Rue Plumet

A couple weeks ago I got a new coral for the aquarium. I had some credit at one of the local fish stores, so I went by to see what they had available and found a nice pipe organ coral. I didn’t know a whole lot about that type of coral so I went home and did my research first and then decided it would probably be a nice addition to the tank. So far it seems pretty happy, although I did turn up the water circulation a bit the other day, and I think the coral is a little happier now with the higher flow. Needless to say, Charis is not nearly as excited about a stationary coral as she is about the fish that constantly swim around the tank, but at least daddy likes it.

I found some instructions online for making an aquarium cover that lets light and air in but still prevents your fish from jumping overboard. It seemed simple enough that even a not-so-handy individual like myself could do it, so I went by Lowe’s today to get the materials I needed. It didn’t take long and I’d say the results turned out pretty well!

Cover on the tank:

Full view of entire cover:

A not-quite-as-out-of-focus-as-the-last-one picture of my clownfish:

We recently downsized our aquarium because I realized that I need things a little simpler in my life with two kids, not more complicated. So we now have a 30 gallon tank that has a separate compartment in the back third for equipment (instead of sumps and pumps and returns and all of that other stuff). Though I miss the larger tank a little bit, I’m very happy with how the new small one is turning out. We just need to get some more fish and corals in there!

I spent some time this weekend getting the aquarium ever closer to being ready for fish. I now have everything running through my aquarium controller instead of plugged directly into the wall like it has been for the past several months. The controller is programmable and can be set to turn devices on and off at whatever times you choose. It can also monitor the temperature and pH of the water and adjust things accordingly (like turning off the lights if the water gets too warm). In addition to setting up the main controller, I also installed the controller for my two high flow pumps in the tank. The controller for the pumps can ramp the pumps up and down from low flow to high flow and switch back and forth between which pump has the higher flow in order to increase the variability of water flow in the aquarium.

Aquarium Controller

Another Picture of the Aquarium Controller

Pump Controller

Chiller/Heater Controller

The aquarium is still humming along. All of the equipment is working fine and I think we’ve cleared up all of the lingering slow drips in the plumbing. The rock had a little more die-off than I expected (or else it wasn’t quite fully cured yet) so I’m waiting for all of the parameters to come in line before I add snails or fish or anything. All of the tests are fine except the nitrates are a big higher than I’d like them to be. I have a sulfur nitrate reactor that isn’t running yet and I’m trying to decide if I’m going to start using it or just wait until water changes bring the nitrates down over time. But once they come down, we should be all set for fish, snails, coral and whatever else.

I stacked the rock in the aquarium “for real” last Friday. I had acrylic rod on hand in case I needed to drill some holes and use the rod to stabilize the rocks. However, since the Marshall rock has a branching structure (as opposed to the more rounded shapes from Fiji), I was able to get a good stable stack even without the acrylic rod. I can put my hand on any of the pieces on top of the stack and apply pressure in any direction and the rock just stays where it is. I was really happy with how stable everything turned out. I was able to stack everything and keep the rocks from leaning against the glass. That’s a little harder to do because the glass can add stability to the stack, but keeping the rock off the glass allows for better water flow around the rock. I have two peaks on the left and right sides of the tank, with a lower stack of rock in the center. One of the rock pieces had a nice built-in cave area, so I positioned that towards the left side of the tank facing the front. Overall I’m very pleased with the rock and the arrangement I was able to come up with. It may not be the best stack ever constructed, but there’s not a lot of room to work with in a 58 gallon tank, and I’m pretty happy with how it turned out.

After working like crazy to get the aquarium ready over the past several weeks, I decided to go ahead and place my order for live rock so that it would arrive today. That will give me the long holiday weekend to get it all arranged and stacked the way I want it. For those outside the loop, live rock is basically dead coral skeletons (primarily calcium, I think) covered with various kinds of algae and bacteria and tiny little critters that help keep an aquarium going by processing toxic waste materials into safe (or at least less toxic) materials that are easier to remove from the water using various filters. Live rock is frequently thought of as “biological filtration” for the aquarium. Anyway, the rock came in today, and I just threw it all in the tank so that it would be in water with some strong currents flowing over it. I’m planning to stack it properly on Friday.

We added the first batch of water to the aquarium today!

I finally finished all of the plumbing for the aquarium. Joy and I tested everything with freshwater and we had no drips or leaks, which was awesome. So now I just need to start filtering and mixing some saltwater so we can get this thing filled up and ready for fish!

Aquarium and stand

Center section underneath stand (skimmer, pumps, nitrate reactor)

Left section underneath stand (chiller, calcium reactor, kalkwasser stirrer)

Right section underneath stand (carbon filter, phosphate filter)

Lately I’ve been spending quite a bit of time finishing up the last bits of work before I can fill the new aquarium with water. I spent yesterday afternoon and today putting together more plumbing pieces, and now I’m very nearly done. In fact, I would be completely done, except I ran out of pipe at the very end. I originally bought 40 feet of pipe from Lowe’s, and then today as I was trying to finish the last two connections, I realized that I was about 6 inches short of what I needed. And Lowe’s was already closed for the day. That was a serious bummer, but at least now after I get a little more pipe I will have hardly anything left to do (probably about 30 minutes worth). Anyway, I now have my new Mastercard ad ready (though it’s probably aimed at the aquarium owner market more than the general public):

40 feet of PVC pipe: $24
1 pint each of PVC primer and glue: $8
10 hours of priming and gluing dozens of PVC connections: 2047 brain cells lost to the fumes
Ball valves or unions at every connection for ease of maintenance: priceless