AquariumLog.com: Cooky's blog

200gl Reef Aquarium-3

Cooky — Sun, 27 Dec 2009 17:34:30 -0500

27-12-09: Hi everybody. I hope you all had a great Christmas, and do have a good new-year celebration. So where do I begin, maybe with all my snail deaths and half the hermit crab population committing suicide (a child of 6 could keep these I was informed). I am going to put that down to the overnight courier travel and my water conditions varying so much. For some reason I seem to have a Calcium level of 850mg/lt but a PH of 7.78 which does not change even though I have changed 30% of the water. All other parameters seem OK. I think all this happened when the last 75Kgs of live rock was added. Letting it alone for a while would be wise and watch if the PH climbs again. Algae of the green and red type has appeared on some of this rock but is receding a little. One of the gifts I received was The 101 Best Marine Invertebrates by Scott W. Michael as the wife thought I was getting a little depressed about it all. I only mention this as its fine reading with some little gems like 20 times the water volume turnover and some 1000 watts plus for my size Reef. This all sounds good if it were not an increase required in points with the other half before purchases can be authorised. As always your comments would be appreciated so until 2010 I wish you all a happy new year.

200gl Reef Aquarium-2

Cooky — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 11:15:06 -0500

12-12-09:- Hi, I have added another lot of Live Rock bought in Darby (400miles round trip) making a total of 125Kgs live and 55Kgs of homemade. I have noticed again a drop in PH to 7.67, hoping this will rise as before to 8.20. I will add plumbing to include another closed loop pump to bring the turnover to approximately 8 times the tank volume. My DSB has had a couple of buckets of different people’s tank sand added to add verity. Unfortunately the Banded Stars have died and one of the Brittle Stars ripped the other to pieces. Still looking on the bright side the rest of my tank occupants seem to be doing fine. I shall do no more adding until the system settles down. As always please feel free to impart any wisdom as it is appreciated.

My Current Aquarium Future

Cooky — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 13:10:21 -0500

Thought I would write a piece every week on my progress with this new 200gl tank. The reason being here in England there seems to be few people who would bother to pass a comment on one`s progress lest they offend. Please feel free to post your views as all comment is appreciated. So here goes, with 110kgs of rock now in the system with all good readings I have decided to add a few clean-up critters. Some Common Hermit and Halloween Crabs, Turbo Snails, Black Brittle Stars and Long Spine Heart Urchin. With no leaks in the system this week (nobody told me you need a flexible tube between the bulkhead and sump pump) I feel confident to proceed with this stage. As always please feel free to comment.

Contact

Cooky — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 17:11:57 -0500

Is there anybody out there ??. Just a few lines of text would get the ball rolling.