125 build thread after almost 2 years

[Auquanut]

very nice tank! How much are you dosing of Red Sea ABCD daily?

Thank you. I am currently dosing 3 ml of each daily. My Alk and Cal consumption is right at 230 ml daily so I'm definitely dosing on the low side, but the corals really seem to be responding, and I'd rather go too low than too high.

 

[Auquanut]

Another late update, and this one is not so good. On 16 December, I documented that attempt number two at utilizing my GHL Maxi for AWC seemed to be working perfectly. At the time, I was checking SG and flow in and out of the system nearly daily. Long story short, at some point I became a little too comfortable. One day, (probably about 15 January) I noticed that my slimer was looking pale. When I checked the SG, it was at 1.031, and the Alk was through the roof! Upon investigating, I found that my waste water pump was spinning but not moving any water. I immediately shut down the system and worked to slowly bring down the SG. Several of my SPS corals took some pretty bad damage, and I may wind up loosing my large red planet colony.

I was outraged and contacted BRS again to find out what could be done. BRS contacted GHL and CC'ed me to address the issue. GHL quickly responded asking for details, and before answering I took apart the dosing head and found a blockage. Apparently, the waste water tube drew something into the pump head that blocked it from being able to properly move water out of the sump. I have an ATO and pretty high evaporation, so I hadn't noticed that that was occurring. I have since cleared the blockage and the system seems to be functioning again.

I have to commend BRS and GHL for their concern and quick attention to my plight even though the issue turned out to be non-equipment specific.

I am really just documenting this issue to keep a fairly accurate timeline of what happened, but I'm now concerned about it happening again. I need to devise some way of putting a strainer on the waste water line that will not clog in the future.

If anyone has any ideas, I'm all ears.

 

[Reefer40b]

You could get a inline filter for the end that pulls the waste water out of the sump/tank and check that periodically to make sure its not clogged up Alkatronic does this for instance. You could also put the waste water line in some direct flow from like a power head in the sump so that it cant collect any debris/detritus most likely.

 

[Auquanut]

I was considering just putting a piece of course filter sponge over the end to filter the water going out. I guess I'll have to re-calibrate to ensure the water out still matches the water in. And I will have to clean/change the sponge periodically.

 

[Auquanut]

Again, just documenting the timeline of changes made. I cut several wedges of course filter sponge to put on the waste water tube on Wednesday, 29 January. Re-calibrated the Maxi and water out to water in was dead on. I've been running the AWC for 4 days and all seems well. My plan is to replace/clean the filter sponge weekly when I clean the ATS. My slimer and red planet both seem to be recovering, although there are some dead spots that may never fill back in. My Alk consumption is also rising, which I take to be a good sign. Hopefully I dodged a bullet. I'll definitely keep a closer eye on parameters for quite a while. We'll see.

 

[Auquanut]

Update: Alk consumption continues to rise. All corals seem to be reacting to the 1.5 gallon per day water change exceptionally well. I have seen a little GHA on the dead portions of the red planet and slimer that suffered from the last AWC fiasco, but otherwise the tank as a whole seems to be recovering. I have been monitoring SG, and have seen no change at all. I may have finally gotten this right. Fingers crossed.

 

[Auquanut]

Okay. I'm really surprised at the rate at which my corals are recovering. There's even new growth on the areas of my red planet that I thought were completely dead. I've seen a slight increase in PO4, and the GHA may be a little more pronounced, but I'm not too concerned just yet. After my SG and Alk spike (and near disaster), Im going to continue to allow the tank parameters to normalize and maintain stability for awhile before making any adjustments. I really should have taken pictures at the onset of of the coral decline to document the recovery. Maybe I'll take some pictures tomorrow.

 

[tamanning]

I'm a little apprehensive about starting a build thread after so long, and especially after viewing the incredible builds our members have achieved. But my system has evolved so much in the past two years and I have no documentation. Hopefully I can give an accurate account of the tanks progression so far. Be warned. It's pretty low budget.
Here we go.

May 2017:
Purchased a used 125 gallon 72" tank on craigslist.

It came with:
the stand
aquaticlife MH/T5 lighting fixture
Iwaki 1300 GPH external return pump
30 gallon wet/dry filter
mixing tub and mixing pump
misc plumbing
about 60 lbs of live rock

Purchased:
BRS 4 stage 75 GPD RO/DI unit
Simplicity protein skimmer
50 pounds of BRS dry rock
Caribsea argonite substrate. (way too much!)
a couple of cheap power heads
Heaters that had to go into the overflows, because there was no room in the filter.
probably more, but I can't remember.

I put the live rock in a brute trash can with a power head and an old T8 light fixture on a timer to keep it alive. Painted the back of the tank black. Lined the bottom of the tank with egg crate. I knew I wanted engineer gobies, so the rock work had to be solid. I used flexible hose to plumb the system because the lid on the wet/dry filter had to be removed for maintenance.

On July 4th 2017 I turned it on for the 1st time. No leaks!

First lesson learned: I shouldn't have put it so close to the wall. It's really hard to get back there. One good point is that the back of the stand is open, allowing for decent air exchange under the tank and what I can't reach from the top and sides, I can generally reach from the bottom.

I used shrimp in stockings to cycle the tank. Didn't use any bacteria in a bottle. The system cycled surprisingly fast. I was growing a nice crop of diatoms, hair algae and coraline algae in less than a month.

Well, that is enough for now. Not trying to write a novel. Keep in mind that my system today hardly resembles what I started out with. Will continue the journey soon. My wife says I've been a good boy and we're going to the LFS today.

Beautiful!!

 

[Auquanut]

Beautiful!!

Thank you. I really need to update my build thread.

 

[tamanning]

Here are a couple of pics taken this morning. One is unfiltered and the other is through my wife's sunglasses. How pathetic is that?

I gotta learn to take pictures! It looks a lot better in person.

Our reef lights don't work well with cameras. Dude that tank is stunning!!

 

[Ulm_nano_diybudgetreef]

Here are a couple of pics taken this morning. One is unfiltered and the other is through my wife's sunglasses. How pathetic is that?

I gotta learn to take pictures! It looks a lot better in person.

That's an awesome tank

 

[Auquanut]

That's an awesome tank

Thank you. I really, really need to update my build thread. Seems like the longer I let it go, the harder it is to update. Maybe I'll get it done tonight after work.

 

[NashobaTek]

Wow, awesome. Thanks for sharing the details. I guess I need to get my butt in gear and do my own build thread. It's also nothing fancy but it's a work in progress.

 

[NashobaTek]

Wow, awesome. Thanks for sharing the details. I guess I need to get my butt in gear and do my own build thread. It's also nothing fancy but it's a work in progress.

 

[Auquanut]

Wow, awesome. Thanks for sharing the details. I guess I need to get my butt in gear and do my own build thread. It's also nothing fancy but it's a work in progress.

I can't recommend a build thread enough. It helps keep a timeline of what you've done and when you did it. Pics help a lot. You also get encouragement from other reefers. You may even help someone else who can learn from your experience. The nifty "Build Thread Contributor" badge is just a bonus.

 

[NashobaTek]

I can't recommend a build thread enough. It helps keep a timeline of what you've done and when you did it. Pics help a lot. You also get encouragement from other reefers. You may even help someone else who can learn from your experience. The nifty "Build Thread Contributor" badge is just a bonus.

Definitely going to do one on the seahorse corral when I get to it. But I will get on this one for the 125 I have now. Again thanks for encouraging me to get it done.

 

[Auquanut]

Wow! It's been so long since I've updated my thread. There is no excuse, but I'll make one anyway. Life just got in the way. Okay, I'll try to briefly(ish) try to get up to date.

I finally got my AWC system working flawlessly probably about at the late Feb - early Mar time-frame (I can't say enough about this stand alone GHL maxi doser). Putting a course filter sponge over the AWC waste line seems to have solved the problem with the waste line getting clogged.

I have since upped my AWC schedule to 2.5 GPD spread out over 12 changes daily ( about May - June). Fortunately/unfortunately, the corals responded amazingly. I was already seeing some coral warfare, but within a month or two, the growth of my SPS was causing STN, algae growth on the dying corals and shading of those that are positioned lower in the tank. To be honest, I let things get a bit too far.

I finally took an aggressive approach in July and cut back several of the most offensive corals. This, of course caused a reduction of my Alk/cal consumption that took a some doing to keep stable. Since then, Ive been able to continue to trim my corals without impacting my parameters too noticeably. I've literally removed well over 5 pounds of coral and the job's not done yet.

On another front, I've had a minor issue with aptaisia since day one. It wasn't widespread, but I had a small section of the tank that my best efforts couldn't eradicate. In February, I saw a sudden explosion of mojanos and decided to introduce a matted file fish. Within days, the file fish had taken care of the mojanos, but he took no notice of the aptasia. Okay. I can deal with that. About the June(ish) time-frame, I started seeing the mojanos reappear. I decided to introduce another file fish (July). Again, the mojanos disappeared quickly, but I didn't see a noticeable reduction in the aptaisia. For some reason, somewhere about mid-August, my file fish decided that they like aptaisia. Within a week or two the aptaisia were gone and I haven't seen one since. Go figure.

Okay. I think this brings me up to date. I would upload a pic, but it's taken me so long to struggle through this that the lights have gone out. I'll upload a pic soon. The tank isn't quite where I want it, but it's coming around.

 

[Mical]

In both of my tanks, it took filefish almost two weeks to decimate aiptasia. From what I was told by Ora, they feed at night, are shy and don't expect to see them eating aiptasia immediately. And they were spot on.

 

[ReefKeeperElite]

Again, just documenting the timeline of changes made. I cut several wedges of course filter sponge to put on the waste water tube on Wednesday, 29 January. Re-calibrated the Maxi and water out to water in was dead on. I've been running the AWC for 4 days and all seems well. My plan is to replace/clean the filter sponge weekly when I clean the ATS. My slimer and red planet both seem to be recovering, although there are some dead spots that may never fill back in. My Alk consumption is also rising, which I take to be a good sign. Hopefully I dodged a bullet. I'll definitely keep a closer eye on parameters for quite a while. We'll see.

I was concerned about the same thing. My waster water line is in the return chamber, right in front of the filter that pulls water from the fuge. So small change of debris, but still a concern. I chatted with BRS and they told me to check out the product below. Wondering if anyone uses this to strain their waste water?

 

[Auquanut]

I was concerned about the same thing. My waster water line is in the return chamber, right in front of the filter that pulls water from the fuge. So small change of debris, but still a concern. I chatted with BRS and they told me to check out the product below. Wondering if anyone uses this to strain their waste water?

I had considered something like this. I have the waste line in the overflow section, and my fresh SW going into the return. The sticking point for me is that I have snails and limpets in the sump. If something small crawls into the waste line, I won't know it until my salinity rises because evaporation will compensate for the inequity of water out to water in from the AWC.