AlexGs Basement Plywood Build 2 displays one system.

[AlexG]

Its been a while since I posted an update. The fish are all doing well. I have not added anymore fish since the tangs went into the 480 gallon reef. I have been battling some low nutrients in the system but I think I have them back under control. I lost a couple of SPS frags, a clam, and a couple of LPS corals. Other than that the system is doing great. I deresa clams have put on almost a 1/2" of shell in the few months that I have had them. I also picked up a beautiful blue squamosa clam from cherry corals.

 

[AlexG]

It's been a busy month. I just picked up a bunch of corals at aquachella over the weekend. It was nice meeting some members from the R2R community. I will get some coral picture up once they settle in. Here are some system pictures and a picture of my puffer all puffed up. I think the puffer got upset that I was cleaning the outside glass of the display. It's the first time I have seen the porcupine puffed up.

 

[AlexG]

Just some random fish pictures. I have not been spending much time on photography but these are a few of the better shots of the fish.

 

[AlexG]

I wonder where I should put all these corals I just got from cherry corals? Decisions decisions.

 

[Mr.Asbury]

...wow...

Everything looks amazing, very nice work!

 

[Dan Korczak]

This is one of the most impressive builds I have ever seen. Good job and keep at it!

 

[AlexG]

Picture time! Here are some overall tank pictures and some top down eye candy pictures of the reef. I wonder how long it will take this thread to get moved over to the monster tank sub forum [emoji16]. The tanks are doing great for the most part. A little cyano bacteria is on the rocks but it seems to be slowly subsiding. I lost one coral to my mistake of leaving in in dip too long. There are a couple of other corals that also never fully recovered from low system nutrients but I figure it will take some time for them to recover.

 

[Alexreefer]

I loved how long you've been doing this for. You really inspired me to do things with my tank. I will continue to follow this. I spent my whole day wondering how you had the guts to do this. keep up the good work. My only question is how did you get your clownfish to host an anemone?

 

[OffTopic]

I am really happy I went through this entire thread dating back three years! What you are doing here it is incredible, it is absolutely amazing! Following along now

 

[AlexG]

I loved how long you've been doing this for. You really inspired me to do things with my tank. I will continue to follow this. I spent my whole day wondering how you had the guts to do this. keep up the good work. My only question is how did you get your clownfish to host an anemone?

Thanks for the kind words Alexreefer. I am flattered that I was able to give you some inspirations with your tank. Building this system was a dream and the hardest part was getting my wife to agree to my plans. I laid out my budget and made some promises on completing other house projects as a priority over building an aquarium system. There are definitely some ups and downs to keeping such a large system but the only regret I have is not making larger tanks. There is some room in my basement for an additional tank that one day I might build once I get the current displays grown out and matured. The clownfish that I have went right into the anemone from day 1 although they were not a pair at first. I initially thought that the smaller one would be killed as they were fighting and not staying together but I decided to try and make a pair. Since the tank is so large they each had a territory they monitored but after a month or so the smaller clown edged closer and closer to the large clown in the anemone until they finally became a pair. I was told these were wild clowns which was likely one of the reasons they hosted right away. Getting clowns to host is not always easy but it seems that the technique of putting them in a small basket or acclimation chamber with an anemone can help them to learn that they can host an anemone. I have other pairs that never hosted the anemones that were available to them. Sometimes its easier to find clowns at the LFS that are already hosting an anemone and purchase them.

 

[Alexreefer]

Thanks for everything. You just keep on amazing me everyday with your engineering and just everything you did to make this from scratch. Keep on pushing!

 

[AlexG]

I am really happy I went through this entire thread dating back three years! What you are doing here it is incredible, it is absolutely amazing! Following along now

Thanks @OffTopic . This system is a labor of love.

 

[AlexG]

Really cool dark green porities with red Christmas tree worms.

 

[AlexG]

Just looking in the sump and found a baby trochus snail. That was unexpected.

 

[najer]

Caught up, looking very good, how did the coral delivery settle?

 

[dragon99]

Just looking in the sump and found a baby trochus snail. That was unexpected.

Sumps must be a good place for babies. I've found a dozen or so in the last month in my sump and most of them were inside the skimmer.

 

[AlexG]

Caught up, looking very good, how did the coral delivery settle?

The corals came in really nice. Brett and Todd from Cherry Corals really had some nice stuff come up during their overstock live sale. So far all 14 pieces I picked up are doing well.

 

[AlexG]

Sumps must be a good place for babies. I've found a dozen or so in the last month in my sump and most of them were inside the skimmer.

I was looking through the sump more last night and found some baby limpet snails as well. I really need to get some stomella snails going in this system as well since they also breed like crazy.

 

[Janci]

You did a great job Alex.
Very interesting to see all these tanks coming together.

I wanted to hear something more about the Rossmont wavemakers in the 720G.
You have now two 4100gal pumps with the controller installed?
Is this sufficient for such a big tank?
I am considering them for my much smaller tank.
TIA.

 

[AlexG]

You did a great job Alex.
Very interesting to see all these tanks coming together.

I wanted to hear something more about the Rossmont wavemakers in the 720G.
You have now two 4100gal pumps with the controller installed?
Is this sufficient for such a big tank?
I am considering them for my much smaller tank.
TIA.

I do have two MX4100 pumps installed on the 720 gallon tank with a controller. I also have a third MX4100 installed without a controller.
Overall flow in the tank is 3x4100gph + ~2000gph from the return is a total water flow of ~14,300gph in the 720 gallon tank. I plan to eventually install a 4th MX4100. I find that the flow is pretty good for a tank this size. With the tank being bare bottom and fairly open with is aquascape that there is plenty of flow. I only have 4 corals in the 720 gallon tank right now but as that changes and corals grow it might become necessary to increase flow. The pumps benefit the fish more than anything else right now. From a price point those MX4100 are a good value for the amount of flow that they are putting out.