Smitty's 40 Gallon Breeder - I miss this tank :(

I almost forgot, some of my Xenia is dead for lack of knowledge. Some of the stems are just laying down on their side. I don't know what happened, all params are great. I will test them again this weekend after I get back from my little trip to Portland lol.

 

Does the Xenia get flow? Sometimes they will lay down and not do so hot with too much. That's a nice price for that rodi. I got my 100 gpd from air water ice. They make a super nice unit and it came with a tds meter which is a perk I think. That little crab is super cool. Don't worry about him getting your fish. As long as they are healthy he should leave them alone. To my knowledge emerald crabs are more of scavengers, then fish hunters. Yours most likely loves the left over fish food in your tank. I put mine in the fuge cause he's about 1.5 inches round and it's funny I watch him scramble over to the drain from the dt to catch the food coming down when I feed. Lots of people keep their crab in the sump once they get too big. Nice looking shrooms!!
Heidi

 

I got some new Hydor Koralia Circulation Pumps today. A 425 and 550 gph. These should really help with my flow lol. Now to just figure out how to place them!

I also bought a new light and 9 watt UV sterilizer as well.

 

I am really liking my odyssea fixture. I used a 20" in the 10 gallon and I am using the 24" for my 20 gallon. I have also used them in all of my planted FW tanks with great success.

 

The Xenia wasn't getting a lot of flow. It was doing awesome where it is at, but then some it just seemed to die off. I got new circulation pumps tonight, so I will have to do some rearranging. Thanks for the compliment on the shrooms! They are my favorite lol.

 

That is very good to hear. I always get nervous when there is a product for so much cheaper then the competitors lol. I haven't really heard anything bad about them in recent years. It seems that several years ago, there were problems with them catching on fire, but this problem was fixed lol.

 

yeah the reflectors are not too great, and the ballasts are not the best, but they certainly are good enough to grow LPS and the easier sps. I have been getting good growth from my digi and cap. You also may want to think about changing out the bulbs, check out petmountain.com, they have great deals on bulbs.

 

I forgot to mention that I have a Bak-Pak 2 Reef Ready Hang-On Protein Skimmer by CPR Aquatics and some ROWAphos Phosphate Removal media coming as well lol.

 

Houston, we have a problem.

I woke up this morning and my Yellow Tang was swimming around. After getting ready for the morning, I found him dead on the bottom of the tank. I also noticed that my Damsels weren't acting like themselves.

As a precaution, I moved the two clowns to one of the biocubes that I have set up. They are doing find so far and don't look like they are having any issues.

The only thing that I have done differently in the last 24 hours was add two Koralia Circulation Pumps today. A 425 and 550 gph. After adding these, the Tang wasn't as active and my corals didn't seem to happy either. I shut them both off last night before going to bed and plan on finding better placement for them today.

I am getting ready to test my params, but I am thinking that all the increased flow stressed the Tang and Damsels to much. Does this sound reasonable?

 

I just tested for Ammonia, Nitrite and Nitrates:

Ammonia: 0.25
Nitrite: 0.1
Nitrate: 0.0
SG: 1.025

I have been getting the same readings for those 4 params for at least a week now. I'm not sure if my Red Sea test kit is testing right or not. I'm going to take a water sample to the LFS today and have them test all my params for me and find out if something else is going on.

In the meantime, I'm going to net the damsels and move them to the other biocube. My Xenia is all closed up today as well. I started dosing Microbacter7 in this tank as well today. I'm not sure what is going on with it. I do have a protein skimmer on the way, so maybe this will help.

Any advice or help is greatly appreciated.