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[knowse]

I forgot to mention I added a small piece of blue xenia yesterday.

I tryed to feed the rbta today, but I'm not sure she ate. Her mouth looks like she was trying to feed, but I never saw her eat the mysis shrimp I gave her.

The formia spent 2 days behind/under the skimmer outlet and then two more days in the outlet. He's now on the bottom of the tank in front so every one can see him. But he's partly hidden under a rock.

On a good note though, bleachy had a bit of green tint to his tenticles with purple tips and Junior will eat out of my hands. He comes to the front of the tank when ever someone gets close enough for him to see them.

[knowse]

Well, it's been a bad day! Today I was going to add Big Momma to the tank but found the tank slightly cloudy, then noticed that Ringo was missing part of a leg and starting to disintegrate. Then noticed that Rose was missing!!!! So Ringo was removed and the search was on for Rose. I moved each and every rock looking for her and still no sign. Not even a pile of snot. As a last resort, I started messing with the skimmer and there she was. Or at least little chunks of her:cry: So, in trying to get that mess cleaned up, I dumped about a gallon of water every where. Seems Rosey girl went threw the little screw holes in the skimmer's overflow box.

On the bright side and since Big Momma was in a bag, she had to go in. She took to Bleachy with no problems. Who by the way, is greening up rather nicely. I cleaned the skimmer and did a small water change. I'll have to do some remodling in the tank and get another maxijet 1200 to replace the rio on the skimmer. Lesson learned. After that, I'll starting looking for Rose's replacement.

[knowse]

It's wierd how things turn out!!!! The same day I found pieces of Rose in the skimmer one of the rbta's in my 29 split I let it heal really well and yesterday I added it along with a hammer, frog spawn, 2 different colored torches and 2 different colored candy's. I didn't get any really good shots today, so I'll have to get those another day.

I had to get a maxi jet 600 to run the auto top off after I (make that my 14 yr old son) installed a float switch (courtesy of Salty Dog) to the tank.

I also got a maxi jet 1200 for the skimmer, but alas, I am too stupid to figure out how to get it work right. So, I put the Rio back on, plugged the screw holes and turned the skimmer box around.

[knowse]

Well my tank isn't looking to good these days. I got home from a two week vacation to find that the frog spawn, hammer, one of the torches and three small feather dusters had died and the skimmer was defuct. The tank had been taken over by hair algea and some other type of algea or cyano which had streamers of bubbles every where. So I did a small water change of a gallon and ordered another powerhead for the skimmer. A week later I found that the closed loop hose had come off that powerhead and there was basicly no circulation, so I re-attached the hose and installed the new powerhead for the skimmer, stirred up the sand bed, pulled some hair algea and did another small one gallon water change. Here are some pictures of the tank after the maint. I was too embarrassed to take some of what it looked like before.

[knowse]

I got some pictures today of the tank, with all it's uglyness. Decided every one needs to see the good, the bad and the discusting. So for your enjoyment are the following...............

[knowse]

There's been an explosion in the stomatella population, but they ain't making a dent in this mess. If and when I find my sea hare, he's going to be moving into this tank to see if he can take care of this mess.

[knowse]

I started the aggressive water changes yesterday, I'll be doing 1g every other day (Tues, Thurs & Sat) to see if that helps. Feeding has been cut way back to once/twice a week (someone thinks my fish are starving )and removel by hand of what I can on the dinos. I also changed salts, I'm now using Reef Crystals. I thought I'd give this a try as I'm not seeing any coralline growth whatsoever. Here's the picts I took yesterday after I cleaned up the sand bed and did a water change.

[knowse]

After doing last Thursday's water change, I added some replacement corals. A yellow tipped torch, a pink and green frogspawn and a green hammer. I also added a fox coral, elephant skin rugosa and an aquacultered scutus sp.

On Sat. I inavertantly did a 5 gal water change. I scraped and pulled a crapload of hair algea then syphoned that and as much of the dinoflagillates as I could, while trying to leave some of the sand in the tank. Ended up syphoning out 5 gal's. I had planned on reusing most of that water back into the tank. Then since the prefilter needed to be cleaned and was full of pods and stomatella's, I thought that (get ready, bright idea at work here) I'd rinse the prefilter in the bucket and salvage the pods and snails and still get to reuse the water! Right......... one swish and the bucket of water is instantly brown, keep going and it turned just about black. Ok, that wasn't one of my brighter ideas. Oh well, thankfully there was enough mixed water to do the change.

[knowse]

Did another one gal water change yesterday and fed the fish and anems. Everybody ate like pigs, which is really no surprise. After the big water change and weed pulling Sat. I didn't see any regrowth of the hair algea, but those stinking dino's are beginning to really piss me off! I'm this close >< to pulling the sand . I bought another 1" maxima, gold with some blue/purple highlights to add later, when I get done re-arranging the rock, corals and probably sand. I also need to find a nice little nitch in a rock to place it on.

Just an aside. On Thursday, while trying to acculmate the new corals, Big Momma decided that she really doesn't like me all that much (unless I'm feeding her). She went to give me nice big bite, missed and went sailing! She was very graceful flying threw the air until she hit the floor, at which time I think she was very sorry for trying to bite me. A fast rescue on my part and she is none the worse for ware. Stupid fish!

[knowse]

Oh my!!! Didn't realize it's been that long since I posted the last time. I guess I have alot to catch up on so here goes.

I did some very aggressive water changes for three weeks. Week 1 did 1g water changes on Tues and Thurs and a 5g water change on Sat. Week 2 did 1g water changes on Tues & Thurs and a 3g water change on Sat. I also sucked up all the sand infected with the dino. There was a small amount still left on the float switch. Week 3 did 1g water changes on Tues & Thurs and 5g water change on Sat. Dino's are gone and outta here. Yippee! I then did 5g water changes once a week for a couple more weeks and am now down to every other week. The hair algea on the side of the tank has been turning white and dieing, which makes it really easy to scrape off.

I lost a couple corals, for some reason I'm having problems with torches dieing on me. I also lost a fox coral and I removed the pectina (I think that's the one). Anyway ways, the tank is looking so much better.

What ever that red bubblely algea that looks like fingers is, I've been pulling it out left and right. It keeps growing back but I believe it's the real reason the hair algea is dieing. And for the first time in ANY of my tanks, I have coralline algea growing

Big Momma is a PITA and she sites hard. Junior is as sweet as ever. Every one looks healthy, with maybe the exception of the frogspawn. It really doesn't seem to inflate the way I think it should.

The best part of all is that Mr. Bleachy needs a new name!

[knowse]

I also forgot to mention that the tubing for the closed loop got clogged with hair algea and I've had to remove it for the time being. I put a hydor flo unit on to keep up the circulation until I get some new tubing.

[knowse]

Crap, that last set of pictures are up side down, oh well. Here's a few picts of bleachy and rose2.

[knowse]

Thought I should do an update because, well because I haven't done one in a while and I did some remodeling over the weeks end.

I had the hair algea almost under control, so I slacked off the water changes. That was a really dumb thing to do. Now I'm almost right back where I started. So back to those large and frequent water changes I go, hi ho, hi ho.

I'm having the best coralline aglea growth in this tank that I've ever had. It won't grow in my other tanks, so to say I'm pleased is pretty much an understatement. Other than the cheato that I put in the tank, I seem to have several other types of macro growing. Looks like there's two different Halimeda sp. and four different red macros growing, some of which I've identified (I think).
red finger looking algea that Jr. has bonded with.
http://www.saltcorner.com/sections/gues ... lanata.htm
red grape algea
http://www.saltcorner.com/sections/gues ... hotoma.htm
red bulb algea that is so stinking fragile that it broke when I was scraping the glass. http://www.saltcorner.com/sections/gues ... stoma2.htm

I'm really not happy with the frogspawn, I just think it should be expanding more than it is. It maybe because it's lying on it's side rather than being upright. Maybe because it's in the shadow of the macros, who knows. The hammer has somewhat attached it's self, so I can't move it. It's now got two heads, so it doesn't mind the macros being in it's way at all. Go figure? I have what's left of some "blue" xenia, it was spreading very well until those macro's started to grow. Now there's just a few polyps left, I hope that they hold out.

Clamhead isn't showing the growth I think he should be having, but with all the other stuff sucking up the alk and cal. it's a wonder he's growing as well as he is. My other little clam is still in the lfs tank due to flatworms. I'm not going to add to my problems just to add something pretty.

[knowse]

A couple more pretty shots.

[knowse]

By far the best news is....Mr. Bleachy is no longer Mr. Bleachy. He is now known as "The anenome formerly known as Mr. Bleachy."
Not really, his new name is Emerald! And just because he got a new name, Rose2 is now called Ruby She's not just a replacement anenome anymore!

The Scutus sp. has doubled in size, I saw it cruzing the front glass but didn't have the camera with me at the time. Everything else is doing well. All in all, I'm happy with my little tank.

[knowse]

Well, I finaly got the sea swirl hooked back up and the hydro flo in now in my 29. I like the flo unit in the 10g but it was really beating up the anems so that they didn't expand as much as they should have. They are soooooo likeing the swirl better.

I got an account at photobucket and thought I'd try that this time around on the pics. I wanted/hoped that my pics would look better so we'll see if that's the case.

I let the new clam go, with the flat worm problem in the lfs system, I just didn't want to add to my problems. I started back on the more aggressive water changes and the hair algea is getting back in check. I also started adding purple up to the top off water. I had done that before and the coralline algea really took off. Did I mention that I also dose B-Ionic at 2.5 ml every other day? Well, I do. No new additions have been made to the tank. I think everything is doing well and I really need to get some new pictures. These are all from Nov. 11. A full tank shot and just some pretty pictures.

[knowse]

Smore pics....

[knowse]

And a few more.

[knowse]

Well, I've got some good and bad news.

The bad news is that clamhead has bit the dust. I haven't a clue as to what happened to him. His shell was just sitting there all nice and clean. Some one got a nice meal. The green trumpet has been stung by both the shrooms and galaxia and I lost one head, one isn't looking good and the third is fine.

The good news is that clamhead passing didn't screw up the whole tank and everything else is looking good.

A shot from last week of clamhead. I was too depressed to take a pic of his empty shell.



Full tank shot


And a pic of the cubby holeish area

[knowse]

I moved the trumpet to where clamhead used to perch, I hope it will heal up there.

Just really wanted to post some pretty pictures. Ok Ok, I know my photo skills are lacking, but hey, it's the best I can do with my camera.