Dary's tank!

[Keithhjs]

Happy Birthday! Hope you enjoyed a few cold ones
Great pics, thanks got sharing.
Sorry to hear bout the tank troubles, I know you'll get it back on track.

 

[Dary421]

Thank you all for the b'day wishes,...it means a lot ,. Yesterday I ordered a new filter ,resin replacement kit for my brs " spartan" RODI unit,...I noticed that the tds measurements were no longer at " zero" and that the resin had gotten dirty,.... Maybe this is part of the cause of my green hair algae outbreak ? After all the troubles and bs associated with this system I'm dreading trying to replace the filters due to the units desire to leak horribly ,... Hopefully all will go well ( sure it will :-/ ) when it's time to do the swap out.
I replaced the filters in My old brs 5 stage unit (which is now located under the kitchen sink and is slightly modified to produce drinking water ) a week or two back and the whole filter swap out took about 15 minutes and not even a whisper of a leak,... I got my fingers crossed for the swap out on the " spartan" unit ,maybe some cold ones will help sub do my overwhelming desire to throw it out into the center of the street to get run over by a truck.

 

[jeffaquarius]

IMHO that is probably the reason why you are having hair algae problem. I have experienced similar problem and I found my tds in my ro/di was way up high. After replacing it, the hair algae is starting to decline gradually. Of course the amount of feeding also will have similar effect. I also have installed my ro/di in the kitchen where I can use just the ro for drinking. I have valves under the sink that I can open or close to by pass the DI.

 

[Dary421]

Much the same here on the drinking water system., i eliminated the di part of my unit and installed a inline csrbon(?) filter for taste.... Re the hair algae and the " spartan" rodi unif , i surely hope so... First time ive ever had a hair algae issue like this ., scary and a real pain in the butt too.

 

[Dary421]

So much to my surprise the brs filters and DI resin mix showed up today,..... With a deep breath and a bottle of relaxant I proceeded to change out the di resin first,..the sediment and the carbon impregnated filters actually looked pretty clean and I really Didn't wanna push the envelope too far seeing that I was already having a crappy day anyways so i opted to only change out the DI resin,.. It went rather well after I beat the snot outa my plastic wrench with a piece of 2x4 to loosen up the canister ,... My previous setup with the modified o ring held up well and there was no leaks!!!! I went ahead and pumped out my previously made up RODI water amongst the plants around the yard and restarted the fill up of the barrel,... I took a couple of pictures showing the readings going into the unit and out to the DI resin canister and the zero readings coming out.!!!!
Got my fingers crossed that that'll help things out with the tank .

 

[Gregcoyote]

Excellent. I would even drink that water!

 

[Dary421]

Excellent. I would even drink that water!

Lmao !!!! I got some better stuff in the refrigerator

 

[Gregcoyote]

I hear that.

 

[Keithhjs]

Good to hear the swap went well. My second DI canister I added to my spartan quit leaking as soon as I lubricated the O ring again. I gotta say though I have waaaay too much co2 in the line as I've been chewing up do much DI resin I finally starts buying it by the cubic foot, which is about 43 pounds lol. When that runs out I've decided that having the Culligan guy come out and add their DI filter is more economical. Hope the hair algae battle isn't a nasty one

 

[Dary421]

Well ..... I don't even know where to begin except April was tough really tough ,. ,seems like I had my tire running in a rut and just couldn't get out if it no matter how hard I tried.
My tank had sort of been put on hold for the most part but seems to be slowly coming around again.,..my green hair algae outbreak seems to be slowly subsiding and I haven't lost any more corals lately either.,...so for the most part tank wise things are ok .
For anyone who actually has been following this thread for awhile ,.if you recall last September my girl friend's daughter was arrested the nite before our Hawaiian trip and due to the circumstances we had to abort the vacation and tend to matters on hand,... I'm happy to announce that last Friday she was let out with the promise to go to a local college and get a degree ,...in all honesty ,she's a super good kid who made a bad choice and unfortunately paid the price,... I lost one of my dear friends who I've been fishing with for the last 37 years a week and a half ago,.. My poor Toyota van's motor after 190,000 carefree miles finally decided it was time to give up the ghost last week and now I've been forced to riding my motorcycle until the shop refits it with a new " long block" ,... These are just a very small sample of things going on lately but with fingers crossed ,Hopefully things are on the mend and I can get back on the forum again without feeling like a stranger .

 

[Sniperhank]

Things will clear up buddy. Life's little mysteries always seem to pop up when we don't want them too.

 

[Gregcoyote]

Good luck. Sending positive vibes.

 

[Dary421]

A little update....., I got a message from our power company that all our power will be cut off from Saturday evening at 10 pm to Sunday morning at 8 am while they prepare things for the continuing saga of eliminating the telephone Poles to a underground utilities system,..Needless to say it'll be a loooong nite , I'll be checking out my backup generator and purchasing some $4.35 gasoline in the next day or so to be prepared .
Last week during my pwc I discovered one of my koralia Powerheads had stopped working and no matter how much cleaning and tinkering would revive it,..I decided to replace it with a slightly larger one and also replace another smaller one that periodically acts up with a clone of the newly replaced one.
Slowly things are progressing forward,... I should be getting my van back with its new lease on life sometime within the next week.,and it can't be soon enough for me!
My green hair algae outbreak seems to be sloooowly subsiding and as I stated last week no more coral die off either.
The wether here in San Diego ( inland ) has been in the mid to high 90's with weather alerts that it'll be much hotter in the next two days,... Thank goodness that a couple of years back I bought a cooler for the tank ,..it's times lie these that make you appreciate the invention of beer !

 

[Dary421]

You ever had those periods where nothing seems to go your way no matter how hard you try to straighten them out ? Well, boy I've been in one the last couple of months that causes me to merely shake my head and laugh in disbelief every time something else happens .
This morning while doing my pwc I realized that I haven't seen my humuhumu at all,.. Flashlight out and looking in all his little cracks and crevices but to no avail ,...my tank is a plexiglass setup and as you prob know the top is partially covered by plexiglass as per it's design ,.. Mr trigger has never showed any attempt at jumping and after a few years he's always been there,... Well I found him behind the tank on the floor dead , ,I guess it was just his time to go . , so sad .
On the positive side of things maybe after I get my act together again I can finally get some critters in the tank that will get along together ,..imagine that for the first time in years I'll actually be able to put some snails in there without fear of them being instantly eaten, a shrimp ,crab, fish etc hmmmmmmmmm.

 

[manbeast]

That first paragraph pretty much sounds like my entire life, but without the low points how would we truly be able to appreciate the high points

 

[Gregcoyote]

Sorry about the trigger. Bad way to loose a prize fish. Hope all settles out and relaxation ensues soon.

 

[Dary421]

Sorry about the trigger. Bad way to loose a prize fish. Hope all settles out and relaxation ensues soon.

thanks greg,...its been a hayride the last month or two but (hopefully ) I've managed to turn the tide and can proceed accordingly,....on the plus side i did manage to get my van back on wednesday afternoon with a completely rebuilt engine ,new ac etc etc....&7000.00 later I'm back on four wheels again and it feels wonderful !
I also managed to book another trip to Hawaii at the end of september,...this time we'll be going to the kopoho tide pools just south of hilo ,...it'll be interesting to see what's in store for us exploring ( snorkeling ) these tide pools every day.
tank wise,.. little change in things,...my gf laura was pretty upset at losing the triggerfish but still understands the ups and downs of reef keeping., unfortunately, it'll prob be a little while until i start to restock the tank again.
tonite's the night that the power company has chosen to once again shut off our power ( rescheduled ) from 10 pm until 8 am
so with cold beers and a generator standing by i will once again attempt to keep the power on during the outage.
i truly enjoy the inputs re my trials and tribulations of my tank,., hopefully someday ill figure everything out and i can have that beautiful tank that most of you take for granted,..until then ill have to keep my ears and eyes open in high hopes that i too can pick up some valuable info from you guys,...thanks again, Dary

 

[Gregcoyote]

Sounds like things are settling out. A trip to Hawaii sounds deluxe to me right now!

You, nor I, will ever know but just a bit of the whole picture of what happens in our aquariums. Everybody has ups and downs because a captive reef is the ultimate in complex interchanges we can't even really measure with our hobby equipment. It is dynamic to an extreme. So you just roll with the flow and simply try not to drive the bus off a cliff while enjoying the ride.

 

[Dary421]

Yesterday I added a scopace tang to the tank along with two little lawn mower blennies., I've always liked the looks of the scopace vs the yellow tang so I thought I'd try one out .... So far it seems really timid as it hides in the rock work and cruises out for a few seconds before heading back in again, I'm hoping that over time it'll get used to seeing me sitting on the couch watching tv and will come out and visit more often .
The blennies were actually attacking one another during their acclimation period and I had to put a small rock between them to separate them,...a couple of hours later they were cruising around together in the main tank like two long lost buddies.
A clean up crew was added consisting of some various array of snails and a tiny little peppermint shrimp ,... The way my tank looks these days I think the critters could probably graze on the algae for the next couple of months and fatten themselves up nicely.
Over time I'll probably add smaller chromies etc to get things moving in the right direction,...I'd love to get another tang although I know that the " rules " state that only one tang per tank,... I think Greg has multiple tangs in his setup , probably due to his tanks size in general,.. 300 gallons vs 135.
I'd love to hear about ideas in stocking with the scopace ,... As always , your input is very much appreciated

 

[Gregcoyote]

Dary, I wish I had a even bigger tank for my tangs. Mine are happy and fat as a result of the tanks shape and many available escape holes. You could support more depending on the type.