Intellidick.com - Pure Insanity

Yup. That’s right. A used 90g Clarity Plus Acrylic and a complete Lifereef Filtration System will soon make it’s way to the house. The Lifereef stuff is here, just have to get the tank, stand, and hood now. Then it’s on to water, live rock, lighting, then live stock!
Here is what I have to far.

I’ve definitely lost it.

I couldn’t help myself. I made a long video of the aquarium with my latest (and hopefully last) rock design. I also switched to my digital camcorder, it’s a bit older than the camera I was using before, but it’s designed for movies and records in raw DV format. The quality seems a bit better on this one.

This video has almost everything, the snails, all of the fish, etc… the only thing missing was the Condy anemone. I’ll probably do one more once the new skimmer gets settled in and such… hopefully it’ll clear up the water some more.

I have just one word for my fellow aquarium owners who rely on their thermometers and heaters… don’t. Everyone talks about how bad aquarium heaters are, what they don’t tell you is that the thermometers aren’t exactly the most precise pieces of equipment either.

Lemme lay down the time line here of what happened to us the other day. A problem that has been causing me problems since day 1 in my tank and I never knew it due to fault equipment.

04/30/07 - Fishtank 1.0
We started the tank setup. Added water, dropped in the thermometer. Put in the heater and started running it. Over the next few days, we managed to stabilize tank temperature at 76 degrees by setting the heater to 83. Kinda odd that it is that much off, but hey, even the guy who sold us the thing said they weren’t that accurate. And the heater was down in the sump, not in the tank. So whatever. At this point in time, I don’t know any better but the thermometer readout is good so we decide to just go with it!

06/30/07 - Panic mode
I wake up and go to feed the fish and notice that the tank temperature is down over ten degrees… it’s 65 in there! PANIC! Something is very wrong. It’s the heater or the thermometer. So, I toss the thermometer in a bucket of cold water, temp readout drops to 50 degrees. Then on to a bucket of hot water, temp readout starts rising. Thermometer is working so I pull it out and shove it back in the tank. It must be the heater! Toss the heater in a bucket of cold water and crank it up. It kicks on but takes forever to get the water warm. Hmmmm… yup. Must be the heater. (I’m totally not thinking here and not realizing that heaters don’t work well in STILL water. Oops.) Off we go to our favorite LFS… no heaters in stock. Okay, plan B, Petco… The only acceptable choices are a 300w AGA heater made by Hydor or a 200w Visi-Therm Stealth. Well, the Visi-Therm gets higher ratings most of the time and all, but seeing as I have a dead one at home… forget that. AGA/Hydor it is! We get home and drop this thing into the sump… we set it at 67, trying to be conservative and not shock the fish again. It kicks on for about 30 seconds and then shuts off so I bump it up to 68. Again, 30 seconds. I pull the heater out and slam it into a bucket of cold water. It stays on for several minutes before it kicks off. At this point, I should really have a clue as to what’s really broken here but it’s just not registering. I’m in too much of a panic about which pieces of livestock i’m about to lose!

07/01/07 - Problem solved!
Temperature still not rising. No matter what I do, I can’t get the temp over 67 and kicking the A/C on in the house drops it back to 66. How weird. Just then, the still water paradigm hits me and we notice the water level in the wet/dry is WAY too high compared to normal. Oddly enough, the skimmer hasn’t erupted salt water like it normally does, but that’s a story for another day. After some serious amounts of checking, turns out the filter medium was too dirty. We recently switched from the super porous spongy stuff to the thin felt-like stuff. Gets ALOT more out of the water, but nobody told us that you have to clean that stuff once a week and sometimes even more! Oops. We pull that out and clean it, water levels return to normal and the temp in the tank goes up 1 degree within a few minutes. That must have been it. Not wanting to shock the fish, I set the heater back down to 68 and wait a while. Heater keeps cutting off. Probably b/c it’s too tall for our sump. Knowing now that it probably wasn’t the original heater but the filtration material… I replace the new heater with the old one.

07/02/07 (Early morning) - Maybe that wasn’t it. Part 1
It’s midnight, i’m still up. Temp still won’t go up. The heater is now at 72. By 2AM, i’m done. I reinsert the new heater and go to bed. The girlfriend wakes up in the morning, sees the temp still low and bumps it to 75. I wake up, see the higher heat but still nothing on the thermometer and throw in the towel. It must be this new heater not getting the right amount of flow. Next thing you know, the skimmer is out, the filter material is gone, chemi-pure is out… we’re at max flow… nothing. Still nothing. Same old 67 degrees in the tank and the heater is on 80.

07/02/07 (Evening) - New sump… that’ll fix it!
For quite some time, i’ve been wanting a bigger sump. The wet/dry is fun and all, but I want a better skimmer and some more room to work. And I don’t use the bio-balls anyway, so the wet/dry is nothing but a fancy airation chamber with tight proportions and a huge potential for overflow. I’d also like to have some more water in the system. 50g is fine and all but 60g would be even better! So at around 5pm, the swap begins. By 8pm, the new sump is in, heater in place, and operation is restored. Just to help out, I used the powerhead from the old skimmer to push water over the heater and keep things moving in the sump… but I still have the same problem. Can’t make the water heat up any more than 68, yet i’m sweating when i’m around the tank and it’s humid as hell. Then it hits me… It’s the thermometer. It’s always been the thermometer. It was the thermometer on day one. Back to the early picture, the tank was never 76, even though that thermometer showed it. My 150w visi-therm heater was set to 83 and if I had to guess, the temp was somewhere in the low 80’s. It explains a lot. I’ve had really bad problems with algae, even before my T5HO lighting setup. Oh sure, all tanks have algae, but not this bad. The tank has been a petri dish for algae.

I slapped another heater in there… New Heater : 83F, Old Heater : 66F. The fact that I haven’t lost livestock at this point is AMAZING. Now I begin the slow process of backing the temp down slowly so I don’t shock them.

07/03/07 - Another Thermometer?
While at the fish store, I picked up another heater for when I do water changes. Sure enough, it’s within 1 degree of the other new heater, and at least 10 degrees away from the old one. Tank temp is now 81F.

07/04/07 - Happy Fish
Tank temp is now 79F and i’ll continue to lower it slowly until I get to 76F. My fish are very actively swimming now, the Coral Beauty isn’t attacking the smaller fish anymore, and everyone is eating like mad. I fed both of the anemones today and they’re all puffed up and happy. I’ve been adding a touch of Garlic to their food lately so the fish colors and bright and vibrant. Everything looks great!

The moral of this story is that you need two heaters and two thermometers. Also, heaters stick so use an external temperature probe and an aqua controller so the heater doesn’t stick in the “on” position and boil your fish.

* Thanks to Jungle Rob for his speech bubble idea and the template drawing.

Anybody who says your fish don’t go nuts for Arcti-Pods is full of it! Here’s proof. I screwed up and missed the Royal Gramma though, he’s just to the right of the camera view.

Afternoon snack time…

My girlfriend started it… I swear! She took a video of our new clown fish and their host anemone. I liked it so much, I put it on YouTube. (Like anyone else in the world gives a crap about our fish)

Now I just made a new one. Couldn’t help myself, everything looked so nice this morning.

The first video…

The latest video….

I just wanted to say a kind few words about a really pleasant shopping experience I had today. In the never ending quest for neat aquatic stuff, we stumbled upon Rod’s Reef in DeKalb, IL. That’s about 40 miles from my house, but i’ve heard LOTS about this place. He makes his own food and has a famous pair of Onyx Clowns that he breeds. And it’s not like I haven’t driven further to go to other shops.

Anyway, long story short, this is apparently a small shop with one guy at the helm. He’s a really nice and helpful guy that obviously LOVES the marine aquarium hobby. He’s got lots of tank setups that are obviously not for sale, so he’s just doing it because he’s into it. The guy has multiple fish that will eat out of his hand and such. It’s really amazing.

Another note is the fact that he didn’t try to push anything on me. He sells food and he’s proud of it, but he never tried to hard sell it to me. He just told me about how he makes it and all of the ingredients that are in it and what it’s good for. That’s absolutely fantastic. I did buy some of his food because i’d heard lots of good things from other people. That stuff makes my fish go WILD! My anemone loves it as well and was perky for hours after being fed some of Rod’s food. So, he’s definitely got a reason to brag!

So, if you’re ever in the DeKalb area, call Rod and stop by his shop. He’s a great guy to talk to and it’s worth the drive. I’ll definitely be returning there for some more of Rod’s food. I don’t think my fish can go back to their old flake food after this stuff. Between this an Arti-Pods, I should have some really happy fish.

If you’re interested, there is a link to his site on my fish links section. CALL FIRST though… he’s apparently a one man show and sometimes things come up that keep him away from the store.

So, we got all excited, bought some more live rock and a second Hydor Koralia pump… we pulled the fish out along with all of the rock, moved the return into the center of the tank, and then split the live rock into two sections. We re-inserted the coral beauty and he acclimated to living on one side of the tank. We re-inserted the Royal Gramma on the other side of the tank… and he acclimated to living on the same side of the tank as the beauty does… so now I have two giant mountains of live rock, and both fish living on one side.

The moral of this story is, you can lead a fish to water… but you can’t make them live on opposite sides of the tank.

Welcome to Stupid Aquarium Tricks! This will be an ongoing series as I make my way from a true aquarium novice to someone who can keep a fish alive longer than 90 days. (This could take a while)

These posts will contain tricks on how to do the “silly” things in your aquarium. You know, all of those little things they don’t tell you when you spend over a grand for a tank, some sand, and some rocks. *sigh* Then you get to feel like a jackass when you walk back into the store and ask and they all laugh at you. I’m sure they’ve all made the same damned mistakes too, but it’s some sort of a right of passage or some other sick cult deal.

Without further ado… here we go!

Q) I’m starting a new tank… what order should I put things into the tank?
A) Backgrounds (if you’re using one) first, Substrate (Sand, Gravel, Crushed Coral, etc) next, Rocks / Scenery, then the Water.

Q) How do I pour water on the sand w/o the sand going everywhere?!?!?
A) Use some clean plastic to stop the impact of the water from hitting the sand directly and POUR SLOWLY initially, don’t get all crazy and pour like a madman unless you want a sand cloud in there! You’ll probably get the cloud anyway, but oh well, I think everyone does. The plastic helps though.

Q) Speaking of backgrounds… how do I get that background on the tank? This tape SUCKS, looks like crap, and the background keeps wanting to bow up.
A) If you’ve already set up the tank, this is going to be harder, but you can still do it. (I did this the hard way too) Either way, lay the background on the side of the tank where it will be mounted. (note : they go on the OUTSIDE of the tank) Cut the background down to size… leave an inch or so on the sides, you can trim it easily with a razor once it’s attached. Now… get out your plastic scraper and some cooking oil! Yeah, that’s right… cooking oil. Pour a few SMALL areas on the surface that will be touching the tank, set the background on the tank and line it up, then use the scraper to push the air bubbles out and spread the oil. It’ll stick like glue and you can peel it off later with no harm done to the background or the tank. Messy at first, but neat. Once it’s firmly attached, use a razor to trim the edges so everything is nice and neat… then wipe all the damned cooking oil off of everything in that room!

Q) Okay, I put in everything, but I think I need more substrate… now i’m sitting here with a bag of sand and no idea how to get it into the tank without dumping it all over my beautiful live rock display!
A) Use a measuring cup or something to help get the sand into the tank SLOWLY. Do it a little at a time, it IS going to cloud up… not much you can do about it. If you can, kill the pumps for a bit so the sand settles faster and doesn’t get all in your sump. Trust me here folks… it sucks ass to clean all of your filtration systems b/c they’re coated with sand. And next time, when you set up a new aquarium, don’t make the same mistake I did… get enough sand… if it’s not enough, go back to the store and get more… don’t pour the water in there until the sand is right… you’ll be pissed later when you’re brushing sand off of EVERYTHING in your tank because it got in the stream of your pump.

Q) I set up the tank first, then realized that I needed/wanted more sand, and now there’s sand everywhere in the tank. Any hints here? It’s covering my beautiful plastic model of Poseidon!
A) Step one, ditch the model! Seriously though, you have a few options. Numero Uno on the “easy to do” scale is grab a big ass turkey baster and go to town. Just blast the water right off of there and rock! (Use the tank water, not faucet water) If you have a powerhead in there that’s easy to unmount like a Hydor Koralia, then just pop the magnet off and use the powerhead… I don’t recommend this though b/c you have the cord and such to deal with… and it’s probably not a good idea in general. Not to mention that if you accidentally fire it at one of your fish, you’ll probably blow him across the tank with the close range current blast. Although it’s funny as hell to watch, it’s just not nice. Go with the turkey baster for the easy win.

Q) Great, now i’ve got all of this sand and it’s really starting to look nasty! How do I clean sand?
A) Don’t clean the sand! Get something to clean it for you! Nassarius Snails clean sand for you, and they’re a hoot to watch around feeding time. There are also Sea Cucumbers and lots of different fish that clean sand. Got to your local fish store, they’ll help you. If you’re buying your crap from a big chain with a bunch of high school kids running it… stop buying it there and go to a respectable fish store. Describe to them what you have in your tank. Better yet, take some pictures so they can see exactly what’s going on in there! They’ll get you some snails, crabs, etc to get rid of it! Most fish stores will know about how many cleaners you need for different size tanks and different amounts of live rock, etc… You’re likely to lose a few crabs in the process, maybe a snail or two. It’s okay… it’ll balance itself out.

Q) My fish are ugly? What can I do to make them look better?
A) Get a better lighting system so you can see them better. Good lights bring out the colors in your aquarium. If you get good lighting and your fish are still ugly… STOP BUYING UGLY FISH!

Q) I got a better lighting system… now there is algae all over my tank!
A) Cool eh? Seriously, more clean up crew. Don’t get crazy, just add a few more to keep up with the increased load. Again, talk to the people at your local fish store.

Q) Does this quest ever end? When do I stop buying stuff and just get to look at my fish?
A) I don’t know… maybe I can answer that by the time i’m writing Stupid Aquarium Tricks - Part 20.

That does it for SAT 1. Tune in next time as I attempt to re-arrange my live rock for the 87 millionth time this month! (My poor fish must HATE me by now)

So, we had just put in what we thought was going to be our last fish… the Royal Gramma. Overall, we were happy with our tank. 1 Coral Beauty angel, 1 Royal Gramma, and 2 True Percula clowns. Nice variety and fun to watch.

Last night, we came home to an almost dead clown fish. He was new to the tank so we thought maybe we had a water problem. We’ve been testing regularly and just did a water change a while back, so we just had to assume he was sick when we got him. True Percula Clownfish are notorious for not acclimating well. It just happens sometimes. Needless to say, he didn’t make it.

This morning, I awake to find my other clown in the top right hand corner of my tank… swimming slowly like his friend was the night before. I wondered what was happening but knew that they go through a lot of stress when they lose a friend. Well, it wasn’t stress from his loss that was getting him… it was the fact that the Coral Beauty attacked him! I went to perform the morning water level checks and the clown was under the lid. When I lifted it, he ran away to the top center of the tank. Less than a minute later, that coral beauty emerged from the rocks and went after him… repeatedly attacking him until he went back into that top right hand corner.

So now, Clownfish #2 is not doing well, I doubt he’ll make it through the day. I also saw the CB attack my Royal Gramma, but the Gramma is faster than him and runs away quickly so I think he’ll be okay. The Gramma also hides in the small holes of the live rock that the CB can’t fit in. It’s just a shame though because i’m sure he’s stressed out big time.

So much for the “generally compatible” thing that everyone has told me. I guess sometimes you just get a mean one and there’s nothing you can do about it.

Yes kids… fishtank 2.0 is already gone. Just a heads up for all of you who are thinking of getting into the aquarium world… little fast fish are HARD to catch when you’ve got 30lbs of live rock in a 46-gallon tank. Get ready for an adventure. Needless to say, we had to remove ALL of the live rock out of the tank to catch those 3 damsels and get them out of there. It was not fun at all.

The moral of this story is this, if you want a salt water aquarium, use the live rock to cycle it. It WILL cycle… be patient. Test the water often and watch it. It WILL cycle… be patient. Don’t attempt to use “starter” fish unless you’re okay with redoing all of your aquascaping work.

Anyway, check out the new coral beauty, the pictures of Fishtank 3.0 are here.