ethridge78
Valuable Member
Anything new?
720 gallon acryllic
- Monster Build
- Thread starter Seneca
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Mostly riding out the uglies. I did lose my big sohal after it injured itself (which I have another thread about). The remaining fish are happy, although there was some head butting after I lost the undisputed tank boss, but that's mostly tamed back down now. The unicorn will undoubtedly have that position in no time. It's doubled in size in the last 5 months, and is now tied for size with the Desjardini Sailfin I've had for 4 years.
I have a few test frags in there. Once they start thriving I might move over some bigger colonies
I have a few test frags in there. Once they start thriving I might move over some bigger colonies
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I have these guys in quarantine, just started their copper. There are about a dozen more yellow tail damsels in there that are hiding. The convict is eating well and the longnose won't touch mussels on the half shell but is picking at masstick. I also feed white worms. I might pick up a few more for this quarantine batch before upping the copper (it's at 1 ppm now, copper power).
The quarantine tank has been set up for 5 months and has sacrificial live rock.
The quarantine tank has been set up for 5 months and has sacrificial live rock.
Sleeping Giant
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Looks great
ethridge78
Valuable Member
Sorry about the Sohal one of my favorites.Mostly riding out the uglies. I did lose my big sohal after it injured itself (which I have another thread about). The remaining fish are happy, although there was some head butting after I lost the undisputed tank boss, but that's mostly tamed back down now. The unicorn will undoubtedly have that position in no time. It's doubled in size in the last 5 months, and is now tied for size with the Desjardini Sailfin I've had for 4 years.
I have a few test frags in there. Once they start thriving I might move over some bigger colonies
Yeah, it was my favorite. Didn't cause too much trouble and the tamest fish Ive ever had. It ate out of my hand and let me pet it. When I xfered it to the large tank it literally just let me pick it up and put it in the xfer bucket.
Something must have spooked it as I came in one morning and it had severe lacerations on its head and body like it ran into some live rock at full speed. It didn't make it.
I have a few corals in there now. As you can see I need to clean the acrylic a bit better. I'm not really doing anything about the cyanobacteria, just letting it run it's course. Starting to get coralline algae accumulation.
The tank is pretty well automated. My lifereef skimmer is running great, I have a superfeeder and two small auto feeders as backup running with nls pellets.
I have 15 silent air b11 air pumps for the inevitable California power outages (I've tested them and they run for about 80 some hours with amazon batteries), they don't have enough pressure to pump bubbles down to the bottom, but the top 3/4ths is covered; there really doesn't seem to be anything better out there for an off the shelf battery backup solution that lasts any period of time. I have a generator on hand for any long term power outages.
The calcium reactor is dialed in well enough until the coralline algae and coral really start taking off a lot more. I've switched from a direct hookup to my water purification system for top off purposes to a large 350 gallon RODI reservoir with two tunze osmolators. I had enough fail safes in my direct hookup where I was satisfied, infinite supply or no, however it really was burning through my DI resin like crazy even when only activated for a maximum of 15 minutes a day instead of 24/7 so I went with the reservoir. That reservoir was supposed to be for my auto water changes, so I need to either build a support structure on top of the existing reservoir to hold a second one, or do the reef moonshiners system or similar, which I'll give a try for a little while first. I wasn't doing water changes in my 125 I had before this where all the corals came from so it was working well enough. I just need to monitor parameters. I have a feeling I'll be building a support structure for another reservoir sooner or later regardless, and I can always mix saltwater in the reservoir I have in a pinch and switch back to hooking directly up to the water purifier for top off.
The tank is pretty well automated. My lifereef skimmer is running great, I have a superfeeder and two small auto feeders as backup running with nls pellets.
I have 15 silent air b11 air pumps for the inevitable California power outages (I've tested them and they run for about 80 some hours with amazon batteries), they don't have enough pressure to pump bubbles down to the bottom, but the top 3/4ths is covered; there really doesn't seem to be anything better out there for an off the shelf battery backup solution that lasts any period of time. I have a generator on hand for any long term power outages.
The calcium reactor is dialed in well enough until the coralline algae and coral really start taking off a lot more. I've switched from a direct hookup to my water purification system for top off purposes to a large 350 gallon RODI reservoir with two tunze osmolators. I had enough fail safes in my direct hookup where I was satisfied, infinite supply or no, however it really was burning through my DI resin like crazy even when only activated for a maximum of 15 minutes a day instead of 24/7 so I went with the reservoir. That reservoir was supposed to be for my auto water changes, so I need to either build a support structure on top of the existing reservoir to hold a second one, or do the reef moonshiners system or similar, which I'll give a try for a little while first. I wasn't doing water changes in my 125 I had before this where all the corals came from so it was working well enough. I just need to monitor parameters. I have a feeling I'll be building a support structure for another reservoir sooner or later regardless, and I can always mix saltwater in the reservoir I have in a pinch and switch back to hooking directly up to the water purifier for top off.
vetteguy53081
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I want that Unicorn !!
Due to covid ect. my tank has been largely unattended for about 6 months. I set up various systems in advance to care for it as well as a bunch of cameras so I could monitor things remotely.
Someone was able to come by every week or two and superficially clean the acrylic with the mighty magnet so I could see with the cameras.
I just now returned to the tank for a brief stint.
Everything is more or less fine, although I had to remove a fair amount of coralline from the acrylic.
The fish are all thriving better than ever (I don't think I lost even one). Some of the LPS is thriving, but the sps mostly is just about the same as I left it. Two corals got knocked off and ended up upside down on the bottom of the tank. Both of those are mostly dead but, not totally (still more alive than when they were frags, I expect to recover those two lineages).
It is very possible to automate a tank sufficiently so it can be left unattended for extended periods. All of the systems had backups and most of the backups had backups. My nitrate was a little high (which may explain the stunting of the SPS, but otherwise the parameters are fine. I just did a 300 gallon water change, swapped out some probes, and added some carbon to the auto top off (350 gallon reservoir, which lasts about 3 months) . I think I'll ask the person that cleans the acrylic to dump a premeasured amount of vibrant each time they come. One of these days I'll get a trident, but don't have one now.
The power went out for a day or so twice while I was gone. I have about 20 silent air b11s for power outages which seem to work well enough. In my tests they run more than 3 days. After two days of no power I would be walking someone through on video how to connect important things to a generator if that ever came up.
All in all this was a great exercise, because I now know exactly how little work even a very large tank can be after it is all set up.
Someone was able to come by every week or two and superficially clean the acrylic with the mighty magnet so I could see with the cameras.
I just now returned to the tank for a brief stint.
Everything is more or less fine, although I had to remove a fair amount of coralline from the acrylic.
The fish are all thriving better than ever (I don't think I lost even one). Some of the LPS is thriving, but the sps mostly is just about the same as I left it. Two corals got knocked off and ended up upside down on the bottom of the tank. Both of those are mostly dead but, not totally (still more alive than when they were frags, I expect to recover those two lineages).
It is very possible to automate a tank sufficiently so it can be left unattended for extended periods. All of the systems had backups and most of the backups had backups. My nitrate was a little high (which may explain the stunting of the SPS, but otherwise the parameters are fine. I just did a 300 gallon water change, swapped out some probes, and added some carbon to the auto top off (350 gallon reservoir, which lasts about 3 months) . I think I'll ask the person that cleans the acrylic to dump a premeasured amount of vibrant each time they come. One of these days I'll get a trident, but don't have one now.
The power went out for a day or so twice while I was gone. I have about 20 silent air b11s for power outages which seem to work well enough. In my tests they run more than 3 days. After two days of no power I would be walking someone through on video how to connect important things to a generator if that ever came up.
All in all this was a great exercise, because I now know exactly how little work even a very large tank can be after it is all set up.
vetteguy53081
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They grow fast as does Vlamingi and dussomieriI only got it about a year ago. Here it is in quarentine. Its grown quite a bit.
dantimdad
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I love having an 8 foot tank. I have a blonde naso almost a foot long and several other tangs.
If I had it to do over, I would have gone 3 foot front to back. (mines an 8x2x2 240). No taller though. I already have problems reaching the bottom. :)
Glad the automated systems worked out. I am working on automating quite a few things on mine. Nothing to the extent you are because my tank is in my living room.
Keep us up to date!
If I had it to do over, I would have gone 3 foot front to back. (mines an 8x2x2 240). No taller though. I already have problems reaching the bottom. :)
Glad the automated systems worked out. I am working on automating quite a few things on mine. Nothing to the extent you are because my tank is in my living room.
Keep us up to date!
Got nitrates and phosphates under control which had slowly become elevated during my 8 months away. I think I derived a safe long term phosphate elimination method after killing a yellow tang with lanthanum chloride that should work with my automation. Nitrate is fully controlled with sulfur reactor now.
How do you manage cleaning the glass/aquascaping a tank this deep? I have a 32" deep acrylic tank that I've owned for almost 5 years and have never put into service because I'm concerned about maintenance.
It's really not that bad. My rockwork I built very securely to begin with. For glass cleaning I use one of the bigger mighty magnets (they have various pads, I use the dozer pads and algae cutter bag mostly). I use pikstik aqua tongs to move stuff around or grab anything off the bottom.
I like the deep tank. My next tank will be at least as deep.
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