Well, its all looking fabulous dude...a nicely laid out and cared for reef...great work
Niko
Thanks, I appreciate the comments. It's still a work in progress. I am still learning though. I think the biggest thing that would help my cause is a RO/DI unit. I just haven't forked over the money yet. Mainly due to the fact that I don't really have it. I had been leaning towards it recently, what really convinced me was the latest 30% ish PWC. After it was complete my nitrates were where i wanted them to be but I had a crazy diatom bloom across the sand bed. I have been battling diatoms for awhile now. The phosphates in my water are low however my hunch is that there are alot of silicates in the tap. I haven't proved it with a silicate test but I don't really think it matters.
I had just recently started to replace my cleanup crew. The nasty icestorm that blew through Oklahoma during the middle of December really did a number on them. I saved everything else but alot of my hermits & nerites didn't make it. I'll tell you what. I really wish I would have taken pictures of what I had to do to the tank during that storm. My house dropped to low 60's for the first couple of days then to the mid to high 50's the second couple.
I originally had the tank covered in about 12 blankets to try to contain the warmth. We had never been without power for more than half a day before so I didn't think it would last as long as it did. I was fighting 2 battles early on. The first battle was the temp drop and the second was the oxygen levels. I will tell you what, I had such a sick feeling in my stomach thinking I was going to lose them. There was basically nothing I could do. Just wait. The temperatures were dropping, the house was getting colder. About 18 hours had passed and my Brother in Law had called to check in and see how we were doing. My wife and kids had gone over to stay with family, I stayed behind and held the fort down. I had to work alot during the storm so it wasn't uncommon for me to have to drive back and forth to work. Anyways, when all seemed to be lost my brother in law called back and asked if he brought over his generator and ran the tank for an hour or 2 if it would help. I said it couldn't hurt!! So he came over, I unbundled the tank a little and got everything hooked up. We ran the sump/powerheads/lights/heater for awhile, we lost alot of time because my sump had fallen into the 50's while the tank was hovering around 73-74. We heated that up first, then cranked on the system. We would get the temp up a few degress and add the much needed oxygen. My Coral Beauty was near death hovering in a corner gasping for air. After running the system for about 10 minutes he perked up and all was good. My brother in law came over a couple times a day for the next day or so and we repeated this process. In the mean time I had some left over wall insulation from a home repair job we had recently done. We wrapped the tank in that and then had the 12 blankets. Its amazing how well it actually held the heat. A co worker had went out of state to pick up a generator for his house and he picked up a small 1000 watt one for me. It worked PERFECT for the tank and all was saved. It was such a crazy experience.
Sorry for the novel, hadn't really put it into text yet. This is a summary. However if you are ever worried about needing a long term solution for power loss you can pick up a small 1000 watt generator for about 140 bucks. I will tell you though, my BTA was NOT a happy camper. No flow + no light really ticked him off. He was rolling around the tank after the first day. This really worried me to because I didn't want him to get sucked into the power heads like the RBTA did. He latched on a couple places then opted for a really good spot higher up in the tank which is where he is today. The only downside is he is right under the glass divider/brace at the top so the light probably isn't as strong as it could be.
