More coming soon!
1-23-2011 ... The Beginning of the 20L As of this morning , I had my 20 gallon tall display tank set up with various low-end corals and a true perc (info and maint. schedule: skimmer, 150watt MH,
HOB filter, no sump/refugium, coarse aragonite substrate, bi-monthly water changes). I've had big plans for this poor tank for quite some time, and today I finally got some time to follow through!
Before teardown (notice all the CRAP in the tank- skimmer, heater, filter... YUCK!):
During teardown:
Right now, all tank inhabitants are in a large Rubbermaid tub with
HOB filter, powerhead, and heater:
I had help...
Now the new set-up: 20L display, 20 gallon tall sump/refugium containing ALL the tank uglies (skimmer,
HOB filter, heater), 150 watt MH Sunpod HQI...
Here's what I have as of this evening (1-23-2011):
Assembled a new shelf- "Gorilla Shelf"- holds like 800# per level...
I cleaned this thing really well and took the legs off- it's going to be suspended above the tank so I can adjust its height off the water. My last tank seemed to be a little "sunburnt" with MH lighting... but because the light was sitting on the tank with the legs, I couldn't adjust it!
And one of my orchids finally re-bloomed!! Even after a battle with mealybugs...
SO... now I just need to drill my display tank, plumb it, and re-transfer everything back to it. Yikes! I'm sure I'm going to have some sort of cycle, but I will be doing partial water changes along the way so as to not shock anything.
I've been seriously considering ordering the 700gph complete overflow kit and 2 3/4" loc-line return kits from glass-holes.com... but I really don't want to drill my tank myself... for fear of destroying it!
If anyone knows of any places near SE Michigan who drills tanks and/or has tank-plumbing equipment, PLEASE LET ME KNOW!
I've been browsing the For Sale/Trade thread for a while now, but no one seems to have a 20-30gallon drilled/plumbed tank. If you know of anyone selling one please let me know that too!!! I won't get to mess with my tank again until next weekend- but I'm sure everything will be fine in that Rubbermaid with heat, flow, light, etc... until then.
Awesome.
Thanks for reading.
Christy
More to come soon...
2-5-2011 ... Melting Mushrooms and Tank Plumbing OK! So, since my last update I've had my 20 gallon long tank drilled and now I'm working on plumbing it to my 20 gallon tall sump (which does not yet have baffles). Another exciting thing: a fellow reefer gave me some sweet hairy mushrooms, some of which ended up melting for no obvious reason. I've taken some pics along the way:
Here's a pic of the tank after drilling but prior to painting. I had to do some indoor spray painting (Krylon Fusion, glossy black) because it is flippin cold outside and I had no other options. So I taped and papered the whole tank and surrounding area (bath tub). Needless to say, the fan was running and I stumbled out of the room a little light-headed.
Ken at Pet Connection drilled a 1" overflow and 3/4" return hole in my tank. I went home with appropriate bulkheads for each hole and a split Loc-Line return so as to spread the flow in a couple different directions in my tank.
In the summer my tank temp can climb dangerously so I'm hoping the 258GPH pump that a fellow reefer gave to me will provide sufficient water movement through the split Loc-Line so I don't have to add powerheads (additional heat).
I plan to run to Lowes and/or Home Depot in the morning and get some things... included in that list-o-things is a 1/2" threaded pvc piece that can be used to connect my return pump with the 3/4" line (via pvc size adapter) which will go to my 3/4" return bulkhead/Loc-Line complex. Lol... this is my first time doing any of this. Wish me luck... I've got lots of pvc cement and primer.... so I can't imagine things going too wrong...
OK. Now for the hairy mushroom melt-fest.
So these mushrooms were freshly removed from a well-established reef (the rock was gingerly chipped away from under their feet). They went straight from a sump to clean Ziploc bags and stayed in a temp-controlled environment the whole time (except when going to and from my car). Finally when I got home (about 2 hours after they were taken from their old owner's sump) the water in two of the three bags with these shrooms in them was cloudy and had a terrible smell. It was obvious that something was going very wrong... I think the combined stress of being removed from one tank, then transported in a chilly environment, caused some of them to melt.
I did not add the smelly bag water to my current temporary tank (rubbermaid), but I did acclimate the shrooms to my tank by adding water then finally transferring the shrooms to a plastic dish so they could get fresh flow.
The mushrooms looked really rough- some had gaping mouths and some had already began melting/disintegrating. It was so weird... I was worried it was going to pollute everything else I had so I threw some new carbon in my filter and did partial water changes after they were in my tank for a few hours.
After a day, a few of the mushrooms had melted away (I changed out the carbon a few times) and the rest began to look a little bit better.
Right after lights came on, Day 2 after bringing them home:
One last mushroom melted on day 3:
The whole time these things were disintegrating, I was reading about doing a quick iodine/betadine dip... which could have helped treat whatever bacterium that was causing them to melt. Because the mushrooms were showing improvement, I opted to do some water changes and keep fresh activated charcoal in the filter.
Things finally started looking "good" for the remaining shrooms:
No more melting... yet they were still pretty tore up from harvesting from their previous tank:
Hopefully by the next time I post, I'll have a successfully-plumbed and cycled tank, healthy healed mushrooms, and about $20 million from winning the lotto.
Fingers are crossed.
Member's Reefs 
Fishbutt's 20L Reeforium 
Looking good though. Keep up the good work. 
Previous Thread
Next Thread
Linear Mode
