your skimmers INSIDE the sump. And if you do one of those skimmer cup mods, get a gate/ball valve for it, or else you will end up like the formerly gorgeous OregonReef.

I planned out to house all of the livestock and equipment in a 300 gallon pond tote. I plan on renovating the basement bedroom into my fishroom, so no livestock will be on that level. That leaves me with an only option to keep all things in the garage. Because of the size of the tote, I will have enough room for all the coral, fish and rock. In addition, I will have space for my skimmer, and the topoff. The rest of the equipment will be next to the tote.

I was thinking of rebuffing the acrylic tank. There are a lot of micro-scratches that I want to remove. This would be the best time to attempt to do this task. I will be taking a lot if pictures so come back to check them out.

 Those were my two 100gpd membranes and two packs of DI Resin. Quite frankly, this should last me a couple of years. Its always good to stock up.

I will be making a lot of new water before and after the move, so I need to have things prepared. I will be changing my pre-filters next month (June), and will have 0 TDS water to work with. Here is an image of what a membrane that needs to be changed looks like:

Here is a brand new membrane next to the old one:

The proof is in the pudding. Never underestimate the importance of changing your pre-filters and membrane. The efficiency of the two wear out the more you use them. Nobody wants fuoride or copper in their tanks.  So ‘To Do’ list…. amend this!

1. Purchase new 100gpd membranes (2x) and DI Resins (2x) DONE

Every tank has to have some sort of an angel, pygmy or standard. Some have multiple in their tanks. Yes, I do envy you. I used to have a juvi Koran angel, but I lost it in the move.

So, here we are, tank’s all set up. Fish and corals are in. Equipment is online. But something was missing. Ahh… I didn’t have an angel in my tank anymore. So, the search went on.

I thought about getting some rare specimen, such as the aussie Personifer angel, or the Scribbled angel, but didn’t want the headache if it started eating my clams or zoos. Not only that, they don’t ship juvenile angels from Australia. So, I decided to look to Red Sea or Indonesia angels. Didn’t want to go back to a Koran angel because I needed a change. Didn’t want the Blue Ring angel, or the Majestic, as they are tougher to keep. Then I came across a 1” Emperor. I knew that I shouldn’t have taken the chance, but I had a perfectly good QT setup for it. And, I knew that I would be able to get it fatten up before entering my display.

After 7 weeks of being in the QT, she was free. Currently, it feeds on everything that I offer it. In fact, I want it to start to nip at some SPS polyps, so that they could retract a little more. Why you say? Because SPS corals will color up even more without any polyps.

This will be my angel’s little journal, from when it is blue and white, to big and emperor looking… stay tuned.

Here is what she is going to look like..

]]> http://blog.fragd.it/2008/05/04/emperor-angel-by-atomikk/feed/ 1 http://blog.fragd.it/2008/05/03/copperband-butterfly-part-trois/ http://blog.fragd.it/2008/05/03/copperband-butterfly-part-trois/#comments Sat, 03 May 2008 04:46:49 +0000 vlad http://blog.fragd.it/?p=7

Maybe third time is the charm. That is what I am hoping at this point. I do not want to go through another loss. Two have been very painful. The first one I lost due to red ulcers forming on its scales. I didn’t know what to do and didn’t have a proper quarantine setup. The second one was really small, a bit too juvenile. I knew that I was taking a big risk, even though it was eating readily in the store. Due to its size, it got bullied by some evil damsels, and it starved.

So, I waited for the right opportunity to obtain my last attempt at keeping a CBB. This one was almost too healthy, as it was fat, lively, and about 3” in size. This was the one I was taking home. Unlike years past, this time I had a proper QT (quarantine tank) running. It held a tequila sunrise clownfish, and a blue Chromis damsel.

For the first two weeks, the CBB was really afraid to come out and swim about. It was afraid of its own shadow. I did get it to eat blood worms, but that was it. No mysis, no flake, no krill, no scallop. Just blood worms. So, I kept it fed… a lot actually. Two good feedings a day.

I waited until its belly was protruding before I made the transfer. Of course, it was shy at first. Many fish were too quick for him, and he didn’t want to have any of it. So he hid.

I am in the first week, and so for so good. No more feather dusters.. big or small. Next on the menu is.. aiptasia. Hopefully he takes out some peanut worms as well, as they are taking over some good real estate.

I do plan on adding different copepods and live micro-shrimp into the tank so that the CBB can naturally feed on them.

Who knows, maybe three is a charm….

I was moving my 65 gallon reef tank and my 72 bow into the place we live today. This was back in 2006, yet is still resonates in my head. The entire move was without a hitch, and to plan. I moved all of my livestock and equipment without any casualties. During the first two days at our new home, I was constructing my current 180 custom acrylic tank, which was 72”x36”x16″ (yes, shallow tank). The entire build you can find here. I had all of my livestock in 3 60 gallon totes. In one all of the corals, and the other two, my fish and live rock. I set everything up and went to bed. Upon waking up, I discovered that a heater that I had used had been knocked over into the coral tub. This wasn’t a Jager heater that we can all submerge. The water was milky and all of the SPS corals were sliming heavily. I immediately placed a skimmer in the water to try to reduce the amount of mucus in the water, but that proved not enough. I tried to transfer all of the corals from one vat, into the other… but that proved to be useless. To sum it up, I lost all of my corals… all.

I was devastated. I almost started crying, and I am the type who can hold a lot of stuff in. It was really painful. On the positive note, my fish all but two survived. And, all of my frags were with one of my good friends. So a chance to recoup quickly was there. Here a couple of pictures of what I lost…

Yes… tragic. All of those beautiful corals, gone. Maybe I shouldn’t look at these pictures… It is a painful reminder of what happened.

So here we are again, two months away from another move. My nerves are building. But this time, I will have two months to plan. This will be my avenue to show how I progress in this big move. Thank the baby momma, that I have a plan….