300 gallon oasis build in AZ

[LRT]

Picture of the 300 today 2/21/22.
Tank cycled weeks ago and now we have all the fish from the 140 in the 300.
Gonna clean up and sell the 140 soon.

This has to feel really good. Well done sir!

 

[1ocean]

This has to feel really good. Well done sir!

yes finally getting to where the fish and corals will be happy and grow..
I build a new sump also 60x24x18
I bought 1/4 inch acrylic, cut and glued everything to make the sump.
I did away with a refugium plan and made a sulfur/aragonite reactor..
Also made a air exchange reactor. There is also two little fish phosphate reactor, red sea skimmer, 20 pounds of large aragonite for bio filter, 1 Brightwell bio plate and 1 Brightwell N03 plate.
I also made it so it has four 7 inch filter cup instead of filter socks.
I have the uv and pump in the return chamber of the sump so that the return pump is used to pump the mixture of uv water and water from the sump.

 

[LRT]

yes finally getting to where the fish and corals will be happy and grow..
I build a new sump also 60x24x18

I do need to catch up but did see you changed plans for sump for more flow. Did you go to one non split sump?

 

[1ocean]

I do need to catch up but did see you changed plans for sump for more flow. Did you go to one non split sump?

yes I planned the split sumps with two returns, a refugium and once it was running did not like the flow. I also did lots of research about refug and then decided to do away with the refug. Built a sulfur reactor, aragonite reactor and needed space for two 5 gallons of rodi and kalk. I did not want the sulfur / aragonite reactor out of the two sump design. So I got more 1/4 acrylic and built the 60x24x18. Everything is in the sum and I have more room to put stuff if needed.
The current sump's return pump returns water to back far corners of the tank with no problem.
Now I just have to finish tucking all the wires neatly and deciding which switch I want to use for what equipment.

 

[1ocean]

Good morning..Coffee time here. Been busy with tank stuff, adding on to the back of my house, building a patio cover for a friend so I been lacking time to update this since Feb 22.
New sump works amazing. Wirea have all been neatly labeled, zip tied and tucked away up under tank stand.
As of today 3/17/22 tank is one day shy of it's 8 week up and running mark.
Got the 4 radions xr30's up yesterday (so almost 8 weeks with fish and no lights), programed and online, doing the AB+ program but have it at 30% scheduled at this point. Trying all I can to minimize the ugly algae stage by less light at first and doing the Brightwell microbacter clean and Bio fuel treatment since cycle. Tank is clean and no algae issues. Going to move to Brightwell Microbacter 7 after 4 month mark for maintenance.
Did move a few small corals (paly and duncan) into the 300 from the 75.
Today going to also add the vecta return pump and the two MP40's to the mobius app.
Added two 60" current led light strips (white at 20% and blue at 100% red and green OFF) from the old 140 tank at the front of the 300, one aiming down the other at 45 degrees towards back. Since it has a wireless remote we going to use these lights as our manual lights to turn on off when ever we want to watch fish when the radions are off. I do not want to keep messing with the radions program grow cycle by turning them on off when we want to watch fish or have people over at night for parties.
We plan on moving more corals, if not all of them over to the 300 this weekend. We are cleaning, dipping in Red Sea rid x and Brightwell coral frag recover before putting into 300 as a extra precaution...
Fish are super happy to be in the 300 instead of the 140. Tangs (6) are very very happy..lots of ledges, caves etc and 8 feet of swim length.
Have a great day..

 

[1ocean]

I do need to catch up but did see you changed plans for sump for more flow. Did you go to one non split sump?

yes...one big single sump. 60x24x18..Have a Ecotech return pump in the last chamber and a mighty jet xl pump with flow controller and display for my UV also in the last chamber. The UV pulls pump pulls water from the last chamber and returns it to the last chamber where the Ecotech send it to the main tank. Yes I know that some UV treated water may get sent to the UV again but my thought here is the UV pump is not being strained to send water to the main tank. Also when we feed the ecotech shuts off, but the UV keeps going and the chamber 5 that they are in never dries out.

 

[1ocean]

July 16th the 300 is doing good. Going to build a 5 gallon rodi container and a 5 gallon kalk container. Each will have it's own Ecoteh versa dosing pump so I can control how much Rodi and kalk to add each day.. I am going to start with a 50/50 ratio and then test water over time. I am evaporating about 1/2 gallon a day..The sulfur reactor has finally kicked in and is working, it then sends the water from the sulfur reactor to the aragonite reactor I built, which then drips into the last chamber 5 of the sump. I am seeing that my ph is staying in the 8.1 to 8.3 area now. I did not have this set up on the 140, had a refug and I could not keep my ph up past 7.8 to maybe 8. on a good day even with sand on the bottom of the 140. The 300 is almost bare bottom except for 5 pounds of sand in the far right back corner for the wrasses...

 

[1ocean]

Hi everyone, the 300 is doing great... Making some changes to the sump. Took out the sulfur reactor,it became more of a pain then doing good. switched it out back to the reef octopus BR 140 Bio Pellet reactor it was made to be, Got pellets last week, started with 1 1/2 cups of pellets and will work my way up to the 6 cups for the 300 gallon tank in the reactor over a few weeks as the directions say on the kolar brand pellets.
Got my hands on 3 slighly used avast marine works reactors for FREE...and I am going to make a acrylic brace to hold all 3 together,and hang in the sump out of the water but yet they can still be taken apart for maintenance. Also going to make a manifold for them so they can use the same pump. They will be located in the sump. going to use them for GFO, carbon or chemipure and the last one I am not sure yet. I could do GFO, carbon and last one chemipure, since carbon will be occasionally.
If any one has ideas please let me know...
The pump will feed the manifold which will allow me to adjust water to each avast reactor and each reactor will dump its water return into the sump. I am not having them feed off, or tied in series so that I can prevent pressure loss.

 

[Lost in the Sauce]

With that orientation of plumbing, I would probably go GFO on one side, carbon on the other, and leave the center free to be used for what's needed, when it's needed.

 

[1ocean]

Thanks for the support and idea everyone !///

 

[1ocean]

I love working w acrylic. After about 1 1/2 years in, the 140 is gone and now we have a 300. I been fine tuning my acrylic crafting also. Right now we are adding on to the back house and then plans to add onto the garage and add a fish room with a 600 gallon in it..either peninsula or, I think a complete 4 sides walk around would be super cool. . If I did that I would run electric conduit under the concrete to the center of the floor where the tank would go... I am not sure if I will do acrylic or glass for the 600. I want to build it on site, and if we did a complete walk around tank then I plan to have a center or two mid center overflows with returns coming back up the overflows to reduce pipes . I would like have the top of the tank free of pipe etc. except for lights hanging down from ceiling...It is a dream and I got to save up cash....

 

[1ocean]

Oct 10th..coffe time...the 300 is doing good. Got a colony of bird nest that had to be fragged to save it. So far the frags are super happy. First sps in the tank since the powder blue velvet disaster late last year 2021. Since then been doing a lot of modifications to the sump, plan to add some reactors I am making, blacked out reactors with a 1-inch window so you can see inside. looking to get a acrylic table bender for small project like the 5-gallon ato/kalk etc containers I am planning to build and sell.
Yesterday did an audit of the fish in the 300. 41 fish mostly small.
Biggest now is the blonde naso, must be 6 -inch now.
12 Clowns (8 orange oceilaris, ((black&white male, black&white storm female breeding pair)) and a pair of mocha oceilaris)
a pair of Royal gramma's, 3 pajama cardinals, 5 orange firefish, 4 lyretail anthias (1 male 3 females), neon velet damsel, blue damsel, bicolor blenny, tailspot blenny, yellow coris wrasse, female leopard wrasse, blue chromis, rainford blenny, 2 yellow tangs, purple tang, hippo tang, blonde naso tang, tomini tang, mandarin...
Not really going to add any more fish, maybe a neon goby or two...

 

[1ocean]

going to be updating the sump to allow for more flow through it, raise the filter cups up a little to increase the water flow through them, add a pre filter cup large pore sponge to catch larger particles, and also add on reactors manifold with their own speed adjustable pump in second to last chamber. Building the blacked out reactors , which will have a 1 inch view window in them.

 

[1ocean]

So far with todays 40-gallon water change, I will have 120 gallons done. I am doing 40 gallons each weekend. Till I get to 300 gallons done. I know there will be still a small percentage of the old salt in the mix but not 100 percent as when I started. Used to use a salt made over sea's but now with all these oversea prices, I am switching to Brightwell Neo Marine Salt. I have been using a lot of Brightwell stuff so switching to their salt was a good choice for me. SO far tanks numbers are changing and getting better than they ever where. For once my Ca is below 500 and ALK is holding at 9dkh and MG floats between 1270 to 1290, so I do not have to dose much MG anymore. Also started dosing Brightwell Aminos and Aquaforest Manganum (manganese) by hand and tank is responding. Learned this practice from a fellow reefer.

 

[Lost in the Sauce]

So far with todays 40-gallon water change, I will have 120 gallons done. I am doing 40 gallons each weekend. Till I get to 300 gallons done. I know there will be still a small percentage of the old salt in the mix but not 100 percent as when I started. Used to use a salt made over sea's but now with all these oversea prices, I am switching to Brightwell Neo Marine Salt. I have been using a lot of Brightwell stuff so switching to their salt was a good choice for me. SO far tanks numbers are changing and getting better than they ever where. For once my Ca is below 500 and ALK is holding at 9dkh and MG floats between 1270 to 1290, so I do not have to dose much MG anymore. Also started dosing Brightwell Aminos and Aquaforest Manganum (manganese) by hand and tank is responding. Learned this practice from a fellow reefer.

What salt are you switching from?

 

[1ocean]

What salt are you switching from?

TM to Brightwell Neo Marine.

 

[1ocean]

11/26/22 so the 300 has been up now since 1/22...Things are going good and making adjustments to sump. Also going to add some reactors I am building and also a box to keep all the reactors in since they will be outside of the sump. Box will be acrylic; just incase a fitting leaks the water will stay in the box..Also got my hands on about 100 pounds of Florida live rock (from a persons tank tear down) that I am going to add to sump and a few nice pieces to the tank . I attached two pictures of the blonde naso we have. He is about 6 inches in body length now, he was only about 3 inches when we got him and he was skinny.

 

[1ocean]

Just ordered a Poseidon 200 ozone generator. Will be here Jan !!!

 

[1ocean]

Spent time building doors and installing them with hinges for the light canopy..and got 3 used Kessil A360X with controller. Added them to the 4 Radion XR30 Blues. Built a sliding light bracket so that I can push the lights to the far back of the tank, when needed to do stuff in the tank. I used those drawer sliders you can get at Home Depot.

 

[1ocean]

Tank lights are waking up..Took a few pictures. The 300 will be up and running this Jan...Mostly zoas, lps and a few sps( was given a small frag of birdnest that was dying from person we knew) I was able to frag it and save it. 6 months later we have 4 nice size frags about 2"x2"x 1 1/2 tall) .Soon gonna add just a few special SPS to top of tank...