Aquarium update

My Uncle John, who like me, also spends a lot of time in his man cave (which is his shop!).

Today I visited my Uncle John at Beach Aquariums in Bondi Beach. He had a LOT of stock from 2 aquarium shops that have recently gone down (Coral Sea from Randwick and another from out west somewhere). He’s basically helping these guys liquidate their stock so I picked up some bargains.

I picked up some salt mix and 4 100W heaters. I would have gone for 2 x 200w heaters but they wouldn’t have fit in my tiny sump. These 4 will fit just fine and I can now remove the massive Jager heater in the tank (which has done good for the past few years despite the condensation happening inside the heater).

Heaters in place in the sump.

My new nitrate test kit read 50. 50?! 50 is really bad as it really should read 0. There are a lot of potential contributing factors: I’ve realised that the RO unit I’ve been running for top-up water hasn’t had cartridges changed since 2007 (my bad). I’ll sort that out ASAP. No water changes for months, no skimmer maintenance and old filter media in the canister would not have helped and the huge rock wall I had in the tank was always against me (so much detritus build up back there).

I decided to remove a LOT of rock work to aid flow and I’ve basically made islands (no rock is leaning up against the rear glass any more).

Latest FTS.

More updates (and water changes) to come!