Build and Progress of my RSM Nano Tank - Page 17

Racktacular · #**401** 10/05/2007, 12:01 AM

Laurent have you considered taking the skimmer out and not using it at all? I've read (you probably have as well) that a skimmer on a nano tank is not necessary if you do weekly water changes. What is your reasoning for continuing to use the skimmer if you do weekly water changes? Just curious because I am considering not using a skimmer when I set up my nano in the spring.

- Rack

LaurentSeattle · #**402** 10/05/2007, 12:18 AM

Racktacular:

Well... Even if I have quite a lot of experience in fresh water, I am considering myself a total n00b about reefkeeping.

The skimmer is somewhat a safety net for me: It takes bad stuff out of the water and brings a lot of oxygen to the filtration steps downstream... I know that I will make mistakes with feeding, cleaning, etc and I believe skimming will ceratinly help mitigate my mistakes.

The same also applies to mechanical filtration: I know that experienced reefers do skip this step. However... I take out a lot of cr*p from the mechanical filters every day: Smart guys say "Nutrient export" but that's the same thing

As long I feel that I do not have full understanding and full control about what is happening in the tank I will continue to use skimming and religiously clean my mechanical filters. I want to play safe.

Personally, I think that removing the skimmer and removing mechanical filtration is something reserved for very experienced aquarists who indeed know what they are doing and where they are heading.

Mere mortals like me, we do skim and rinse the filter pads.

PS: Thanks for the 400th post on this thread!

Reefmack · #**403** 10/05/2007, 07:21 AM

Hi Laurent. I'd be interested to know if you have a lot of buildup at the top of your main skimmer chamber when you pull it out for cleaning. That buildup of crud, if you have it, can act as a defoamer to kill the foam before it can get up into the cup. Hopefully a good cleaning in hot water will get your efficiency back. You may as well check the skimmer pump impeller when you pull the skimmer out - to be sure it's not fouled up with algae. The whole thing is a messy job that i don't miss at all. I'd suggest having a 5 gallon bucket handy to put the unit in to carry it to a sink. And have some towels on the hood to catch the drips from the unit and the pump. And be careful that the water that will drain from the pump doesn't go down into the power center.

LaurentSeattle · #**404** 10/05/2007, 08:10 PM

Month 4 - Week 15 - Day 100 - Friday October 5th - Around 6pm

- This is Day 100!!! 400+ posts and 16000+ views on this thread! Hey, I am famous...

Thanks to all who have visited and posted on this thread.

- Good news: Baby mushrooms are thriving! It seems like its parent is deliberately giving him some space or maybe pushing him away...

There are also two others, usually hidden below their parent.

- Made a two gallons water change, cleant the white pad and installed my new Koralia #1 (in replacement of my K#2 that I stupidly lost...)

- Xenias are pumping like crazy and seem to have already expanded. I need to take pictures and compare... Check back later, I will post them here.

- No time to test water and most importantly clean the skimmer tonight... But Reefmack: I will not forget to provide a detailed report. Skimming is still near to nothing so I will need to do that on Sunday afternoon.

- Busy weekend ahead ( it is NOT raining!)... Next update on Sunday night, late.

Racktacular · #**405** 10/06/2007, 12:21 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by LaurentSeattle
Racktacular:

Well... Even if I have quite a lot of experience in fresh water, I am considering myself a total n00b about reefkeeping.

The skimmer is somewhat a safety net for me: It takes bad stuff out of the water and brings a lot of oxygen to the filtration steps downstream... I know that I will make mistakes with feeding, cleaning, etc and I believe skimming will ceratinly help mitigate my mistakes.

The same also applies to mechanical filtration: I know that experienced reefers do skip this step. However... I take out a lot of cr*p from the mechanical filters every day: Smart guys say "Nutrient export" but that's the same thing

As long I feel that I do not have full understanding and full control about what is happening in the tank I will continue to use skimming and religiously clean my mechanical filters. I want to play safe.

Thanks foe the reply. I, myself, am also a mere mortal and was just trying to gey your thought on the matter. When i start my nano up in the springtime, i was considering dropping the skimmer but what you say makes a lot of sense. I think i will use it to help me get the tank up and running for a few months then possibly ditch it after i'm mote comfortable with the tank. Thanks.
Personally, I think that removing the skimmer and removing mechanical filtration is something reserved for very experienced aquarists who indeed know what they are doing and where they are heading.

Mere mortals like me, we do skim and rinse the filter pads.

PS: Thanks for the 400th post on this thread!

LaurentSeattle · #**406** 10/06/2007, 12:36 AM

Reposting on behalf of Racktacular: (his answer was somewhat lost in the quote)

Thanks for the reply. I, myself, am also a mere mortal and was just trying to get your thought on the matter. When i start my nano up in the springtime, i was considering dropping the skimmer but what you say makes a lot of sense. I think i will use it to help me get the tank up and running for a few months then possibly ditch it after i'm more comfortable with the tank. Thanks.

Racktacular · #**407** 10/06/2007, 04:50 PM

lol. Thanks. My bad.

10" Red Devil · #**408** 10/06/2007, 05:07 PM

Screw the aquarium! Check out your phat pad! Jeeze you got tha life doncha!

LaurentSeattle · #**409** 10/07/2007, 08:42 PM

Month 4 - Week 15 - Day 102 - Sunday October 7th - Around 7pm

- Tested the water:

NO3, PO4: Both zero. (skipped NO2)
pH: 8.5
CA: 430ppm
Alk: 9.3

The Ca/Alk readings contradicts previous tests I made... I will need to test again tomorrow. But tonight values seem to be more consistent and inline with the Ca/Buffer recent additions.

- Too lazy and too tired to clean the skimmer tonight... But I took time to clean the white pad. (No slacking on cleaning the white pad or else the dreaded bubble storm is coming)

- A cool picture of zoanthids, xenias, the fromia sea star and Lucy Lu the yellow wrasse.

- Quite happy tonight with the tank. Still far from perfect, with still a lot of pest algae remaining here and there but things are slowly evolving in the right direction.

LaurentSeattle · #**410** 10/10/2007, 11:33 PM

Month 4 - Week 15 - Day 105 - Wednesday October 10th - Around 10pm

- Tested the water:

NO3, PO4: Both zero. (skipped NO2)
pH: 8.4
CA: 450ppm
Alk: 8.6

Once again, the Ca/Alk readings contradicts previous tests I made... Now, I wonder what I should do... Ca is up... Alk is down... Please advise!

- Too much of a busy day and too tired to clean the skimmer tonight...

- Moved the pink palythoas down to the sand bed level. They look better there.

- Made a 3 gallons water change, removed some red hairy algae by hand, cleant the mechanical filters.

- One of the zoa colony that was infested with algae long time ago is slowly dying. Removing the pest algae by hand once a week was useless, algae keep coming back. I am going to place the frag in a very dark spot.

Reefmack · #**411** 10/11/2007, 07:13 AM

The algae/zoa problem sounds like the same situation I have with the rock that my yellow polyps are on. I carefully remove it with a toothbrush, and it doesn't seem to hurt the polyps, and they always multiply again after doing this, but within a week or two the algae keeps coming back on that one small rock. It's a real PITA. No idea on the Ca/Alk issue - I've gotten to the point that I don't trust test results very much. I think you could sit there & run 3 tests in a row and get 3 different results, especially with the Ca & Alk tests.

LaurentSeattle · #**412** 10/11/2007, 02:46 PM

I am using the Salifert test kit to check ALK. It supposed to be the best out there. (and the Red Sea one for Ca). I have carefully read the instructions... I do not understand why I am getting so inconsistent test results.

LaurentSeattle · #**413** 10/11/2007, 10:56 PM

Month 4 - Week 16 - Day 106 - Thursday October 11th - Around 9pm

Tonight, I did nothing but cleaning the skimmer. A bit overdue, I know, especially after the massive algae bloom I had in the tank.

As predicted by Reefmack a little while ago, this is a VERY stinky job. The top 10 centimeters of the skimmer were covered with plenty of green slimy crap, stuff that should have ended up much higher: in the collection cup. The lower parts were covered with a slimy and translucent film, again very stinky.

One hour already I am done with the cleaning and my hands still stink.

The good thing and very nice surprise is that tonight I am getting almost no bubbles at all. I was expecting yet another bubblestorm but no... A peaceful tank is what I have. I also enjoy significantly less noise: a clean pump is a happy and quiet pump, I guess.

Now, here is the real deal:

I have looked carefully at the skimmer - with the eye of the "experienced" RSM owner a bit ****ed with microbubbles and below par skimming performance. I think removing half of a centimeter of plastic at the very bottom should improve performance:

- Less height to climb for the foam.
- Smaller output should somewhat reduce the flow and therefore should also bring less bubbles in the tank.

Does anyone have tried such a mod???

LaurentSeattle · #**414** 10/11/2007, 11:05 PM

One last thing...

I have ordered online a tripod and a remote switch for my camera, hopefully you should see here nicer pictures...

Reefmack · #**415** 10/12/2007, 06:21 AM

Laurent - did you mean making the skimmer shorter by cutting off the bottom and raising up the bottom? That might be a difficult thing to do accurately. I'm sure I'd mess it up!

Good news on the tripod. I've just gotten my Rebel XTi, and while I have a tripod, I've already yesterday considered getting the remote switch. I'm also thinking about the right angle eyepiece adapter - when I set the tripod low it would avoid have to bend down to aim the camera. I didn't have much time yesterday, but took a couple quick shots in various modes and posted the best in my blog. I was impressed with the Rebel's ease of use in changing settings and the improved quality of the pictures. Now I need to further train the photographer!

I hope you got my PM with the information on the Rebel manuals, etc.?

LaurentSeattle · #**416** 10/12/2007, 03:12 PM

Reefmack: Thanks for the links to the docs. I got there before but could not have the popup windows working in Safari or Firefox on the Mac. I finally got there with IE7, at work.

Yes, I mean to remove half of a centimeter of plastic at the very bottom of the skimmer. It would become just a bit less tall. I think that could work if I can find a way to make a clean cut in the plastic.

GDESQUIRE · #**417** 10/12/2007, 06:57 PM

Dremel tool should do the trick. Let me know how it works because I was thinking the same. A few days ago I cleaned the substrate. I didn't have enough makeup water by one quart so I decided to use the dirty water after it settled. The skimmer began to operate as intended producing large amounts of froth which actually made it into the container. I'm starting to think that running the skimmer 24/7 is why we get so little skimate. I'm now operating it every other day and it works much better. Besides, I get a much quieter tank on alternate days. I really believe we are overskimming by keeping it on 24/7.

LaurentSeattle · #**418** 10/12/2007, 11:23 PM

Month 4 - Week 16 - Day 107 - Friday October 12th - Around 9pm

- I have put my skimmer "mod" on hold until MBDave explains us what he has done to get very good, actually amazing by RSM standards, skimming performance. See here: http://archive.reefcentral.com/forum...&pagenumber=35

- Did nothing on the tank, except topping off and white pad cleaning...

Reefmack · #**419** 10/13/2007, 08:08 AM

Good idea on holding off till you see mbdave's mod. Water change day here today, then water treatment & SW makeup for next week. Time consuming. I just ordered a 3rd party remote cable release for the Rebel on Ebay - $10 including shipping. I considered the cableless IR remote but from what I understand that doesn't trip the shutter unless the remote is used in front of the camera?

LaurentSeattle · #**420** 10/13/2007, 11:19 AM

Reefmack: Yes, the IR remote works only in front of the camera. Not practical for shooting the nTotM pictures.

LaurentSeattle · #**421** 10/13/2007, 02:59 PM

Month 4 - Week 16 - Day 108 - Saturday October 13th - Around 1pm

- Performed a 2.5 gallon water change and regular cleaning.

- Earlier last week, my feather duster started to expell quite a bunch of white slimy and sticky filamentous stuff that got quickly swallowed by the filtration system. The same thing happened yesterday and again this morning, on a much smaller scale though. What's going on? Is my FD just pooping? Or is he going sexual? Is it a bad sign? Thanks for your comments on this.

- Leaving the tank alone for the weekend... Next update on Monday night.

LaurentSeattle · #**422** 10/15/2007, 10:30 PM

Month 4 - Week 16 - Day 110 - Monday October 15th - Around 9pm

- Back from the weekend and found everything running peacefully. The tank is now finally able to live all by itself for two days and that's a good thing...

- Did nothing tonight but the usual topoff and cleaning the glass and the white pad.

- Some observations:

= Xenia is growing fast; polyps are getting bigger. I will post a picture tomorrow.
= Pest Algae is very slowly receding. The bloom took just a few days and recovering takes weeks!
= The feather duster is doing well. I will assume he (or she) went sexual with the white slimy stuff...
= Pink coralline algae is growing well, on the back wall and on the rocks Significant growth seems to coincide with Calcium supplementation.
= The Rainford's goby is dropping sand almost everywhere... This seems to annoy palys and zoas...
= All inhabitants seem to do well.

FibberMcGee · #**423** 10/16/2007, 06:52 PM

Laurent , just found your thread. You have done a great job from top to bottom. I really enjoyed reading it. I am considering purchasing a RSM. Keep up the great work and nice job on the photos also.

LaurentSeattle · #**424** 10/16/2007, 08:12 PM

Thanks FibberMcGee... And I feel quite flattered to be complimented on the pictures by a pro photographer

LaurentSeattle · #**425** 10/17/2007, 08:43 PM

Month 4 - Week 16 - Day 112 - Wednesday October 17th - Around 6pm

- I did a 4 gallons water change tonight along with a quite thorough removal of pest algae. The war is not totally won on this front and there are still a number of "pockets of resistance". I was please to see that the red hairy algae was finally significantly receding. It seems to coincide with the elevation of Calcium and Alkalinity. I have researched these forums and others and many aquarists apparently confirm that low levels of Ca/Alk favor pest algae growth. Please comment on this!

- I plan a few new additions this weekend: Green Star Polyps or maybe Euphylia, depending on availability at the LFS's in my area.

- My tripod had arrived... and I will start using it tomorrow night.