Dave's Blog – Blog of the Lost

So a fair bit of new stuff since my last post…

Just to follow off the last post, the surface skimmer was tossed quickly, it was too intrusive.

I’ve bought some new coral – a leather with a ricordea on it, a hammer that isn’t fairing so well, what is possibly a scolly, and a couple of new zoanthids. The morph I bought in the last post as already split.

I’ve also put fish in the tank – a bi colour blenny called Benny, and a blue green chormis called “Sook” for it’s sookiness when it was first put in the tank.

I’ve decided to go with a DIY LED lighting kit, as a I can get with better LEDs, and dimmable, which seems to be something I’d actually like it to do. The kit has a controller option with has a sunset control as well, which is cool.

At the weekend, a lot happened. I had my new plasma delivered. Does 3D and is generally pretty cool. Despite thinking that I was going to do nothing but watch movies over the weekend, I wound up starting another project.

I’ve been putting off rebuilding the cichlid tank for a while – I’ve hated the gravel for a long time, and I wound up with an infestation of snails so bad that I just had to rebuild. Some new gravel, some new tubes (about 5 years too late), and a few days later and the water is still dirty, and the cichlids are living in a plastic tub with their filter running.

I was given an angel fish about a week ago as well – currently in one of the tanks I was using for guppies. I think I need to have a short 4 ft tank built that I can slot into the bottom of the cabinet, and put the angel in that. I’m over 2 ft tanks anyway.

I’m on holidays – for a week, not that I’ll be doing much. Sometimes a bit of time off just to not do much goes a long way.

As of Thursday, I owe no banks or finance companies a cracker. I’m not bagging out people who owe money – just pointing out that I don’t owe banks money for things that I don’t even remember what I owe them for. It’s taken a long time to get to that stage.

I received my elcheapo hang on back filter and the surface skimmer gizmo the other day. They didn’t really connect well together, and I needed to replace the connecting tube with some pipe. That was a minor annoyance, but the overall setup is fairly intrusive in such a small tank.
The surface skimmer is big enough, without having a pipe hanging off it.

I decided by about Tuesday that I’d turn the HOB filter into a mini refugium. I’ve put an order in with Matt Richards for some Caulerpa brachypus macro algae, and Actinodiscus sp. ‘Purple Morph’. The macro will go in the refugium with a small light over it, and hopefully it’ll consume most of the nutrients that the algae in the main tank has been growing from.

The elcheapo filter had two filter pads – basically cheap plastic shells with a couple of fine carbon pellets and some filter padding. I found I could actually pull them apart without breaking them, which gave me a front and rear panel that are the right size for the space, and I used the finer mesh that held in the filter contents to separate them and make it into a box. A few off cuts were then tied together to make a base.
This should hopefully make removal a little easier.



I’m now considering a 60w LED light from www.amdbulbs.com – that will get me a stack more light for only minor extra power consumption. Avoiding having to buy new fluro tubes for my current light alone should save me $70 a year, so for a $200 light, I should get my money back fairly quickly.

Heading to Geelong in a couple of weeks. Hoping to spend some money on the marine tank, and with some luck, get a blenny and some more coral.

So almost a month has passed since my last update. That means a month of having an ATO, better salt, my zoanthids and lots of algae.

I guess I’ll start with my additions:
- Some Candy Cane Coral that I bought from Coral Mania. Took a few days to get comfortable, but seems to be OK – I just can’t get it to eat when I feed it yet.

What I’ve removed:
- Aiptasia – hanging off the side of the candy cane. Tried some aiptasia-x – it gets mixed reviews, but it seems to have made it vanish for the time being.

That’s it really – I haven’t added anything else to the tank. I’ve been experiencing a lot more algae – I had a green film algae that made a mess and comes back quickly. I cleaned it off the other week, and have decided to try twice weekly water changes to see if I can get a handle on it. I’ve also cut my light cycle back to 9 hours for the time being.
I’ve been wanting more coral, and debating buying a Blenny to put in there as my first marine fish. I have a couple of things on the go that I won’t go into detail about just at the moment, but they’re things that are making me hold off on investing in more livestock until I know one way or another.

My zoanthid frag seems to be growing. The polyps are generally extended and showing during the light phase, unless I start cleaning. They’re very purple and not much else. Not sure if it’s just their colour, or if they’re just not getting enough of something.

I received an RO/DI unit this week from PSI Filters in Tassie. It came with everything I need, and it’s been installed since Monday. I’ve already loaded my ATO tank full, and I made a 30 litre batch of salt water, which I’ve just switched 10 litres of. After I do another water change on the weekend, I’ll top it back up.
I’ve also got 10 litres worth of bottles of RO/DI on the shelf in case I need some for diluting the salt water, or for emergency ATO top ups. I haven’t quite got my rhythm sorted out with this just yet, but at least the setup is installed in the laundry so I can use it as I need. I guess the trick will be to continue to plan ahead as it takes a while for the water to get filtered. I figure keeping a decent volume in the ATO tank, and a decent volume in the salt mix tank will help keep things on track.

The ATO seems to work fairly well. Up until Monday night, it fed from an 8 litre bucket I set it up in. I wanted a smaller foot print than the 20 litre tank I planned on while I was using demineralised water. It’s now got the planned tank in there, and I’ll be curious to see how long it takes to run down. At least with some height about it, I can let it go for a while without worrying too much.
I have had the gas heater on in the room around the clock as the outside temps have been in single digits during the day, and we’ve had a few below freezing nights, so that tends to push the evaporation up.
Unfortunately the inside of the clear float valve cover is full of algae gunk, so it looks dreadful. I may try to hit it with an air compressor at the weekend and see if I can get that crap to come loose, then it might flush out.

I had some issues with some gunk collecting at the water level at all, which seems to have vanished on the last water change, though I can see the typical oily residue though. I’ve bought a hang on back filter and a surface skimmer attachment. Both were really cheap, but I’m hoping they might help keep the water level a little cleaner, and perhaps help with the tank filtration. Ideally I’d like to remove the canister all together as it’s only really trapping junk. I might try to find some decent phosphate remover first and run in it or something – I really haven’t decided as yet.

The overall water parameters are pretty stable – there are a couple of fluctuations, but they’re in a similar range, and they’re predictable. I would like to find a different phosphate test kit, and a reasonably priced magnesium test kit. A better method of testing pH would be nice to, as I’m finding high range kits to be hard to tell the colours apart. I may go with a digital tester for that. pH should largely take care of itself anyway.

I ordered a cheap LED moonlight today. Only 4 LEDs in this one. I really don’t want super bright – not quite sure how it will go as yet. It’ll be a matter of install it, and see how it goes.

On my list of things I really need to look at is more mini power heads as I’m starting to be able to tell where the dead spots are in my tank, and a change of salt. I don’t mind the Oceanpure – it’s been awesome stuff to work with. Clears quickly, but a few reviews seem to think its OK for some things and not others. I don’t need any for a while, so I may see how I feel at the time.

I’d really like to redo my cichlid tank – new substrate, a nice big order for plants and some new fluro tubes. I figure the substrate alone will cost me a couple hundred, and the same for plants, so I might as well budget $500 to “refurbish” it. I probably need to get the marine tank a little more established first, and maybe a fish in there, and slowly work my way into a few more corals. I reckon maybe a couple of mushies and another type of zoanthid, and I’ll probably need to leave that tank alone for a while (except for maintenance).

I have some plans on getting a new TV next month. I’ve been wanting to do that for a long time, and I think that will need to happen. I’m trying to keep what I do with the tank within a low budget now, so I should be free to start investing in other things. Hopefully I can get this marine tank down to $40~ a fortnight from here on for a while. I don’t have to buy water, and I think I have almost enough hardware to last. Now it’s just livestock, and hopefully I’ll know in a couple of weeks whether or not I can continue buying them just yet.

So far, a busy week.

I received my order of Oceanpure Salt, a 1400l/hr pump and a float relay setup for my auto top off unit.

I also received a 20ish zoanthid polyp from Matt Richards – http://www.mattrichards.id.au

Obviously the zoanthid frag took priority of things received yesterday and made it in the tank fairly quickly (I really should have a hospital tank, but anyway). So far so good. The polyps today look like they’re thinking about opening up. They’ll be taking a fairly major drop in light, so it could be interesting to see how this goes.

I made a batch of Oceanpure salt water last night. To go back a few steps, I’ve been buying up bottles of demineralised water. It’s not perfect for marine, but it’s better than tap water. It’s also over a $1 a litre, to which I’m likely to go through $10 worth each water change. I’ve just pured almost that into the ATO as well.
I’ve had diatoms giving me grief, so I’ve been hoping that moving to mineralised might help me start to reduce the levels of whatever it is in the tap water that has been helping them live so well. It’s possible it won’t make a scrap of difference, but it should do until I can afford a RO/DI unit in a few weeks. Should take me 6 months or so to recoup the cost, but at least I’ll have it, and should get a decent life out of the filters given that I won’t need to drive it hard.

Now.. the Oceanpure salt. It appears to be Japanese, and has no english instructions on the bag beyond where to tear to open. I decided to go off the same measurements I used for the old Aqua One salt. Some rough math indicated that in terms of the salt weight, the mix should be about the same.
Now, I’ve previously tried to mix my water as early as possible as I’ve found that the Aqua One salt takes days to dissolve properly, event at warm temps, and I still get a lot of undissolved crap on the bottom of the container.
Last night I poured 16 litres of demineralised water into the container (after I wiped the crap out of it), then started pouring in the salt.. a cup at a time, pulling out hard bits and breaking them up (not that there were many). The first thing I noticed was how little actually settled without dissolving. Most dissolved straight away. The water temp was <17 degrees, and the heater had only just been fired up. By the time I’d finished, it had nearly completely dissolved and the water was clear. Today when I get home, the water is still nice and clear. The only signs of gunk was stuff I think came out of the old fluval pump I’ve turned into a powerhead.
I paid for 7kg less than I pay for 2kg locally, and I’ve managed to get a salt that wasn’t a solid lump, and it dissolves.

A while ago, I had to buy a meat tenderiser that I used to smash away at the aqua one salt to get it to break up. Most of the time it wouldn’t work, and I’d use the non-flat side, and rub it against the salt and saw away at it. So far, with the Oceanpure, every “lump” has broken up easily in my fingers.

What I don’t know is what this stuff will be like when it’s in the tank, and how it will affect the parameters of the whole tank, but what I do is that I’m looking forward to trying. So far, it’s off to a great start. I mightn’t have been able to read the instructions, but it’s the cleanest batch of water I’ve made yet.

So, it’s been a while, and Easter has come and gone.

The cabinet has long since been complete, and the marine tank has been in it.

I have a lot to cover, so I apologise for this being so damned long.

I’ve been crook for the past 7 weeks in one way or another, and it’s been my sinuses for the entire time. Not a lot of fun.
The marine tank went fine from my last post up until I left for Mt Gambier for easter. I got there to find that the cabinet was mostly built.
Over the few days I was there, I made a few trips to bunnings for more bits, a couple of trips to Kmart, and a few other places to get supplies.

The cabinet, by the time we loaded it into the trailer on easter Monday, was about 2 inches sort of taking up the entire trailer when laid down flat. It also weighed about the same. Getting on was a lot easier than getting it into the house. Stairs made it interesting.
We brought it back with one coat of estapol on it, and it needed 3 more before it was complete.

By easter Wednesday I was well underway wiring, and plumbing in the top up piping for the marine tank. I did this with my still overactive sinuses, which I’m sure appreciated the smell of estapol, saw dust, and the smell coming from the cheapo impact drill I bought to punch through the shelving in the cabinet.

The marine tank during my absence had a fairly major outbreak of cyano, which took a bit of cleaning when I came back.

By Saturday I had everything out of the tank, and attempted to paint the back of the tank black. Turns out that the paint doesn’t adhere well, and cracks quickly. At least it scraped off easier than it went on. I wound up finding a black aquarium backing, and attached it.
I put the tank in, reorganised the rock after I cleaned it up a bit, and once I was down to topping up with new water, fired up the top up pump, and wound back the ball valve to a reasonable speed. The pump connected at the bottom is a 3000l/hr job, which is probably a little too much grunt for this application, but I had been worried about head height. I’ve decided to use it for water changes, and get a smaller pump for the auto top off – I suspect a smaller pump will cope a little better with small top offs.

Since then, I’ve received my first elcheapo 3000l/hr wave maker, which I’ve got in the tank with 2 minuscule 200l/hjr powerheads. It does create a small whirlpool effect on the water surface, but I’m not too concerned about that. At least its keeping the surface moving.. and it does allow me to stop using an air pump into the tank helping me keep things a lot cleaner.

I still have an ongoing algae battle. That’s to be expected, but I suspect that the tap water here doesn’t help. I’ve been doing top offs out of desperation with distilled water for the past couple of days. I’ve bought 10l of demineralised water, most of which I’d like to use for my next water change, but I currently find myself short on salt. I have 7kg coming, but it’s not here yet, so the water change can wait.
Ideally, I’ll buy an RO/DI unit soon, and that should give me half a show of being able to get this water under control.. and hopefully the algae.