A rainy day over the reef

melev — Sun, 06 Nov 2016 17:01:18 +0000

A rainy day over the reef melev Sun, 11/06/2016 - 20:01

Today's club meeting was at Oceans Avenue, and they did a fragging demo workshop for the club members and customers. As we watched, they cut various corals and then used glue to mount them to frag plugs. A grill was out back, providing burgers, hot dogs or chicken to everyone. I had to grab a Corona and then filmed and photographed some stuff which will be shared later.

When I got home, it was nearly dark already because of the time shift. But my reef was looking especially crisp, thanks to my cleaning the glass yesterday. I did want to discuss something that happened late last night, because those of you with smaller tanks may not have the cushion I do with my larger setup. I'd dosed Phosphate Rx last night around midnight, well after the reef had been fed and things were in sleeping. About an hour and a half later I fell into bed, ready to sleep instantly. But a text appeared on my phone informing me that the waste collector was full. I was too tired to care, and secondarily knew if I got up to deal with it, I'd wake up enough to not fall asleep 2 minutes later.

I decided I didn't care that I'd get a reminder text every hour until the waste collector was drained - I was going to sleep and deal with it in the A.M. When the collector is full, my skimmer has one pump shut off to avoid any excess water from being exported. What I didn't think about was that my tank was cloudy from Phosphate Rx. So the skimmer was operating at 50%, filling the body with frothy stuff 10" tall but not enough to collect in the cup. I slept.

When I got up in the morning, the first thing I saw was another brand new text and I drained the waste collector into the toilet. It was then that I put two and two together and thought how I really should have emptied it at 1 a.m. so the skimmer was running at 100% efficiency. My reef looked fine, the livestock never was affected by the treatment like so many times before.

But for those of you with smaller systems with less oxygen in the water / less flow, etc... maybe you should remember to stay on top of your system after dosing to make sure you avoid any possible downfalls. Just some food for thought.

Reef Blog

Unexpected puddle

melev — Mon, 22 Aug 2016 23:17:44 +0000

Unexpected puddle melev Tue, 08/23/2016 - 02:17

Earlier today, the SmartATO began beeping while I was working at my desk. Thinking nothing of it, I ignored it for about 4 minutes while I wrapped up what i was doing. When I went over to unplug it, I saw a small flood in the fishroom and grabbed my camera. The cause of this was by a quick-disconnect I shorted out a week ago, and hadn't fixed yet. I tried to fix it, got frustrated and blew it off. You know what happens when you leave something unfixed on a reef, right? Well... storms in the area had changed barometric pressure, causing my skimmer to overflow leading to a messy fishroom floor. Grabbed my camera to share the mess with you and why it happened, because only another reefkeeper can relate and all of you are my family.

Reef Blog