Newbie 30 gal. journal...

Ordered, received and installed an AquaC remora. It's little noisy...like a fizzy drink that never stops. The literature says it will get quiter...I hope so. If not, I'm gonna have to take measures to reduce the noise. There is now ZERO room on the back. I bought the one with the drain tube and plan to run the tubing to a 5 gal bucket so I don't ever have to worry about overflow. For now, I have the drain elbow pointing up so I can at least use the cup like a normal skimmer. I've also got a problem with surface film so I got the surface skimmer too.

-Moved the Ricordia to a more central spot halfway up in the water column....on your suggestion.

-Took out as much of the macro as I could stand to pick away at. Still quite a bit left.

-Found a giant sponge growing under the top rock out of the light. It's the size of my hand if I completely stretch out all of my fingers. WEIRD.
 
Yeah, I had a sponge growing too. It's considered invasive, but it's just growing tentacle appendages and not hurting anything. I know what you mean by weird though, it came out from under a rock and I had never seen it before.
 
-Ich is gone on the Tang

-The Ricordia continues it's decline. Only a few polyps left...but those that are left seem "OK".

-The turbinaria has completely shut up all of it's polyps. Don't know what's caused it, but it's the only sps/lps that's not doing well. The weird thing is that the turbinaria perked up with the rest of them, yet it's the only one showing signs of aparent stress.

-Hooked up a drain hose to the Remora's skimmate cup. I have it draining into a 3 (or was it 5?) quart little bucket. I bought a lid for the bucket, drilled a hole just a little bigger than the hose. I also bought some of those cat box activated charcoal litter box filters. I taped one of those to the lid, drilled a hole in it (as best you can given it's fiberous) and ran the hose through that into the bucket. This way, if any skimmer funk tries to make it's way out, the filter will take care of it.

-I also took steps to quiet the skimmer. I cut up an old foam pillow so it can wrapped around the top of the skimmer where the fizzy sound comes from. I then placed a box on top of the skimmer over the wrapped foam to contain it and keep it in place. The pillow was one of those dense foam things and it does a great job. It could be better if I took more time making the box the correct size and cutting the foam with a higher degree of skill and accuracy...but this is OK for now. The noise is now tolerable.

-The skimmer is causing quite a bit of evaporation. On the one hand, that helps me deal with SG that always wants to run high for me. On the other hand, it leads to more trips to the grocery store for distilled water.
 
-Turbinaria's coming back around.

-Caught a Pajama Cardinal eating a good-sized Amphipod. Good sign that the feeding I'm doing in the refugium is fattening them up and raising their numbers so more can make their way into the tank.

-One patch of cyano growing.




...real exciting stuff. :D
 
Good job on the skimmer, good thinking on the carbon on the bucket.

I went to premium aquatics last weekend, and on some of the skimmers, the cups led to five gallon buckets with pieces of pvc filled with carbon as vents to keep the airflow in the skimmer and to filter out da funk.

Also, siphon out the cyano! I know you've had it before, but stop it before it starts!
 
-Ricordia still look like crap.

-Macro is starting to look less healthy...probably being starved of nutrients by the skimmer.

-The yellow Sea Cucumber has split into two. Kind of a strange thing to see happen over the past couple days. I had no idea they do this (this is normal, right?) to reproduce.

-Late last night I hit the tank with a flashlight and there are a TON of amphipods in the tank. If the Mandarin can't find enough to eat...it's isn't trying hard enough.

-And another bout of ich for the Tang.
 
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The macro is continuing it's march. Frankly, I'm beginning to think the tank is a total writeoff as I don't believe it will ever be completely gone without a ton of work. It is so intertwined in EVERYTHING!!!!!!!

I wish someone would have given me the heads up back when I added the stuff and thought it was a good thing. :help:
 
Correct me if I am wrong but didn't you just start this tank in december? You have a lot of livestock in a tank that is not mature. My personal opinion is that you are going to have some ups and downs as they say "nothing good happens fast in saltwater" If I were you I would concentrate on trying to starve the macro to reduce it's spread, keep it hand picked and trimmed and then concentrate on keeping your parameters and water changes current and add some stability to those inhabitants that you already have. You can't just go into a hobby such as this and then write it off when somethings don't go as plan. I think you rushed adding stuff to quickly, just kick back and take care of what's there....good luck. It does look good though but it must get tiresome and expensive replacing those things that don't make it?
 
Well, it's pretty much a moot point now. I went on vacation and came back to a tank mostly full of dead corals - all of the acropora and the montipora. I'm not going to rebuild, so I'm going to consider how I'm going to take the tank down and sell as much as the equipment as possible to salvage the money invested.

I can't continue to invest time and money in a tank that I can't leave for one week. To expect a house-sitter to put in the kind of work I do on a daily basis to keep everything running every time we go on vacation is unreasonable.

If it weren't for the macro and this vacation, I know this tank would have been a success.
 
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