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Sorry it's been so long since the last update... I haven't been able to get on the comp!

Let's see... I've done a lot with the tank lately!

I'm up to 3 different varieties of Xenia... I got a 'Horn Coral' (SPS)... got a Rhodactus (already fragged it once!)... got a Staghorn Acro (SPS)... got some Kenya Trees... I'm using Aptasia and Xenia as filter feeders in my sump (now on reverse lighting from my main tank, as opposed to 24/7)...

I've got a Magnum 350 that I'm going to put on the system. The intake will be in the sump, and the output will be in the tank, so it'll basically act as a 2nd sump-> tank pump w/filter

My Staghorn Acro got all sad and lost a lot of its color after I took it out of the tank and glued it to a rock (sat out for about 20 mins... didn't think it'd have any problems, but it did!)... it's regained most of it's color since then, and I'm hoping it'll be back to full health and growing again (I got about 1/2" of growth on each branch since I got it) within the week. If you've got any tips on getting it's color back or know what went wrong, let me know

The only other problem I'm having is that my regular ol' purple mushrooms will NOT grow! They look healthy and act healthy, they've got good colors... they just won't grow! They've been in the tank for two months and they've done nothing but sit there! My Rhodactus is doing better than these guys are, for crying out loud! Any idea what's going on here?

Other than that, all of my corals are doing great--growing, showing good colors, not exploding (tee hee), etc

I welded together a rack for another set of lights (Oxy-Acetylene FTW!!!) with 1/4" steel rods (60,000lb tensile strength... methinks it'll hold 5lbs worth of light fixtures... heck, I can stand on the thing and jump up and down without breaking it ). I'm going to hook my current fixture up to that tonight, and build another one sometime soon.

I put a pair of Penguin 125's (w/out biowheels) on the back of the main tank for circulation. The intake tubes are in the live rock structure, so I don't have to worry about dead spots and will be able to pile rock against the back of the tank

I also put a 270gph pump on the right side of the tank for cross flow... the thing runs only at night (due to heat... 23w!), but at least it gets the excess slime off of the corals at night when they close up...

Here's some (okay, TONS) of pics!

Rhodactus
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y22/PoisonWaffle/DSC02169.jpg

Staghorn Acro
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y22/PoisonWaffle/DSC02168.jpg

Side shot of tank
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y22/PoisonWaffle/DSC02173.jpg

"Horn Coral"
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y22/PoisonWaffle/DSC02174.jpg

"Cabbage Coral"
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y22/PoisonWaffle/DSC02178.jpg

Coraline on Bottle
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y22/PoisonWaffle/DSC02180.jpg

Stomella Hangout
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y22/PoisonWaffle/DSC02182.jpg

Pod pictures!
The little guy is about 2mm from head to toe. The last pic is of his eye at 2400x!
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y22/PoisonWaffle/DSC02185.jpg
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y22/PoisonWaffle/DSC02188.jpg
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y22/PoisonWaffle/DSC02192.jpg
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y22/PoisonWaffle/DSC02193.jpg
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y22/PoisonWaffle/DSC02195.jpg

Horseshoe Crab
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y22/PoisonWaffle/DSC02136.jpg

Xenia frag #2
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y22/PoisonWaffle/DSC02143.jpg

Mushrooms (the ones that aren't growing)
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y22/PoisonWaffle/DSC02153.jpg

FTS
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y22/PoisonWaffle/DSC02160.jpg

FTS w/sump
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y22/PoisonWaffle/DSC02161.jpg

"Aptasia Filter"
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y22/PoisonWaffle/DSC02162.jpg

What do ya think?

Lemme know if you've got any ideas on the mushrooms and/or staghorn...

Comments are appreciated

Thanks for looking!

nice horse shoe crab

how big will he get?

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''All the clown fish and yellow tangs in the world cant save you now!''

Up to two feet as you can see here

http://www.liveaquaria.com/product/prod_display.cfm?pcatid=614&N=4

Thanks, Alex! Yes, they get about 2' long, but it takes about 20 years for them to get that big. I'll be moving him to a larger tank (125-300 gals) sometime in the next 5 years, so he'll be fine. When he's nearly full grown I may donate him to a zoo or aquarium... not sure yet...

I've got a few problems... mainly HEAT! I raised my lights up about 1cm, that helped a little bit. It's been getting hotter and hotter outside, and my rents don't want to turn on the AC just for my tanks (which is reasonable), so my tank hit 85f today! My Rhodactus isn't opening up, and my scooter blenny disappeared! I'm guessing that he died and was eaten or jumped out of the tank, 'cause I can't find a body. I'll see if he comes out tonight or tomorrow... hopefully he does!

I put a big fan over the tank, so it'll blow all of the heat off of the lights into the room, and I've got my ceiling fan running 24/7 now. I've changed my lighting schedule a bit so the lights aren't on during the middle of the afternoon, so hopefully that will help.

If you've got any other suggestions on how to cool this tank down (other than getting a chiller... I'd really rather not do that, but I will if I have to), please let me know!

Thanks!

The way we use when transporting fish we catch in Florida and such, is frozen 2 ltr bottles. When I collect in Florida and bring my fish home in the hot summer, up here to Ohio, we transport them in the back of the pick up in big tubs, coolers, and 55 gal drums. We freeze 2 liter bottles with water in them prior to leaving. And we just add these to the water while driving back. We take extra in a big cooler to change them out about half way. Otherwise, they can reach temps in the 100s F. As for your tank, I would suggest 1-2 and maybe 3 bottles. Use just one at a time and watch the temp to see if it is controlled enough. The ice is not enough to cause a drastic drop, and will take hours to fully melt, but have another ready in the freezer for when it does fully melt. Then just place them back in the freezer for tomorrow. You won't need them when the lights are off.

_____________________________________________________________

There is always a bigger fish...

That's a freakin' awesome idea, acid!

I've got a bunch of extra 20oz bottles I'll use for doing this. Methinks I'll find a spot in my sump that I can fit a bottle... I think the only place is my pump chamber... hmm...

Thanks for the help, Marc!

Brief update:

The big fan REALLY helped, so I haven't had to use ice yet, but I've got some frozen just in case I do. I think I'm going to make up an ice-cube tray of dechlorinated water so I'll be able to toss a few ice cubes in if it gets a little warm...

A few weeks ago, I put an empty snail shell next to my GSP colony, and about five polyps have grown onto the shell. Today, I cut the shell apart from the main colony and put it in an open area near the light... I'll leave it there until it recovers from the fragging, then I'll put it in the back-right corner of the tank and let GSP's grow up the back wall of the tank! I think it'll be a nifty effect... but if I don't like it, I can always scrape them off and stick them to something else.

And two of my three kinds of xenia have fragged themselves, as well as one of my mushrooms (has sprouted two babies). I'll sell them as soon as they're a sellable size.

I'll post some more pics sometime soon.

Thanks for all of the help, everyone!

I`ve made hundreds of dollars off my mushrooms by selling them to the LFS for store credit. They multiply fast in my tank. You can see them in my profile under right side of tank. I started off with just one and have grown hundreds. Here they are





http://www.fantasyreef.com/database/index.php?p=getitem&db_id=5&item_id=89

Yep, I'm planning on selling them to my LFSes! When I got my first mushroom colony (3 mushrooms) it was on a piece of PVC, so I moved them to three separate rocks so I'd end up with two colonies to sell, and one to keep/continue fragging.

I've also got colonies of GSP's, xenia, and kenya trees that will be ready to sell in about a month or two

Okay, lots of updates!

First off, I solved my temp problem! I got a 6" desk fan and put it in the stand, blowing directly at the water in the sump. It makes a lot of water evaporate, but the tank hasn't fluctuated more than half a degree F from 80F since I put it there! I'll probably let the temp drop down to a stable 78ish in the winter, tho

First problem: my horse shoe crab died! I did a water change a few days ago (did everything as usual), and he came out of the substrate and started running around while I was vacuuming the substrate--he never went back under. He ran around the tank for few days acting really lethargic (occasionally getting stuck against pumps and stuff, which I had to free him from), and this morning I found him dead on the bottom of the tank. I KNOW I didn't take all of his food from him when I vacuumed the substrate, 'cause I intentionally left all of the bristleworms (I found about 5) and have seen them crawling around... so he didn't starve to death. I hadn't dosed iodine in a few weeks 'cause I've been dosing purple up and it says there's iodine in it. I shouldn't even need to dose iodine 'cause I do enough waterchanges (oceanic salt) and I use tap water! So I don't know what his problem was. Any ideas?

Also, I got a pair of common red/white firefish (check the pics below)... they're doing very well! They're eating live, raw, frozen, and pelleted foods, so it's not hard to keep 'em happy! I highly doubt I'll get them to mate in my tank, but I won't be surprised if they do.

I got a new coral--"Elephant Skin"... it's a crazy lookin' SPS! Actually, I don't even know if it fits into SPS or LPS, 'cause it has no visible polyps (it's not supposed to, either)... it's just like a thin ripply flesh on a ripply skeleton. It looks really cool with it's ripply texture, and it's brown/red/florescent green with enough light... but in my tank it turned rather brown/reddish. Oh well, at least it's fun and it's growing

Since my scooter blenny died in the temp spikes I posted about earlier, I got a new one about a week ago. He's doing good so far--eating both live and dead foods, being really active, etc. He's REALLY aggressive tho... at least a lot more aggressive than my last scooter. Every time I walk up to the tank, he swims up to meet me and flares his fins out (dorsal fully extended, too) and opens his mouth and waves himself around. I'll have to get a video of it sometime and post it up... it's really kinda cool. My old one never did that, but he always swam up to the front of the tank to greet me... just never flared his fins out...

The 'aiptasia filter' idea in my sump is really doing well. I don't think anyone has ever tried to keep aiptasia alive... everyone just kills them! The biggest one in the tank is about 6" tall with a 5" tentacle-span when it's fully opened! I feed him whole freeze-dried krill every few days, and he swallows them without any problems! Some of the other ones are still really little, but they're growing and reproducing and catching free-floating stuff as it goes through the sump. The only problem I'm having with the aiptasia is that a decent number of them have gotten into the main tank (or at least their babies have)... I'm gonna have to go thru the main tank with a syringe full of kalk every few months to keep them down. When the biggest aiptasia gets about twice his current size, I'm going to get a clownfish and see if I can get it to host in it! I'd be rather stupid, I know, but I'll be able to laugh at all of the people that say clownfish don't host in aiptasia (if it works, that is)! Check out the pictures below!

My kenya trees have gotten to a fraggable size, so I put another snail shell inside the opening of the shell that they're on... they'll grow on to it eventually and I'll cut 'em seperate and sell one of them. Also, one of the mushroom colonies is almost ready to sell (3 mushrooms on a little cement plug). The GSP frag on the snail shell has tripled in size, but I'm still letting it grow bigger before I put it up to the back of the tank. I put some Xenia in one of the bubble traps in my sump, and it's growing up on the glass and stuff... kinda cool, I guess. I've got pics of that below

My Rhodactus mushroom did something kinda cool! I'm not sure if it was spawning, fragging itself, regurgitating something it didn't like, pooping, or what... but it released this little bubble full of little purple spheres from it's mouth. The little purple spheres were about 1mm in diameter, and the bubble containing them was about 5-6mm in diameter. The bubble sat in it's mouth for a while, and eventually the current carried it away and it rolled down into the live rock somewhere. Check the pics below!

I found a HUGE bristleworm in my sump! He's at least 14-16" long! I know they get bigger than that, but I figured it'd take a LOT longer than this for him to get this big! I saw him poking his head out from under a piece of rock in the sump, and I started watching him. He kept coming out.... and out.... and out... until he wrapped himself around the entire piece of rock! I've got pics of that below, of course

There are a few of these little funky dark purple calcareous growths around the tank... I've spotted one on my drain and one on a rock... I'm not sure what they are. They've got a calcareous base about 3-4mm wide and about 8mm long (sitting vertically on the side of my drain, and vertically on a rock), with a small (2-3mm) reddish calcareous tube protruding about 2mm from the top. They're very small, so they're hard to take pictures of, but I've got a few that turned out alright. Check the pictures below, let me know if you've got any idea what they are!

Gah! Photobucket is being silly and it won't let me upload anything! I'll post up links to the pictures as soon as I can get them to upload! If you can answer any of my questions or have any ideas as to what's going on (where I was confused, at least) in my tank before I post the pictures up, please do so! I'll post the pictures as soon as I can, but I don't know how long that'll be... hopefully not more than an hour.

Thanks for reading! Any help would be greatly appreciated, as always!

Okay, photobucket is working now!

Here's pics of the bubble thing that my Rhodactus released from his mouth!
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y22/PoisonWaffle/DSC02411.jpg
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y22/PoisonWaffle/DSC02421.jpg

Mushroom colony -
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y22/PoisonWaffle/DSC02425.jpg

New pic of the Horn Coral (SPS) -
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y22/PoisonWaffle/DSC02426.jpg

The "Softie Section" of my tank. Note the aiptasia all over the place -
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y22/PoisonWaffle/DSC02430.jpg

The new "Elephant Skin" coral (SPS, methinks) -
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y22/PoisonWaffle/DSC02432.jpg

The new scooter blenny!
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y22/PoisonWaffle/DSC02436.jpg

Full tank shot w/sump. Note the new light rack and additional light -
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y22/PoisonWaffle/DSC02438.jpg

Closeup of the new light rack -
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y22/PoisonWaffle/DSC02439.jpg

I built the rack from scratch out of 1/4" steel rods (60,000lb tensile strength... and I only need to support like 5lb... heh...). I did all of the welds old-school style with oxy-acetylene (203 and 204 tips). I painted it with a spray paint that's intended for sealing steel, but I ran out before I got as many coats on as I wanted... so it's started to rust a little bit, but I'm careful not to let it get into the tank.

Pic from the other side of the rack -
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y22/PoisonWaffle/DSC02440.jpg

Notice the bar in the front that has the standard floro fixture hanging from it--I'm going to build another fixture out of a rain gutter, but I'm going to put 7-9 bulbs in it (depending on the bulbs I decide to use)... I'm aiming for 400w of light total. I'll build the fixture at the end of the summer, and I'll put it up on the tank as soon as it's cool enough to do so without having the tank overheat.

Li'l crab party!
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y22/PoisonWaffle/DSC02451.jpg

New Firefish!
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y22/PoisonWaffle/DSC02458.jpg

The sump--note that the fuge is 8" long.
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y22/PoisonWaffle/DSC02468.jpg

Closeup of the biggest aiptasia -
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y22/PoisonWaffle/DSC02469.jpg

Xenia in bubble trap -
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y22/PoisonWaffle/DSC02471.jpg

HUGE bristleworm!
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y22/PoisonWaffle/DSC02474.jpg

Another of the bristleworm -
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y22/PoisonWaffle/DSC02475.jpg

New snail
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y22/PoisonWaffle/DSC02454.jpg

Here's that calcareous growth on the drain... I don't have a pic of the one on the rock yet.
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y22/PoisonWaffle/DSC02448.jpg

Methinks I'm gonna take a few more pictures of the tank tomorrow when the lights are on... I'll get one of that bottle that has coraline growing on it (it's basically COVERED now), and a few more of the calcareous growths...

That's all the pictures I've got for now. Lemme know if there's anything else you want me to take pictures of

Thanks for watching!

Whatever that ball is, I've never seen anything like that. Very interesting.

Your horn coral looks a lot like hydnophora to me.

Nice softy section, soon that place will be completely full I bet. As for controlling the anemones in the display, while keeping them in the sump....I think a peppermint shrimp would be ideal.

The elephant skin I guess is a pachyseris sp. From what I've read they seem as demanding as other sps. Good luck with it, I've not been lucky enough to see one of those in person. They are kinda uncommon.

Your tank looks really bright with that additional light...how much is on there now?

That aptasia is a monster. whew.

Your calcerous growth looks to be a vermatid snail. They aren't bad for your tank, just watch your fingers when messing around in the tank, they can be sharp.

Looks real good overall. Hope everything continues to do well for ya.

---

Critical Fertilator: The Micromanager of Macronutrients

I've done a lot of googling and can't figure out what the heck came out of that Rhodactus. One of my friends thinks that it just ate something that it didn't like and regurgitated it, but I don't know what it would have eaten o.O

Yes, the horn coral is a Hydnophora pilosa.

I tried a peppermint shrimp in the main tank a few months ago... he didn't eat any of the aiptasia, and he died after about 2 weeks. Methinks it was because of stress.... he didn't have any other shrimp friends. I'll ask my LFS to try to get in a group of 3-5 peppermints and see how they do

The Elephant Skin is a Pachyseris gemmae, and yes, they are extremely uncommon and very expensive. I did some reading on them, and they ARE classified as SPS, but since they have no visible polyps, they get most (if not all) of their nutrition through photosynthesis. They may or may not be able to feed through 'mucosal capture', according to liveaquaria (http://www.liveaquaria.com/product/prod_Display.cfm?pCatId=1473). I've been target feeding it with Kent Marine Micro-Vert in hopes that it'll eat something.

I've only got 106w of light over the tank now, but I'm gonna up my lighting in the fall.

Yea, the aiptasia is huge... he wasn't even all the way open in that pic, either! He's getting noticeably bigger every week!

Yep, I think you're right... the calcareous growths are probably vermatids. I did some scouting around the tank and found several more of them. Here's some ubermacro shots of them

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y22/PoisonWaffle/calcareous1.jpg
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y22/PoisonWaffle/calcareous2.jpg

I even found a few of those growths on the bottom of the plug my GSP's are on. They seem to live in the areas of the tank with the highest flow, so they're apparently filter feeders (you can see the two little wiggly things in the pics)...

Here's an updated full tank shot. You can see the crazy coraline growth everywhere! I've been using plastic razorblades and a mag float to keep it off of the front of the tank, but it's still hard to keep off of the edges, especially down by the substrate.

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y22/PoisonWaffle/DSC02486.jpg

Thanks for the help, Matt!

Keep the comments coming, people

Quick update:

I got two new corals--an elephant ear mushroom, and another species of rhodactus! I also got two more nassarius (not sure of spelling?) snails. I don't have pics yet, but I'll get 'em sometime...

I added two 8000k 23w CF's to the SPS side of the tank right after the lights went out... so they should be happy tomorrow The color of the tank looks a LOT better (uneven, though... )

I'm going to either build or buy a chiller next spring when I upgrade my lighting again. I'll probably be adding 9x 8000k 23w bulbs, and 1-2x 8000k 65w bulbs

And I'm still trying to figure out what the heck that weird purple bubble thing is that came out of my rhodactus! Nobody at my reef club knew what it was, either! Any ideas, anyone?

As always, comments are appreciated

I'm stumped.

Watch out....those elephant ears get HUGE!

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Critical Fertilator: The Micromanager of Macronutrients

Uh oh... I think I upped the light a bit too much too quickly... the sofies closed up really early today, and one of my xenias is oozing stuffs o.O I turned one light off (and will leave it off for the next few days) so it's just another 23w for now... I'll turn the other bulb on later...

Yep, I know the elephant ears get huge... that's why they call 'em elephant ears! One of my friends has one in a 1 gal tank (with about 10 other corals)... it takes up about 1/3 of the tank so far!

So far all of the new stuff is doing rather good. They seem to like the extra light, as they came from tanks with halides o.O

Thanks for the comment, Matt!

Update:

Everything seems to be going rather well with the tank. The new corals are doing well, everything seems to have adjusted to the higher light, everything seems happy...

The firefish seem to be displaying spawning behavior (or at the very least, they're a very good pair)... they never leave eachother's side, and they seem to 'play' quite often... they'll swim around in circles or around eachother, etc...

I've got what appears to be a sponge hanging from the bottom of the rock my GSP's are on. It's white, about an inch long, and very porous. I haven't touched it yet, so I don't know if it's hard or soft, but it appears to be soft.

Here's a few pictures of the sponge. It's in the darkest spot in the tank (hanging from the bottom of a rock) with all kinds of stuff in front of it, so it was really hard to get decent pictures of it...

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y22/PoisonWaffle/sponge1.jpg
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y22/PoisonWaffle/sponge2.jpg

Am I right in thinking that this is a sponge? Will it do any harm to anything in the tank? Is it able to hurt me in any way?

Another question: I've got a LOT of bubbles forming in my substrate (sugar-sized sand). Most of the bubbles seem to be forming around the edge of the tank, but there are quite a few toward the middle as well. I'm assuming that these are bubbles of gaseous nitrogen that are a by-product of the nitrogen cycle, and that they're basically my nitrates being removed from the water column? My concern is the huge number of bubbles... at any given time, there will be 5-10 bubbles floating up from the substrate throughout the tank... about 3-4 bubbles rise every second! I do have cheato, aiptasia, and xenia growing in huge quantities both in the sump and in the main tank for the sole purpose of nutrient export, so I don't think I should have many nitrates anyway. I only feed the tank once a week, too, and even then it isn't much... everybody eats pods and stuff...

My other concern is that my firefish like to chase down and eat these (nitrogen?) bubbles as they float up from the sand bed... is this bad for them?

BTW, I have about a 2.5"-3" sand bed...

If any of you guys have any ideas, please let me know! Thanks

Those pics look kind of like a sponge, yes. It's really hard to tell with the pic. I'll try to look through my inverts book later and let you know what I find.

RE the gas bubbles....I get those here and there, but not as often as you are suggesting. I'm thinking your sand bed may be mostly/completely anaerobic or anoxic and you may want something in there to stir things up a little. Maybe a nassarius crew. Try maybe 3-4 to sift around a bit. Also, do you do gravel vacs with your water changes? That might help a lot, just doing a percentage with each change, not the whole bed.

As far as nitrates go, you'd have to test for them.

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Critical Fertilator: The Micromanager of Macronutrients

I've got 3 nassarius snails in there already... maybe I could get a few more? The number of bubbles has REALLY gone up since my horseshoe crab died, so I bet a few more nassarius would do the trick...

Yes, I do vac with my waterchanges. I do about 3/4 of the sand bed at a time (basically everything but under the rocks, and I get the back corners every other time (that's where the horseshoe crab would hang out when I was vaccing, so I'd leave him in whatever corner he was in...

I'll have to dig out my nitrate test kit... I've got no idea where it's at. While I'm at it, I may as well test for phosphate, pH, etc... I've got those test kits but I've never used them before o.O

Thanks for the help, Matt!

Update:

Still haven't found test kits... will clean my room next week and track 'em down...

The sponge got nibbled on by something... half of it is gone o.O

I found a little piece of pocilliapora growing on a rock in my tank! There are only about 10 polyps, so it's pretty small... but hopefully it'll grow into a decent sized coral! There's a chunk of dead pocilliapora in my sump, so I'm guessing that's where the thing came from? I'm a bit stumped as to how I ended up with a freebie coral! The rock that it's on has been in the tank for a few months and it wasn't there when I got it...

My 'Elephant Skin' coral is growing like mad (for an SPS under CFs, at least)! I've gotten a LOT of noticeable growth!

My staghorn acro is coming back to life, too! I've got new growths on it, even!

The new lights are definitely helping everything

As usual, I've got good news and bad news...

The good news: I'm going on a trip next week! 5 days of FREEDOM!!!

The bad news: there's no way my rents are going to be able to take care of my tank (at least not with the 5 topoffs a day)! Or anyone else, for that matter!

The solution: DIY Gravity-Feed Anti-Siphon Auto-Topoff!

5 gal bucket/storage tank - $1
Anti-siphon float switch - $11 (at Menards (hardware store))
5' 1/2" ID vinyl tubing - $3
DIY 1/2" Bulkhead (1/2" FF threaded coupling, 1/2" MF threaded coupling, 2x 1/2" flat gaskets)
Misc fittings
_________________

Total cost: ~$15

I need to get more tubing... I thought I had enough, but when I tried to hook it up I was 6" short! I'm gonna go buy some more tomorrow after the store opens.

I did test the thing out... all of my seals are good, and the thing works flawlessly in two buckets that I set up outside. Hopefully I'll have it running by tomorrow afternoon

I'll post pics up tomorrow after I get it running

Okay, didn't have time to get pics of it up before I left...

But I got it finished and on the tank! It worked wonderfully all week, and is still going just fine It's 2:30am now, otherwise I'd take/post some pictures... I'll do it later...

The tank took the unsupervised vacation very well, surprisingly. Nothing died! ALL of my xenia is looking REALLY bad... it's all closed up and shriveled up! Other than that, all of my livestock is doing great.

For some reason my temp was 82F (normally 79F... if it spikes, it doesn't go above 80F) when I got back, so all of my corals were closed up/not happy. I don't know how the temp got that high... I set up a couple extra big fans blowing on it the entire time I was gone (dissipates heat into the air... evaporation lowers temp), so I didn't think it'd be a problem... but it was.

So I've basically killed 4 different kinds of xenia (every kind I've ever attempted to keep alive), but I've only killed 2 (pink birdsnest and green pocilliopora) SPS corals (out of 5 that I've kept--the others are staghorn acropora, elephant skin, and horn)that I've kept. Ain't that a tid bit weird?! And the only reason the two SPS's died was because they were never under more than 16w of light since I had them!

Anyway... I'll post pics and stuff up in the morning...

G'nite!

The xenia should recover with lowered temps and a good water change. Good to hear everything survived vacation. I'm always nervous when I'm gone like that.

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Critical Fertilator: The Micromanager of Macronutrients

Well, all of my xenia (except for one little chunk in the sump, which ain't lookin' too happy, but is at least opening daily) totally kicked the bucket! I got my temp back down and everything stable, but it still ain't happy!

Everything else is doing GREAT though! I added another fan and another 23w 8000k light to the tank today, and everything seems to be taking it alright.

I built a new macro lens for my camera today, and WOW it works! I can't focus on anything farther than 1/4" an inch away!

Here's two pictures of a microstar. In the first one, you can see a dark colored column behind it... that's the edge of a 1/8" sheet of glass!
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y22/PoisonWaffle/microstar.jpg

In the 2nd pic, the thing's body's diameter is less than 1/16th of an inch!
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y22/PoisonWaffle/microstar2.jpg

When the main tank's lights turn on this morning, I'm going to feed the tank and see if I can get some cool pictures of random things eating (snails, etc)! I'm gonna see if I can record a video of a snail eating off of the glass

And ya know what?! The lens is waterproof! So now I can stick it into the tank!

Anyway, I'm having fun with the new lens and the tank!

Other than that, no new updates on the tank...

Nice shots....how does one "build" a waterproof macro lens?

Anyhow, sorry about the xenia. Mine's been ticked off a few times and recovered ok. Usually a good water change helps.

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Critical Fertilator: The Micromanager of Macronutrients

Sorry for the delay in responding, Matt.... totally forgot about my thread o.O

I built my macro lens out of a 2"-> 1 1/4" F/F PVC adapter and a 1 1/4" 25mm telescope eye-piece The 2" end fits over the lens of the camera

Tank update: My Tubestrea opened up!!! I've had it for almost a month and it hadn't done anything! I'd checked it both night and day to see if it'd open up, but I never saw it do anything until last night. I knew it was still alive, because it still had flesh over it's openings on the tips of the skeleton. I wasn't able to feed it because I either wasn't able to catch it when it was open, or it didn't open. Anyway, it finally opened up last night and I started freaking out! I turned the lights on to see it's full color and to get some pictures of it (will upload later... camera battery is dead).

The xenia is totally gone... there's absolutely nothing left of it...

All of my other corals are doing great, tho. SPS's are growing. My rhodactus is growing another mouth/starting to frag itself/forming a colony. My elephant ear is growing. The GSP's have spread all over the neighboring two rocks...

Tube worms have taken over my tank! They're growing like mad in the corner of the tank (yes, on the glass!) next to the drain. Not talking about the little curly-q guys... the dusters in the corner are a couple inches long already! I've also got this other funky yellow-colored species of tube worm that came on a frag... they get about 1/4" tall and grow perpendicular to the surface that they're on... I'll have to take some pictures of them.

And I've got some funky algae that looks like cyano...

Anyway, I'll post up some pictures and stuff later...

Careful with the elephant ears when they get bigger...they have a tendancy to close up around small fish similar to an anemone and make 'em disappear