The Official Asylum Reef Tank Thread

[shilala]

Lance, my basement is nice and cold. That's kind of a concern. I'd probably end up having to add a heater to the sump, and insulate and cover it, whereas my tank holds perfect temp right now.
Come summer, I'll re-evaluate and see if it gets too hot. If that be the case, I'll just raise the light and take off the glass tops.
Keeping stuff warm here is far more difficult than keeping it chilled.
I'm with ya, though. Just a refugium to make critters and plants and get a real biocycle going. I could get the skimmers and filters off the back of my tank and there'd be less noise. That's all I'm looking for. I have a perfect place to do it, too. Right under the steps in the basement.

[shilala]

I never thought to ask you guys about this, my bad. My brain doesn't put the ends of the spaghetti noodles together very good some days.
I just offered this stuff yesterday on my reef club's site, had no takers out of 24 lookers.
I just jammed the food in a small priority box and it fits great. I can send it asap if any of you guys can use it, or if you just wanna try it, or you know someone who will put it to use, whatever. I'll even send a treat for your troubles, I think I can get something else in there.

Here's the text of the ad...
"Hi Guys,
I have posted for free some Instant Ocean Herbivore Diet Seaweed Blend and Seaweed Grazing Block. Both are brand new and unopened, I pulled them out of a couple buckets of salt yesterday.
I read them, they look neat and all that stuff, but I'm not going to put them to use.
If you're not familiar, they're single serving no-spoil feed. The big pack has packets like ketchup packets, the grazing blocks are little short cans that put you in the mind of a votive candle (but bigger around) with a lid.
If one of you guys can use them and want to stop by and pick them up, they're all yours.
I'm in Streetsboro, my number is 814-771-09 one two. Feel free to call or text, my first name is Scott.
Thank You!!!
Here's a pic, the embedded image is too big to post and I'm on the run, no time to resize it...
http://i925.photobucket.com/albums/ad96 ... f606f8.jpg
...and here's the pic...

[Wolfgang]

Sending pm

[shilala]

Originally Posted by Wolfgang

Sending pm

You forgot to send it.
Make sure you send me your address, too. The most recent I have for ya is Cherry Hills.

[shilala]

Tonight I'm gonna tape a toothbrush to a yardstick (or my yard long baster/feeder) and clean my thing that looks like a blue gorgonian but it's not. It's pretty badly hair algae grossed-up and I'm afraid if I don't clean it, it'll be dead. THAT, I do not want. It is an amazing catcher of hair algae, just by it's form and nature.

My radioactive eagle claw south dakotan burger king palythoas are changing color, as I guessed they would. They are turning from all brown to what appears to be a purple center, yellow cat-eye slit, with red fringes.
I'll tell ya, if they continue to get colored up the way they look like they're gonna, I will have the dead sexiest mat of squishy things you ever laid eyes upon. I'm bigtime stoked.
Everyone gets fed tonight and they're all staring at me. I'm the most popular guy in the room right now. Actually I'm the only guy in the room, but by the look of all these critters, I'm DAMN important.

Marc, I checked out all the NextReef stuff. It seems like really well built stuff. I have a canister filter and I keep some ceramic media and floss and foam. I just keep that for a biofilter. How's come a fluidized bed is better? Because of all the extra surface area of the media?

[Wolfgang]

the surface area and because they are constantly moving the nasties dont build up in them like it would in filter floss or bio balls. The owner of the company is a personal friend of mine. If you (or anyone else are reading along) even are thinking of adding one to your system let me know.

[shilala]

I want one, bud. An MR1Monster Complete with 2 gallons of media.
Can you score that stuff? I know Next Reef doesn't handle the media, per say, but it said they built their stuff around some Dr.'s media design. That's the stuff I want. I figured since they're in cahoots and used that media in design/build, they probably have tons laying around.
4' of tubing sounds a bit light on the "complete" side, too. (The complete package gives you tubing and pumps and I assume some over the back j bends and down tubes and stuff.) This is gonna go under my tank and replace the canister. 4 feet of tubing doesn't seem like that's gonna get it, ya think?

The reason I picked the big one is for volume and surface area. I figure that way, there's plenty of reactive bacteria to instantly take care of my feedings ( I plan to jam this tank slap full of corals, to the hilt).
If that doesn't fly because the bacteria needs food to stay alive, I get that, too. In that case, I have a 90 gallon undrilled, and I'd like as much ass as I can get benefit from without hurting the system's process, if that makes sense?

[OLS]

If the gorgonian is worth it's salt, you should be able to remove it in the morning and gently scrub the
hair off of it. They should be fully sucked in in the morning, and if not, pulling it out of the water will do it,
haha. But a gentle rub with a paper towel should do it. GENTLE. Others may disagree, and I would
certainly err on the side of caution, but they are reasonably tough. You an also cut an arm off and NOT
rub that one and you'd have transplant stock were something to go wrong. Simply scrape gently with a
razor blade along the length of the bottom and expose 3/8 of an inch of skeleton and super glue that to
a chunk of rock. It will quickly grow over the wound and the rock and be a new piece. Super glue a dab,
stick gorgo to rock, hold and immerse in water after 5-10 secs.

[shilala]

I cleaned her up with a bottle brush and it's all good to go. It deployed all it's polyps before dinner. I'd have just let it be, but I really like it and didnt want to take a chance. I knew it was tough and I wasn't afraid to clean it at all.
Thanks for the fragging procedure, I'll want to grow a nice stand of this stuff. It sounds super easy.

On another front, my gloves are no good. I made sure they were unpowdered latex. They still had stuff that came off of them in the tank. I'll get some better ones that actually fit me.

Last night I flushed a giant killer/bulldozer hermit crab. Today saw theendof two giant bulldozer snails. There's a couple more crabs that gotta go cause they're too big, I'll catch them when I see them.
There will probably be something in the paper tomorrow about all the manhole covers in Streetsboro being moved. I'm just gonna stay quiet.

[OLS]

I need to post a pic of the snail I banished a few months back. I had seen a pic of the
Zoanthid eating snails, but could never catch the one that was eating my prize specimens.
I looked at night for a slug or snail, no luck. Then one day I am rooting around in the
early morning and passed the tank and see this ping-pong-ball-sized snail MOVING like a
jet over a rock, and SHOCK!...it was one of the bad snails. I skanked it and threw it in my
live rock punishment tank. That killed it, it had no zoanthids to eat. But I kept the shell,
as I like to say, as a warning to others. I'll snap a pic for your IDing purposes, Scott, just for
the future health of your Eagle-Eye Cherry delights.

[Wolfgang]

Gorilla grabs are the common ones that are hitchhikers on live rock. I absolutely hate them. I have about 30 red leg hermits in my 90. They love when i remember to feed the tank all of them come scurrying out.

[OLS]

Haha, I think I have 4 Blue legs, and everytime they smell food they start climbing the palythoas...they know!
Freaking theives, as bad as my shrimp.

[shilala]

Of these two that went for a toilet ride, one was the black and white striped kind that everyone has. Astrea, I think?
The other, I have no clue. He had a basically white, non-descript shell, with 70% of it being really nice purple algae.
The black and white ones were real sensitive to electric. They told me one of my skimmer pumps was leaking electric in the tank cause they kept crawling out of the water. I'd find them outside the back glass and laying on the floor behind the tank. The other snails didn't care about the electric at all.
The crab I tossed was as big as a ping pong ball, easy. The snail, you wouldn't believe it if I told you. The smaller of the two snails was a freak in itself.

I was just trying to take pics of some of my stuff, but my battery was dead. So now I'm gonna wash my car.

[shilala]

K, so I charged my camera battery yesterday. The lights just came on in the tank. In an hour or so, everybody is generally fully deployed. I'm gonna try to take some pics. Yay!!!

[Wolfgang]

FINALLY!

I picked up the nextreef reactor today and the guy sent me home with a colony of Green Star polyps, eagle eyes, and a purple lip green montipora.

Pictures when everyone is happy.

[shilala]

Where'd you get your reactor at, man?
I still didn't email Justin, I haven't stopped long enough to do it.

No pics yet, my guys still aren't ready. They're camera shy, I suppose.

[Wolfgang]

I picked it up directly from Justin. He had a factory second laying around (scratches on the clear tube) that's how picky these guys are with quality control. That's who I got the coral from too. I traded himself some of my stuff. Worked out well. I still need a pump for the reactor though.

[shilala]

I gotta email him. I'll try to do it tonight.

Rather than mess around with pics, I just took some video of my tank. It's a lot easier that way. So here it is...
Video of my Reef Tank.

[Wolfgang]

your tank looks great!

[shilala]

Originally Posted by OLS

http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2003/2/inverts

I finished up that article late last night, Brad. I very much enjoyed it, thank you!!!