Cleaning and work on fragtank

Yesterday I went to our local store to get some water, salt and bacteria. Also I wanted to ask if they could make a transit for an overflow in an existing aquarium. Turned out they could do this for not too much money and could do it the same day as well. So I went home and emptied and cleaned the fragtank.

Most of the corals and rocks that where in the fragtank moved to a bin.

The rock for the crab tank didn’t fit in the bin, so I moved that one to the sump.

Only the more fragile corals moved to the RSM250. The fish (Foxface, Blue Tang and Manderin) really enjoyed these new addition, they started eating from the rocks immediately. Some of the algae, like the feather algae I liked, have almost been eaten all together by now.  

After bringing the fragtank to the aquarium store I heard their drill was broken so it might take little longer. So I left without the new overflow in the aquarium.

Back home I started cleaning the RSM, trying to clear it from Cyano, Red Hair Algae and Planaria.

The LPS corals are still not looking good, the Trumpet Coral has been thrown down again just like the orange buttons and together with the frogspawn coral they are shrinking in.

Update on fragtank

Last weekend of March we have done some work on the fragtank and sump again. I made a reefrack plateau in the tank so I can put rocks underneath the frags that I want to use. Up till now they where all located in the sump, which was more then full with rocks.

We are still trying to get the water flow between the sump and tank work. The first attempt was trying to make it work without a pump, unfortunately this failed. So next try was with a pump, unfortunately water went down faster then it came up again.

A smaller tube for downwards water seems to be a solution, but the one we had was so small that I needed to adjust the pumping speed again. However, on lower speed the pump and the down flow seem to be levelled.

April 3 I placed the skimmer in the sump and placed the pump, rocks and racks where I wanted to have them. The black crab is still in the left compartment and the white/orange one in the middle compartment, they are of later concern.

Getting the skimmer to work still gives some trouble due to lack of manuals on the Sera Marin PS 600 S. It’s a bit of a puzzle :p

April 4 we tried to get the whole flow working for real. But trying to get the pump flow adjusted to the downward flow of 2! small tubes is not doable. At least, I gave up. My wife wants to check to see if she can get it working this weekend, but my sight has moved forward now to different methods.

The whole problem is that the balance is also influenced by the skimmer, which we got working now. We also added bacteria and filters to the sump. All that is left is trying to get the flow going between the sump and the aquarium.

Heart Sea Urchin Died

He was already acting weird last few days, riding up to rocks and walls (and clam) and dropping on his back. I moved him back to a place with more sand for him to move around in, but he didn’t go under. He had a weird spot on his rear, which I found out this morning, wasn’t a spot but a hole. He has now lost all of his hairs and the cleaner shrimp was already busy with him, so it is officially over now for him. Cause of death is unknown, but my guess is that it has something to do with the Cyano Bacteria covering the sand now creating air pockets as well. This was also the situation when the previous urchin died, so it might be related.