cuttle lagoon

[hobogato]

no specific type, just a mix of cool pieces i have attained over the years.

 

[sedna]

Simply beautiful. I have seen only a handful of mangrove tanks and am fascinated (not to mention jealous!). From ceiling to stand- very well done! The LR really is nice, I'm always on the look out for something tall that will still be stable. Thanks for keeping such a nice thread going, I can't wait til you have cuttles, too.

 

[hobogato]

thanks for the compliments sedna

ok, so it turns out a dumb mistake on my part caused the demise of the cuttles in the eggs before they hatched. i poured the salt in onto the sand as i was setting the tank up and mixed it as it filled. for a long time, the salinity was fine. then, whatever salt that had settled into the sand finally dissolved. it drove my sg up to 1.034 over the last few weeks. that is likely why the eggs never hatched.

so.....

instead of ordering more eggs, i am going to wait for captive laid/hatched eggs from my classroom. this should take about 6 months. in the mean time, i decided to add some blue damsels just to provide some movement. i have also added some corals.

here is a fts

here are some individual corals - some were added today and have not opened up yet.

 

[bluespotocto]

WOW

 

[CaptFish]

WOW, it keeps getting better!

Yeeeah um, your tank is too cool, your making the rest of us look bad.

 

[DWhatley]

Let me know if the corky stays like it is or gets long feeding tenticles and then goes back like it is. Mine did beautifully for several months but now barely shows feeding behavior no matter where I put it or how much current it gets. It is not obviously dieing but, having seen it fully extended, I know it is not feeding well.

 

[hobogato]

d - now that it is settled in, it has much longer feeders

here is a shot from last week

ok, so if you have ever had a tank without running a skimmer, you will know exactly the problem i am dealing with. all of the proteins in the water tend to rise and concentrate in a scummy layer on the top surface. to solve the problem without adding a skimmer, i came up with this idea.

i will put it on the tank once or twice a week for a couple of hours as needed to keep the surface of the water nice and clean. hopefully, as biological filtration gets more efficient in the tank, i wont have to use it as much or at all.

 

[DWhatley]

How much flow and light on the corky? I have moved mine yet again to get it to feed and will have to wait a few days to see if it helped any. Initially, it had extremely long flowing feeding tenticles but now barely opens to feed and I am not sure why. It is not in the same tank but it has stopped the extreme extension before we upsized.

 

[hobogato]

i have it about mid tank and low/moderate flow. the closed loop only moves about 900gph and the output is spit with half of it aimed near the coral.

on another note, turns out the k4 i was using was releasing stray voltage - apparently quite a bit. after running it a few hours, all of the corals looked ticked off and several of the damsels were dead with some black streaks on them an some bare spots. the clam also was nearly closed tight.

today, i reworked the surface cleaner and added a carbon media reactor - all of which are now powered by a new mj 900, so hopefully no more stray voltage.

here is the new setup

only 7 of the 17 damsels lived, and the clam still looks iffy. nearly all of the corals look happy as can be tho.

 

[DWhatley]

odd you seem to think the K4 are not well sealed. I use one size or another in all my tanks and don't see this kind of problem. By any chance is the same K4 that you suspected in the past or a different one?

 

[hobogato]

same one. i got it used and have no idea how old it is.

 

[DWhatley]

Have you examined the cord closely (or did you just trash it)? We have cut a cord or two with sharp acrylic (so I now sand all acrylic before putting it in use). In one case the wire was skinned significantly and we were really lucky that we were in the process of checking out a new system rather than it being in an aquarium with fish (not to mention danger to ourselves).

 

[corpusse]

korilas particularly the K4 are very famous for leaking. However it is very rare they leak to the point of killing fish. Usually fish can handle a fair amount of stray voltage. It's inverts like snails that go first. In fact my reef tank crashed due to 2 out of 3 K4's leaking. All my turbo snails died which caused a chain reaction. I couldn't figure out for months why none of my snails were moving. I'd buy new ones they wouldn't move either. Finally I got a shock. This was with a grounding probe btw.

You get what you pay for with the korilas. They are cheap for a reason. I'm still using them in my cuttle tank although I'd never let another in my reef. The good thing is if you contact Hydor they will replace them. I've sent some in 2-3 times. They work for a year or so break, I send them back and repeat. The failure rate with them is quite high. Some of my friends went to MACNA and they brought a huge box of defective powerheads right to the hydor both to save shipping.

Tuzne's and Vortechs cost a lot more but besides reliability they also bring safety which is a good reason to spend the extra money.

 

[DWhatley]

I read an article several years back that made me decide against using a grounding probe. There seemed to be a lot of logic in the argument but I burned up a lot of resitors and diodes in the one class I took to learn something about electricity and am not sure I am any better off for the limited exposure (loved the labs though). It would seem that a cheap detection device would be a major seller for aquariests.

 

[lance]

tank progress is looking great

lance