Ale's tax return tank (Red Sea 250)

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Alenya

Alenya

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Wow - interesting shapes! Will be neat to see how you tackle coral placement!

This is going to be a LPS/softie tank which is why there is so much floor space - aiming for lots of lovely flow while still leaving plenty of room for fish to dive through rocks - hopefully !
 
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Alenya

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Little update:

Water has cleared nicely! Loving the look :)
Ammonia testing at 1ppm. No nitrite, trace nitrate. Salinity 1.027 still need to bring it down.

ATO is working perfectly.

Temperature remains a bugbear. Currently working to stabilise at 25 degrees; having issues with the heater’s behaviour and trying out different temps and locations. Not sure it’s even working properly! Tomorrow will conduct some performance tests as it’s the last thing to stabilise in the tank.

And photos of the scape! All the photos :)

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sam.veilleux30

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Nice build!
Like the part about the TLOU 2 break, have you finished it yet?
One of the best game i ever played, i even listened the podcast of it.

Following your build, this is the best part in the hobby imo.
 
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Alenya

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Nice build!
Like the part about the TLOU 2 break, have you finished it yet?
One of the best game i ever played, i even listened the podcast of it.

Following your build, this is the best part in the hobby imo.

I am a massive TLOU fan so I am slowly playing through and relishing every moment! I am still getting through the storyline :) Playing through Seattle atm. How good is this game <3 Great to meet another fan

I’ve already avoided a few disasters thanks to the info on this forum - shimming on carpet being one!
 
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Alenya

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Little update:

Heater continues to be vexatious. The temp drops to 22-23 in the old location and then across the sump it tends to go too high. This weekend I will be sorting a final location and temp setting!
 
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Alenya

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Great looking scape - loving the rockwork! Do you have a heater controller?
Thanks - and no I don't - I have a heater and a chiller. The chiller is working fine and is set for 25.

The heater either isn't getting enough flow, isn't in the right place, has a crappy dial for temp or is faulty, or some combo of the above. I'm testing it out more thoroughly this weekend as we are getting close to starting to stock the tank.

Update:

Heater in its preferred position is set to 25 C
Chiller set to 25 C

Chiller shows a temp of 25.5 C currently (active sump flow through unit, Chiller only turns on @ 26 C)

Thermometer in the main tank shows 26.5 C

Heater turned off at 25.5 C - waiting to see how low the temp gets before it turns back on.
 
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Alenya

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SG is now down from 1.027 to 1.025, just needs a nudge to get to target of 1.024
Ammonia 1ppm, nitrite 0, pH 8.2, trace ~ 2ppm nitrates

Temp is settling at just over 26 in the tank, dropping that currently another half a degree. Chiller shows 25.6 which is obviously not what the DT is at, so I'm focusing on getting DT where I want it then I will check sump temps with thermometer and make a note of variances in both the heater and chiller.

Brown dust algae in full swing, good times. Starting to look *****. Love it.

Hopefully first CUC will go in sometime this week!
 
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Special update:

Tank looks like it’s good to go :)

Temp stable 26 C
Salinity 1.025
Ammonia trace
Nitrite 0
Nitrate 5ppm

Equipment purring like a kitten.

First CUC went in today, a large trochus from my nano! I also added a large zoa rock with some small marine life. Lights are set to acclimate.

I’ll watch these for a couple days and if all looks well will add a couple more CUC.

Fishlist also updated:

2 x wild caught Clownfish percula
1 x Yellow watchman goby
2 x Bangai cardinals
1 x Valentini Puffer
1 x Yellow coris wrasse
1 x Pintail wrasse
1 x Starry blenny
1 x Longnose hawkfish
1 x Marine Betta
 
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Alenya

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COVID has made access to fish even tougher than usual for Australia, so I have to make some changes to local wrasse.

Instead of the pintail I’ve requested a Laboutei and Lineatus wrasse which are barrier reef fish.

The puffer is reasonably available as is the banana coris, but Marine Betta might be a few months :O
 

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Good for you while we had to pay more than $5k in taxes to Uncle Sam this year. Those that feel the pain, joy that like lol
 
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Alenya

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Good for you while we had to pay more than $5k in taxes to Uncle Sam this year. Those that feel the pain, joy that like lol

Normally I am the same but I didn’t work for a few months this year so ended up with a little bonus!

Uncle Sam the worst uncle lol
 
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Alenya

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Our first new fish have been secured, the Laboutei and Lineatus fairy wrasse. Hopefully they grow up to look this good!

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Guess I better get cracking on the quarantine tank and the reefer 250 cover :) They’ll arrive next week.
 
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So apparently ‘fairy’ doesn’t mean they are all smol or suitable for a 250 :O

Working out some different wrasse >.<
 
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Alenya

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My LFS has some fish coming out of quarantine in another 10 days - I’ve asked them for:

Eightline flasher wrasse
Yellow fin flasher wrasse
Yellow coris wrasse
Valentini puffer, and
Marine betta

The Marine Betta needs to be requested so hopefully something will come up.

The 10 gallon will be the quarantine tank. I’m planning to transfer the rest of the coral to the new tank, the clowns and the remaining snails.

I am on the fence about what to do with the live rock - it has vermetid snails but also has lots of other little critters. There is also a pistol shrimp in there. I would like to give the critters the chance to go into the new tank but I don’t want the snails to migrate.
 
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Small update:

Currently breaking down livestock in my nano and transferring them to the new tank, to start to prep for quarantine.

My clowns are in <3 and seem pretty happy!

Lightly dosing the tank with phyto and feeding marine mix daily.

Also building the screen for this tank! It’s the Red Sea DIY kit.
 
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Little update:

Grabbed a couple of chunks of fresh rock from my local collector - they went straight into the tank to help the ecosystem get started. Full of sponges, little worms, mini brittles, you name it.

I also picked up a bunch of zoa colonies, some morphs, cyphastrea and blasto frags.

I picked up a yellow coris wrasse and a ‘Extra bright beta wrasse’ which came in without a Latin species and appears to be a flasher wrasse.

The wrasse is a cute guy but I had some trouble as he got his teeth stuck to the net when I moved him to the quarantine tank. We ended up glaring at each other, him in full puff mode and me in huff mode. I had to cut him free of the net. He was pretty stressed :( So I left him to rest.

An hour later I came back and he was lying on his side in the corner on some clove polyps - he was dead :(

Then I put some food in the water and he rolled an eye to look at me and then got up and wolfed down some buffet :D I hate wrasse :D
 

Being sticky and staying connected: Have you used any reef-safe glue?

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