Author Topic: Lazylivin's 55 gallon Reef (Read 19256 times)

Wall_Tank · « **Reply #75 on:** May 11, 2009, 21:12:49 »

Love the tank. Great to see a "small" tank with so much variety. Couple of questions

1) How did you do the background. Looks better than just a thin sheet of plastic.

2) What are you using to mount your full colonies to you rockwork?

lazylivin · « **Reply #76 on:** May 11, 2009, 21:32:16 »

Thanks wall_tank, I use super glue gel to mount the corals to rock work. Regarding the background, ummm.... okay I will tell you but take it easy on my guys..... The secret is KYjelly

Rubbed all over the back of the glass, apply the background and use a credit card to work the bubbles from the center out to ends. All the KY will spooge out so have a wet paper towel ready. It makes it look like the back is painted and does not allow any water to get between it and the background. Just like window tint. Also the background wont look dark, it will look like it is inside of the tank.

Quote from: Wall_Tank on May 11, 2009, 21:12:49

Love the tank. Great to see a "small" tank with so much variety. Couple of questions

1) How did you do the background. Looks better than just a thin sheet of plastic.

2) What are you using to mount your full colonies to you rockwork?

jungliztkruger · « **Reply #77 on:** May 11, 2009, 22:17:27 »

All the KY will spooge out so have a wet paper towel ready. "thats what she said" lol i couldnt help myself. that is actually a pretty informative tip and is appreciated. much easier, cheaper, and less permanent than some other alternatives.

Wall_Tank · « **Reply #78 on:** May 11, 2009, 22:49:11 »

Quote from: Lazylivin on May 11, 2009, 21:32:16

I use super glue gel to mount the corals to rock work.

Okay, any tips here. Gluing a semi dried coral to a dry plug is easy enought, but I can never seem to apply glue to a coral, then stick it in the tank.

Quote from: Lazylivin on May 11, 2009, 21:32:16

Regarding the background, ummm.... okay I will tell you but take it easy on my guys..... The secret is KYjelly
Rubbed all over the back of the glass, apply the background and use a credit card to work the bubbles from the center out to ends. All the KY will spooge out so have a wet paper towel ready. It makes it look like the back is painted and does not allow any water to get between it and the background. Just like window tint. Also the background wont look dark, it will look like it is inside of the tank.

That's a cool tip. I bet you have to reapply often.

How easy does it pull back? being my tank is in the wall, I do most of the tank work from the backside and need to see. I remove my background often. But then you can also see from my photo, I get alot of salt down the back too.

lightningfront · « **Reply #79 on:** May 12, 2009, 03:15:35 »

thats a nice trick with the KY.

Ya superglue gel is the way to go. I use it also. Just pull the rock out of the tank you are going to put the coral on apply the glue to the rock and then stick the coral onto it and wait a couple seconds, stick it back into the tank and presto. I even do it with softies like zoos and xenia. I have actually even glued SPS and LPS to rocks under water with the gel without removing the rocks before, wouldn't try it with softies though.

lazylivin · « **Reply #80 on:** June 01, 2009, 00:32:42 »

Just for fun

Feb 2009

May 2009

The cap is growing so fast it made contact with a Bali Slimer. Looks like the cap is going to win.

Here it is in April just about to make contact

And today... Ouch

rayviv · « **Reply #81 on:** June 01, 2009, 09:15:21 »

These are good pics, but still dont capture the striking beauty of seeing it live. It really inspired me and I look forward to seeing it again. Was only there for a little while and learned several things of interest.
Thank You Once Again, Brian

Ray

Bellina · « **Reply #82 on:** June 01, 2009, 09:43:45 »

Your tank is absolutely stunning! I'm envious haha.

lazylivin · « **Reply #83 on:** June 02, 2009, 04:47:02 »

Thanks so much for the compliments. I really enjoy the tank and sharing the pictures.

its fry · « **Reply #84 on:** June 02, 2009, 15:47:32 »

You have a really nice reef growing out here.
Congrate on your success with SPS.

I'm not ready for that just yet..

jd · « **Reply #85 on:** June 03, 2009, 11:56:51 »

Lazy, you're tank looks great! One of the best 55's I've seen. I love your rock, where did you find it? The only thing I ever see around here is boulders.

lazylivin · « **Reply #86 on:** June 25, 2009, 03:27:35 »

Quote from: jd on June 03, 2009, 11:56:51

Lazy, you're tank looks great! One of the best 55's I've seen. I love your rock, where did you find it? The only thing I ever see around here is boulders.

Thanks JD, The rock is Walt Smith Fiji and I got it from Aquarium Etc and Marine Solutions.

Here are some Ric's & Zoanthids from Coral Ranch added to the tank over the past couple of months.

lazylivin · « **Reply #87 on:** August 12, 2009, 01:37:23 »

Well I made a couple of real bone head mistakes this past week that may cost me dearly.

Here is the story: My reef tank has had chronic low PH for the past 6 years since moving into this house due to a overly sealed home causing less oxygen rich air and an abundance of CO2. Never been real concerned but always wondered what could be with a normal PH range. I have tried a few things to help over the years with no real success until of late.

I purchased a Coralife SL-65 High Pressure Super Luft Pump last Wednesday from Pet Solutions that is capable of pumping large amounts of outside air directly into the sump or skimmer to drive out the CO2. Because we were leaving for vacation the plan was not to hook it up until I got back this week.

Well boredom Thursday night got the best of me and I thought "it is just an air pump what could go wrong".

Breaking the cardinal rule to not make a tank change one week prior to going out of town I hooked it up.

When I woke Friday morning the PH was 8.05.... Which it normally would be 7.85 - 7.90 at that hour with an AlK level of 9.5DKH. So I was pretty happy with the result only being on for 12 hours and thought it was worth the money spent and trouble installing it.

Off I went on Vacation not really giving the tank much thought returned this evening. First thing I looked at when I got home was the Reef Keeper and the PH was 8.20. The happiness lasted about 1 second. Looked in the tank and found 2 baseball size SPS completely lost and many others in really bad shape. First thing I did was pull out a handheld PH meter to confirm the reading on the RK. Then grabbed an Alkalinity test kit and got a reading of 6.7DKH. â€œWHAT!â€ Opened a brand new kit of another brand and 6.4DKH. Thinking OMG NOâ€¦ how could this be. I checked my dosing pumps and noticed they had not been dosing full doses of ALK since I left for vacation.

It took me an hour to finally figure out what happened:
As a safety precaution the dosing pumps are connected to a PH meter. If PH ever hits 8.25 they shutdown as a fail safe. Since I never was able to hit 8.25 even with a DKH of 11 in the past (Unless my windows were open for a couple days) it was a safe value to set until now. The new air pump did such a good job fixing the chronic low PH problem that it was hitting a PH of 8.25 after a few minutes of the pumps being on so it was never really dosing much of any ALK for that past 6 days. Since I normally run a high Alk level system 9.5dkh-10.5dkh the corals could not acclimate to that low of a level even with a good PH.

So to make matters worse what did I doâ€¦. manually dosed 110ML of Alk.

It had been so long since manually dosing that I remembered the amounts wrong. 110ML was total dose for a 24 period. MY PH jumped to 8.44 and Alk went from 6.7dkh â€“ 9dkh in a matter of minutes.

At this point I have no idea what will happen to the tank over the next couple of days. The air Pump is off to help reduce the PH level. Even though I have 50 gallons of premixed saltwater I decided against doing a water change as to not shock more then I already have. Just going to let things come back down on their own. The calcium is at 500 and it normally runs 420-430. I am guessing that has something to do with the corals being stressed and not using the calcium that has been dosed over the past week.

I pulled the dead and dying corals out of the tank and going to check ammonia, nitrite and nitrate levels shortly.

Thanks for listening to my issues and open to any suggestions,
Brian

jjw2121 · « **Reply #88 on:** August 12, 2009, 07:21:45 »

WOW! Sorry to hear that. Hopefully thing level out and you don't lose much more.

jd · « **Reply #89 on:** August 12, 2009, 09:30:10 »

Lazy, I'm sorry to hear this. Whats the status of the tank this morning?

Logzor · « **Reply #90 on:** August 12, 2009, 10:08:42 »

Sorry to hear that happened! I have been considering putting a piece of tape over the pH reading on my aquacontroller. I find that only bad things happen when you try and 'fix' pH (when nothing was really wrong except for the numbers on your aquacontroller).

My suggestion, put a piece of tape over your pH reading (unless it has going below 7.9). Top off with limewater if you do not already. I would also lose the air pump - this is one more variable to worry about.

TechGuy · « **Reply #91 on:** August 12, 2009, 10:37:20 »

Quote from: Logzor on August 12, 2009, 10:08:42

Sorry to hear that happened! I have been considering putting a piece of tape over the pH reading on my aquacontroller. I find that only bad things happen when you try and 'fix' pH (when nothing was really wrong except for the numbers on your aquacontroller).

My suggestion, put a piece of tape over your pH reading (unless it has going below 7.9). Top off with limewater if you do not already. I would also lose the air pump - this is one more variable to worry about.

I'm with you. I quit trying to get my chronic low PH back up. If everything is happy, and healthy. I don't mess with it.

lazylivin · « **Reply #92 on:** August 12, 2009, 13:57:11 »

There is nothing but good news this afternoon. PH and Alk is back to normal levels and there are no new coral losses.

I raised the PH fail safe to 8.5 for now and turned the air pump back on. Will record ALK daily to find out what is a good fit with the new PH level the air pump is going to give.

The reef and frag tank looks a little thin with the dead corals removed from this incident and the previous incident a few weeks back.

Logzor the Kalk drip is something I want to do. Bought a mixer at the frag swap. It is going to take some time to figure out how to incorporate it into the tank regarding placement etc...

Thanks for everyone's concerns
Brian

jeremyt · « **Reply #93 on:** August 12, 2009, 14:00:17 »

good to hear

rayviv · « **Reply #94 on:** August 12, 2009, 14:05:34 »

Hey Brian, if there is anything that I can do to help just let me know. If you need me to harbor some thing or what ever just ask.

PS. Hows my Yuma?

lazylivin · « **Reply #95 on:** August 12, 2009, 14:15:38 »

Thanks for your offer to help. Your Yuma and all softie's and LPS showed no sign of stress

. I guess they are just hardier then SPS.

jd · « **Reply #96 on:** August 12, 2009, 14:22:20 »

Glad to heard you are on the rebound. You didn't lose too much did you?

jeremyt · « **Reply #97 on:** August 12, 2009, 14:30:34 »

Quote from: Lazylivin on August 12, 2009, 14:15:38

softie's and LPS showed no sign of stress . I guess they are just hardier then SPS.

yeah, i learned real quick you have to be careful with sps, i have almost killed two of my pieces. lucky they came back for me.

rayviv · « **Reply #98 on:** August 12, 2009, 14:31:26 »

Thats good on the Yuma but was not my main concern. The offer to help is open at all times.

Slandis is coming over Saturday to help me get the 180 set up. I keep telling Vivian that I can do it but I really have problems just moving around on a mechanics creeper seat. Vivian and I are very excited and thankful to have the help. I have come to the conclusion that 'youthfulness' is wasted on young people; They do not appreciate it.

Wall_Tank · « **Reply #99 on:** August 12, 2009, 21:16:29 »

Wow.....and I've been thinking of piping some fresh air in for my tank. I think I'll live with my low ph, and keep dripping kalk.

What pieces did you loose?

2024 Ohio Reef Frag Swap

Author Topic: Lazylivin's 55 gallon Reef (Read 19256 times)

Bellina