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[Lawdawg]

I'm pretty shocked, the peppermint shrimp (well except the one that went sump surfing) are taking care of the aptasia issue. I might just end up redoing with the rock I have rather than going all new.

[cjdevito]

I hate to bug you in light of recent tank issues, but can I trouble you for one more question? How noisy is the tank?

I'm -still- going back and forth between the solana and the elos mini. By the time you factor in the cost of adding a good LED fixture to the solana it works out to be about the same price as the elos, so it's mostly coming down to the noise factor and the evaporation factor. The Solana has a couple of workable, attractive lid options to keep evaporation down (I'd really rather not have to muck with an ATO) and the elos doesn't so I'd have to have something custom built. On the other hand, the elos is supposed to be very, very quiet. How does the solana stack up in that regard?

[Lawdawg]

Well, when I had the tops on it was fairly quiet but since I run it open it's a touch on the burbly side. I pulled the noise dampening sponge that fits in the overflow from the display to the sump because it just clogged up too fast, causing the water levels to get off between the front and the sump. Without it, the overflow gurgles a bit. I have it in my bedroom but don't find it annoying.

The "top off" bottle system in the Solana is in a word inadequate, so running it with a glass top to cut evap or using an ATO is kind of a must unless you want to drip water in every day. I did work out the kinks in that Tunze ATO and it's been workin fine so far (knocks wood LOL)

I'm considering redoing the tank as planned, since I'm so down on coral that would make the job easier.

[Lawdawg]

Double post, see below. I've moved things around a bit after going on an algae killing spree.

[Lawdawg]

Ok, had another nasty setback and entirely my fault. I unplugged the LED light on the chamber in the back of the tank that had the chaeto in it and forgot to plug it back in. BAM-chaeto dies and instant algae explosion in the front of the tank complete with (shudder) rabbit ear caulerpa. Okay, not instant but I've been buried under college and work so it maybe took 2 weeks before I noticed

So, I removed the worst caulerpa covered rocks, spent some money on snails for the other algae (I only had one huge Astea snail left) and got more chaeto.

Two shots, one with the flash and one without. I'll be re-aquascaping some in a week or so. I have little left in the tank other than the zoas, one poor challice, the rics are looking poorly and one stubborn xenia and a leather that I can't kill lol. The duncans are receding badly, hope they make it.

[The Escaped Ape]

Ah, that's another bit of undeserved bad luck. Undeserved, but understandable, given how much you've got going on at the moment. Sorry to hear it.

[cjdevito]

From the photos it looks like you've got the algae under control already. Between the new chaeto and the new grazers I'd just give it a little bit of time and it should get back to normal. If you've got a phosban reactor lying around hooking it up for a couple of days might speed it up.

[Lawdawg]

I don't have one of them gizmos, but I'm running a phosban type combined with activated charcoal filter pad in the sump, changing it every other day

[cjdevito]

Bump. Your turn. How's the update/restart coming?

[Lawdawg]

On a maintenance trend lately, I'm so busy (and broke) with college right now

[dain45yl]

I love the little extras that come with owning a fish tank. Watching little guys like that is almost as much fun as watching the stuff we buy for the tank on purpose. Thanks for the pics.