Happy Birthday
A little bit belated but the tank turned 1 back in April.
Gee I gotta update more regularly
A moment's silence for two inhabitants:
The smallest clown - ostracised from the others and then one day all the inhabitants turned on him. I tried a peroxide bath for 30 min before going to the QT but he died overnight. The next smaller clown is hovering close to but not in the torch coral of the other two.
The other has been with me from the very beginning. Lettuce a Blue Green Chromis has disappeared. Lettuce because the other two chromis I got as my first fish were named Bacon and Tomato. These guys died early on not because I used them to cycle the tank but because of Lettuce's aggression. I'm not sure when he disappeared actually. He's been hovering in the top corners near the clowns for a while, I think he died of age. Am I a bad parent for not noticing sooner?
As far as improvements to the tank I've finished the timber trim around the tank and hood. I've only got a bit to go around the doors but will be tricky so I'll procrastinate on that for the moment.
I've placed more substrate down but it is still getting cleared from a couple of spots. I also notice that the output of the Tunze pumps are way down again so I'll have to give them another clean again, probably to watch more sand get blown away afterwards
I went away for 10 days in May. I arranged for someone to check on the tank about half time. I left two tubs with 160L of RODI topup water linked together with a simple siphon. I also was having intermittent failure of the lighting timer staying stuck on so I replaced it with a brand new timer from Jaycar. I was suspect that it was just another of the same cheap crap but the salesman assured me it would be ok. It did not mention anything about heavy duty cycles or the sort which is what I was after. In any case I thought that the timer should last at least a couple of weeks
of course it didn't lousy piece of crap
I got a call from the minder that they thought the lights didn't go off but couldn't be sure. After extensive questioning, and as it turns out $45 phone call, I decided the best course of action would be to pull the power on the lights altogether and let the tank sit in the dark for what would be 4 days before my return. This would also mean that the tank lights would be on for at least another 24 hours before the minder could make the drive down to the Gong again. Logic would also cast a question over how long the lights were already on too. At worst case they failed the day we left which meant they were on Sunday to Friday.
One coral had it and most of the others seem to be ok. There has been some bleaching but I have dimmable lights and turned them down to 175W and slowly increased them back to the full 250W over a couple of weeks.
Of course there also had to be a problem with the auto top up. I did leave another 30L of RODI water just in case which the minder added to the first tub. When they came back to pull the lights on the Friday they mentioned that the water level in the return sump was at 'min'. At that point I realised how glad I was to not only mark the normal operating and min levels with a line but to label them too
I was able to determine that the auto topup pump was pumping but decided to get the minder to pour whatever remained of the water in the spare containers directly into the sump, it was about 10L. It turns out that the 10L was just enough for me to get back home.
Diagnosis of the fault - the silicon airline from the airstone in the tub was no longer a tube but rather a ribbon. The airstone was blocked
. The last time I went away I feared this and took the airstone off only to have the problem where the tube floated to the surface and crippled the topup. I suspect that the tub of RODI cultured a micro algae or even bacteria enough to block the airstone. Never ever had this problem before and the airstone that was on it is the same one that I have used from the time I started in the hobby. It must have had thousands of litres of water go through it to of course fail when I go away
I also tested an increase in PO4 prior to the trip away and so changed the Phosban in the reactor. I added 50g with the intention of adding another 50g a week or two later - I haven't but is on the list for today.
I think I've also had to rebuild the centre section of aquascaping due to imminent collapse. I blame the urchin which is not allowed to 'move on' due to CheesettetheClown's love for it
Enough talk, pics:
The coral hardest hit with the bleaching event
These haven't bleached but have been largely dormant with growth until very recently where they've grown very rapidly
Nork's frag now seems to be taking hold
Sailfin's frag from the MASS AGM in March holding its colour and growing
Zeason's frag
Here is the mantis shrimp's house with the front door closed. Always knew I had him but the closest I'd ever seen is a fleeting glimpse of a black shadow. He's now taken residence centre stage and doesn't seem to have any shyness. I've been able to feed it from tongs. You may notice that the front door is in fact a bleached fragment of the small fungia coral that went missing some time ago. The shrimp has used a bigger piece to board up the side. I'll be taking that back an replacing with a piece of shell of approximate dimensions. If the shrimp don't like then tough
End-on. The two white circles are the underwater strobes - I took all these with the underwater camera housing so that I can use the strobes to get better and more natural colour.
FTS
Left
Right
Just need to be able to organise a time and I'll have a new Kamoer dosing pump to install too.
I also got another two acro colonies on the large side. Not particularly colourful but may have potential. No pics of them yet either but I'll try to snap some in the next couple of days.
Thus is the joys of keeping reef tanks eh?
Hey Ollie,
Just disappeared from one day to the next and no corpse to investigate. I'm left with the two that have paired.
I agree Col, absolutely superb, especially when Ollie is away from work alot , i love that Majestic 
