My Nano Is Going!

[afmo]

Wow that's not good. I guess you didn't check your SW before adding it to the tank? If not maybe do that for now on. Hope your mushies and torch survive.

Well, good news for now, my clownfish is doing fine, the torch and mushies are still shriveled but the have a bit of color back in them, so i'm hopeful. After letting my Fresh water top off circulate for the night the SG is down to 1.027. I'm gonna wait till this evening then give it another top off of fresh to hopefully get it back into the ok range.

 

[FishFriend11]

Wow that's not good. I guess you didn't check your SW before adding it to the tank? If not maybe do that for now on. Hope your mushies and torch survive.

Well, good news for now, my clownfish is doing fine, the torch and mushies are still shriveled but the have a bit of color back in them, so i'm hopeful. After letting my Fresh water top off circulate for the night the SG is down to 1.027. I'm gonna wait till this evening then give it another top off of fresh to hopefully get it back into the ok range.

Do you make sure you get the new water up to the proper temp to match your tank before measuring the SG?

The SG can vary based upon the water temp.

 

[afmo]

Wow that's not good. I guess you didn't check your SW before adding it to the tank? If not maybe do that for now on. Hope your mushies and torch survive.

Well, good news for now, my clownfish is doing fine, the torch and mushies are still shriveled but the have a bit of color back in them, so i'm hopeful. After letting my Fresh water top off circulate for the night the SG is down to 1.027. I'm gonna wait till this evening then give it another top off of fresh to hopefully get it back into the ok range.

Do you make sure you get the new water up to the proper temp to match your tank before measuring the SG?

The SG can vary based upon the water temp.

yes, when i mix the new water, i make sure to put my suction cup thermometer in there to make sure i get it right. THe more i think about it, the more i'm sure i just got side tracked and added an extra measure of salt.

 

[afmo]

Ok, well, after my 3rd fresh top off, the SG is back into the 1.024 ish range, so thats good. The torch coral is still in a sad state of affairs, its shriveled up and discolored, so i dunno if its going to make it. However today i did see the tentacles starting to reach out just about a half inch or so, i'll have to keep an eye on them. The mushies are doing well though, they made it through and were wide open today.

 

[afmo]

turned on the light today, and after about an hour under the light, the torch coral was fully extended and a healthy color, so it seems the crisis of the SG swing has been dealt with and we have no casualties

 

[afmo]

Well, my nano survived its first full week without me. Went on vacation, so i put everything on timers, and had a friend stop by every other day to feed and check SG. It fared well just thought i'd chime in since there really aren't any updates to be had LOL. I am expecting a pretty large tax return so hopefully i'll be able to snag a few nice thigns for the aquarium after i pay off some bills.

 

[afmo]

New pictures, since they are long overdue

Here is Maui and Moose Crab (who is enjoying a piece of silverside) with my little patch of xenia on the right.

Here is the xenia...little bitty patch

and a good ole full tank shot

looking back at my first few posts, the transformation is radical.

still waiting on that tax refund....but when it rolls in, i wanna get a green brain, and some hammer coral. My tank looks overwhelmingly red/pink/tan, i wanna try and incorporate some color other than reds/pinks.

anyone else got any ideas on colorful corals?

 

[atmmachine816]

Looks really nice. What I've seen that I really like lately is green zoo's, blue mushrooms, and star polyp.

 

[SkiFletch]

Wow, thats a great shot there, well done

 

[afmo]

haha, me and the missus were at the LFS today browsing, and she turns and says to me...."i wanna close down my freshwater and make it a saltwater."

seems the convertee has become a converter.....muahahahahah

just thought i'd share

on to the real reason for this post, i'm starting to think ahead to the summer months, and how i'm going to chill this thing. a chiller is way out of my price range, and i read the two chiller threads in the hardware section, but i really don't understand the concept. I googled for DIY chillers and didnt come up with much....the one and only time the temperature got out of control, i put blue ice packs in ziplocs and floated them to bring the temp down. Obviously in the hot months, this isn't going to work cause i wont be able to keep the packs frozen fast enough.

anyways, i'm planning way ahead because i want to have a plan in place by the time june/july rolls around....any kind of advice/help is awesome. obviously cheapest is best for me

 

[SLC Flyfishing]

What type of light setup did you have again?

You might just be able to run a small desktop fan across the top of your tank to carry away some of the heat. Not sure if it would work but it may, especially if you have a lighting system that sits above the tank a bit and would allow air flow between it and the tank itself.

SLC

 

[afmo]

What type of light setup did you have again?

You might just be able to run a small desktop fan across the top of your tank to carry away some of the heat. Not sure if it would work but it may, especially if you have a lighting system that sits above the tank a bit and would allow air flow between it and the tank itself.

SLC

its a 40w single satellite, 10000k daylight and 460nm actinic. It sits about 3 inches above the surface of the tank, and about 4 inches from the surface of the water.

like i said, we had one really hot day where the temperature kept rising. I had fans running air through the living room, and the temp rise stopped around 82f. thats when i started floating blue ice paks and brought it back down to 79ish.

this is the one thing that really has me worried, since i work during the day (the hot part ) i won't be around to float ice paks if things get out of hand. i suppose i'll try a desktop fan on the next hot day and see how it does, but i'll need a contingency plan if that doesnt work..

 

[afmo]

Holy long time since an update batman!

Well, after a week of warmer temperatures, i had changed the timer setting on my heater to run less, and only at night. As luck would have it, the very next week, we had a cold snap and a rain storm. Well, i got home from class and the tank was at 68 degrees . After some massive panic, i got the temp back up. Everyone survived except the big turbo snail We had to send ole Hercules to reef heaven. So now we have Hercules 2 munching away at algae in the tank.

Two of my 3 heads of torch coral died, as some of you may have read in the inverts forum. I kept a vigilant eye on it and kept siphoning off the jelly as the heads died and it seems as though the largest head is going to survive. Its been fine since the last head died.

My Xenia is growing like mad, and as i posted a bit back in the inverts forum, it appears as though i have 2 different species of xenia on my xenia rock.

I also grabbed a small piece of brown leather from the lfs, 9.99 (i'm a mad bargain hunter ) its doing good, hasn't noticeably grown any yet, but hopefully.

also have several green sponge looking things that have grown on a piece of LR. No clue what they are.

I've also solved my overheating woes, with some clever brainstorming with a friend at the LFS. Black&Decker portable plug-in cooler + 25 ft spool of tubing + water pump= Perfect chiller. The cooler has digital temperature setting, chills to 40F and heats to 120F. Its perfect for precise temperature regulation, its quite, small, and the whole rig cost around 70 bucks

After finals week is over i'll post some pictures...

 

[rhysiboy]

could you also get some pics of that chiller sounds like a great idea.

 

[atmmachine816]

Ditto on that, would love to see some. Had problem with my tank and it's still spring.