obrien.david.j

Your chance is Monday evening. Otherwise I’m out of town.

Met This guy on the elevator in the hotel… Interesting prototype product. SeaTak, an replacement for underwater epoxy. Starts Tacky right away and cures in something like 30 minutes. I need some of this the moment it comes out. No more superglue/epoxy sandwiches.

That’s us! 2nd or 3rd in line for the 8th annual Neptune breakfast. and yea, That’s my wife in front of me. 😀

I can't make it this time. Have a good time everyone!

I'm flying into ORD 7am direct flight from PDX Thursday morning, and then renting a car - driving up. If you're on the same flight, I can give you a ride. I didn't investigate any other options.

i'll find you!

We leave Thursday for MACNA. Should be a good time. Posted an interesting talk format for the club.

Check this out. New style of talk. Video's are already available, and to all, and the live talk will all be QnA. Don't know if others want to watch the videos. MACNA 2022: Education Are you prepared for Dr Craig Bingman's talk? "A Brief History of Calcification: From Limewater to Everything Else and Back Again." This is his first attempt at a "flipped" aquarium presentation. That means you can watch stuff now at home, in your robe and slippers, and we can use the conference time for questions and discussion. Watch the videos and take the survey before the talk! Dr. Bingman's MACNA website

Great Video. I assume the max safe volume of H2O2 (34%) to apply depends on volume of total system. One syringe full has a different effect in a 5 gallon pico tank, than a 500 gallon setup.

Thoughts: What you described is completely doable. (but frag tank drain has to be higher than lip into the sump, plus sump must handle extra volume - per @cjmdh comments) As noted, there's not that much "head pressure" on the return line. I'd personally upside it significantly. Something like a 2-2.5" pvc pipe. larger volume, even with less head pressure/lower natural flow speed. I'd put a clean out drain under the house, on the lowest point of the plumbing. Maybe even a hose connector to make it easier. unless under your house is heated, I'd wrap the pipes in insulating foam. My system is half in the garage, and Oregon cold days make a heck of a dent on temp.

Trimmed again last night. And thanks to @Brittany for supplying this at the last club meeting, I have some leafy red algae growing in this tank as well. (Forgot the name of it) Before harvest (yes, ugly red on top. got clipped and thrown away) Thanks @Brittany Pile of Harvest, going to the garbage

Love your idea for floating the berghia containers! Better approach than I took.

Agreed - that's one awesome video. And @SuncrestReef, we love your goby - thank you for sharing!

He's happy. Mine moves sand too. What I'm happy about is the moves are generally on the bottom of the tank. As opposed to taking a mouthful of sand, swimming up into the water column, and dropping it all over the top of my corals. I can live with piles of sand being moved around.

Harvest #19 done - first time harvesting 5 jars of phyto

Thanks to @NateDawg, I replaced my dead RedPlanet colony with a new branch. Nice and big, even if not the same size - it'll grow! @NateDawg Thank You! Old/Dead New/Replacement!

Harvest #18 done - AND added a 5th grow out jar! Thanks to the last club meeting, I picked up another jar - used. Happy for the increased capacity! Pict 1, harvest done Pict 2, restarted - with phyto jar #5! (black airline tubing)

Thanks! I had so much fun running the frag swap... that I forgot to take bind picks for myself. No worries. It was fun to see what each person got. For the most part, people didn't bring home their own corals. I'll add some of my own picts to the thread here.

Blind Frag Swap was a success! A few stats: 14 club members participated 31 total frags, which includes bonus frags added by Rudy and a few others 9 SPS frags were swapped 11 Softie frags were swapped 3 LPS frags were swapped (the rest were bonus picks sold at $5/each) Open Questions Should we do another Blind Frag Swap? Should it be at the next meeting, or wait a few months? Should we keep SPS/LPS/Softie at the same event, or should we make it One Type Only, per meeting? (a meeting of Only SPS, meeting only of LPS, a meeting of only Softies)? Any other improvements you can think of? Thanks to everyone!

Last I moved a tank, I used these off amazon. https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B07K222FV1/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I've been growing Phyto at home since March 2022 using the Poseidon Reef Systems setup. 17 successful harvests under my belt. I'm happy with the system, but I still like reading posts about growing to learn and get other perspectives. One of the points made by Poseidon Reef is keeping a culture going is all about sanitization and sterilization. Their system is each harvest is made in a disposable plastic bag, placed inside the one gallon glass culture jar - and uses disposable 1/4" rigid tubing. Harvest and resetting up the culture is fast and easy for me. I'm done in ~45minutes for four 1 gallon grow jars. This morning, I saw an ad for Dinkins Phyto and Pods. They advertise they use lab grade sterilization techniques, and published them. Interesting, probably needed for professional scale grows - but Oh more work than I'm willing to do. Posting here because I found it interesting. Our Process: Dinkins Aquatic Gardens uses lab-grade sanitation procedures every step of the way. First, we culture each phytoplankton strain separately in seven-gallon wide-mouth carboys. Once a batch of phyto finishes, we soak the carboy and rigid airline tubing in Alconox overnight, then scrub it by hand the following morning. After a very thorough rinse, we allow it to dry. Once the carboys are dry, we thoroughly clean the inside with isopropyl alcohol and allow that to dry for about half a day. Late that evening, we fill the carboys with five gallons of saltwater and the appropriate amount of F/2 fertilizer from Florida Aqua Farms. Our saltwater is made using seven-stage RODI water mixed with Hw-Marinemix Professional Salt. This lab-made salt is very high quality and mixes completely clean with no residue. Once the saltwater is added, we then use bleach to chlorinate the water, which disinfects it. Next, we hook up the rigid tubing to our air pumps. The air from the pumps is filtered through 0.2 micron filters to remove any airborne contaminants. We let the chlorinated water bubble all night to thoroughly sanitize the water, the F/2, the rigid airline tubing, and the inside of the carboy. The following morning, we treat the water with sodium thiosulfate to remove the chlorine. Only after all this is done do we add one gallon of starter culture and begin the process of growing our new batch! https://dinkinsaquaticgardens.com/collections/phytoplankton https://poseidonreefsystems.com/

Tomorrow is the day. Looking forward to this club meeting and seeing everyone. This should be a really good one!

Thanks for hosting us one last time!

My advice is about half way in the middle. 1. keep about half the original water. There is good stuff in it. 2. yes, put in mostly new sand - but transfer something like 2-4cups of the old sand to seed the new sand bed. I like your plan overall, pretty sound.

Pictures, Yes post Pictures please!