280 gallon tank project has begun!!!!!! - Page 27

Travis · #**651** 08/28/2006, 04:12 PM

I am not expecting any baby snails just because I've never heard of astreas successfully reproducing in captivity, and all my snails are astreas. But I also have not really heard of them mass spawning in captivity like this either, although I'm sure this isn't the first time it has happened. If the fertilized eggs are able to grow into babies in captivity, then there is a decent chance it will happen. Not only because of the sheer amount of sperm and eggs that were released, but I also am keeping the filter socks offline and the skimmer turned off for a few days. This should allow a lot of fertilized eggs to settle out and possibly grow into babies. That is, if they don't go through a larval stage. If there is a larval stage, then I can't expect anything to make it past the skimmer and pumps. We will have to wait and see what happens. I don't expect to find babies but it sure would be cool.

Lunchbucket · #**652** 08/28/2006, 08:27 PM

very cool! i've had 75% or more of my snails do that in my 20h before...very cool to watch. wierd how we get excited about snail porn

does posting those pics violate the RC user agreement??? they are porn after all

amazing how cloudy yoru tank got! especially for the size! how many snails you have in there?

if i were you i'd turn the skimmer on. just my oppinion but i would think that the benefits of the sperm and eggs are gone and now they are either fertilized or dying and poluting the water. just a thought.

let us know how the corals look in the next couple days after a big feeding like that. wish mine would have done that last night too. i'm only 60miles north. who else's spawned

Lunchbucket

Travis · #**653** 08/28/2006, 11:44 PM

I don't know how many snails are in there for sure. I started with a little over 300 astreas a couple years ago. I'm guessing there is around 150 in there now.

I was going to leave the skimmer off for a few days but when I got home tonight it had turned on and had already been running for a few hours. I forgot that I had put it on a timer that would turn it on if I ever turn it off and forget about it when cleaning it or doing anything else. So the skimmer will stay on. And since the skimmer is on I put the filter socks back on also.

The corals have had a very noticable growth spurt. There has been growth tip growth overnight that usually takes several days. The food definitely made a difference.

Urban Sage is the other one that had the same thing occur last night.

LittleBlueGT · #**654** 08/29/2006, 10:22 AM

I have had astreas reproduce in my tank. I have maybe 20 small ones now, but no mass spawning.

Travis · #**655** 08/29/2006, 01:47 PM

Glad to hear that LBGT. Maybe I will have some babies.

Lunchbucket · #**656** 08/29/2006, 08:25 PM

wow that noticable of growth!!?? cool. wish we could feed our tanks like this w/out polluting them on a regular basis.

you test you po4 since the spawn? no3? jus twondering if you noticed anything

Lunchbucket

Travis · #**657** 08/29/2006, 10:13 PM

Tested PO4 and NO3 and no change. Most likely because the food source was live so it didn't immediately start breaking down and deteriorating the water quality.

Lunchbucket · #**658** 08/31/2006, 08:42 PM

glad to hear it is all good

Lunchbucket

beerguy · #**659** 11/25/2006, 03:18 PM

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beerguy · #**660** 11/25/2006, 05:26 PM

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asnatlas · #**661** 11/26/2006, 03:08 PM

Any updates ?? Other then it looks like the thread is fixed now

Airman · #**662** 11/26/2006, 03:29 PM

Cool to hear about your snails. Thank for the pictures. I enjoy looking at my tank at night because I see cool stuff like that. When my peppermint shrimp release their babies that is the coolest because they will float toward a light source.

Travis · #**663** 11/27/2006, 10:14 AM

Everything has been doing pretty good and haven't had any problems for a long time now (knock on wood). Growth is decent. I always have to wonder how much better it would probably be with 400 watters but the tradeoff for lower electrical consumption and less heat is worth it to my pocket book. Have had an unusual amount of bryopsis growth lately and not sure why. Most likely because it has been hunting season for the past few months and I have not been home on a weekend since the beginning of August so tank maintenance has been somewhat neglected. I did fire up the GFO reactor again with the same 1200g of Phosban as I was using before. That was about a month ago and no tissue recession so far (unlike last time).

This could be due to using used media that is probably not stripping the water quite as much.

I don't think I ever did mention this but I added a frag tank back in June. It is my extra 75 gallon tank and I plumbed it into the main system. Threw on a couple 400 watt 20k's, added a penductor to the return, and dropped in a Seio 1500. I battled bryopsis and dino's in there like you wouldn't believe for the first few months. Man that was a pain in the arse. I added a yellow and a kole tang to the tank and it took a while for them to make progress but the eventually eliminated the bryopsis and the dino growth has almost ceased. When the dino's were at their worst, I was having to take all of the frags (around 150+) out and brush the bases with a toothbrush every other week as the frags were becoming completely smothered in dino growth. Still have yet to figure out why I had major dino growth in there and not in the display. The frags in the tank are doing great and growing like weeds. Much faster than the growth in the display and I can only attribute this to the 400w bulbs. A couple months ago I had to remove 20-30 frags and give them to my buddy to hold as all of the frags ran out of room and started growing into each other. It won't be long until I have to remove a bunch of them again.

I added a 6 inch DSB to the frag tank a couple weeks ago. Not sure why.

Basically just to experiment and see what kind of effect it has on the system. I often times get the feeling that a BB system with little live rock could use some extra surface area for biological activity.

The snails went through another mass spawning event a few weeks ago. No idea why, I was downstairs watching tv and noticed that the tank looked really milky and upon further investigation I noticed that almost all of the snails had crawled up to the water surface and were spawning.

I think that is pretty much it for now. At least that is all I can think of anyways.

asnatlas · #**664** 11/27/2006, 04:53 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Travis
I added a 6 inch DSB to the frag tank a couple weeks ago. Not sure why. Basically just to experiment and see what kind of effect it has on the system. I often times get the feeling that a BB system with little live rock could use some extra surface area for biological activity.

WHOA, did not see that one coming

I have been debating on adding a small layer of sand... LOL my tank is not even up and fully running yet, but I miss the sand kinda LOL... I figured I would run BB for a little and see what happens... I don't know if I could even run a SSB since two of them are pretty low in the tank...

Travis · #**665** 11/28/2006, 12:46 PM

My friend is bringing someone over to look at my tank this week so I was cleaning up bryopsis last night. I have a large poccillopora that used to reproduce via polyp bail-out a lot so there are a lot of little pocci colonies scattered throughout the tank. I always thought it was kind of cool but now that some of them have gotten bigger (larger than my fist) they have become a real nuisance. Since the tank is primarily acroporas, I figured they would keep the poccis pushed back but that has not been the case. Every pocci colony ends up taking over the acropora. I don't think they sting very well but they also do not seem to be bothered by the sting from the acros. I think their primary aggressive mechanism is extending their polyps for long periods of time. This causes their polyps to rub against the adjacent coral and over time this stresses and kills the adjacent coral's tissue in that area. The pocci then starts to overgrow the other coral due to its weed-like growth rate. I had a few acro colonies that were getting choked out lately so I decided to remove any traces of pocci that I could get to in the tank. I was able to get all the branches but most of their bases were not removable.

Travis · #**666** 11/28/2006, 12:48 PM

As for the sandbed thingy, if I were to do the tank over or if I ever move or upgrade, I will be going to a shallow bed with a remote DSB if possible. I really miss the diversity of fauna that a sandbed provieds. I also think the nitrogen processing capabilities of sandbeds are highly underestimated. Not to mention the aesthetic benefits.

ShadowViper · #**667** 01/15/2007, 03:59 AM

updates?

hoover86 · #**668** 08/22/2007, 12:33 AM

Wow, I just realized we haven't seen any updates on this in a LONG time. Any news with the new lights you purchased earlier this year????

Travis · #**669** 08/22/2007, 09:18 AM

I am happy with the lights. However, for the money, I think the Lumenarc's are better. I have a couple friends running LAIII reflectors on their tanks and they are way brighter than my LumenMax's. I think the LumenMax's help concentrate the light in a smaller area and the Lumenarc's spread it out more. I think these are the top 2 reflectors but I think the Lumenarc's are better, depending on the situation.

The tank is doing well. I have turned the 75 gallon into a refugium. It has a 5" DSB and is lit by 2 x 250w XM 10K's. The cheato grows extremely fast under this lighting. Every 2 weeks I have to harvest it because it starts growing out of the water and dies where it dries out. I literally take 3/4th's of it out and 2 weeks later it needs to be harvested again. Each harvest typically fills a 5 gallon bucket packed full. Since I started growing the chaeto, the skimmer has ceased producing any skimmate. The only time it produces skimmate is after I harvest chaeto. My guess is that when I harvest the chaeto, I leave behind the stuff that was at the bottom and recieving weak to no light. It take this stuff a couple days to adjust to the bright light before it starts growing. During these couple days the skimmer does skim a little bit. I am considering getting rid of the skimmer altogether, or selling it and buying a much smaller skimmer.

For those that have not seen, here is a picture of my tank from last month:

Chrisrush · #**670** 08/22/2007, 10:19 AM

Looks fantastic Travis.

Interesting observations b/w the fuge and skimmer.

hoover86 · #**671** 08/24/2007, 11:14 AM

That's pretty crazy with the skimmer. It's nice to see such mature corals too!!

tangdiver · #**672** 08/24/2007, 11:29 AM

You are a model reefer....keep it up

Grant

Lunchbucket · #**673** 09/26/2007, 10:01 PM

Sweet pic. Don't know how I missed it one month ago?!

So you BK doesn't produce any skimmate?? Nice idea w/ the fuge

Lunchbucket

Travis · #**674** 10/01/2007, 09:10 AM

Thanks Lunch.

I'm very pleased with how the tank has matured. It is also nice that it has become its own ecosystem and pretty much maintains itself anymore. All I do is go through on a monthly basis and pull a couple stubborn patches of hair algae. The calcium reactor is dialed in so I just check the alk monthly to make sure things are staying in line. The tank is going through about 10 pounds of reactor media every 3 months!!!!!! Keep this on the down low, but I haven't even done a water change since early June. I am finding that once a tank reaches this stages it is best to let things be. I do plan to still do water changes, just not at nearly the same frequency as before. Even without a water change in 4 months, my PO4 is .03 and my NO3 is undetectable. I think when a tank gets mature, the corals become a major absorber of nutrients.

As for the BK, it does produce, just very minimally. Before the refugium I would get around 4 gallons of skimmate per 1-2 weeks. With the refugium, I get about 1 gallon of skimmate every 3-4 weeks. The BK gets the first pass at water from the display. If the refugium had the first pass, I think the BK would be pulling even less, if at all.