220 to Waterbox 130 upgrade?

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Radman73

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As promised, a pic of the light setup. I have ferrule’s on order to make tidy loops at the top where I cut the wire. Plus they’ll act as addition safety stops should the wire kit itself fail.
image.jpg

I”m very happy with the look and how they turned out. I still need to clean up some pencil marks and one accidental hole.
 
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Ferrule's placed on the loose wire. And, skimmer is in the sump, barely, and operational again.

image.jpg


Future plans:

A black cabinet to match, or close to it, the Waterbox cabinet to to the right of the tank and house the Apex equipment.

I may just go with gallon milk jugs for dosing containers. There are 5gal buckets behind the small cabinet now and they take up a huge amount of space.

A HOB overflow for the ATO section of the sump so I can increase flow to, and from, the refugium without making a ton of noise. If I had known the sump glass could be drilled I would have done that before getting it wet. I've seen some people just cut out that glass but it removes a baffle from the skimmer to the return too. Need to weigh pro's/con's.

Another MP40 to replace the Gyre. Nothing wrong with the Gyre, just would like to pair a couple of MP40's on this tank.

WXM module to control the MP40's.

I'll be giving the rest of my old rock a muriatic acid bath and rinse in RO and use that to create my new rockscape. I have a little time to do this but need to get my frags mounted. The current rock would be placed into the fuge, at least temporarily, so there wouldn't be a loss of nutrient processing capacity.

A rental PAR meter should be on its way to me this week. This will really let me map out where corals will go and at what level I'll need to run my lights at. Will also help with planning the rock scape.

Last, but not least, more fish and coral. I'm thinking a yellow wrasse, rhomboid, potter's, linespot flasher, labout's, firefish, and 2 replacement female lyretail anthias. As for corals, time will tell. I have 5 acan frags that are all actively growing. Not sure I'll want/need more than those. I want some frog spawn and a different color of hammer. After that it'll be mainly acro's. My daughter asked about some zoas, so I'll give some a try as well.
 
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I was finally able to take some PAR readings today. Interesting that my left AP700 seems to put out a fair bit more PAR than the one on the right. The one on the right also doesn't match color perfectly either, so who knows. In any case, the PAR numbers are encouraging.

At the sand bed and 30%, PAR ranges from 60 in the far back left corner to a more average of 130-160 along the front glass and in the middle of the tank. This is easily enough to support softies.

At 50% I get 170-220 with low outliers in the back left and front right corners.

At 100% I get a minimum of 300 with 320-340 average.

At 12" height. bottom half of my MP40 height I get 190-220 PAR at 30%, 320-370 at 50%, and 560-600 at 100%. This is fairly straight across the middle of the tank.

Finally, at 14" off the bottom, I get 650-800 at 75%. Again, straight across the middle of the tank.

Lights are about 3.5" off the water. Meter is the Apogee MQ-210. All measurements were taken with all pumps off and water level about .5" lower than when running. I feel confident I can grow SPS in the middle of the tank with power between 50-60%.
 

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Try concrete epoxy on your cinder blocks. You don have to buy the large tube. They sell a small auto mix tube. Just let set up over night.

1586817698033.png
 
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Thanks guys, I had read about using an epoxy but went with the size up anchor since I didn't want to make a hole in the wall large enough to see what I was doing lol! It's worked out well, so far anyway.
 

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Have you thought about these for dosing containers, they take up very little room -

 
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Have you thought about these for dosing containers, they take up very little room -

I did look at those but I'm not quite that restricted on space. I'm drying out a couple of milk jugs now to use. They'll be hidden behind a cabinet.
 
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Remember to support local! Never underestimate the value of a good LFS. When you find one, support them every chance you get. Even if it means having to be patient while they order something.

Thanks to the good folks @Living Reef Orlando I'll be picking up another MP40 today :).
 
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Picked up the MP40 and had it going minutes after I got off work lol! The 40QD is as silent as advertised. My head is 2 feet away from it and I have to struggle to hear it above anything else. I think my older MP40ES on the other side of the aquarium is louder at my seating position.

Hoping the rain stays away today so I can give my remaining rock a muriatic acid bath and RO rinse. This should allow me to create my permanent rock scape and hopefully get it in place Saturday or Sunday so I can take PAR readings again before I send the meter on to someone else Monday.
 
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Got some more work done. Acid bath and then bleach bath for my left over rock. Painted my side stand a satin black to sort of match the WB cabinet. Moved my Apex gear inside said cabinet. Got the leak detection module plugged in and sensors placed. And I also got a small HOB overflow for my ATO section of the sump so that the return from my remote fuge goes into the ATO section and then straight to the return pump section. Even better is it’s dead quiet.
Some pics:
image.jpg

image.jpg

image.jpg
 
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I'll start off with the best news. The 220 that leaked and has been on the back lanai for a month is gone! Posted it for free on craiglist and nice guy and 4 of his buddies came by yesterday evening to pick it up. He's going to reseal it and use it for freshwater. Having that tank gone is weight off my shoulders.

I have completely rescaped the tank and I personally love it. It's not perfect, I doubt any of us are ever truly happy lol, but it's probably the best scape I've had and I have the ability to add to it I want. One of the male anthias is now a permanent member of the 75gal fuge. He wedged himself in a rock and I couldn't shake him out nor would he shake himself out after 30 seconds or so of being hung over the tank, so he went into the fuge with the rock lol! I had 2 males anyway and they fought. I've actually made a couple minor changes since this pic was taken Saturday night but here it is :).

New scape.jpg
 
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Happy to report that the new rock is turning shades of brown and green. Getting some good spots of coralline on the back wall too.

The male anthias in the fuge seems to be well. I turn on the back garage slot light for him during the day. Maybe I'll just hang a small light over one end and run it off the Apex. He doesn't need much light.

The HOB overflow is still working great for the fuge. I've turned up the flow and it's handling it just fine. At some point, I'll likely bump the return pump up to something putting out more flow so I can feed the fuge more.

All corals still doing well though I think I need to relocate the MP40's a little bit. Nice to finally be to a point where I don't have much to do besides watch the tank.
 
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So, I ordered an MP40WQD driver as my 2014 wet side was obviously making more noise than the new QD I picked up. Swapped everything over Friday afternoon and was thrilled. Significantly quieter. Not as quiet as the new one, but that wasn't expected. This morning, it suddenly starts making loud noises. Turned it off. I was frustrated about it most of the day while we went boating with some friends. Ordered new bearings when I got home, then figured out it was the wet side ;Facepalm. Thankfully a short citric acid bath and a cleaning fixed it and it's back to being its quiet self.

As for the tank. I think I may not have cleaned some of my old rock as effectively as I thought I did. Phosphates have been rising, over .3 and now seeming to plateau with the addition of some Seachem Purigen, running the skimmer 24/7, and running my H380 fuge light for 12 hours instead of 6. I also cut back on feeding, as I do feed heavy. Everything is still looking good except some bright green favia that's receding for the 2nd time. I think that one is just doomed as it never seems happy.

Also added additional CUC. Algae isn't horrible, though I have to clean the glass every couple of days, but most of the CUC didn't make the transfer. I saved all 3 fighting conch's, some nerites, and some hermits. I added a couple of emerald crabs as well as some fuzzy chiton's which IME are awesome CUC.
 
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I have been blessed with clean water from the tap lol! Replaced my filters and resin for the first time in at least 2.5 years. And even now, only because I accidentally back siphoned fresh saltwater in to my DI stages. Yay me. Now off to LRO to see what trouble I can get into.
 
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Well, prices have gone up a bunch since i actively shopped for coral. In Atlanta, we also had plenty of hobbyists who sold at good prices. Seems hobbyists often want to charge store prices now.

In any case, I wanted to get some zoa's and I cam home with some. 3 heads of Utter Chaos and 10-12 heads of Rainbow Incinerators. The names kill me. In any case, they're pretty. Dipped them, scrubbed them, and now hope for the best. Two weeks in and they're still looking pretty good. Other corals seem to be doing fine as well. Not getting the growth that I was but am still getting some. I've broken the digi frag, twice. Still doing fine though.

Still fighting some diatoms or cyano. I'm leaning diatoms since the snails are eating it.

Still fighting the blasted vermetids as well. I ordered 25 bumble bee's but they need help, so I've been helping. Much easier with a shallower tank. I about ready to take the rocks in the fuge and the few in the DT that are covered with them and give them the muriatic acid and then bleach treatment. Maybe that will help limit propagation. Hate these buggers. FWIW, i do see the bumble bee's going after the vermetids. It's just slow going.

On the bright side, I checked out the tank after lights out and wow were there a ton of pods running around. Good sight to see.

Oh, and my 2nd male anthias is doing fine in the garage based fuge. I feed him once or twice per day, but if there is anywhere he should have plenty of food, that's it. Clowns have picked their new spawning spot.
 
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I may have just gone one step short of the nuclear option to clear out my vermetids. Was visiting my LFS and they had an adorable dog faced puffer. Supposedly they are relatively coral safe. So far, mine is eating my acan's and zoa's lol! Oh well.

The silver lining is absolutely that he's going after the vermetid's and no other CUC yet. The hope is that I can figure out if he leaves certain corals alone and I can stock those. If not, I can always move him to the fuge with the anthias.

I told my wife before I bought him that I'd gladly lose all of the coral if it meant losing the vermetid's, and I meant it. Most are still small frags and I seemingly kill half of what I put in my tank anyway. Very happy to see them complete disappear after one nib from the puffer.
 

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