Reef Tank Pro Iphone App Review

So I needed somewhere to store all my tank parameters as well as additions and deaths in my tanks. I'm good with excel and had created a couple sheets for that kind of stuff when I was working as a pool supervisor so I modified them to fit my needs with Reef Keeping. They work good for what I need, but I wanted something that I could easily carry with me as well as keep pictures of things as I add them to the tanks. I looked around and tried a couple apps, but the one that got me was the $5 app Reef Tank Pro by Eric Cosner. I liked the look as well as the capabilities it had. I've been using it now for well over a year and it really fits well with my needs.

Been awhile!

So it's been awhile since I posted an update. Everything's going good for the most part now. Byprosis is gone in the frag tank, corals are looking healthy, my girlfriends Duncan's made a full recovery in my frag tank and I've been sellin a few pieces here and there with a few freebies given as well.

I recently split up the frag tank into two partitions: one for frags and the other for anemones. I used two pieces of eggcrate as the divider and put them together so the holes were half the size as normal. It seemed to be working good while it was up. I recently took it down, however, to add more room to the frag rack and transferred the RBTAs to a Hang on breeder box where they can do whatever they please. The two RBTAs are still doing good, a nice deep red and bubbly. The RFAs are doing real well. My original one is constantly growing bigger. I got it when it was a baby about the size of a dime, now its about two and a half inches across. I'll probably do a review on the breeder box here soon as well as the Deep Blue Professional SolarFlare lights that I have had.

Bayer Dip and Tank Update

So as of today the Red Bugs on the Blue Stag have not returned so I'll call that a success. However, after dipping the zoa frags a few times it seems that the Byprosis is just as resilient as ever. It kind of faded away for a day or so looking like it would die off, but was back a couple days later in full force. I need to find a way to take care of this stuff cheaply. Yes I know, some of you may say that there is nothing cheap about this hobby and I will agree to some point, but the point of this blog is to find a way to keep reefs somewhat inexpensively. The majority of us, including myself, don't have hundreds of dollars to spend on keeping reefs.

Update: Bayer Advanced Insect Killer Dip

Last night I finally had the time to do this Bayer Dip on my Blue Stag. I was a little uneasy at first because I didn't know how it was going to turn out and I really didn't want to kill it, just the red bugs and whatever else that was being a pest. I used the recipe that I posted awhile back, diluted it a bit more adding about 290 mL to a gallon instead of the 320 mL that would have been used. When I was done mixing it all together it was the color of watered down milk which made me a little more nervous, but I tried it anyway.

NOAA Adds 22 More Corals to the threatened list!!

Well the title says it all. I just learned about this after watching Marks video on Mr. Saltwater Tank TV. This is a bummer in multiple ways. The main being the fact that our Ocean's reefs are still dying. Is there any good thing about this though? I think so. Even though there are a few more restrictions on what corals we are allowed to keep, it means that the Governments are starting to pick up on the fact that we truly do need to protect the reefs that we have. The coral that may come as a bit of a surprise is the branching frogspawn.

To read the article from NOAA and to see the 22 species added click the link below:
http://www.nmfs.noaa.gov/pr/species/invertebrates/corals.htm

To watch the video from Mark Callahan AKA Mr. Saltwater Tank:
http://www.mrsaltwatertank.com/replay-of-the-live-qa-session-with-mr-saltwater-tank-about-listing-of-corals-as-threatened-under-the-endangered-species-act/

To read the article on ReefBuilders.com about the impact on the hobby click the link below:
http://reefbuilders.com/2014/09/05/20-species-stony-corals-finally-ruled-threatened/

Red Bugs: Bayer Complete Insect Killer

This is going to be the recipe that was posted up on Nano-Reef.com by a member going by the name of jcarmon81 last year around this time. Here is the link to the thread and the post and his observations with it are towards the bottom.

http://www.nano-reef.com/topic/333832-discovered-some-red-bugs-in-my-sps-tank/

Of course I wont be using 30 Cups of it so I'll be scaling it down and storing a bit for when it's needed. I'll post my observations as well just to give my opinion on it to add to the multiple good reviews I've seen for it on the different forums.

Update: 26 Gallon Tank Extreme Clean!!!

So after careful consideration and planning I decided to do away with the 2" sand bed in the 26 gallon display. Looking at it after I cleaned it all out I realized that that was probably the best decision I've made in awhile. I grabbed a tote and put some of my tank water in it and removed all the corals, fish, and rocks and placed them in the tote and filled it up as much as possible. I filled up two more 2.5 gallon jugs with tank water too.

At this time I had about 2 gallons of water left in the tank and  all the sand which I mixed up and ended up turning the rest of the water that was in the tank into like a chocolate milk color... This was from all the crap that had settled in the sand bed over the past couple years. This is where my nitrate and phosphate issues were coming from. I decided that I would rinse out the sand that I removed from the tank as well just out of curiosity. Man was I surprised. After 6 or 7 full buckets of water and a few times of just continuously running water into the sand the water was still a dark brown.

I added the leftover sand from my girlfriends tank to the little bit of sand that was still in the tank to end up with a little under 3/4" of sand on the bottom. As I mixed 10 gallons of fresh saltwater up I decided to get the rock back in and play with it until I got the look I've been going for for the past 3 years and I finally got it. I dumped in the newly mixed saltwater, the two 2.5 gallon jugs of previous tank water and then as much of the tank water from the tote as was needed to fill the tank up past the power head so I could turn on the filter to clean up the water a bit before adding anything.

After an hour or so I started putting coral into the tank and then the fish and finally topping off the tank. Total time for this project: about 5 hours. I took my time with it making sure that I had everything, cleaned everything, and placed everything right the first time so there was no messing with it after the fact. Now since the sand is so shallow, when I blow the rocks out I can also do it with the sand as well and not have to worry about releasing 2" of crap and who knows what else into the tank. To help with keeping the sand bed clean I've added my girlfriends Orange Spotted Goby who kept jumping from her tank because he was to big for it. Now he has plenty of room in my tank to do what he pleases.

As far as the Red Bugs go, I haven't had a chance to make up the dip and try it out, but I will be doing that tonight and posting about it. I will also be posting up the recipe for it on here as well. Now it's picture time!


The tank before the tear down and cleaning

After the water, rock and sand have been removed and cleaned and the rock and sand were replaced. The front glass still needs to be cleaned off.

This is shortly after everything was put back in. It was still a bit cloudy, but everything was good.

 

 A FTS as of yesterday morning about an hour after the lights came on. The water is nice and clear, the fish are all active, and the corals are all open and happy (except for the Blue Stag that has the Red Bugs...).