Blog Comments

I went with a 30g for my sump under my 75. I have enough height to work comfortably, and enough room on one end for my dual BRS reactor. I think its the perfect fit for a standard stand.

200! Sweet, that's more than I expected.

Marc gets 200 points for his round of twenty questions!

thats an amazing trip!!!
and those are some amazing LFS!!!

i want to be in your local area just to attend that tour!!

This is a great idea for other clubs to pick up on. Wonder how much it costs to rent a bus, and how many members would need to go to make the rental cost effective.

How big is the area you had to travel? If our club tried to organize this, there would be people that had to drive a long way to meet up with the group at the bus' pick up spot. And then the drive back. Our metroplex is pretty huge. It takes 1.5 hours roughly to drive diagonally from west Fort Worth to the Plano area, and even putting the bus in the middle may not be appealing to those at those extreme areas.

Maybe a bus in Fort Worth to tour the Dallas stores would be fun, and then a bus in Dallas to tour the Fort Worth side... hmmm

I have no clue how far we went total, we left around 8am and got back around 7:30ish pm. We had 35 peoples go, no food and drink provided, but there was plenty to go around between the members.

We had a large raffle with the grand prizes being a MP10wES, BioCube 29 HQI w/ Stand, AirWaterIce Mighty Mite RO/DI, and a Bali Sun Series metal halide pendant w/ LED actinics. All in all, it was a great time!

How far did you travel? How many people were on the bus? Did you guys have food and drink on the bus, provided by the club? Was there anything special about that day, like a raffle? I love the idea.

Yes, it was the annual Wisconsin Reef Society Bus trip - we go on a tour bus to different LFS in the Illinois/WI area

The shops have different specials/events/what not and we have a raffle on the bus between stops.

It was a great trip, I tended to focus more on photos of the tanks than photos of the shops.

That's great. Where was this? It looks like a tank tour rather than a bunch of customers just milling about. Did you do this as a club expedition?

Originally Posted by Neelixx

Good Luck with getting the ATO finished! Can't wait to see the pics! Especially your junction boxes.

Thanks- It's actually just a JBJ ATO that I had on the tank previously; I just didn't get it set up yet. I am going to do a DIY with the Apex though

Good Luck with getting the ATO finished! Can't wait to see the pics! Especially your junction boxes.

Please categorize your blog entries. Thanks.

Yes, that is zooxanthellae being expelled by the zoas. They can do this when stressed or when excess has built up within the coral. It can grow more, so don't worry about that.

Definitely clean up everything so you can see what you are doing, and test the water for everything. Without numbers, we are just guessing.

If your tests come back with any traceable levels id do a SLOW and big water change I would do about 30-50% depending on how brave you are and where your levels are. I’m not sure if you’re using an ato but id have my ato pumping in fresh SW as I had a 1/4" airline taking out water, it would take most of the day or you can break it in to two but the gradual change will reuse stress and hopefully clear up any issues. It’s how I do all the water changes in my tank (lager but more gradual)

Your sand bed should be fine as long as it stayed moist and close to temp. Just keep on skimming, this is more than likely something you will have to wait out, I’m just curious are you keeping your lights on or off? You may want to keep them off just incase this is somehow a photosynthetic bloom, although it looks like white cloud vs green so that is unlikely

Some use tap water but since I don't like to wait for it to dry out, im a RO/DI rinser. I'll put it in a big tub and fill with ro/di water and swirl it around and then drain, I'll repeat this until the water stays clear. It will kill most everything in the sand bed but at least all the detritus is out and ready for use. I will keep a cup or two out before rinsing to seed the new sand bed as well.

Blown76mav,

I may have the need to "Rinse sand" in the near future. Clarify the process, rinse in tap water or RO/DI or made up water? Let dry or reuse immediately? Thanks!

You didn't rinse the sandbed when you moved it? I would make up a bunch of new water, and put it in a rubbermaid tub, then move everything in there and rinse the sand. I've move many tanks and never had anything like this happen, but I've also never tried to reuse the old sand without first rinsing it. Usually a diatom bloom happens within a week but it clears up and all is good.

I'm embarrassed to admit that testing for ammonia/nitrites/nitrates couldn't have been further from my mind this morning!

I'll do the tests tonight and see what turns out. If they come back 0-0-0, I won't be doing another water change today. I have been running carbon, but I've got a ton of it sitting around, so I'll change that out tonight and get some new stuff in there to see what it can pull out. Hopefully the skimmer will get broken in today and start pulling any excess bacteria out of the water...

Hi Kayl. To me, a 60-70% water change is pretty high, perhaps to the point of being detrimental (I'm not familiar with the inhabitants of your tank). With the big drop in temp, you are probably right about the sand bed and a bacterial bloom.. disturbing the sand bed could have done the same think if there were some stagnant areas. Have you tested ammonia/nitrites/nitrate? If you are detecting any ammonia or nitrites, it might be prudent to do frequent water changes.

Other thoughts?