250 Gallon room-divider project log

JohnL · #1 02/08/2007, 11:51 PM

This thread was automatically split due to performance issues. You can find the rest of the thread here: http://archive.reefcentral.com/forum...09#post9195709

jeffbrig · #2 02/08/2007, 11:51 PM

The run of bad luck continues. This evening, the Kole tang was laying on her side and breathing hard. She didn't even respond when I netted and placed her in a bucket of water. We'll wait and see what happens overnight.....

The tomini, skunk clowns, and chromies all look great.

jeffbrig · #3 02/09/2007, 12:11 AM

Hey....look at that, another thread split!

ufchristyb · #4 02/09/2007, 04:20 PM

Shouldn't you be working?

rdmpe · #5 02/10/2007, 10:37 AM

Sorry to hear about your troubles with the QT group. I have a pair of mandarins in my tank. I had never heard of them jumping before either, and I have an open top. I realized on day that I hadn't seen my female mandarin in a long time (week or more) and over the course of several days of looking never saw here. A couple of weeks after that I spotted her in my sump! I have a screen on my overflow that goes up out of the water about an inch and then bends to horizontal away from the overflow for another inch. She managed to get over that, then must have gotten down my "emergency drain" which is an open standpipe that usually has no flow through it (water right near it's edge though). Anyway, she must have run the gauntlet to get down into my sump. She's the first fish I've ever had actually do that.

jeffbrig · #6 02/13/2007, 01:34 AM

Wow, it was a busy, busy weekend for us. FMAS held their big frag swap Sunday. I spent several evenings this week making frags, and we took about 40 items to the swap - acros, montis, a few zoas, etc. We were totally cleaned out of corals in the first hour. Then, we topped it off by winning a 2 night stay at a nearby 5* resort in the raffle. It was a great day all around.

Also picked up a few nice things for the tank.

Here's a few during acclimation

And later in the tank
Acro #1

Acro #2 (tort)

Acro #3

And a closeup of #3

On #1 and #3 the polyps were out within minutes of going in our tank. We also brought home 6 zoanthid frags, a strawberry digitata, and a green encrusting montipora with bright purple polyps (need a pic of that one!).

We had a few friends over from the Tampa-area reef clubs, so we took them around to a couple of nice LFSs and then brought them home to see our tank. Made a few more frags for them, and everybody went home happy.

While on the LFS circuit Sunday, we picked up a new target mandarin. Almost identical to the jumper, but this one is a male. Since the other fish are already in hypo, we decided to keep this one separate. Even though it's eating, we want to get the fish into the display ASAP. So......we've decided to try the tank transfer method. He's currently in an AGA 5g tank, and we'll rotate him between tanks every other day (or daily if water quality dictates). By draining and fully drying the empty tank each day, ich or anything else that has fallen off the fish should die out. In about a week, if no symptoms present, he can go straight into the display.

Hop · #7 02/13/2007, 02:47 AM

Looks like a nice score on frags!!!

gkarshens · #8 02/13/2007, 09:39 AM

That sounds like a much better method for the mandarin. I have always respected your attention to QT but could not understand why you kept trying with mandarins. I wish you great success with this one.

jeffbrig · #9 02/14/2007, 09:18 AM

Day 3 on the mandarin. We're moving him between a pair of 5.5 gal tanks, and giving him brine and pods from the refugium. He's doing ok so far.

On the tank equipment side, I have some good news. I received a great offer from euro-reef to switch to the newly released Eheim pumps on my RC500. I'll call them today to finalize the order. I'm really looking forward to this change, the Eheims are supposed to be virtually silent, and have a better performing impeller than my current pumps.

I ordered some new bulbs last night. A pair of VHO super actinics and ballast from hello lights - has to be the best deal going for $100. Also ordered 4 new T5s from reefgeek. I'm planning to re-do my lighting with a rope & pulley system for easier raising and lowering. At some point, I'll need to go ahead and replace my halides as well.

original-reefland · #10 02/14/2007, 08:53 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by jeffbrig
I received a great offer from euro-reef to switch to the newly released Eheim pumps on my RC500. I'll call them today to finalize the order. I'm really looking forward to this change, the Eheims are supposed to be virtually silent, and have a better performing impeller than my current pumps.

Keep in mind the current RC-500 models use three Eheims pumps, not two. Must be a reason they felt an additional pump was needed after switching to Eheims. Should still be plenty for your tank, but still something to consider.

bheron · #11 02/14/2007, 09:09 PM

Quote:

I received a great offer from euro-reef to switch to the newly released Eheim pumps on my RC500. I'll call them today to finalize the order.

- Did they contact you and offer you this out of the blue, or are you saying you called them to see what they could do?

nyvp · #12 02/14/2007, 09:54 PM

congrats on the skimmer and split

jeffbrig · #13 02/14/2007, 09:59 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by original-reefland
Keep in mind the current RC-500 models use three Eheims pumps, not two. Must be a reason they felt an additional pump was needed after switching to Eheims. Should still be plenty for your tank, but still something to consider.

I did notice that, and if I ever think I need more skimming I can always add a third down the road. For my current tank, I think I'll probably be fine with two.

jeffbrig · #14 02/14/2007, 10:15 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by bheron
Did they contact you and offer you this out of the blue, or are you saying you called them to see what they could do?

Actually, Jeff M. contacted me via email. Apparently, he read one of my posts in a thread about skimmer selection, and thought I sounded unhappy with mine. In that post, I mentioned that I had participated in the SP4 beta, and my pumps were replaced for various issues. I suggested picking a brand with Eheim needlewheels.

In the email, he basically said customer satisfaction was important to them, told me that they had recently converted to Eheims on the RC models, and offered me a discounted price on a pair of them.

Now I'm a VERY satisfied customer.

jeffbrig · #15 02/15/2007, 11:19 AM

I'm feeling good today....

You know how I've had this repeated problem with something eating zoanthids, GSPs, palys, nepthea, even taking bites out of the yellow figi? Well, I think I finally caught the little bugger. I looked in the tank right after the lights turned on this morning, and saw the head of what I think is a eunice worm retracting into the rocks. (Think of the giant subway worm from Men In Black, but smaller). It was dark, with a handful of tentacles standing out from the head.

Similar to this:
http://www.erdingtonaquatics.com/marine/eunice1.jpg

Fortuantely, he was in my tiny 3 rock structure on the left side of the tank. I grabbed a rubbermaid bin, put some tank water in it, and pulled those 3 rocks from the tank. Now it's just a matter of figuring out how to flush the worm.

What's my best option? Set the rock out of water and see if he comes out? Squirt in some super high salinity water? RO? Club soda? Hot water? I'm open to suggestions.

jeffbrig · #16 02/15/2007, 11:22 AM

Yep, ID positive, eunicid worm. Found this searching the web:

Quote:

A microscopic image of a large (approximately 4-in long) Eunice norvegica worm found living within "mucus tubes" woven through Lophelia coral.

The mucus tube is EXACTLY what I've observed between rocks, and corals that this guy feeds on.

link

The Reefer91 · #17 02/15/2007, 12:41 PM

that is a nasty picture!

i was a little confused by your talk of lighting replacement. are you saying you are adding a set of VHO's and a set of T5's to the lights you already have? or am i missing something?

jeffbrig · #18 02/15/2007, 01:12 PM

Replacing the existing T5s due to age, plus squeezing in a new set of VHO actinics for added pop.

The Reefer91 · #19 02/15/2007, 01:17 PM

oh. ok. i was a little confused. hey Jeff, just for the hell of it, could you post a full tank shot? and maybe a shot of your equipment? i'm a little too lazy to go through a thread that's split twice!

bureau13 · #20 02/15/2007, 01:19 PM

Nice! Did you pry him from the rocks yet?

jds

Quote:

Originally posted by jeffbrig
Yep, ID positive, eunicid worm. Found this searching the web:

The mucus tube is EXACTLY what I've observed between rocks, and corals that this guy feeds on.

link

jeffbrig · #21 02/15/2007, 02:06 PM

Not yet....saving that fun for this evening. Wanna help? j/k

bheron · #22 02/15/2007, 02:07 PM

Quote:

Actually, Jeff M. contacted me via email. Apparently, he read one of my posts in a thread about skimmer selection, and thought I sounded unhappy with mine. In that post, I mentioned that I had participated in the SP4 beta, and my pumps were replaced for various issues. I suggested picking a brand with Eheim needlewheels.

In the email, he basically said customer satisfaction was important to them, told me that they had recently converted to Eheims on the RC models, and offered me a discounted price on a pair of them.

Now I'm a VERY satisfied customer.

- Wow! That is phenominal customer service and great to hear. Another reason I go Euroreef!

As far as that nasty worm, man, thats disgusting. My approach would be to let it sit out for a short period of time in a container of shallow SW to see if it forces him out. That or a blow torch.

gkarshens · #23 02/15/2007, 03:01 PM

How about fresh water?

Stile2 · #24 02/15/2007, 03:47 PM

If that worm is anything like the gorilla crab I had. Stand by for some work. I tried fresh water, highly salty salt water, Soda water, vinegar, just about everything I could think of.

I eventually had to break the rock in half, find where he was hiding and pry him out with a screwdriver.

Most pests like that feel safer in their rock no matter what is going on.

Good Luck,
Keith

jeffbrig · #25 02/15/2007, 04:41 PM

Another thing I might do is leave the rock out of water for a little while. When I brought the LR home in newspaper originally, I found all sorts of things that had crawled out of the them - crabs, mantis, pistol shrimp, brittle stars, worms, you name it.