Our Tbs

[bkelley02]

Did everyone disappear? Over two days with no Posts? Hope everyone in FL made it through Wilma alright.

[lossman]

I was wondering the same thing. I had my brother from Maine visiting all last week. He left on Friday, just in time to get out before Wilma. We got a lot of wind and some heavy rains but no damage and never lost power. Thank goodness this hurricane season is over with!

[skippy2]

I thought hurricane season wasn't over till the end of Nov.?

[lossman]

It's not, but we just had a real nice cold wave come through. The gulf is too chilly to support a hurricane now. At least, not for long and it won't let it develop enough to be too destructive if one did come in.

[skippy2]

Well, that certainly is good news to hear for all you in Florida!!
I absolutely love Fort Meyers. I haven't been there for a few yrs. but definately wouldn't mind living there.

[bkelley02]

Everyone down in the Fl and the Gulf have had more then enough bad weather for a long while. I wonder if us in the Northeast will be hit with winter snowstorms that hit as hard and as frequent as what you've all been through down there?

[lossman]

I sure hope not! My three kids as well as my younger brother all live in CT and my older brother and younger sister live up in Maine! Poor them if the winter is as nasty as our summer has been!!

[skippy2]

I heard on the news tonight that the effects of Wilma will give the N. E. states a nor'easter tomorrow.

[lossman]

My brother in Maine is expecting 35 - 45 mph winds and some rain. There may be snow in the higher elevations but that's about it. I don't think the weather is cold enough yet up there for a true nor'easter.

BTW, my mother-in-law up in the DC area just called all concerned about us. Seems the news programs up there are saying that there is not one spot in Florida that was not severely affected by Wilma.

[liverock]

Wilma was a supposed to be a minimal hurricane, but she got stronger just before hitting the coast and now there are 6,000,000 people without power today.

She came in at Everglades city which is south of Naples where US41 and Hwy 29 intersect. The city is still four feet underwater.

Ft Lauderdale took a big hit, lots of damage there. We were real lucky again here in Tampa, some rain and wind, no power outages here. Just some limbs down and debris.

They are saying it may be weeks before everybody has power again. At least it got cold down here just as Wilma passed, this am it was 60 here, so folks without power at least can open their windows.

My friends in the Keys got hit hard too, one buddy lost his screen porch, the road breached in Islamorada and many trees are down. He said coconuts were like missals.

And hurricane season is not over for another month......

TBS

[lossman]

Well, I must say I am impressed with the initial results of using the Reef Chili. My orange cup corals show remarkable polyp extension when I feed them that stuff compared to feeding with mysis and DT's. The maze brain corals are doing really well and I can actually see all the mouths on them. The two hitchiker brain corals that came with our initial batch of TBS rock had started to degenerate but with the reef chili they actually show signs of regrowth. Everything really perks up when I add that to the tank. I also notice that the glass does not get all fuzzed over using this stuff compared to DT's. (I really had not noticed how much the DT's tends to fuzz up the glass until I started using the reef chili instead.) I'll give it two thumbs up.

[patsan]

Yeah, our weather is crummy today. Very windy and rainy.

I did a water change yesterday and saw that my hammer corals have new heads. I got it with 4 heads, and now it has 7 and possibly 8 heads. That made me pretty happy. That thing I also thought might be aptasia is. Now I have to figure out a way to get it out without taking all the rock down.
I think we also need to change the filters in the RO/DI unit. I am seeing brown film on the glass a couple of times a week now. The filters haven't been changed and are probably overdue. I have to ask Bob to do a complete set of testing for me.

[lossman]

Pat, Brett and I purchased an in-line tds meter for our RO/DI unit. It works great and is a snap to install. We found that the first 3 - 4 cups of water out of the unit have a tds of up to 21!! Now we run the unit until the tds goes down to 1 or 2 before using the water. The meter will help us to know when to change the filters as it measures the tds of the water going into the unit and coming out. We got the meter at Marine Depot.

[patsan]

Yeah, I don't know if that would be good for us the way we have our unit set up. We have the storage tank and I get all the water out of that.
I have the filters, so it's not a problem not having them....the problem is getting Bob under the sink to do it.
We are having disagreements about whether it needs to be done or not. I keep telling him he has never changed them and we got the unit last November......and he keeps saying that the TDS is reading 3, and when we got the unit, they read 2.....so they don't need to be changed. Then I go back and say that they could read zero if we didn't hook up the last piece, which is the carbon unit, and he disagrees.
I have stopped trying to explain things to someone who doesn't want to listen, or doesn't hear what you say.

[lossman]

The guy we bought our unit from told us we don't need to change the filters until the tds reads 8. I'll probably opt for 5.

[Stormtrker]

Originally posted by lossman
Well, I must say I am impressed with the initial results of using the Reef Chili. My orange cup corals show remarkable polyp extension when I feed them that stuff compared to feeding with mysis and DT's. The maze brain corals are doing really well and I can actually see all the mouths on them. The two hitchiker brain corals that came with our initial batch of TBS rock had started to degenerate but with the reef chili they actually show signs of regrowth. Everything really perks up when I add that to the tank. I also notice that the glass does not get all fuzzed over using this stuff compared to DT's. (I really had not noticed how much the DT's tends to fuzz up the glass until I started using the reef chili instead.) I'll give it two thumbs up.

When you feed the reef chili do you leave your powerheads going full blast? I do and it looks like a mini blizzard when add it to tank. I have a tunze going along with return flow. It makes me wonder if the food just gets blasted past the filter feeders.

One more question, this weekend I purchased a candy cane coral. I have a 6 light T5 (54W) retrofit setup from Reefgeek located about 10-12 inches above water. At what tank level will candy cane do best? It is dark brown striped edges with dark green centers. Also have a branching frogspawn currently positioned on bottom of tank. Got it at same time as candy cane.

[patsan]

Carla,
I have my candy canes sitting in the lower 3rd of the tank, and my lights (T-5's) are suspended about 13-14" from the top of the tank, and they're doing great.
I usually only run the inner 4 lights at a time.
I've thought about lowering the lights, but everything seems to be doing really good so far and everything is growing.....so for now I will leave well enough alone.
I don't turn off any powerheads when I put the reef chili in the tank...although the past few weeks I have been turning the skimmer off for about 20 minutes afterwards. I found since I am trying to get more skim, that when I put any reefchili, selcon, marine C, etc in the tank with the skimmer on, that it will make too wet a skim for my liking. So now I just shut it down for a few minutes when I add stuff.

[drk70]

Originally posted by carlab
One more question, this weekend I purchased a candy cane coral. I have a 6 light T5 (54W) retrofit setup from Reefgeek located about 10-12 inches above water. At what tank level will candy cane do best? It is dark brown striped edges with dark green centers. Also have a branching frogspawn currently positioned on bottom of tank. Got it at same time as candy cane.

My lights are about 6" off the water. 6 light T-5 retro kit. I had my candy canes toward the bottom and they didn't seem to do good. I moved them toward the top on some rocks (maybe 6" below the water) and they seem to like that much better. IMO keep it close to the lights.

My branching frogspawn was completely the opposite of the candy cane. It looks much better toward the bottom than at the top close to the lights.

[BrianPlankis]

Hey all,

I'm going to ignore the bad stuff happening in my tank and only report the happy stuff.

The two little nemos are happy in the QT and maybe I'm imaging things, but they look to be growing. The sick ricordia is still alive, a few more days I can take the mesh off to see if it attached to the rock.

I've been feeding small bits of shrimp to my new candycanes and the one with two heads has both heads splitting into 2 I have 175W MH and my candycanes are half way up my 22" deep tank and slightly off center from the maximum radiance of the lamps, if that helps at all.

One of my brain corals is recovering from the Eunicid worm attacks, so I'm happy to see that.

I FINALLY bought a TDS meter and I'll let everyone know how I like it when I get it, very excited to find out what my water readings are. The guy I bought my replacement filters from said that if you get an RO flush valve you can extend the life of your RO membrane to 2-5 years.

Brian

[lossman]

Originally posted by carlab
When you feed the reef chili do you leave your powerheads going full blast? I do and it looks like a mini blizzard when add it to tank. I have a tunze going along with return flow. It makes me wonder if the food just gets blasted past the filter feeders.

I spot feed all the corals when feeding reef chili and/or mysis so I turn off the return pump, all powerheads and the skimmer. This way the stuff goes exactly where I want it to go. I also remove my filter socks for that evening. Once everyone has been spot fed, I turn the powerheads back on to circulate the stuff to all the other filter feeders. After a half hour, I turn the return pumps back on, then after another half hour or so I turn the skimmer back on. The next day I will put the filter socks back on until the next time I spot feed the reef chili.

[drk70]

For those with sun corals. Do you target feed them everyday?

I saw some nice ones at the LFS a week ago and almost bought one but if I have to target feed everyday I don't know if I'm ready for that right now. Every other day I can probably handle but not everyday.

[krajacich]

Originally posted by drk70
For those with sun corals. Do you target feed them everyday?

I saw some nice ones at the LFS a week ago and almost bought one but if I have to target feed everyday I don't know if I'm ready for that right now. Every other day I can probably handle but not everyday.

I only target feed mine once or twice a week.

[drk70]

I don't use reef chili but something similar and I only turn off my skimmer for about an hour when I feed. Everything goes crazy when I put it in. I leave my Tunze running all the time.

[lossman]

I have orange cup corals, which are in the same family as the sun corals. The instructions I was given was spot feed every other day or so. I feed reef chili one day, then two days later feed mysis mixed with a little DT's. So far, they seem to be doing awesome. I've had them for about two weeks or so.

[patsan]

I took some pictures today and thought I'd share.








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