let's do the electrical work since i'm actually going to be getting macro algae in here
time to organize this because i need to get everything up and running which everything works
but it's just a jumble of wires right now so let's organize that do a little wire management
and see what it looks like i'll take some before and after picks
so that you guys can revel in either how well i did or how poorly i did
no i decided to go to lowe's because i never seem to have the right screw sizes when i'm installing
the controllers and stuff i'm always just like scrounging and finding stuff so i think i'll just
buy a few different boxes and different sizes of these self-drilling ones just like have them for
the future i mean guys check this out i mean i feel like an idiot like how many years i've been
doing this i didn't know they sold these tops that you can totally open i've been drilling holes like
some kind of stoneage caveman when i could have just gotten for two dollars 250
a nice nice lid uh oh well we're gonna use some of these and maybe exchange out some old
ones too because this is nice deal with this another day because i haven't finished yet
with this project actually i haven't even started with this project so let's go work on this
do
that's it nothing special but the wires are gone no wires down here i was able to put in the five
gallon bucket with this cool new top which i can't believe i just discovered it's so awesome for the
uv sterilizer i just tucked the wires up here and i used all those velcro straps just to velcro the
line along the top here and then over here i made a mistake and i didn't put this in the right spot
but i'm not going to redo it it works just fine we only have two controllers the reef octopus here
and the mac spec gyro controller there i went ahead and labeled everything this is one of those
fancy wi-fi strips that i like so there's one two three four five wi-fi outlets on top and
five non-wi-fi outlets just always on and i went ahead and programmed those onto my phone
set up the chiller running gonna set it at 74. no 73 which means it'll go
73 to 74 degrees and everything is ready to go i'm talking with tyler inland reef tomorrow
so that we can get the first shipment of macro soon
okay i want to show you this it's currently what 6 33 and the temperature here where i live is 102.
this just arrived and this is from ben's nems and tyler at inland reef and they sent me the first
package of macro algaes but the problem was is it sat all day and this isn't their
fault they said it overnight they sent it with an ice pack i opened up the ice pack
and i put my thermometer in and the ice pack was 91 degrees so i took the thermometer and went over
here to the actual macro algae and i put it in the bag and the macro algae was also 91 degrees
but this is the gracelaria i think it's red there's no apparent die off even though it
was 91 i'm just soaking it i'm just gonna float it in in the seahorse tank you know i'm gonna
do that for at least a couple hours and then i forget what he called this the codium i think
it is the codium it's green i don't see any fuzziness on it which he said is a good sign
but we're just gonna soak it and then i think what i'm gonna do is i'm not going to install
any of it tonight i'm just going to get out one of my like plastic what do you call the
little breeder basket that i hang on the side and plop them in there after rinsing them out
and then we'll check back in tomorrow to see how they look pull out any death and disease
that happens but these two species evidently are are really hardy so hopefully they'll survive the
night hey guys sorry it's super late everybody um i've been soaking these for a couple hours i have
my wife holding i gotta find the you see the huge mess on my desk here in a second i want to test
the temperature i tested them earlier remember it was 92 degrees this should be close to 73 now
73.8 okay so i talked to tyler from inland reef today and he said
you know he was asking me does it look white so no you know so i would think they're okay
but he said just don't mix the water and what i'm going to do is i'm just going to rinse them
out real quick i have some fresh water right over here next to me and i'm just going to
put them in a basket tonight in the tank and then check them tomorrow to see if there's any die off
but i mean looking at these these actually look really good i mean look at that
super clean so i think we're going to be okay let's move them over here
they smell they don't smell great but that's probably some die off and then here's the i forget
what he called this he says it's supposed to be a little bit fuzzy it seems a little fuzzy i don't
see any dye off those i think we're gonna be okay but i mean just look over here look how nasty
the water is it's just super yellow and i'm just gonna just a gentle rinse
and then follow me probably won't be able to see it very well that's okay okay here it is i don't
know if you're still not gonna see it very well but i just have it hanging so i'm just going to
leave it here tonight i have some stuff i have to do tomorrow but we'll just come back and check it
tomorrow the temperature acclimated well it did acclimate to the 73.9 it said and it looks healthy
but we'll check tomorrow note itself if if you live in the palm springs area you really can't
ship live things in the summer because that thing just sat on the ups truck all day and it could
have killed it all but hopefully it's okay if you remember this all arrived and it was 91 degrees
91 degrees in that water but it appears though it's all survived it's been sitting in
just this blue basket for a little while and i talked to tyler about about how to
you know like put these in because i've never done this before really all i'm gonna do is just
cram it into rocks for now but look it's all super healthy see that nice and red this is the pom-pom
he said some of it's gonna break off and that's just how it is so i'm just gonna take it try to
keep it lower down and just find a few decent spots for it knowing that it's probably going
to release at some point because there's quite a bit of flow in here i see something just something
simple like that and then we have the codium here which i i seriously can't believe these survive
the 91 and they have little hairs on them so it looks super healthy see that and all these are
going to go lower down so let's just find a couple spots for these and just stick it in and see how
it goes i i don't this this is such a learning thing for me remember that because i don't know
anything about these so i have no idea how this is gonna work i'm sure i'm gonna have to move stuff
i'm sure a lot of this stuff is just probably gonna end up blowing away because like there
aren't really any good holes in here see uh i think this one the codium he said will eventually
grab on and and like it'll actually grow over it but i just this is really hard i just don't see
any good spots to put it maybe we'll just put it in here this looks like a pretty good sized hole
kind of stuff it down into there like that i think there's gave me a little bit of extra of each but
i mean these just look really clean and really healthy super pretty and i what is this i don't
even know what like what is this like white tip is that like a little bit of depth maybe anyway
just keep finding spots for it eventually guys if you're local to coachella valley will be able to
and you want to try this i'll be able to give you clippings we're going to test out the lights too
i have a par meter that we'll put on i just set the light schedule today and so i'm i'm running
him at a basically a hundred percent uh evidently tyler has the same lights and he says the hundred
percent is uh puts out like 130 par and this is a pretty deep tank so i think that'll work
out just fine maybe try one of these up a little higher i kind of want to mix them because um the
red pom-pom is going to form more of like a bush and this will get a little more stringy with the
codium i also have been testing my nitrates and my phosphates and i've been and i have decent
nitrates it's like 10 to 14 right now it's a little high which is fine i haven't changed my
filter stock even once so i just changed that so that'll come down but my phosphates were zero so
i dosed some neophos yesterday and i also tested it today then and then today it was still at zero
so i added some more neophos i'll get it right but i'm gonna have to test daily
for a little while just to make sure you know keep some phosphate levels up
before i show you guys some up close i've also been meaning to add
this guy this is just a green toadstool and it's not going to show up very green under these lights
but it's going to be perfect for the seahorses eventually so i'm just going to drip acclimate
it real quick and then we're going to add it i think we'll kind of add it near the back
both will wait and see where i'm going to put it here is everybody the the first
livestock added after months and this tank has been through a lot from my air and chipping it
to the twin star lights not fitting but working it out the aquascape and we have our first two
kinds of macros if you guys need macros a big thanks to ben's and m's check them out tyler
inland reef now partners with ben's nems and they didn't give these to me i paid for them right but
i am just so impressed with the quality of their product and i would highly recommend
it really great to work with as well so check them out i know they drop new stuff every week
they're building a huge grow out facility so they're going to have a lot more available because
right now demand is just outstripping prices are good and the clumps the sizes they give you
are huge so this is not a paid advertisement they did not pay me to say this i'm just happy with it
all i'm going to do on this tank now is test it every single day and it has for for nitrates and
for phosphates and i have neo-nitro and neophos from brightwell that i'm going to be dosing
i also have kato grow that i'll be dosing as well on a daily basis as i learn about how to care for
macros i also have a par meter so i'm going to test these lights just to see where they are
i have them set to a similar cycle as the other tanks almost exactly the same but they max out at
100 and they're at 100 for about seven hour photo period the goal here is to wait about a month
see if i can be successful with these two kinds of macro which are super easy to keep learn
the proper testing learn how much dosing i need and then we're going to move up to a couple
different types of macro probably next month as long as these do well and then we'll probably do
a third shipment and then after that stabilizes we get the nutrients in check then and only then
are we going to add our first sea horses so this tank should grow out sugar out really nicely and
here well you know we'll do like before and after picks as we go along but anyway big thanks ben's
nems tyler inland reef thank you guys so much check them out that's all i got for you right now
you