got ethical husbandry?

Rygh's 250 gallon - Rev 3

Another fun part about cleaner shrimp is that they like to clean your hands when you are messing in the tank.
In fact, back when the kid was younger and named the fish and so on, the shrimp was called "Tickle."
 
Fuge/Sump is close to done.
I put in the new sand bed box for the future seagrass.
Also fixed the frag rack and and a few other things.
fuge1.jpg
fuge2.jpg fuge4.jpg fuge3.jpg
 
One of my fish is being a stinker.
:mad:

I added about 20 snails today, after some time in QT.
After about an hour, half of them were upside-down, some moved fairly far away.
I flipped them back over.
Another hour later, and a bunch were flipped over again.
Even some Trouchus, which usually stick pretty well.

Tonight at lights out I will flip them all again.

I suspect it is the Tuskfish, but have not caught him in the act yet.

None seem eaten though. Just flipped.
 
Stupid Harlequin Tuskfish!
:mad::eek:
Definitely flipping over my snails, I saw him do it.
But also eating them. The shells are now empty....

So the little Astrea snails don't seem to have a chance.
I will probably put the rest that are still living in the fuge.
Time to get a bunch of big Turbos I guess. He does not seem to mess with them.
And only one Trochus seems to have been flipped, so some hope there.

Bummed though. The Astrea are really good at the specific brown-hair algae I have right now.

Too nice of a fish to get rid of though.
htfsh.jpg
 
So I am getting really confused....

I expects some crud to grow from the reboot. But it is getting worse.
I get almost an inch of really dirty skimmate every day.
Plus I have been endlessly scrubbing brown hair algae off the entire tank.
And I am feeding less than before the reboot, and I sold one fish.
I really feel I get more in mass out than I feed.

I have multiple tangs, and bought 25 big turbos, and they are not making a dent.

I just don't understand where all the organics are coming from.
Water exchange and RODI is fine.

Most corals are doing fine, but a couple were smothered.

Thinking back, all was going great for several weeks after the reboot, until I added the final
set of rocks back. After I added that, skimmer almost immediately started cranking up.
Those rocks were cleaned like the rest. (Bleach + rinse + Acid + rinse + soak)
But I did leave them outside for several days, by the back deck.

My only theory at this point is that an animal crawled in the rocks and died.
I did not see anything, but there are certainly plenty of holes that could hold a mouse or lizard.

????
 
Well something died in there. Who knows for sure, but I would guess just sponges/bacterial film/etc from inside the live rock that escaped the cleaning. I’d just be happy the skimmer is pulling so well, that is decaying matter you won’t have to deal with as nutrients.
 
JVU said:
Well something died in there. Who knows for sure, but I would guess just sponges/bacterial film/etc from inside the live rock that escaped the cleaning. I’d just be happy the skimmer is pulling so well, that is decaying matter you won’t have to deal with as nutrients.
Click to expand...
Or it could be that all those sponges and stuff that was living in the rocks and eating the extra nutrients are now dead. I don’t know how you’d be getting more mass out than in though.
 
JVU said:
Well something died in there. Who knows for sure, but I would guess just sponges/bacterial film/etc from inside the live rock that escaped the cleaning. I’d just be happy the skimmer is pulling so well, that is decaying matter you won’t have to deal with as nutrients.
Click to expand...
Yes, at least ammonia/nitrates are not going crazy.

Perhaps a pile of Majanos escaped cleaning. Could be their last curse.
 
Decided to bring out the big guns.
Got the old waterfall algae turf scrubber out.
Put in a new full size mesh. Roughly 1.5 square feet. (That is big) And cranked up LEDs.
Takes a couple of weeks for it to start cranking, but should fix it long term.
I will probably need to make sure it does not starve everything....
ats.jpg
 
Flagg37 said:
Or it could be that all those sponges and stuff that was living in the rocks and eating the extra nutrients are now dead. I don’t know how you’d be getting more mass out than in though.
Click to expand...
Could be. A thousand majanos certainly must have been a noticeable part of the filtration.

Or even more likely - a combination of both.
Lots more dead stuff in the rocks than I thought + a lot less bio-filtration.
 
rygh said:
Stupid Harlequin Tuskfish!
:mad::eek:
Definitely flipping over my snails, I saw him do it.
But also eating them. The shells are now empty....

So the little Astrea snails don't seem to have a chance.
I will probably put the rest that are still living in the fuge.
Time to get a bunch of big Turbos I guess. He does not seem to mess with them.
And only one Trochus seems to have been flipped, so some hope there.

Bummed though. The Astrea are really good at the specific brown-hair algae I have right now.

Too nice of a fish to get rid of though.
View attachment 10336
Click to expand...


One of my fav fish! My snails have learned to hide during day and come out in force at night. Haha.


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Yet another flood in the garage.....

I added a couple stages to my RODI. Separate anion/cation, to reduce DI resin.
As part of that, I reconfigured the canister setup, and had to add some right angle connections.

Well.... when I first tested it, no problem.
But the RO output is low pressure until the float valve kicks in to stop the water.
Once that happened, big leak.
But that was a while before I checked....

ARGH!!!

Cheap amazon connectors. They did seem to go in a bit weirdly.
I bought those because of time (amazon prime) not cost.
Oh well.
Ordered some better ones from BRS.
 
Man, that sucks. BRS sells the Merlock ones, which I’ve never had a problem with, but Lowe’s sells the John Guest ones which I think are pretty close to the quality of the Merlock ones. They usually have whatever fittings I need in stock, but there have been times where they are out of the only one I need too.
 
An interesting failure this week.

I have an auto-saltwater-exchange system.
The tubing for the salt water in clogged up with salt deposits.
So the exchange was pulling salt water out, but not replacing it.

In addition, my Apex salinity monitor has been very flaky, so I turned the alarm off long ago.
I only noticed by checking by hand.
I think I need something better there...

Salinity was down to about .30, so not too bad. Slowly increasing it back up.
 
rygh said:
An interesting failure this week.

I have an auto-saltwater-exchange system.
The tubing for the salt water in clogged up with salt deposits.
So the exchange was pulling salt water out, but not replacing it.

In addition, my Apex salinity monitor has been very flaky, so I turned the alarm off long ago.
I only noticed by checking by hand.
I think I need something better there...

Salinity was down to about .30, so not too bad. Slowly increasing it back up.
Click to expand...
All the automation...do you think it's worth it?

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