• Folks, if you've recently upgraded or renewed your annual club membership but it's still not active, please reach out to the BOD or a moderator. The PayPal system has a slight bug which it doesn't allow it to activate the account on it's own.

Max's Shallow Reef: An epic adventure of corals, fine beer, nonsense, and general insanity.

Update:

90ac3c689f9e5a911c898d7d3de3ff22.jpg


Seems like ammonia has drastically went down and nitrites are up. Should I add another shrimp to produce more ammonia?

What you guys think.



... let me know ASAP so I can steal one out of my wife’s lunch for tomorrow
 

Mark_C

Staff member
Officer Emeritus
NJRC Member
Moderator
Go natural! Sit. Stare at tank. Have a few beers. Stare and think. Pee in tank.
A ways back I had a tank in which I did the shrimp thing.
Then another, in which I did the shrimp thing.
For the third I read about the pee thing, had a whiskey or two...
Astounding results.
Done it myself on my last 3 tanks and cycling is fast and complete.
And, if tempted, its about 1/4 cup (2oz) for 10g (yes, though buzzed, this was aquarium science, I did measure).
If you have a 90g+ plan on drinking a lot of beer.
Just my 2c.
 
Go natural! Sit. Stare at tank. Have a few beers. Stare and think. Pee in tank.
A ways back I had a tank in which I did the shrimp thing.
Then another, in which I did the shrimp thing.
For the third I read about the pee thing, had a whiskey or two...
Astounding results.
Done it myself on my last 3 tanks and cycling is fast and complete.
And, if tempted, its about 1/4 cup (2oz) for 10g (yes, though buzzed, this was aquarium science, I did measure).
If you have a 90g+ plan on drinking a lot of beer.
Just my 2c.

Gentlemen: let us collectively refuse to entertain such unscientific and barbaric notions that seem to be taking place in our fine community. Let us not stoop to the level of certain individuals in this club that have lost all shame and feel the need to regularly use a delicate reef as their personal toilet.

It is a slippery slope gentlemen, for first they will in their unscientific pursuits urinate, then who knows where that madness will lead them, perhaps to even defecate as well...

Let us walk a higher path gentlemen. We are scholars of science. Not savage brutes who would rather spill bodily waste all over delicate marine life out of sheer ignorance and unwillingness to follow the reef keeping ways of their fathers and their fathers before them.
 
Guys how the hell am I supposed to interpret this scientific fiasco?!

2f096a920eb73137562c318279892eab.jpg


My ammonia went up then disappeared. Then my nitrites went up as u guys saw from previous pic. Now a few days later my ammonia is creeping up again and now no nitrites but showing nitrates.

I have not seen such blasphemy before. Usually ammonia doesn’t go back up after nitrites show up.....
 
dunno if u decided to add fuel maybe that would explain the NH3 high, imho id watch wait and drink until you get to yellow or else add a fish at 4wks without a guilty conscience
 
Update: the cycle is still going and it’s boring as all hell and driving me to booze out of said boredom so in the meantime I present for your amusement:

-Random Beer Review-

ce7c84c1f4fbdf28b6e403358e289b6c.jpg


Verdict:


Wanted to try something different from my usual Blue Moon or lately Yuengling.


....it’s pretty good. Not amazing, but on a scale of Keystone Lite to Blue Moon, it’s somewhere around Budweiser.

It gets:





3 empty beer caps out of 5

Enjoy responsibly gentlemen! And don’t pee in your tanks afterwards. Because that is not right.....

....like just not correct
 
Chapter 10: And on the 5th day, the Lord said let there be life...


In my case it’s like 25th day but hey, who’s counting....


There is now life in my tank:

e29a9fef3bc2f76b457082980a41dc8c.jpg

Terrible iPhone picture of what is supposed to be a monti and a chalice piece. For whatever reason iPhone camera picks up kessil lights as much bluer than they really are in real life....

.... or it’s my photography skills


There are also 5 very confused hermit crabs


This weekend I will put a fish in and more hermit crabs because they need friends.


Speaking of kessil: I have to give them a well deserved shout out. So upon linking up the 2 lights I discovered that one is a little bluer than the other under the same settings. I tested every which way and still nothing would change. Called kessil and it turns out that one of my lights is a much later production where they changed the layout of the diodes hence changing the spectrum.

Long story short as per THEIR suggestion they are replacing my lights with two that will be identical and paying for shipping to make me a happy camper.

[emoji33]

THAT is customer service in my book!



Going forward if anyone here uses any other light but Kessil I will consider it a personal slight and look at that person with contempt and whisper bad words as I pass them by.


...on a case by case basis....



... probably not really going to.... but will surely think bad thoughts!!!


...probably not that either.


...well you all get the point [emoji57]
 
Last edited:
Update: there is even more life in the tank now...


012f11701c8d9e2ab42b6326a3a922d9.jpg


1d6004ca70d88f755ff7e2a7173bbbee.jpg


c9b526f719ce84ad806a090404925b70.jpg


Ok officially either I’m the worst photographer in the world or the iPhone camera is out to get me. For whatever reason all the shots come out blue like this and not vivid at all.

Any ideas gentlemen how to fix this?

So far the only logical thing I can think of is to chuck the iPhone at a passerby and get a different device.

Thoughts?
 

Trio91

Administrator
Staff member
Moderator
Update: there is even more life in the tank now...


012f11701c8d9e2ab42b6326a3a922d9.jpg


1d6004ca70d88f755ff7e2a7173bbbee.jpg


c9b526f719ce84ad806a090404925b70.jpg


Ok officially either I’m the worst photographer in the world or the iPhone camera is out to get me. For whatever reason all the shots come out blue like this and not vivid at all.

Any ideas gentlemen how to fix this?

So far the only logical thing I can think of is to chuck the iPhone at a passerby and get a different device.

Thoughts?
Call Kessil, maybe they'll get you a new phone :p :applause:
 
3rd update:

I have ZERO luck with chromis.

First it didn’t eat. So I got bribe shrimp to feed it so it doesn’t die.

It fed


Then died shortly after anyways.

My last tank I went through 3 chromis before I gave up. Thought it would be different this time around.


So I went and got 3 damsels....




Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Correction: 2 damsels...


...&$@%^*#+[|£

...[emoji35][emoji35][emoji35]


...[emoji24][emoji24][emoji24]


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Update: I am back to three damsels.

...not due to evil magic but due to buying a talbots damsel from lfs.

Also got a few corals and a coral banded shrimp with one claw....

...well he had 2 when i got him but he had an altercation with my mp10 powerhead.

... I now have foam on it


... We both learned a lesson

Pictures to follow:
16aa9a91a92df7d555b259d586bfb648.jpg
fc065056a16f05826cf4e3d6498c8954.jpg
d31c3dc5e360f4ee02852bebcc9e1ed8.jpg
509063dccb56cf25f04be101b4b6b554.jpg


Sent from my LG-H932 using Tapatalk
 
Top