Rygh's 250 gallon upgrade

[ryanjiang]

I have had bad luck with Dispar and only was able to keep one out of four, but I did a very bad job acclimating at that time. The remaining one is pretty healthy and eat everything though. Thinking to try a small group of lyretail after I setup the new tank.

 

[rygh]

I have had bad luck with Dispar and only was able to keep one out of four, but I did a very bad job acclimating at that time. The remaining one is pretty healthy and eat everything though. Thinking to try a small group of lyretail after I setup the new tank.

Bummer about the bad luck.
Note: Lyretail are listed as semi-aggressive.

 

[sfboarders]

I have 3 female lyretails in my tank. 2 of them hang out and 1 does her own thing. Maybe the one that is by herself will change into a male. They don't bother any fish. Always out in the open. Sometimes they perch on a rock.

 

[rygh]

Great mini-thread.
I really wish there was more data out there on aggressiveness.
It is such a pain to get a fish that is supposed to nice, but turns out to be a terror.
Especially if the kid helped pick it, and became attached to it.

That "semi-aggressive" category most stores and books use seems like a catch-all for so many variations.
On the other hand, it differs by fish, tank mates, tank size, and group size, so perhaps an impossible
task to quantify it.

 

[yardartist]

On the other hand, it differs by fish, tank mates, tank size, and group size, so perhaps an impossible
task to quantify it.

Small tank, not many other fish, the chromis went four, three, two, one within a year. They were always skiddish and darting between hiding places. Environment must make a large difference in fish, just as we all find quick enough with coral.

 

[JAR]

I started with seven and over the course of two years the last two (the strongest or smartest or whatever) killed each other last week.

 

[rygh]

Very interesting about all the problems with Chromis.
Not sure what to say. Hope I do not have issues with them in the big tank.
I have had a couple of mine since I first set up my old tank. Maybe 7+ years old.

I do assume these were the blue-green chromis, not the blue chromis.
The blue-green are a more rounded shape and greenish.
The blue chromis are considered a bit harder to keep, "hardy" but not "beginner", at least on aquacon and some sites.

 

[anathema]

Schooling or shoaling? You decide!

Whoops guess I should have cropped the legs out of the first pic lol, didn't see them in preview mode.

 

[rygh]

Schooling or shoaling? You decide!/>

Nice pics!
I was hoping that in the bigger tank, with a larger ratio of space / fish, I might be able to tell.
But even from those pics it is hard to say, so I am probably out of luck.
So I will stick to waffling. (With raspberry syrup.)

On second thought, maybe I should adamantly say "Schooling", just to poke people.

 

[rygh]

Whoops guess I should have cropped the legs out of the first pic lol, didn't see them in preview mode.

Depends. Nice bikini clad diver attached to those legs???

 

[anathema]

Hey that's my sister yer talkin about!!

 

[rygh]

Hey that's my sister yer talkin about!!

Hmm, sounds vaguely like a "yes".
Phone number? J)

Oh wait, my wife could read this. Never mind.


PS: Where were those pics taken. Seems like I need to go investigate in person to solve this riddle.

 

[anathema]

Diving spots off Viti Levu, Fiji.

First 2 Beqa Lagoon, 2nd set north side of the island.

And my sister has a boyfriend now, I'll let your wife know if that changes. J)

 

[Mr. Ugly]

DBTC

Don't Bust The Chops

 

[rygh]

Yes, it is quite annoying seeing comments like that.
You start snickering/laughing at work, and everyone wants to know what is going on.

 

[rygh]

Automatic-Top-Off done.

I decided to go cheap and simple on that.
RODI reservoir is a basic Rubbermaid 18 gallon bin.
I have a timer, driving an aqua-lifter pump, for a few hours/day on/off.
Tubing from that goes to a float valve, and T-s off, flowing excess back to reservoir.
So it is has redundancy : If float valve gets stuck open, slow pump is on a timer, so
will really not pump more than 2X normal water in.
While it has negative redundancy, it does not have positive redundancy.
But I am ok with that, since water level getting a bit low does not do much.
I will probably add a water level alarm to the microcontroller some day, like temp.

--

Tank is cycling well.
Nitrite has climbed, and seems to be leveling off.
Ammonia is dropping fast.
(And that is with a new test kit. I tossed out old expired chemicals)
Water is crystal clear. Bacterial bloom is gone.
Fish soon!!
Corals will have to wait a while for more stability and new lights.

 

[rygh]

Change of plans: Decided to buy a Reef-Angel controller.
The "to do" list is still really long, and I am close to getting fish, so becoming an issue.
I think I keep procrastinating on the electronics because it is too much like my day job to be fun.

With the reef-angel, I still get fully open source, so can tinker.
And since it is Arduino based, I can even leverage my existing code.

I still will be controlling the lights with my own separate slave board.
But that is just the PWM and a big 30A relay, so a WHOLE lot easier.

 

[rygh]

Got my new reef angel controller sortof installed.
A bit temporary, but working.

From Aquarium_Release

The default code was probably good ... So I promptly erased that, and wrote my own.
Well sortof. Changed the GUI a bit, tweaked some things, but really mostly using the standard calls.
Pretty easy to use. Happy so far.
Sure saved me a LOT of time trying to do all that from scratch.
Still have to hook up other Arduino though.

 

[rygh]

Got the new LED lights installed. Well, one at least.
More details on that in my lighting thread.

From Aquarium_Release

 

[rygh]

Now for the really big news....

I HAVE FISH IN THE TANK !!!!

From Aquarium_Release



My little helper is very excited about finally having something in there.






From Aquarium_Release