Benjamin's 57g Rimless Reef

[CausticGuy]

Very nice.

 

[mrbee2828]

So after 2 months in hypo this summer and not adding a single fish since, my tank has come down with ich. I expect something swung the other week and slipped by me but all the fish have it. With no real hope of catching them in a tank with this tonga arrangement I hoped to catch my coral banded shrimp in a trap quicker and give my cleaner shrimp an opportunity to come out more. I caught him last night.

I tried to grab them yesterday though as they were looking really bad and caught the kole off guard. The rest were surprisingly simple to catch, I didn't even have to remove any rock, and I got them into QT... again. I'm dropping the salinity over the next day but I've lost the kole already. I have had the clowns for 4 years, they were my first fish. The cardinals haven't seemed to break out yet so there is hope. So here is to 2 more months of no fish. I'll have to get my kicks off coral for now.

Lesson... I don't know. I followed all the rules here. Dead rock, heavily QT'd fish and super dipped and QT'd corals. I think this has proven to that all fish can contract ich in any system, just like us and a cold, when stressed suddenly by a swing in a parameter. Maybe it was my heater, the reactor and an alk drop.. who knows. More to come. Down but not out.

 

[joshbbert]

I wrapped up the canopy this weekend with a coat of kills and 3 coats of piano black. I added plates for the wires in the wall, ran everything and got it all programmed this evening. I'm moving my anemone and clowns over tomorrow morning. I'm beyond happy with the way this turned out.

Dude that's so sick I can hardly stand it! So beautiful what a great tank, love the mangrove and im stealing your canopy design straight up no lies. So awesome.

 

[joshbbert]

And now that I've finished your thread im sorry about the ich hope that works out for u

 

[mrbee2828]

Dude that's so sick I can hardly stand it! So beautiful what a great tank, love the mangrove and im stealing your canopy design straight up no lies. So awesome.

Steal away my man. Make sure it's secure as hell and have a back up plan if it starts to sag

 

[mrbee2828]

It's been awhile, no updates really. The holidays and client work have taken over right now. I'm in the process of setting up 3 tanks for different people, maintaining another 5 and my own systems so progress is slow. The 2 cardinals and 1 clown have seemed to pull through QT and are looking good. I got another yellow eye that is in hypo with them. I'm going to figure out a few other fish to add in the future as well. I still have the new pump and plumbing parts sitting around for the manifold but just haven't had time. I even have the wood for the electrical panel sitting around. I may have to take a week off and just catch up on stuff lol.

 

[Daniel@R2R]

Great-looking build! Following!

 

[mrbee2828]

Another long span between updates. After 2+ months of hypo for my fish this summer, my tank STILL got ich. The yellow kole tang came down with it and everyone else got it from there. I took the fish out and they have been in hypo again for about 6 weeks. I lost interest in the tank and other than a few quick tests for the corals like ALK and make sure the calcium reactor was good etc, I haven't done a single thing to the tank since Thanksgiving. (I may need to rephrase it a bit, but I basically stopped cleaning the glass). Friday I had enough and decided to stop working on everyone else's projects and put some time into mine. This was the tank as it's been for months now...

 

[mrbee2828]

Let's start by simply cleaning the glass... oh hello coral!

 

[mrbee2828]

The next step was to eliminate the aqualifter pump feeding the CR. It was a quick fix a few months ago but never intended to serve as long as it did. I've also had a TLF reactor laying around waiting to get in on the action. So the first step was to upgrade the Eheim compact 2000 to a compact 3000 for more flow. I then cut the return line (which you can see I had already planned from day 1 for the upgrade) and added a small manifold including 2 .75" Ts and some slip to thread 1/2" adaptors. Huge difference already.

 

[mrbee2828]

Finally, it was time to make sense of all these wires and get them organized. I first installed a hollow panel in the portion of the stand that will serve as the electronic's cabinet. This will be completely separate once the stand is skinned. My idea was to run all the wiring up along the back corner of the stand through some channeled 1.5" PVC. After hours I realized that a few of the cords just weren't going to be long enough to make it. So the skimmer and heater had to be run up the opposite side. Everything else worked well and sits nicely inside a bulkhead. I grabbed some furniture grommets from Lowe's for the front panel and called it a day.

So ballasts... I screwed up by not making the stand compartment deep enough for them honestly. It was exactly 1/4" to shallow for them. After contemplating several different mounting ideas, I decided to just run an extension cord inside the wall (vs the Radion ballast extension cords which were already in the wall) and just have it all up in the canopy. I think this was a blessing in disguise because they are so bulky and there was plenty of room up top for them.

 

[mrbee2828]

So next step is to add my fish in today or tomorrow and some corals I have out in the troughs. I have some really nice peach branching hammers, mushrooms, plating sponge, zoas and some digi to get in here. Then I need to grab a wireless adaptor for the Apex. Right now it's 4' from my router so I just run an extension cord over to it when I need adjustments but that's getting old.

 

[kschweer]

Looks great. It's amazing what a little time and effort can result in. Well done!

 

[SeahorseKeeper]

Looking good!!