Well I did a water change today and decided to take out the IM skimmer I have been having problems with and put the factory one back in.
The IM skimmer skims good when its at the right level and tweaked just right. But the bracket you need to hang it is absolutely useless. It's a pain in the rear when your doing weekly maintenance and having to constantly tweak & adjust the height of it to get it just right again. But the RSM Factory one skims WAY better just adjust the air nozzle and that's it. Although I don't get to use the Media Basket like I want to. It tends to run a little warmer then the IM, so I'm watching over the temp of the tank for the next week to see just how hot it gets. I stuck on a new RSM 130 factory fan in the wall of the back sump to help with it. I've had a bad experience with the Tunze skimmers. I had one explode water all over my living room floor. No idea what happened but it spurted water out the top so fast it blew the collection cup right off and water went everywhere. I was furious because I had just had new rugging put down.
I had steam coming out my ears. It smelled for over a week. I had a professional come and clean it twice.
I also added a surface skimmer cup that is designed for the 130. Hope it helps with that oily look to the top of my water. Drives me nuts that my water is so crystal clear other then the top oil slick.
Since I can't use the media basket with the stock skimmer, I stuck in 2 more carbon in zip bags on the top of the skimmer where it flows over into the pump area that pushes it back in the tank. Kind of hard to explain, but they get water flow through them,a sponge to reduce bubbles, then back through a bag of ceramic cylinders, another sponge on top of that then the return pump. I placed a coarse sponge above the skimmer pump so she can't slide down in there. I use the white one for when I leave the house or go to bed and it prevents her from getting through the vent. Kind of like a coarse dam door. I like to open the filtration up as much as I can and I tend to stir up the substrate a lot since I can't keep many critters in there to do it for me. When I take the white coarse sponge out and stir it up you can see her shedded suckers, tiny debris, and all the tiny floaties. And I stir mine up everyday. If anyone comes across a filter sock design for the RSM 130 with the factory skimmer please send me the design, seller, DIY ect...
I have also added more LR and adjusted the LR onto her main piece so its more full. It gives kind of a Shelf design with lots of holes and crevasses for her to play in when she finally gets brave enough to come out. I really love the way it looks now. I am trying to be careful cause I want the water flow to be able to get all the debris falling out of her den and not have any areas that stuff is getting collected and not filtered out. So I tend to do a daily DUSTING if you will. lol
I just moved the cabbages to the ledges on the bottom away from her den. I thought there were to clustered up there. The Gonipora is so happy now that there are no clowns trying to host it. It was dying off and is now starting to come out and hopefully regenerate.
Anyway here are some photos. Please ignore the blankets on the windows.
I get such awful glares on the glass when I try to photo so I cover the windows when its bad.
Right Side
Front Side ( Is it me or is this starting to look like a circus side show? All the pretty colors!)
Left Side
New trick to get her to eat shrimp. She gets mad cause it won't move so easily to blow it away. Then she grabs the zip tie skewered shrimp and starts to eat it after a while. She does eat most of it and finally a tiny bit is left and she plays with the zip tie or ring and then releases it when shes done.
Notice the rock piece that is under her den now? I pulled it from one of my other tanks, and I forget what its called, but its completely covered in dark purple coraline algae. The darkest and best piece I have. Well she must really like it cause when I was adjusting her den and wiggling the bigger piece to make sure it wouldn't just fall over in the back, she had 3 arms down exploring it. It kind of reminds me of the Popcorn Rock I used to get. It has bubbles all over it like the top of a piece of popcorn.
I've been searching Craigslist lately and checking my LFS for more pieces with caves or to make ledges with. When she finally passes, I want to drill the pieces in there now and make it all one piece and not have to worry about anything crumbling on her or a bigger octo if I get one.
So what do you think of the formation? I didn't want it to look like I just threw it in there, and the big main piece I have allows those others to attach like ledges. I was getting so frustrated cause I hate aquascaping, and after a water change and cleaning I decided to play with it while she had a fiddler in the corner to see what i could come up with. I'm satisfied. I just hope she is to.
FYI she ate 2 fiddlers again today. I'm thinking it's because of their size. The ones I have been ordering are female and they are babies still not like the full size adults. Their almost half the size of an adult. I'm going to order 10 adults and 10 small ones my next order. I had an adult one, but it was too big to get inside her den door, and she was trying to hard while eating it to get it inside. There was pieces all over my tank. She really shredded that one. I'm still trying to find a tiny basketball net to mount in her tank for when she spits. ( "Nothing but net" ) I love watching her and catching them as she spits. Sometimes they are whole, but the majority of them look like confetti.