December update

Things are looking better in the tank although the turaki is looking pretty rough. I fragged a chunk off and it seems to be doing ok, better than the colony anyways so I guess that is something. Here is a pic of the colony:

As you can see it has bubbly cyano on most of the tips, a lot of the tips are "eaten away" and don't have any tissue on them. Some parts are looking better than others and I'm hoping that the coral wins and not the cyano. Oh well, if worse comes to worse I still have the frag and know where I can get another piece if necessary.

Another affected coral was one of my tricolors. This one I swear was fine one minute and the next the tissue just peeled back like a banana skin to reveal white skeleton beneath. It was the oddest thing. Its starting to recover as you can see in the photo:

Although there are a couple of really odd spots in it off to one side, the coral is grey colored. Like all the color just went out of it in that spot. Not really bleached per se, but I dunno how to describe it. Something odd going on with this one....


So I was doing my regular tank maintenance on Sunday, waterchange, skimmer cup cleaning etc. Tried to restart the skimmer and it was a no go. I pulled out the impeller as I could hear the motor humming and sure enough, the impeller magnet was split and rusted to all hell (gee, algae issues much?):

Yes folks, it must be close to Christmas. My tank does this to me every year, either around my birthday or Christmas. It wants a piece of the present action too I guess. Anyway, a new impeller courtesy of Reef Dynamics (skimmer is a EuroReef RS250) is $80 and $25 to ship it. Frankly I think the $25 to ship it stings more than the sticker price. Anyway I had a look online and there were a lot of google results for GX6000 (the pump) and sedra 9000 together so I figured I'd have a go. My old ER skimmer had a Dolphin pump running on it which is also similar to a Sedra pump and used a Sedra 5000 impeller on it so I figured Sedra must have something going for it if everyone and their dog is copying their pumps. I also have the sedra needlewheel from that skimmer (the needlewheel didn't fit, I just needed the magnet) and it looks remarkably similar. Here is a pic:

Crazy eh? They're almost exactly the same. The only difference I could find is that the Reef Dynamics one uses black plastic which is softer and the needles actually can be bent a little while the sedra one has very stiff needles and they're a bit shorter (although that could be because its rated for a smaller impeller/smaller pump, I put the new impeller in the skimmer before I took photos and it was such an ordeal I'm not hauling it out just to take a photo. Take my word for it :) ). So it turns out yes the Sedra 9000 impeller fits the GX6000.  Nowhere on the internet is that in the same sentence so I'm saying it. So all you googlers that land on my page can thank me for typing it ;)

Anyhoo, the skimmer is running again after 4 days down time.  Hopefully it pulls out lots of nice gunk :P

Now for a tank photo:

And some other photos:

New squamosa I picked up awhile ago, its not overly striking but there's just something about those blue spots :)