FrugalReef Blog

Skimmers been off for a few days so I kicked it back on because I noticed the water in the sump getting a bit frothy. The sumplight has been broken for a couple days too, but that’s also repaired. The formula 28 blocks have all disolved so I replaced them with 4 total today. Everybody looks happy. I’m not happy with the progression of the algae growth in my sump. My little “pod” tank still appears to be a total toxic soup, I’m not going to be transfering any water from it into the main tank anymore, I don’t know what’s wrong with it but not even algae is growing in there. Little hydrozoids are everwhere in the tank, by the thousands, I guess that’s a good sign that everyone is healthy. Mandarin is fat and happy. Snails are starting to make a lot of progress cleaning the algae growth off the back wall…. algae growth in the tank must have slowed alot. I’m noticing alot less algae growth on the tank glass as well. I think this may be because I’ve not been aggressively feeding phyto lately.

Well, looks like my pod tank crashed hard. Ammonia is through the roof. I did a 30% water change and didn’t see any change in ammonia levels.

Becky merged her nano with our big tank today. It’s nice to have all the neat stuff together, lets just hope everything stays stable. Parameters are in line but man I’m going through formula 28 blocks like they’re going out of style. Pod tank keeps clearing up, as if the algae can’t keep up with the pod consumption rate.

Put together a pod factory tank today. I used a 10 gallon glass tank and hood, 5 gallons of water from the main tank, a few pieces of completely bleached rock I had laying around and Becky’s bubble wand. I’ve got it on a 6hour on, 6 hour off cycle and I inoculated it with DT’s phyto and a little sample of “Tigger Pods” I bought from Aquatic Environments.

Tank is going great, looks like 3 formula 28 blocks is what it takes to maintain calcium and alkalinity. Today is the first day that all the parameters seem inline. The basketstar came out and fed last night, turns out he doesn’t like the LED nightlights, so I’ve turned them off for now. I’ll try to turn them back on when he’s healthier.

Inhabitents look good today, water doesn’t smell “dying” anymore like it did yesterday after the addition of all that live rock.

The storage tank we had the new rock in rose to 2ppm of ammonia! I needed to get those rocks out of there, so I moved them to the display today. I’m sure the display will provide plenty of water to buffer the situation but I’ll watch it closely. Everything is pretty organized, so I’ll take pictures tomorrow.

All the new animals look good

Today at lunch I noticed that my formula 28 block was nearly disolved. I did some water tests and decided to add 2 more of the blocks, they fizzed like alkacelcer when I put them in, I wonder what that’s about. Our new rock comes into MLI at 4pm today. The anenome that got sucked into the overflow is still looking kinda blah. The new rose bubble tip is withdrawn today. Clams and fish look good.

At 9:00pm tonight I got home from the airport with our tampa bay saltwater goodies.   Lots of crabs, snails, sea cucumbers a shrimp, a bunch of gorgonians and sponges and a 40 more lbs of live rock.   Pictures coming soon.

Here’s a top down picture of the clam that expelled his foot the other day. I’m posting this for the guys at reefcentral to look at.