450 Gallons, My Peninsula build.

[wishntoboutside]

not to derail this thread but around this time there was a vw bus show on the pier at Huntington. Once of the most beautiful views ever.

 

[wishntoboutside]

I slowly started to add frags again Things were on the up and up. Clearly had some bacterial issues but the corals now I was putting in were staying alive.

 

[wishntoboutside]

Things are coming along corals are adapting very well.
We now are in June 0f 2019. I will say That I take a lot more pictures of the aquarium and when it is is happy. All of my fish have become my pets. My friends are enjoying coming over for poker nights and viewing the aquarium. Only changes in the last few months has been adding of the Easy Reef SPS plankton.

 

[wishntoboutside]

I added a few nice frags. Oregon tort, Event Horizons Milie
very odd. I am having some issues dragging and posting some pictures. I will have to go back and drag these off my iPhone.

 

[wishntoboutside]

Time is flying by. Corals are doing great as long as they are glued down or not knocked over. I was now August. The coworkers were in town and all got to see my aquarium. It was a fun day for sure. I was one of the few with the first HYDROS wave engine. I thought this was pretty cool to have different brands work in one unit but the best part for me was less plugs. I just have a wiring mess. It is slowly getting better but this helped a bunch.

 

[vetteguy53081]

Let there be light.

I was able to check the lights of the list. It was bright and had a great glow I felt like a reefer again. Sense of accomplishment getting that done. I did have an issue. The whole floating canopy looked great but it sagged. If I recall it dropped about 1.5 inches to the front side. Being the reefer that I am the fix for about the first year was more scheduled 80 scrap pipes

Looking great

 

[wishntoboutside]

We are now at September of 2019. I made some changes on things. I have had a few issues with power outages. It is like a quick blink but for some reason it kills Red Dragon controllers. I now have extra controllers and decided to part with the super marin 300. I replaced it with a Reef Octo 300 and added the neck extension. The neck extension is about 2.5 inches. This helped me tune the skimmer a little better to my needs. I ran it for a couple weeks then I added 2 Klir fleet rollers. It was time for me to part ways with filter socks as I was just buying a case of 50 and throwing them away each time. I did not want to go thru the hassle of cleaning them and over with wondering about causing issues if not cleaned correctly. The Klir fleece filters were pretty cool as I used a y adapter to use them to work together. I did have a learning curve with flow rates and pushing to much water thru them so I had two diverter plates and cracked on open a little more. The problem was solved. I went from 4 7inch filter socks to 2 fleece filters. Within a day or two the water was so much clearer. before i would always see the particles that led's light up. Most of them were now gone. I think these things really work at polishing the water meter then filter socks.

 

[wishntoboutside]

Around this time I was also beginning to show some signs of success. Corals were growing. One of my favorite corals was growing and doing well. Frags were growing and encrusting. Things were just starting to take off

 

[wishntoboutside]

There are fish that you always want and sometimes you see them and they are gone others you just think I will get one sooner or later. I came across a beautiful powder blue tang. it was a great size for my other fish and I thought I would just take the risk on this one.

 

[wishntoboutside]

January 2020, some of the corals are getting bigger. I am starting to see more of the corals stand out but honestly all of the sticks get lost in the rocks. Still battling some bacterial issues but I had a lot going on in my life during this time
Here are a few photos of things at this time

 

[wishntoboutside]

Here are some of the corals growing out during this time

 

[wishntoboutside]

Here are a few more to share.

I finally removed the pic and decided to hang cable from the ceiling to keep the light rack rack level. Looks so much better.

 

[wishntoboutside]

We are now into September 2020 and things are just growing and moving along.
Around this time a local reefer was giving away an all in one aquarium that I made some adjustments and here it is all installed in the fish room on the sump bench. This was a great addition and I just needed another light.

 

[wishntoboutside]

I am reviewing so many pictures of things of my aquarium. seeing things then and comparing things to now is really amazing to see. I see Astreia starfish in some photos and have not seen these in my display in a year or so. Yes still some in the sump or frag tank but a simple thing of shrimp was a great long term solution and I have had that haliquen for at least 2 years now. Seeing little algae things going away is also nice.
Here is some pictures of the fish room with two other tanks. Now one is gone but it always makes me wonder why one never gets things done when there is so much maintanance in so may system. It just causes me anxiety. lol

 

[wishntoboutside]

We now are in late September. Behind the scenes I was able to get involved in some beta testing for the HYDROS controller, When this was given out there were no instructions on how to set it up and being that I already had a wave engine it was a perfect match for my aquarium. I honestly had no issues setting things up including the wifi strips. I had an Apex prior and always needed that controller coach to help me set things up beyond my tech level this was so much easier. Being that I already had my apex hardline, I just added a dedicated access point and to this day no issues. I will say these pictures make me laugh at my app. I had such a basic set up back then and now I think I am up to 9 devices. A this point I used it to monitor my temp, ph and ph of my calcium reactor. I was also able to sing up my alkatronic unit soon after this so I was a happy camper with some steady all. The aquarium was showing the results as well.

 

[wishntoboutside]

Here are a few tank shots during this time. For those that are following this you will see a lot of the same angles of the aquarium an in the background one can see the corals just filling in nicely.

 

[wishntoboutside]

Here is a nice shot of the lighthouse aquatics purple nana slowly filling in. to me this is a great color but not a fast grower.

 

[wishntoboutside]

It is now late Decemeber 2020 and I normally spent a lot of time on the tank this time of the year and I stumbled on to an amazing occurrence in my aquarium. I had a spawning even. To this day this has let to so many discussion on how? why? and other questions. Great opinions but end of day not much science into it other then it happens. What Happens... My Aussie Gold Torch has spawned. I was truly blown away.

 

[lbacha]

Very nice build

 

[wishntoboutside]

Thank you. I appreciate that . It's never perfect but it will always get better. Stay tuned on this as this has been a great adventure