southpaw23's reef

[Achilles Tang]

Nice rockscape! I'll be tracking your tank progress for sure!

[southpaw23]

hi kenny. if i put the purple anemone into my tank do you think i can hv angels in future? eg majestic, blue face, king....

does angels attack/whack anemone?

Hi MAG...unfortunately i've no experience with large angels so cant comment. I'm guessing that may not be such a good idea considering the tendency for angels to nip on LPS...anemone's don't look too different from torches and frogspawns so logically i'd expect the angels to mistake the anemone for food too...

[southpaw23]

Nice rockscape! I'll be tracking your tank progress for sure!

Hey Conrad...nice of you to drop by Progress with the tank is slow...and mine is but a modest setup...no fancy sps filled hills in the near future. But it's still a fun journey nonetheless..

[MAG]

Hey Conrad...nice of you to drop by Progress with the tank is slow...and mine is but a modest setup...no fancy sps filled hills in the near future. But it's still a fun journey nonetheless..

hi kenny.

any new addition? me hand itchy added quite a no of corals.

eg prata, hammer, leather, mushroom, plate, cup pagoda,....and the list goes on..yet to add any fishes cos tank is still goi thru ann period. now full of brown algae.

keep us updated on your progress ok..

[southpaw23]

Hey MAG...sorry for the long absence...i've pretty much added nothing much to the tank for the past few weeks. Was a lil depressed losing all those YTs and wanted to give the tank sometime to settle in somemore before adding more livestock.

Will probably only come back with updates in a couple of weeks.

[MAG]

Hey MAG...sorry for the long absence...i've pretty much added nothing much to the tank for the past few weeks. Was a lil depressed losing all those YTs and wanted to give the tank sometime to settle in somemore before adding more livestock.

Will probably only come back with updates in a couple of weeks.

hi kenny. well sorry to hear abo the yellow tangs. sometimes battling the itch can be really pain in the #$$%&^%%#@.

im pretty used to that thou. thats why i always tell ppl to manage our expectation. no matter how good our tank it will never be comparable to the real home-OCEAN.

so each time when my fish "kkk" ill just tell myself no worries just learn from mistake and buy new one heehee..

am alre kept few pieces of yt for me. will collect them once im back from trip. did you use uv? each time when i add any new fishes(few memos recently) ill on my twin uv 36 x 2. but will use timer in future cos my tank now got lots of corals.

that also mean bye bye fowlr concept.

actually corals are quite fun..and most important bright in colour. still in learning stage so plenty to learn.

hope your tank recover soon and looking fwd to your pic.

[lyz77]

Hey MAG,

Lemme try and answer some if not all of ur questions to the best of my ability.

1. I wash the collection cup approx once a week and have not much problems removing the cup, just hold on to the base of the skimmer and twist the cup till it's free from the locking position. You may just need to put a lil more strength into it But i've heard from others that there's a type of grease you can apply to smoothen this process...haven't tried as it's working fine for me thus far.

2. There will be some skimate that collects at the inner side of the collection cup, that's a given, but that also is largely determined by how you tune your skimmer. Mine's set to semi wet, meaning the waterlevel is raised up to the top of the neck on the body, the part where it tapers in and connects to the collection cup. A lil difficult to describe i guess. Lemme see if i can get u a photo. Oh, it's important to tune the air intake as well, at this stage it may be a good bet to throttle down your air intake for the skimmer pumps to just below full capacity then adjust accordingly in future.

3. Initially i wasn't pulling out much skimate due to the lack of livestock and the fact that the tank was still cycling..but now that i've got the 5 YTs and the Sailfin, i do get decent skimate (also due to the medication i'm dosing to solve my itch problem). Rest assured the skimmer is more than capable of pulling out gunk when it needs to. The lack of skimate you're facing now could be a result of 2 things, one being the lack of livestock and low bio load. And the other possibly being that you're skimmer is tuned to dry skimate which explains the gunk buildup at the neck and lack of skimate in the cup. Your skimate is probably thick and smelly eh?

4. Will see if i can get u a picture in the coming days.

5. No, not currently running ozone on the tank, altho it's a serious consideration for me with the itch problem i'm facing currently

6. IMO, i've had no problems with the gravity feed to the skimmer but there is a condition to this and it's how the gravity feed is setup. I currently have two dursos running to the sump tank and one durso is set slightly lower in level that the other. Now naturally, all the tank water would just be directed at this lower durso so it needs to be adjusted/restricted (via ball valve) so that the waterlevel in the overflow raises to the point that it starts overflowing into the second (higher) durso as well.

When this happens, the first durso (being completely submerged) starts to only pull in water and not a mixture of water and air and this is the critical part for the gravity feed to work. I found that the presence of large air bubbles fed into the skimmer lowered the efficiency of the skimming and when that problem was solved, i didn't face any more issues with the skimmer and it skimmed fine after that.

I guess it's a lil confusing to explain in words, perhaps you can check it out in person someday.

hope that helps.

cheers,

Kenny

Hi, for the durso which is use for your skimmer gravity feed, how short is it compare to the other durso? I'm pretty interested to explore this matter so that I can reduce the no. of pump.

Btw, what a nice tank you have and it looks pretty like designer tank!

[southpaw23]

Hi, for the durso which is use for your skimmer gravity feed, how short is it compare to the other durso? I'm pretty interested to explore this matter so that I can reduce the no. of pump.

Btw, what a nice tank you have and it looks pretty like designer tank!

Hey lyz77..to answer ur question on the durso, the lower one is only about an inch to an inch and a half lower than the higher durso. What usually happens is that all the water would normally flow into the lower durso and not to the higher one...what you wanna do is gradually limit the flow rate of the lower durso to the point that the water level in the overflow raises and starts to flow down the higher durso.

When that happens, a full siphon takes place in the lower durso making the flow thru more consistent and without the presence of bubbles...hope i make sense.

Oh and thanks for the compliment on the tank..it's still quite bare tho...hope to go coral shopping soon then i can post up some pictures

[lyz77]

Thanks for the info!

Not sure if my tank is suitable for gravity feed as my EOS is on separate partition. Therefore, I'm not sure if I can achieve the desire flow rate when I lower one of the durso!

[lyz77]

Random piping shots..dual overflow with split for the gravity feed of the skimmer

I'm pretty curious on the piping which connect to yr skimmer and sump filter. Is it possible to take a pics of the upper option as it seems like both your overflow pipe is connected to each other with a Tee connector.

Thanks!

[southpaw23]

Oh the T connector thingie was just something my tank maker did to make sure that the 2 overflow pipes run in parallel.

In retrospect, i would have opted not to do that cos now controlling the overflow is trickier cos i'll have to adjust both ball valves to get the right level at my overflow. If both overflows were separated, then all that would need to be done is to adjust the ball valve on the lower durso overflow.

As for your situation, i still don't see why it won't work...but am kinda unclear of what you mean by the EOS is on a separate partition. Perhaps post a pic of the compartment so i have a better picture of what ur talkin about...don't knock off the possibility of the gravity feed just yet...i still think it's a pretty good option to have...

[lyz77]

Pls refer to the pics. Thks!

[kareen]

Hi southpaw!

I saw your sale thread about the anemone... This is what I feel like contributing....

From the pic, it seems that mid to bottom has almost no flow at all. U may consider tilting the pipe slightly so that mid to bottom have some flow. The anemone is looking for a good spot and I think likely may end up higher....

[southpaw23]

Hi southpaw!

I saw your sale thread about the anemone... This is what I feel like contributing....

From the pic, it seems that mid to bottom has almost no flow at all. U may consider tilting the pipe slightly so that mid to bottom have some flow. The anemone is looking for a good spot and I think likely may end up higher....

Hi Kareen,

Thanks for your input....but based on what i've read and know about LTAs...they will almost never climb up the rocks to reach for light. They are most comfortable wedged between rock and sand....also as for flow, they require moderate to low flow. I have since added a Tunze Nano 6045 to the setup that is aimed diagonally down which provides additional moderate flow at the lower portion of the aquarium.

The reason why i suspect it to be a case of lighting insufficiency is cos the anemone was in the same spot for a good 2 weeks when it suddenly decided to uproot itself...i tried to place it back at the same spot but it moved a day or so after.

I also noted that the color has grew less intense then when i first obtained it, leading me to believe that the lighting could be the possible culprit here. Water parameters are ok...nitrates around 25 which is higher then i would like but dont believe it to be high enough to be the cause of this slight bleaching and the sudden movement of the animal.

Please feel free to chip in further with your experience on this

[kareen]

ok... u didn't have the updated pic.... so I thought it was just the two pipe....

Well, I'm not sure of Tunze Nano 6045 product... is the flow from it narrow or wide? If it is wide kind, then I will prefer put it in a way diagonal and tilted slightly upward. This is to have some kind of upward force to sweep the food around the tank.

I know it is difficult to give advise like this but do take note where the anemone movement and analyse from there... For example, does it move to a spot less or stronger flow? The same apply for lighting... Once u get the feel then u know how to adjust the requirement and choose a better spot. No point trying to put him in the same spot....

Many of us choose a spot where it look nice but have overlook the requirement. For corals, they just perish slowly but for anemone, they will move in search of a better location.

BTW, do remember to recall what are the things you did before the anemone moves.... It could provide some hints..... Was it the Tunze nano?

PS: it is not nitrate problem... Mine is higher.

PSS: not too sure about the colour.... maybe lighting maybe food.... not a person to give literature references...

[southpaw23]

Flow wise..IMO is sufficient for LPS. Do note that the 2 pipes you see are connected to 2 wavyseas and they provide varied flow due to the rotation of the returns. Plus it's being run by an RD 12m3 which provides ample flow (around approx 9000 lph after headloss)...the Nano 6045 provides an additional 4500 lph to the tank and has a fairly wide spread as compared to traditional powerheads.

As for the spots i picked for the anemone...it's based on the requirements of the particular anemone...for instance LTAs between rock and sandbed....i have 2 other RBTAs that have been in their place ever since i placed them in the tank and they're happy.

Again, my conclusion on the lighting requirement is mainly based on my observation of it's color shift and the fact that it started moving. I don't believe it to be a function of a change in the system as not much has changed in the system since the animal was put in. And i will re-iterate that the requirements for this animal...based on what i've read...states tat it requires quite intense lighting...something i am unable to provide it with the T5s i'm running at this point....and only 4 of the tubes are running at this point in time....i ran the 6 for a while as well but that din't seem to make the animal any happier

[chercm]

Small update - The chilldown chiller coil has finally been hooked up!

Takes less then 45 minutes to chill down the entire tank by 1 degree, and it takes well over 3.5 hours for the tank temp to rise 1 degree before the chiller kicks in again....not bad . But that's just an estimate. Will get a more accurate reading over the weekend.

Oh and the itch situation is improving...i've had a couple of casualties tho...the PBT and a YT

bro any pic for this ?

you using compressor ?

[southpaw23]

Yep it's using a 1hp Starmex compressor hooked up to a cooper coil submerged in the sump...don't have a pic of the compressor i'm afraid...it's under the cabinet i built in the balcony...u can see the cabinet in the earlier pics i posted

[kareen]

Flow wise..IMO is sufficient for LPS. Do note that the 2 pipes you see are connected to 2 wavyseas and they provide varied flow due to the rotation of the returns. Plus it's being run by an RD 12m3 which provides ample flow (around approx 9000 lph after headloss)...the Nano 6045 provides an additional 4500 lph to the tank and has a fairly wide spread as compared to traditional powerheads.

As for the spots i picked for the anemone...it's based on the requirements of the particular anemone...for instance LTAs between rock and sandbed....i have 2 other RBTAs that have been in their place ever since i placed them in the tank and they're happy.

Again, my conclusion on the lighting requirement is mainly based on my observation of it's color shift and the fact that it started moving. I don't believe it to be a function of a change in the system as not much has changed in the system since the animal was put in. And i will re-iterate that the requirements for this animal...based on what i've read...states tat it requires quite intense lighting...something i am unable to provide it with the T5s i'm running at this point....and only 4 of the tubes are running at this point in time....i ran the 6 for a while as well but that din't seem to make the animal any happier

As for the spots i picked for the anemone...it's based on the requirements of the particular anemone...for instance LTAs between rock and sandbed....i have 2 other RBTAs that have been in their place ever since i placed them in the tank and they're happy.

Where are they as compare to the LTA? Higher or lower?

Where is the spot where the LTA stop? Compare new location to old location... in term of flow, lighting, food, etc.

How long have u run the 6 tube of T5 before u conclude that it is not a problem?

Think back, r u sure that no change has been made? For 2 weeks the LTA didn't move, why move after 2 weeks?

I am just providing some guideline to prompt you think of what is the LTA problem... I have no answer... u know best of your tank....

Lastly, u have got a nice specimen, I won't give up because of the movement....

[southpaw23]

I am just providing some guideline to prompt you think of what is the LTA problem... I have no answer... u know best of your tank....

Lastly, u have got a nice specimen, I won't give up because of the movement....

Hi Kareen, tho i appreciate all your inputs on the matter...i think u may have misunderstood my intentions of selling the LTA off...it is not cos of movement that i am letting it go...and it is definately not for the sake of convenience.

Believe me you, if i had the choice, i'd rather keep this specimen....but noting it's conditions in the past week or so, and pretty much asking all the same questions you have highlighted previously, it has brought me to the conclusion that the lighting is insufficient (i think i've stressed this alot already).

Sure, i can continue to find a good spot for it and have it stick eventually...and even feed it to keep it healthy...but bottom line is...without sufficient light...it is most DEFINATELY going to lose it's color....and i dont want it to happen to this specimen. So while there's still hope for the animal...i'd rather someone with a more suitable setup take it so that it can thrive.

[kareen]

yup... agree with you.

[southpaw23]

It's been a long while since i've last updated this thread...just thought i'd drop a pic or two of the tank currently

First pic fr the bedroom..

[southpaw23]

From the living room..

[kelstorm]

nice RBTA.... very big leh...

[southpaw23]

Yup...quite the monster...but a beauty when fully expanded...