Rebecca's Simple Garden Reef

[showmebutterfly]

I woke up this morning to a dead fish in the QT. Of the remaining two, one is out and about and eating like a champ, the other is very timid and hasn't been eating. I didn't see any spots on them last night, which leads me to believe they have ich instead of marine velvet. I hope that's the case, as ich is less deadly and has more treatment options.

[BluewaterBoof]

Oh no! That's not good at all :( I'm so sorry to hear that happened!

[RiversGirl]

I'm sorry for your loss.

[Slaphppy7]

I'm sorry for the bad news, as well

[showmebutterfly]

Thank you, @BluewaterBoof @RiversGirl @Slaphppy7
When I got home this evening, another one had passed. The last one was out and about and scarfed down his dinner.

[Slaphppy7]

Well, maybe they were just weak stock?....sorry again

[showmebutterfly]

Well, maybe they were just weak stock?....sorry again

Thanks, Matt. I hope the last little one makes it.

[RiversGirl]

Oh no! I'm sorry that you lost another one.
I too share in your hope that the third one is healthy.

At least you have the peace of mind that you are not infecting your tank with anything.

[showmebutterfly]

Oh no! I'm sorry that you lost another one.
I too share in your hope that the third one is healthy.

At least you have the peace of mind that you are not infecting your tank with anything.

Thank you. I am very glad I have a QT set up, it does help a lot with peace of mind and keeping disease out of the DT.
I don't recall having seen any updates on your tank(s) in a while. How are your critters doing?

[showmebutterfly]

I had noticed last week that the temp in my tank kept creeping higher and higher. At first I blamed the new light fixture, since the legs didn't fit quite right I had it sitting directly on the glass. I found a work around to get the lights sitting properly, but the temp stayed high. It climbed to 83.8 and that had me really worried. I was floating frozen bottles to try to keep it down, without much luck. The protein skimmer was going nuts too, so much that the bubbles were rattling the cup lid. I unplugged the skimmer just to stop that noise. The next day I noticed that the tank temp was considerably lower. On Thursday I plugged the skimmer back in, taking note of the temp. An hour later the temp had rose almost a whole degree. I reached around to feel the skimmer motor and it felt very hot. Needless to say, the skimmer was unplugged again. Yesterday it came off the tank entirely. I added a second Aqueon Quiteflow 75 HOB filter in its place. Now I have lots of surface movement and extra space to run filter floss and carbon, as needed, during the remodel. I may add another protein skimmer down the road. I may not. I'll see how the tank does with just the 2 large HOB filters before deciding if any other changes need to be made. I did note that with the circulation pumps off and just the filters going, in addition to all the good flow at the top of the tank, my LPS all seemed to have plenty of movement where they sit in the lower part of the tank. I will be moving one of the circulation pumps lower and position it to blow along the back wall behind the rocks to help clear out any dead spots back there. I'm not sure where I'll put the second pump. I may just leave it where it sits now.
Other than the one week of pulling wet dark skimmate, the protein skimmer hadn't been working properly, so I'm not sad to see it go. My understanding is that having a protein skimmer allows you to go longer between water changes. Since I'll be doing them at least twice per month anyway, I don't feel like I'll be losing out on too many of the benefits by not having the skimmer. I will definitely benefit from not having it overheat my tank. And I get to enjoy the rippling water movement on both sides of my tank with the dual HOB filter. It helps that I'm easily amused.