And so it begins . . .
Abby's 260
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Following along!
OP
OP
Thank you! It's a Planet Aquarium and it'll be a mixed reef with a BTA island on one end.
OP
OP
Making a big hole in a perfectly good tank.
I'm stting this system up with a low profile drain offset to one side away from from the back. Since it won't have a side to attach it to to keep it in place and a lot of rock setting on top of it, I'm adding a second sheet of glass on the bottom to add additional strength to the bottom.
I prefer to start by making a wood template or jig. Jigs will keep the bit in place and stop it from "walking". If drilling multiple holes a jig helps keep all the holes aligned also. The diamond bit works just as well with wood as glass (no water is required to cool it
)
Sometimes I'll use clamps (use wood on both sides of glass to protect it) but most of the time I use weights like I did here to hold a jig (and hose) in place while drilling.
Reinforcing glass piece with hole.
Silicone and setting the reinforcing piece in place. After it set up a few days I went around the edge with more silicone.
Drilling out the bottom. To keep the bit cool I added about 1/2" of water. The tank is sitting on a hydralic cart, to help keep the bit from chipping when the bit broke through I placed several layers of cardboard compressed under the location of the hole. The cardboard also helped keep water draining out to a minimum after the hole was completed.
Checking to make sure I drilled the right size hole.
I'm stting this system up with a low profile drain offset to one side away from from the back. Since it won't have a side to attach it to to keep it in place and a lot of rock setting on top of it, I'm adding a second sheet of glass on the bottom to add additional strength to the bottom.
I prefer to start by making a wood template or jig. Jigs will keep the bit in place and stop it from "walking". If drilling multiple holes a jig helps keep all the holes aligned also. The diamond bit works just as well with wood as glass (no water is required to cool it
Sometimes I'll use clamps (use wood on both sides of glass to protect it) but most of the time I use weights like I did here to hold a jig (and hose) in place while drilling.
Reinforcing glass piece with hole.
Silicone and setting the reinforcing piece in place. After it set up a few days I went around the edge with more silicone.
Drilling out the bottom. To keep the bit cool I added about 1/2" of water. The tank is sitting on a hydralic cart, to help keep the bit from chipping when the bit broke through I placed several layers of cardboard compressed under the location of the hole. The cardboard also helped keep water draining out to a minimum after the hole was completed.
Checking to make sure I drilled the right size hole.
OP
OP
Here's another teaser,
Since the hurricanes Florida experienced this summer has delayed getting maricultured rock I'm going to have to rely on aging dry rock and rock from other systems to set up this system initially. Fortunately, besides CaribSea Aragalive sand, a friend gave me some excess TBS live sand from his 180 setup. I've been keeping it going drooping in pellet food and with a big hermit and Tiger Tail cucumber from one that split in one of my other systems. In the past I've used 50 gallon barrels with lights but one of my holding/QT tanks is a 150 and was availible so I'm using it to get fish and some rock and frags ready.
Since the hurricanes Florida experienced this summer has delayed getting maricultured rock I'm going to have to rely on aging dry rock and rock from other systems to set up this system initially. Fortunately, besides CaribSea Aragalive sand, a friend gave me some excess TBS live sand from his 180 setup. I've been keeping it going drooping in pellet food and with a big hermit and Tiger Tail cucumber from one that split in one of my other systems. In the past I've used 50 gallon barrels with lights but one of my holding/QT tanks is a 150 and was availible so I'm using it to get fish and some rock and frags ready.
OP
OP
With new setups I like to do a rough sketch of the aquascaping and general layout. There's a few considerations I use. One is how it's going to be seen when a person first walks into a room. Fish and corals will attract an observer but how can the rockwork be structured to help creat a sense of mystery and draw the observer closer. I always use the "rule of thirds" to set a major focal point(s). Always try to create as much depth as possible, besides avoiding a 2 dimensional look this can be used to emphasize "show" animals. What are the initial animals being added and how are they likely going to spread. Because a final list of animals is never really achieved and there is a wide range of lighitng requirements how can variations in the rockwork and lighting help maximize a wide range of lighting conditions without needing to alter or change settings and avoiding the potential problems associated with established corals having to acclimate to new conditions.
For this system the entry door is on the opposite diagonal corner from the tank. So I started with the rule of thirds putting the overflow about 1/3rd from the end of the tank farthest from the entrance and roughly 1/3 from the back wall but AND because I like to keep drain lines as straight and simple as possible the location of the sump under it was taken into consideration. The rock wall hiding the over flow, arch and rock against the center back is roughly at a right angle to the observer when they first enter the room so from the get go the main rock structure will dominate the veiw even without corals covering it. There will be a table in the center of the room so the most direct path to the tank will be along the left side of room. This will keep the BTA island generally in the forefront and not off to the side if walking down the right side of the table. This layout will also partially hide the rock structure in the back right corner inititially but completely hide it from view as an observer approaches from the left side, hopefully, drawing them across to the right side. To help add to the sense of discovery my thought is to have some high light, low profile corals on the sand behind the BTAs that won't come into full view until some one is standing in front of the system (that these will be about a third from the end is intentional and once the system has matured will be one of the three major focal points along with the corals infront of the overflow and BTAs). I intend to keep the back wall behind the BTAs clear to help give a sense of depth. However, the wall behind the overflow I hope to encourage encrusting corals. The lights are being mounted in the canopy asymetrically to conform to aquascaping and also to provide a wide range of lighting conditions.
The lights are Popbloom T-30s. One feature I like about them is they use reflectors and not polycarbonate lenses which can brown out overtime. They come with thier own controllers and will be configured to have 3 controllers each running two fixtures (redundancy). The overall light period will be 12 hours with all the fixtures at the maximum settings chosen for 6 hours.
For this system the entry door is on the opposite diagonal corner from the tank. So I started with the rule of thirds putting the overflow about 1/3rd from the end of the tank farthest from the entrance and roughly 1/3 from the back wall but AND because I like to keep drain lines as straight and simple as possible the location of the sump under it was taken into consideration. The rock wall hiding the over flow, arch and rock against the center back is roughly at a right angle to the observer when they first enter the room so from the get go the main rock structure will dominate the veiw even without corals covering it. There will be a table in the center of the room so the most direct path to the tank will be along the left side of room. This will keep the BTA island generally in the forefront and not off to the side if walking down the right side of the table. This layout will also partially hide the rock structure in the back right corner inititially but completely hide it from view as an observer approaches from the left side, hopefully, drawing them across to the right side. To help add to the sense of discovery my thought is to have some high light, low profile corals on the sand behind the BTAs that won't come into full view until some one is standing in front of the system (that these will be about a third from the end is intentional and once the system has matured will be one of the three major focal points along with the corals infront of the overflow and BTAs). I intend to keep the back wall behind the BTAs clear to help give a sense of depth. However, the wall behind the overflow I hope to encourage encrusting corals. The lights are being mounted in the canopy asymetrically to conform to aquascaping and also to provide a wide range of lighting conditions.
The lights are Popbloom T-30s. One feature I like about them is they use reflectors and not polycarbonate lenses which can brown out overtime. They come with thier own controllers and will be configured to have 3 controllers each running two fixtures (redundancy). The overall light period will be 12 hours with all the fixtures at the maximum settings chosen for 6 hours.
OP
OP
Near as I can remember the first time the idea of angling lights came up was in a conversation with @mFrame around 2011 or 2012. One advantage is it reduces the light hitting the front of the glass so reduces one variable that promotes algae growing on glass. Another plus is it lights up the front of aquascaping better. For this system with a fairly low canopy giving only 6" of space, a low profile light without fans was a necessary decision and angling them towards the back was kinda an obvious choice. Since the fixtures have a T-slot mounting at an angle was pretty straight forward by cutting a wedge out of wood and installing T-slot bolts.
The wedges were cut at a 20° angle. Reasoning is it's about half the angle, around 40° - 45°, where most of the light hitting the water surface gets reflected. I was planning on epoxing the T-bolts but realized when I could barely pull one out testing it that just a little paint on the end was all they'd need to stay in place.
To help hold the fixtures in place but still be easy to remove if needed I found some thin magnets that would fit the T-slots and not block the T-bolts. The locations of the fixtures and t-bolts were aligned and marked. The the magnets were glued in place with some JB Weld.
Checking the layout of the fixtures.
Once I was satisfied with the fixture locations wire runs were laid out and cable ties were mounted to keep them from hanging in the water. Brackets were made to hold the controllers so if adjustments are needed they will be easy to access.
(For the record, I am not a fan of changing lighting settings once they've been decided on, Corals adjust thier photobiology to the available lighting. Constantly changing the lighting and forcing them to adjust their photobiology is an additional source of stress and it can take weeks to months to years for corals to acclimate. Many hardy and aquarium adapted species/genotype/varieties may not be put out much with big changes, but many of the aquacultured and especially corals for sale with fancy or exceptionally bright or unusual combinations of colors do require very specific settings. Arbitrarily making changes without knowing what a coral wants ends up in frustration more often than not.)
I do want a fan to move air so I built a box to hold a 120mm "muffin" fan. The fan can be slid in place and will be easy to replace it when it fails The bracket that holds it angles it to blow diagonally to the opposite corner and has athe intake on the back side to minimize any salt spray getting into the fan.
The wedges were cut at a 20° angle. Reasoning is it's about half the angle, around 40° - 45°, where most of the light hitting the water surface gets reflected. I was planning on epoxing the T-bolts but realized when I could barely pull one out testing it that just a little paint on the end was all they'd need to stay in place.
To help hold the fixtures in place but still be easy to remove if needed I found some thin magnets that would fit the T-slots and not block the T-bolts. The locations of the fixtures and t-bolts were aligned and marked. The the magnets were glued in place with some JB Weld.
Checking the layout of the fixtures.
Once I was satisfied with the fixture locations wire runs were laid out and cable ties were mounted to keep them from hanging in the water. Brackets were made to hold the controllers so if adjustments are needed they will be easy to access.
(For the record, I am not a fan of changing lighting settings once they've been decided on, Corals adjust thier photobiology to the available lighting. Constantly changing the lighting and forcing them to adjust their photobiology is an additional source of stress and it can take weeks to months to years for corals to acclimate. Many hardy and aquarium adapted species/genotype/varieties may not be put out much with big changes, but many of the aquacultured and especially corals for sale with fancy or exceptionally bright or unusual combinations of colors do require very specific settings. Arbitrarily making changes without knowing what a coral wants ends up in frustration more often than not.)
I do want a fan to move air so I built a box to hold a 120mm "muffin" fan. The fan can be slid in place and will be easy to replace it when it fails The bracket that holds it angles it to blow diagonally to the opposite corner and has athe intake on the back side to minimize any salt spray getting into the fan.
OP
OP
Got some heavy duty storage boxes (although there's ownership issues) and some really nice buckets for doing water changes from Tampa Bay Saltwater.
OP
OP
And they tossed in some rock in the bargain!
I got 20 pounds of rubble that will go in the sump, 20 lbs of base rock and 40 lbs of premium. Lots of cool stuff and of course hitchhikers. Hitchhikers included lots of really cool stuff, of note there were quite a few tiny porcelain crabs which could be very quick when they wanted to be. Not so good were some whelk snails (easy to pick off), what looked like one tiny, tiny gorilla crab which went into one of my holding tanks to see what it grows up to be. Questionable is a zebra flatworm, Stylochus zebra, as it's commensual with the hermit crab Pagurus pollicaris and shares the hermits shell it seems to me to be much more a scavenger feeding off leftovers from the hermits meal than a predator of some kind. So all the rock is in a tub right now with lights and an air line for circulation.
This is the rubble rock, that should work really well on the bottom of the unlit 40 gallon sump with some sand.
This is the rubble rock, that should work really well on the bottom of the unlit 40 gallon sump with some sand.
OP
OP
Cute, miniscule and belligerent little monster. No idea what species of crab this is but it did a pretty good job of evading me for 10-15 minutes in the bottom of a bucket with just half an inch of water.
Judging from the well developed back legs it's going into the sump until I get a better idea of what it is.
And here's a video with a mm ruler
And here's a video with a mm ruler
OP
OP
Live Rock
Just like everything else living that goes into a reef system, live rock needs to be quarantined for a month. Any container will work. I don't worry about getting good lighting for rubble and base rock but I do want decent lighting on premium rock. In this case I've loosely stacked the rock with the premium on top. For circulation a rigid air line is inserted so bubbles percolate up through the rock from the bottom.
A baby Rose Coral. At this size they look similar to hidden cup corals but that it's growing on the top or sunny side of the rock and has some color indicates it's a Rose coral.
After a week or so I like to stick a hardy couple corals in with the live rock as indicators of how things are progressing. In this case I used a small duncan and red mushroom colony.
Back in the '90s my mentor owned a LFS with his wife and they always had multiple tanks just for holding live rock. Whenever he saw any sponge starting to develop a white slimy coating like pictured here he would not only aggressively remove as much of the sponge as possible but would go through all the rock in the tank and remove any foul smelling or suspicious looking sponge. Over the years I've tried being lazy and just let thing run it's course but it seems to have led to more loss of additional organisms than I remember when I was working for him. For the last 2 decades when I QT live rock I'll start with 2 or three water changes a week (~10% - 20%), inspect all the rock closely and remove anything that looks slimy like the ball sponge in this pic or has a bad smell. Once I don't find anything to remove I'll switch to just a small weekly water change. Fortunately most cryptic sponges do fine with repeated inspection and scrubbing, and don't seem to be affected even if there are sponges close by that need to be removed. The best tool I've found for doing this is a flat blade screwdriver about 3/8" wide (partly because if my hand slips I won't be stabbing my self as deep like I would with a scalpel
).
Just like everything else living that goes into a reef system, live rock needs to be quarantined for a month. Any container will work. I don't worry about getting good lighting for rubble and base rock but I do want decent lighting on premium rock. In this case I've loosely stacked the rock with the premium on top. For circulation a rigid air line is inserted so bubbles percolate up through the rock from the bottom.
.jpg.2168301a0ff174b8d77d15d2bfee3daf.jpg "20241214_090457 (1).jpg")
A baby Rose Coral. At this size they look similar to hidden cup corals but that it's growing on the top or sunny side of the rock and has some color indicates it's a Rose coral.
.jpg.856a025140fe47c80964744f9bde1ae3.jpg "20241214_090723 (1).jpg")
After a week or so I like to stick a hardy couple corals in with the live rock as indicators of how things are progressing. In this case I used a small duncan and red mushroom colony.
Back in the '90s my mentor owned a LFS with his wife and they always had multiple tanks just for holding live rock. Whenever he saw any sponge starting to develop a white slimy coating like pictured here he would not only aggressively remove as much of the sponge as possible but would go through all the rock in the tank and remove any foul smelling or suspicious looking sponge. Over the years I've tried being lazy and just let thing run it's course but it seems to have led to more loss of additional organisms than I remember when I was working for him. For the last 2 decades when I QT live rock I'll start with 2 or three water changes a week (~10% - 20%), inspect all the rock closely and remove anything that looks slimy like the ball sponge in this pic or has a bad smell. Once I don't find anything to remove I'll switch to just a small weekly water change. Fortunately most cryptic sponges do fine with repeated inspection and scrubbing, and don't seem to be affected even if there are sponges close by that need to be removed. The best tool I've found for doing this is a flat blade screwdriver about 3/8" wide (partly because if my hand slips I won't be stabbing my self as deep like I would with a scalpel
.jpg.b01bd2de467d4a3ee34ebe1d5f33404b.jpg "20241124_084407 (1).jpg")
OP
OP
When setting up a system I like to use as much conditioned carbonate base rock as possible along with the maricultured live rock. It can be any of the dry rock products commercially available but since there's a lot of honeycomb or "holey" limestone locally I'll use a lot of that. (If any is missing from your yard I had nothing to do with it's dissapperance!) I also use a good carbonate based live sand and dry sand even though the later is a lot more work to rinse well to minimize the cloudyness it causes but it does help to maintain alkalinity. I also like to used a fair amount of conditioned water (10% at least). In the past I've used tubs and barrels as well as tanks, it's really just what happens to be easiest to grab. With this setup between the water the live rock was QTed in and having about a hundred gallons in a tank I conditioned water and rock with, I used roughly a little over 100 gallons of aged water along with about 150 gallons of new.
A local reefer has a good video of drilling rock and designing the base aquascaping so I won't duplicate that here. Here's a link toher video.
Setting up the rock wall that will hide the overflow. As the overflow is away from the wall I didn't want any rock leaning on it. A large piece of limestone flagstone was cut and drilled to fit around the overflow. It would be set on several rocks to provide additional hiding places. To help distribute the weight several pieces of eggcrate were set under the supporting rocks along with a lot of sand to help cushion everything. Besides having a cut to fit around the overflow there were holes drilled for CPVC pipe to help hold everything together. I prefer to drill holes and use pipe or rods both for stability as carbonate base rocks will dissolve in marine systems potentially compramising cemented rock or precariously stacked rock, and to facilitate disassembly when the aquascaping is dismantled (however far into the future that may be), with minimum harm to the animals that have colonized it. It's also faster to set up and adjust as the rock work is being assembled.
I've made arches by drilling rock and using PVC but a purple dieyed "life rock" arch is less work. (As "life rock" is just a very hard concrete product I don't like using much because it's very difficult to drill and won't provide much alkalinity as endoliths can't bore into it.)
Here it is with the base aquascaping done and sand and water added.
As soon as all the water was in I added some easy corals as indicators. Here's a couple, a duncan and GSP at about the 20 hour mark. To help clear up the water quicker i added a small canister filter made out of 4" PVC with some filter media.
Here's a quick video at the 3 day mark.
A local reefer has a good video of drilling rock and designing the base aquascaping so I won't duplicate that here. Here's a link toher video.
Setting up the rock wall that will hide the overflow. As the overflow is away from the wall I didn't want any rock leaning on it. A large piece of limestone flagstone was cut and drilled to fit around the overflow. It would be set on several rocks to provide additional hiding places. To help distribute the weight several pieces of eggcrate were set under the supporting rocks along with a lot of sand to help cushion everything. Besides having a cut to fit around the overflow there were holes drilled for CPVC pipe to help hold everything together. I prefer to drill holes and use pipe or rods both for stability as carbonate base rocks will dissolve in marine systems potentially compramising cemented rock or precariously stacked rock, and to facilitate disassembly when the aquascaping is dismantled (however far into the future that may be), with minimum harm to the animals that have colonized it. It's also faster to set up and adjust as the rock work is being assembled.
I've made arches by drilling rock and using PVC but a purple dieyed "life rock" arch is less work. (As "life rock" is just a very hard concrete product I don't like using much because it's very difficult to drill and won't provide much alkalinity as endoliths can't bore into it.)
Here it is with the base aquascaping done and sand and water added.
As soon as all the water was in I added some easy corals as indicators. Here's a couple, a duncan and GSP at about the 20 hour mark. To help clear up the water quicker i added a small canister filter made out of 4" PVC with some filter media.
Here's a quick video at the 3 day mark.
OP
OP
Here's a video of the system on day 6.
OP
OP
Here's pics and a video from day 14.
Abby's 260 gallon on day 14. The "uglies" have started. Besides the role live rock has in reducing the severity and duration of the growth of nuisance algae, water changes have been started using steel straws to assist the urchins added in the first week (there's links at the bottom with more info on this at the bottom).
Aquabiomics article on live rock to establish healthy microbiomes:
Restoring coral reefs using manual removal and urchins:
https://response.restoration.noaa.g...um-invasive-algae-then-apply-sea-urchins.html
Steel Straws
Abby's 260 gallon on day 14. The "uglies" have started. Besides the role live rock has in reducing the severity and duration of the growth of nuisance algae, water changes have been started using steel straws to assist the urchins added in the first week (there's links at the bottom with more info on this at the bottom).
Aquabiomics article on live rock to establish healthy microbiomes:
Restoring coral reefs using manual removal and urchins:
https://response.restoration.noaa.g...um-invasive-algae-then-apply-sea-urchins.html
Steel Straws
OP
OP
Here's a short video on day 21.
OP
OP
Day 27, rainbow BTA colony was added after maintenance last week.
OP
OP
Week 5 update.
Pulsing Xenia, added with the aquascaping and initial NaCl H2O fill up.
Some GSP. It was super glued to base rock being seasoned in a frag tank prior to setup and went in the first day (~hour 20)
BTA colony added third week.
Purple Stylo, Frogspawn, red Mushrooms, Duncan, Mint Chocolate Zoas and green Toadstool, all were added day one.
Some of the nuisance algae typical of the initial "uglies".
Using a steel straw to siphon off nuisance algae. This is a technique along with adding urchins or other herbivores, I started using a several decades ago. I'd like to take all the credit for it but a long time ago I was BSing with frienpetitor of mine (John Yull of Fish Works) and he started using rigid tubing for the same purpose about the same time I did. I imagine over the years other aquarists have also. It was gratifying to see NOAA publish a paper using this same technique, just on a much larger scale, for remediating compromised reefs.
Pulsing Xenia, added with the aquascaping and initial NaCl H2O fill up.
Some GSP. It was super glued to base rock being seasoned in a frag tank prior to setup and went in the first day (~hour 20)
BTA colony added third week.
Purple Stylo, Frogspawn, red Mushrooms, Duncan, Mint Chocolate Zoas and green Toadstool, all were added day one.
Some of the nuisance algae typical of the initial "uglies".
Using a steel straw to siphon off nuisance algae. This is a technique along with adding urchins or other herbivores, I started using a several decades ago. I'd like to take all the credit for it but a long time ago I was BSing with frienpetitor of mine (John Yull of Fish Works) and he started using rigid tubing for the same purpose about the same time I did. I imagine over the years other aquarists have also. It was gratifying to see NOAA publish a paper using this same technique, just on a much larger scale, for remediating compromised reefs.
Cthulukelele
2500 Club Member
You're the only other person I've seen have tiger tails as a regular part of their clean up crew! They've probably been my mvps over the last 7 years and they're so neat to watch.
Beautiful new tank and always love reading your inciteful comments on the site!
Beautiful new tank and always love reading your inciteful comments on the site!
OP
OP
Thank you! :D
Locally among the reefers I know, Tiger Tails are fairly common and are reproducing in systems by splitting. This individual is at least two or three or more splits from the original wild one and this system is the third system in line it's "clone line" has been moved to.
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