The Life of Blue Spots Tank 1800L

[oldbones]

Doh!!!

[Blue spot]

Well dosing is coming along nicely now and I'm getting better results. I'm still not dosing alk but I am using the ph buffer and alk stabiliser but only at night and this has helped keep my ph a more respetible 8.1 to 8.07 so not getting much of a swing now.
Fish wise , blue spots under attack this week. Someone has excavated into his home and kicked him out , it's one of 2 things , an engineer goby , or a pistol and white cap goby pairing , they are both encroaching on him so not sure which one at the moment , I've ordered an emergency aquaroche jawfish home so I'll try and set him up a new territory as quickly as possible. One thing I have learned about these fish is they do not like stress . Of any kind , so I need to get him a place and quick ! Apart from the all good this week had a big maintenance weekend , water change , substrate Hoover etc took about 6 hours but I love doing it. Nice and relaxing.

[Blue spot]

Bad news people. Berts awol ! So I mentioned previously Bert had his burrow broken into , the culprit.... White cap and pistol shrimp . Bert had made a new home over the other side of the tank, but again kicked out of this , in the mean time the new jawfish home turned up so I moved a few rocks , ushers Bert into the new home to try and set him up a new territory all seamed fine, but again today missing completely, I know this is not a good sign as I can normally find him if he's been kicked out. I'll keep a watch out but hope he turns up somewhere.
I've also decided I am going to re-aquascape the one end of the tank. Although I like the look of it the rock work comes out very close to the front and now some of the fish are getting bigger , I want to try and give them a little more swimming room without being pressed on the front glass, maybe I will find Bert at the same time. Fingers crossed.

[Blue spot]

I've just found Bert

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Well Bert is now living like a king ! Took a bit of persuading though. In the end I buried his jawfish home, caught him and put him inside the actual hole in the house. Buried the extra holes in the house as he didn't seam to like these potential attack routes , netted his shells and trinkets from his old home and scattered hem round his new pad and gave him a thorough talking to about how "this was the perfect set up for a jawfish, now stay in hole ! " It's done the trick , happy as a pig in the proverbial .

[Blue spot]

Well tomorrow is new tank layout day. I am slightly excited and slightly nervous at the same time . Only nervousness in case I can't put it all back together in a way I find appealing. I did this with my Red Sea max quite a lot, so hopefully I am well practiced, but I did have a couple of times where I thought , this just doesn't look right . In the new layout I am hoping to take the rock work back at the one end of the tank, but I do not want to lose coral placement areas . I am actually hoping to increase the area I can put corals yet give some of the now larger fish a littl more swimming space , particularly the moorish , she just looks a little squashed in somehow and spends time pinned to the front of the glass when she wants a big swim. I'll get some pictures of the old and new.
Other thing on the horizon, my Lfs had a big Aussie shipment in yesterday, popped in today before all the good stuff goes , reserved a yellow acro, a tiny purple trachy (this was my favourite thing so pleased about that) and a very dark green hammer , historically I do struggle with hammers , no idea why. I love them but they always seam to fade away (not the brown jelly, I had this in the old tank), out of the three I've had in the tank I have one left so I've been staying away. Now my tanks more established I am hoping I might do better.
Camera wise I have orders some orange filters so hopefully I might be able to get some better coral shots with the blues on, never tried it so we will have to wait and see on that one.

[Blue spot]

It took 13 hours, I now have a hand the size of a balloon (touched a bristle worm and an urchin). But it's re-scaped . Hooray ! Loved every minute of it. I just need to get some pictures now but things are looking good, moved a lot of the rockworke back and created a sort of cove on the one end. The fish are swimming much better and they all tend to gather together now in the cove. I have more space for corals and I thought a lot about easy coral placement ( I struggle with the glues available, still not found a good one yet). And I used the branching rock to create a sort of second shelf where I am going to add some more sps. In all pretty good result. I may have one casualty in the move , diamond watchman goby , This was one of my first ever fish, so again quite attached to him, but not seen him since the move , hope he's not been trapped burying under the moved rocks. Next time pictures , m just waiting for these orange filters to turn up .

[Blue spot]

You're not going to believe this. Last week I wrote about how blue spot had gone missing , I clicked post looked at my tank and their he was. I've just written about the diamond watchman goby, he's been missing for 2 days (very unusual, so thought he might be dead). Clicked post and ....... Their he is. So theirs a tip for you, if you're fish is missing , just Wright about it and it turns up. Lol
Forgot to mention got some nice corals in the Ozzie shipment got a bright green torch, a lovely pink lobo, some red acans and a mystery piece , we couldn't decide if it's a trachy or a lobo or what it is, it's pretty small at the moment so I'll get a picture of this aswell. I've also had a couple of tiny fish , ( I know , I know , no more fish ) but they are tiny , 2 yellow clown gobys and a red lined deapwater hogfish, this fish really floats my boat, cream , red yellow then a pink top, to me a stunning looking fish and as a bonus very piecefull and curious, traveling all over the tank . Again I'll get pictures

[Blue spot]

Things once again have gone too well recently so...... My rockworke collapsed ! Planned moving rocks , lots of fun... Unplanned Nightmare. For now I've just stuck everything back in a fairly presentable way , but not as nice as I had it. Didn't even get a picture of the last one for reference. Gutted.

[Blue spot]

Need a little apex help if anyone is willing. I am trying to programme my skimmer to follow my main return pump but with a slight delay so

If main_return = off the skim off

This works fine

If main return = on then skim 010 on

This inputs but does not turn the skimmer on , After turning the main return on. Any ideas anyone

[Pastey]

Here is my coding:

Fallback ON
Set ON
If FeedA 000 Then OFF
If Swx2_1 CLOSED Then OFF
If Swx2_2 CLOSED Then OFF
If Outlet Pump_I3 = OFF Then OFF
Defer 010:00 Then ON

I never use the "Feed" command which would turn my return and skimmer off. The "Swx2_1 and 2" are for my leak detector. I have the same programming in my return pump for them which is sort of redundant. What you're looking for are the last 2 lines.

[Blue spot]

Perfect thank you pastey I'll give that a try

[Blue spot]

Been a while since I have updated so . Rockwork is rebuilt . Byropsis is back !! I've had a new bio pellet reactor as my nitrates are still higher than I would like and I've had a few sps corals green up . From what I have read I think this is due to my higher nitrate levels so I'm going to concentrate on trying to get these down . Everything else is looking and doing well, no deaths , a couple of coral falls which have caused some damage but on the whole a good month. I've got some pictures ready to post , some with the orange filter on which shows the fluorescence better, funnily enough though I found a pink filter gave a more realistic representation . I'll try and get them posted.

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this was the orange filter

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