Christy's Reef

So this weekend was a big weekend for tank stuff. Some things have gotten neglected in the last while, namely waterchanges. Lets just say December isnt' a good month for tank maintenance. However, I outdid myself this weekend. New bulbs, Ushios. I was going to try the Aquaconnect 14K's but people have been reporting that one of their pair will go yellowy looking, and well, quite frankly, been there done that. If I wanted Iwasakis I'd buy them :P Anyway, the new bulbs are sparkly white. I'd say a touch whiter than the old bulbs but I dunno, I can't see the "intensity" change between the new and old. I guess the corals will let me know.

Next, skimmer cleaning. Hauled it out completely. Someone on Canreef wanted to see my gate valve and meshwheel modifications so I took it out, got some pics and marvelled over the grossness of my skimmer. Cleaned the whole thing with vinegar and grouted out the pump, it had quite the mass of gack in the impeller housing part.

Siphoned out the sump as part of my "weekly" waterchange. At some point in the new year I'm thinking of emptying out the sump completely (not a big deal its only about 23 gallons or so) and shopvac'ing the whole thing, then vinegaring all the pumps and such. That, of course, remains to be seen whether I'll have the time for such an endeavor but you just never know. Its on the list.

Hmm, what else. Oh I changed out the zeorocks. Guess I should post on zeovit.com and find out whether my dosing schedule is still good to go. I did change them out a bit early, ended up only being a few days, I meant to do it last week so that I could get in my 10 days of daily dosing of the zeofood and zeobak before going on holidays. A friend is going to tank sit for me but she isn't back until the 28th. No biggie, the tank will be on its own for a whole 3 days. Then she'll be dosing up a storm :)

Well this was a speed version here, no time lately for anything. Don't worry, I always make time for the tank though. Here's a quick and dirty photo of the tank I took tonight.