got ethical husbandry?

I'm back!

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It's been a while since I've posted an update. Getting prepared for fire season has taken up a lot of my free time.

The biocube is doing well. The Chinese kessil knockoff is a gamble. The control interface isn't fully translated to English, so changing things is mostly memorizing function paths. The power supply capped out after 3 weeks. The company was absolutely useless in getting a replacement or refund without paying to ship the whole unit back to China. I bought a kessil a360we from a local reefer and used that power supply until I found a replacement. It works great now and I have a backup in case I have other failures.

BTW, I am really disappointed that Kessil discontinued the a360we, it was a great light that easily integrated with Apex for a much lower cost than the X.



My tank is not going well. I bought a fish from a local reefer and didn't QT. It was a velvet survivor and I lost all but one fish in the 100g tank in 48 hours.

I'm on assignment in Porterville for another week still. When I get home, I'm going to move the Foxface into a QT tank and let the 100g go fallow, probably for the rest of fire season. No corals in the tank, just a few hundred baby snails since the stomatellas and trocus have spawned.
 
Well. I've neglected this.

The tanks survived but both suffered setbacks from me being gone for two weeks at a time most of the year.

The biocube had an aptasia plague. Ended up getting a file fish that destroyed them. Then it spent two weeks nibbling on corals while I was away. He now lives in the refugium on the 100g tank. Biocube also had some algae growth. Likely due to an auto feeder and the small refugium not being trimmed. Looking for a sea urchin to help out.

The 100g tanks Skimmer pump died. I haven't been able to replace it until this week. I just ran the refugium and it grew well all year. I don't know what kind of algae I have but it isn't chaeto. The Foxface and a cleaner shrimp have lived with half a dozen trochus snails, a few Halloween hermits and what seems like a million stomatella snails.

8 bulb T5 has been running a normal schedule the whole time. It's a considerable waste on energy and bulb life with no corals in the tank. However, my rocks are clean of any algae at 10ppm. Lots of microfauna in the rocks. Scopas tang just got out of QT and is getting along great with the Foxface.

I haven't bought any corals or done anything with the tank. I knew it was going to have to move at some point. I'm moving the tank to my office this month. Rocks will be prime for frags once it settles down and there will always be someone nearby which is a lot of piece of mind.
 
Well. I've neglected this.

The tanks survived but both suffered setbacks from me being gone for two weeks at a time most of the year.

The biocube had an aptasia plague. Ended up getting a file fish that destroyed them. Then it spent two weeks nibbling on corals while I was away. He now lives in the refugium on the 100g tank. Biocube also had some algae growth. Likely due to an auto feeder and the small refugium not being trimmed. Looking for a sea urchin to help out.

The 100g tanks Skimmer pump died. I haven't been able to replace it until this week. I just ran the refugium and it grew well all year. I don't know what kind of algae I have but it isn't chaeto. The Foxface and a cleaner shrimp have lived with half a dozen trochus snails, a few Halloween hermits and what seems like a million stomatella snails.

8 bulb T5 has been running a normal schedule the whole time. It's a considerable waste on energy and bulb life with no corals in the tank. However, my rocks are clean of any algae at 10ppm. Lots of microfauna in the rocks. Scopas tang just got out of QT and is getting along great with the Foxface.

I haven't bought any corals or done anything with the tank. I knew it was going to have to move at some point. I'm moving the tank to my office this month. Rocks will be prime for frags once it settles down and there will always be someone nearby which is a lot of piece of mind.
It's hard keeping tanks up when you're busy and traveling. Luckily I have a wife that loves this hobby.
 
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