gt44ever
Active Member
Hello, Hello and welcome to my newbie fever underwater circus.
I'm new to the hobby and got thrown into the deep end (literally) to sink or swim. I did an intro thread here:
https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/new-here-and-likely-in-over-my-head.558578/page-7#post-5915587
Moving over here for the ongoing adventures of the newbie with too much tank.
The short version for those of you that don't want to read the book I posted in my welcome thread (fair warning, it might not actually be shorter. I can be rather long winded):
Ya that still kinda turned into a book. So super condensed version:
I'm cheap with a huge (650g display, 750+ total system) tank that was running when we moved into our house 2.5 years ago. We have sharks in our FO tank. I'm a newbie so any and all advice is welcome. I have lots of issues and lots of plans, some of which come from the welcome thread listed way back at the top.
I'm new to the hobby and got thrown into the deep end (literally) to sink or swim. I did an intro thread here:
https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/new-here-and-likely-in-over-my-head.558578/page-7#post-5915587
Moving over here for the ongoing adventures of the newbie with too much tank.
The short version for those of you that don't want to read the book I posted in my welcome thread (fair warning, it might not actually be shorter. I can be rather long winded):
- Tank came with the house I purchased about 2.5 years ago, fully stocked. I've tried to make some upgrades while I've owned the tank, but a lot of it is still as I found it
- Here's the wholly inadequate instructions we received for our "low maintenance" tank
- Daily- Feed Fish
7-10 days- top off water with 5-10 gallons
6-8 weeks-change filter pad (remove old, slide in new)
2-3 months- change water
- Daily- Feed Fish
- The residents as we stand today (I've had a few losses over he past couple years as I've taken my lumps)
- 2 sharks - Black spotted horned and Bamboo, both over 24" long
- 2 groupers - Blue line (~14") and Miniatus (~6")
- Queen/Blue angel, not sure which (+~6")
- Orange Toadfish (~8")
- Columbian "shark" Catfish (~10")
- Black Bar Soldierfish (+~6")
- And brief once around the tank circuit as it currently stands
- Glass display with very fine sand bottom. Not especially deep and I need to move some down to the overflow where it's currently bare bottom. There's a few pieces of rock in the DT (not nearly enough). I'll be redoing the rockscape a ways down the road to add a lot for rock, hiding places, and just visual interest
- Overflow box about half full of bio balls with PVC pipes for drainage.
- 2x 1-1/4" and 2x 3/4" vinyl tubing running to the sump. All but one of the 3/4" tubes dump through 200 micron filter socks. I need an extension to get the last tube through
- Sump inlet zone: more bio balls (soon to be replaced with live rock/rubble), 2x Brightwell BIO plates set to receive most of the flow into the next part of the sump and skimmer pump (currently a Jebao DCP-8000 or Danner Mag Drive 24. Planning to upgrade to the DCP-18000 model, but more on that in a moment)
- Skimmer: DIY lifereef copy with a Mazzei 1078 venturi. Full thing stands about 8' tall
- 6" PVC body, about 60" tall
- 4" PVC neck. Connected with a reducer bushing
- 1"PVC piping for most of the plumbing
- 1" ID nylon tubing where I need flexible lines (pump to venturi)
- PVC gate valve to control water level in the skimmer body
- Water goes up about 4', through venturi, back down and is turned to encourage a swirling motion inside the body.
- Likely needs more pump. Picked my specks from the Blueline 40HDX that's recommended for the large LifeReefs, but after some more research, I likely need more pressure for my tall skimmer. Also want a submersible pump specifically so I can collect any waste heat. I live in Michigan and my heater is running a lot
- Refugium zone
- roughly 2'x5' in size
- 2x Maxi-jet powerheads for more flow
- Brightwell NO3 brick in the slowest flowing area I could find
- some crushed coral gravel on each end with open glass in the middle. Honestly, this is mostly to keep the dividers in place as the sump appears to be a DIY build and the caulk has let go in several places.
- chaeto (that's not growing)
- 150w equivalent grow light (turns the room pink when it's on) running about 16hrs a day roughly counter to the DT lights (a bit on the "roughly" later)
- Dual layer filter pad at the next transition
- fun Fact: this used to be a big undergravel filter, which I removed last week to find lots of lovely brown "sand" underneath
- Return: 1 eFlux Loop 3170 (replaced the Mag Drive 24) and 1 Mag Drive 18
- Long Nylon lines run back to the tank and drop in just under the surface
- The only flow in the DT is from the return pumps. One is directed straight across the surface and the other is split with a 90x90x90 degree fitting (if that makes sense)
- There's an 800w heater in here too. Temp probe is in the fuge zone
- Tank lighting: 6x Current Orbit Marine (likely 1st gen) running off ramp timers that aren't very well synced up any more. Some seem to still be on the old schedule but a couple just kinda turn on and off whenever they feel like.
- Control: I have an Apex system that is currently just controlling the fuge light and helping me keep an eye on a few parameters
- And food for the residents. Most of this is human grade from a local Asian market:
- Mackerel (mostly for the sharks)
- Smelt
- Squid (also mostly for the sharks to help fill them up a bit so they're less rowdy)
- Nori (angel only)
- Mysis shrimp (mostly angel and soldier)
- Pollock (not the most popular, but higher in iodine and soaks up supplements better)
- Occasionally shrimp, Sole, bay scallops
- Supplements include Brightwell Vitamarin-M and Aminomega for general consumption and Mazuri Shark-Ray vitamins for the sharks
- water is typically supplied via 50gpd Coralife RO unit with an add on DI. I'll used Prime treated tapwater if I'm in a pinch. Salt, I use whatever I can get cheap because huge tank and I'm cheap. Currently I have: Instant Ocean, Coralife, Omega Sea. I've also used Aquaforest.
- Nitrates and phosphates have been pegged high according to the API test kits I've been using. I've grown loads of cyano, but that's been slowing down due to many many many water changes recently
- Everything else is pretty normal:
- Ammonia, Nitrite = 0
- 10 dKH (up a little recently from the undergravel change and fresh crushed coral added)
- Calcium: 420ppm
- Iodine/Iodide (because sharks) = not measurable on Seachem multitest, but I'm working on that. they're getting a supplement now. Also not entirely sure if I'm getting it all together correctly, but I just got it so well see how things go after a few runs
- pH=7.99 as of the moment. This is down a bit, but I've mostly sat around 8-8.1
- Salinity=1.023 SG or 30 ppt (still need to get the apex probe making sense on this one)
- Temp=74.3 F give or take <.5 F
- ORP (if you're into that) = 405 at the moment
- O2 levels = 7 (forget the units that the Salifert kit measures)
- I might be forgetting something, but that should do for now
- Can't grow chaeto to save my life. Lost the original batch to a few bad cyano outbreaks and haven't gotten it going since. I don't think it's dead, but it certainly isn't doing well. It goes dark green and just kinda tightens up and bits break off, but everything is still green
- Replace Bio balls in sump with live rock/rubble (just need the LFS to actually have a decent supply of rubble on hand)
- Upgrade skimmer pump. Might also build a second tower and tweak the design a bit (recirc, better sealed, etc)
- More water changes (I'm up to ~44g about 1.5x per week). also, automatic water changer (DIY because cheap) because doing this all by hand, even pump assisted, is not much fun
- ATO system. Either DIY (let's go "frugal" here
) or something that will talk to the Apex - Upgrade the DT lights so they actually run as a unit again (or at least figure out why a few of them are just drifting to whaer time they feel like)
- Aquascaping! this part will be fun... and expensive, but mostly fun
- Clean up crew if I can find some good critters that won't become expensive shark food. Also need to sort my water issues before I get those critters so they don't croak right away. I may still have a tiny brittle star in the fuge though who's made it at least a few weeks (likely came in with a chaeto ball from the LFS)
- ATS, but first I'd like to get my fuge chaeto ball to grow. Also DIY though this is more because there's not a lot of off the shelf options for my scale, but also because cheap.
- Likely going to add some live rock to the sump and split the fuge into part LR, part macro
- Located near Ann Arbor, MI
- I'm pretty big on DIY, mostly because I'll see some expensive piece of equipment, go "hey I'm an engineer and am decent at building stuff. I can prolly do that for like 10-50% of that". Usually what I build is functional and of passable quality, but far from anything commercial
- On a related note, also have a 3d printer and will be getting a 2nd soon.
- Mechanical Engineer, car guy, into photography, have way to many expensive hobbies that I try to cheap out on
- I have been known to research things to the point where I've lost track of what I'm researching and/or what's actually good/bad/otherwise/outdated/etc and have to start over.
- Recently married with a generally understanding/forgiving wife who's unfortunately little help with the tank. She's a bit squeamish and doesn't have the stomach for any of the muckier work (prepping food, cleaning the tank, etc) so I'm largely on my own, but don't back down from a challenge.
Ya that still kinda turned into a book. So super condensed version:
I'm cheap with a huge (650g display, 750+ total system) tank that was running when we moved into our house 2.5 years ago. We have sharks in our FO tank. I'm a newbie so any and all advice is welcome. I have lots of issues and lots of plans, some of which come from the welcome thread listed way back at the top.
