T.I.B.E.T (The Incredibly Big Expensive Tank)

Alrighty, round 3. This website hates me. I can't log in at all on my phone or tablet, and I can't stay logged in long enough to post on a computer. I love this site and want to be able to participate more. Technology is frustrating.

Last update was in early December of last year and there have been a lot of changes since then;

- Changed lighting to all LED, soon to be LED supplemented with T5s. I'm running a combination of Hydra 52s and SOL AI Blues with a single Kessil 360 in the center.
- Upgraded from RKE to an Apex controller
- Added 2 x 55 gal tanks to the system; one is a QT the other is a refugium/clam tank/rock bin
- Beat cyano early into the new year
- Added kalk reactor to help cut down on dosing.
- Added quite a few more fish from tank shut downs in my area this spring

I took a trip in July and left my tank in what I thought was capable hands. The sitter never checked the tank, just chatted with the house sitter and grabbed the emergency cash. Meanwhile the house sitter had guests over and they fed my fish at least 2 cups of pellet food over 10 days above and beyond the frozen food they get daily and my auto feeder. During this time I lost one of my six yellow tangs and I came home to a tank so filled with thick cyano you couldn't tell what was under it. There was a lot of die off from smothering by the time I arrived home.

Overall my tank kind of hung out and did its thing well into July, I had some fairly good SPS growth and really got a better feel for how full spectrum LEDs fit into my tank, After my vacation, which was really nice, I started concentrating on improving the water quality, physical removal of the cyano, and fine tuning my parameters. It's helping, but its a slow process. I do have red slime remover and vodka dosing as optional back ups, neither of which I really want to do unless I have to.

I know the cyano is receding and things are coming back into line; I'm cleaning the glass only twice a week now instead of three times. I'm looking forwards to returning to the norm of once every 10 days. I also don't have to remove the cyano as frequently, so rather than daily, its every third day. I hope by the end of the month things will be back to normal.

The rest of the year I just plan to focus on beating the cyano, again. And then maybe I'll consider restocking. My tank is supposed to be my place of zen, its where I do my daily meditations and yoga, its also where I study and sometimes work from. I'm working to get it back to that zen place I need it to be.

New refugium. One day I really will be done buying plumbing parts. Really. I swear.






New (to me) reactor




While my tank was suffering I was off playing in the Canadian Maritimes, our eastern provinces. These, I believe, were taken on Prince Edward Island.