Category Archives: Pets

Ridiculous huh?

Morphs.

Middle section.

The water is “looking” VERY clean but as of today the Nitrate test still reads 50ppm (high!). I’ve posted up a call for help here: http://www.masa.asn.au/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=45&t=219668

There are a few great suggestions in there. I’ve just got to try to give some of them a go slowly and not all at once!

I really wanted to know what was under the rock work. The middle bommie is the smallest so I took the entire bommie apart (moved rocks to the side) and to my surprise there wasn’t THAT much crap under there. I siphoned the substrate clean and put the rocks back a little more centred than before to allow water flow behind the bommie.

PS: I did find some fleshy bits on some rock from corals which have long died off (their bases). I’ve removed these pieces of rock. I also did find 2 peppermint shrimp under the biggest rock at the base and one MASSIVE dark brown brittle starfish the size of my hand!

Mia playing.

We were a little worried that little Mia would cry all night (despite Russian Blue’s being quiet cats the breeders let us know that Mia was the most vocal of the bunch!). Amazingly she slept through the entire night, in the kitty room without making a sound (phew!).

Our little bundle of fluff, early in the morning, checking out the garden.

We couldn’t resist letting her out of her kitty room. She’s a good explorer though she cries when she’s exploring an area where she can’t see or hear us.

She’s tiny but she’s grown twice the size in just 3 weeks (since we first saw her at the breeders).

Later that day Jamie, Richie and Mum came over to play!

Mia’s getting lots and lots of pressies too (so funny).

Jamie (might as well call my sister ‘cat lady’!) played with Mia so much that she conked out early afternoon and pretty much stayed KO’d until bed time and once again she slept through the entire night without a meow. She’s so good!

Nyaw!

Mia came home this morning. She’s settled into her kitty room nicely and right now she’s fast asleep! We’re pretty sure she’ll cry when she wakes up and realises we’re not still in the room with her though!

Latest full tank shot.

I use a 4 stage reverse osmosis filter system to create freshwater for dehydration top-ups and I hadn’t changed the filters since buying the unit in 2007 (!). Today I received a filter replacement kit in the mail from PSI. You can see how yellow the old sediment filter had gotten over the years.

Unfortunately my nitrates are still sitting at 50ppm despite doing small daily water changes. I might have to do one huge water change somehow (buy a big tub?!).

Our baby Russian Blue kitty Mia will be with us next week and Christina and I have been getting her room ready (she’ll stay in this room for at least a week until we slowly introduce her to the rest of the house).

Yep I’ve got to get my guitar gear outta there quick smart.

Pink? OK but only if I can have skulls on it.

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!

2007 – The tank (when it was amazing!).

Initially my 6ft tank was a freshwater set-up and in 2007 Christina (who wanted nemo’s!) and I started over and set it up as a marine tank. It was in it’s prime by the end of 2007. I was obsessed with aquaria (even hanging out on fish forums) and I was changing 10-20% of the tank water weekly with natural salt water which I collected at the boat ramp in Botany (heavy and depending on the tide, sometimes dangerous work!).

2008 and a lot of the hard corals had died off.

At some point I failed to keep up the tank maintenance and all of the more fragile corals started dying off one by one (pretty sad as most if not all of it had been plucked from the ocean). I only just realised today that it’s been 8 months since I’ve changed any water (!) and I hadn’t serviced the equipment nor did I change the light bulbs (pretty important in a marine tank as many corals feed off light).

2009 and the anemones are shrinking (read: dying).

I spent today taking everything apart. Before I did anything I took a photo of my current set-up:

Neglected tank.

Amazingly all my fish are fine. I put it down to the system I spent a lot of time designing when I was super into it in 07/08. On the left is a small canister filter which runs filter media which reduces phosphates. The white bucket on the left is filled with highly filtered tap water and when the tank volume drops (due to evaporisation) a sensor triggers the pump inside this bucket to fill up the sump. Next is my remote deep sand bed which is designed to reduce nitrates, next to that is a protein skimmer which is hanging off a sump which gets water via an overflow box on the back of the main tank and a pump in the sump redirects water back into the main tank.

Whilst it’s a largely automated system, it turns out my protein skimmer was completely non-functional (blocked up) and 2 out of 4 bulbs had blown. I used to have a light and a lot of green seaweed growing in the sump which produced a whole lot of micro organisms which in turn fed the fish and critters in the tank but that all died off ages ago. The media in the small canister would be long expired and as you can see there’s a lot of salt creep all over the sump and skimmer.

I’ve cleaned everything up and ordered new filter media for the canister, new bulbs too. I’ve serviced the skimmer and it’s now working as well as the first day I bought it. I’m not sure if I’m going to be able to get the tank into such great shape again but I’m at least going to attempt to keep a monthly routine which will include servicing the skimmer and preforming a 20% water change. More updates as they come!