And.......we are reefing.....I guess.

[Heroca]

It's taking me 3 years to get this system going and it's taken this long for me to try to move forward with it, the struggles, challenges and what I'm doing to overcome my own doings and undoings.
I don't expect anyone to actually read this whole thing but I feel that I needed to share it in order to move forward.

The system:
The tank is made out of acrylic and FRP(fiberglass reinforced plastic)
It is 36" wide x 33" tall x 196" long ID
Steel stand 41" tall
Holding about 1000gl.

The overflows are 3 Synergy reef systems 20" shadow overflows, they came with all the parts that I needed to install them (tools not included).

Sump 1 300gl aquarium full with live rock, 1 90gl aquarium as a skimmer chamber, 1 40gl breeder as a return pump chamber.
1 50gl Ato with kalkwazer.

Return pump Abyzz A 400
Skimmers 1 Nyos Quantum 300, 1 Reef Octopus Regal 250sss powered by a Red Dragon Bubble King BKSM 200.

Flow 3 closed loops powered by 3 Sicce Syncra hf16.0 pumps.

Lights as of today 2 diy ATI 4 bulb T5 fixtures and 2 Kessil A500x with Wi-Fi dongle and K link cable.

Controller 1 Neptune Systems A3 Apex Pro Aquarium Controller System with Extra Energy Bar 832 and 1 old EB8 energy bar. Slowly gathering all the parts that I need.

Dosing system 1 GHL KH Director & Doser 2.2 Standalone Pump and 2 GHL Doser 2.1

Getting this system up and somewhat stable has been a self created nightmare.
I started the tank with 900lbs of Florida Reef Rock (50/50 Billy Hay and Marco Rocks) about 300lb mixed rocks (Pukani, Tonga, Jakarta and Haitian) and no sand.

The original plan was to use my old 500gl tank as a sump tied into my 300gl BIG butt SUMP to filter the 1000gl tank.

The day that I started to drive to Virginia from South Florida I got T-boned by a truck and almost lost everything but the fish, the fish all went to a store in south Florida and out off all my fish (80 plus) I was only able to get back a handful of fish....all the other fish supposedly died, never got a picture of a dead fish and when I was able to pick up the survivors I saw some of my fish on tanks with sold signs on them........but whatever.....it's my fault for not getting there sooner.
Whatever equipment and rocks they were able to salvage another friend offered to hold it for me until I was able to walk and eventually set up the tank......I wanted out of the hobby, I had posted everything up for free on FB and he called me and talked me into not giving up and that he would hold everything for me in his warehouse, he sent me pictures of what he had and I told him to keep my costume 300gl BIG butt SUMP as a small token of my appreciation.....( I was unemployed not able to work from the injuries). Eventually my wife drove to Florida and picked up whatever equipment they had for me and brought it back to Virginia and whatever came out the truck didn't match the pictures I was sent but....... whatever.......it's my fault for not getting there sooner.

I started the system with the wrong mindset, I was angry, I was hurt, I was depressed, I was literally broken.......in mind, spirit and financially......I had lost almost everything from my old system, and the worst part of it all......I lost some really good friends because of how I delt with all of it.......I only blame myself.......and it has taken me this long to actually move forward and to let go of all that resentment that I was holding on to....... in order to pay my bills we used our savings until I had no other choice but to sell all my lights, Fish, extra equipment that It was to small for this system, once I was able to stand and walk for a long period of time I got a job at a local fish store and slowly got stronger and we were able to get the tank in place so I could work on it. We had to remove the sliding glass door to get the tank in the house.

Eventually I got a better job and a better job and after 3 years I'm able to start getting what I need to finish it.

Livestock:
As of today I have 2 moray eels, a Tessellata and a Yellow Head.
1 purple carpet anemone.
1 Toadstool leather coral.
4 long spiny urchins.
3 sand sifting starfish.
1 thin stripped hermit.
About 80ish Mummichog killifish.

My tank is far from perfect but for the last 6 months, it has been stable......why?

Biggest contributing factor?......my state of mind, trying something different, letting things go, focusing on the now and started making forward progress, any progress is better than no progress . I made a list of things that are a priority in order to keep things alive, I made another list of things that are wrong with my system and I made a list of things that I wished I had to make things more efficient for me. So I started to work on those things, those tasks, those items, ether to fix broken things, replace items with better quality items, doing simple tasks around the tank.......in 3 years I maybe did 5 or 6 water changes.......lol...not proud of it.

The tank was covered with algae from side to side, it was neglected. Both Skimmers were not working, one closed loop pump was not working.
This is what the tank looked like after I did a deep cleaning and 600gl water change

It was so bad that I had to make another 100gl of saltwater to replace what I siphoned out after the water change.

I watched more videos and I remembered that back in the day we used to use pool phosphate remover that had lanthanum chloride to help with algae control, so I got a 1 gallon jug of Phosban L and dosed the system 3 times in order to lower the Phosphates enough to get an actual number from Salifert test kits, my levels were off the charts high and a 300gl water change after each batch of Phosban. I used an online calculator for the Phosban solution (http://larryl.emailplus.org.user.fm/fish/dosing-instructions-phosphate-removers.html)
I dosed 3 drops per second into a 10 micron filter sock until the solution ran out, it took 2 days each time because the filter socks kept clogging after 30 minutes and I only have 3 socks that had to get washed after every use.

I also started watching videos about keeping eels and learned about the importance to get them in a feeding schedule, and I was reminded about an old school way to help remove unwanted solids out of them water( bubble scrubbing)
This video was pivotal for me
Marc Levenson from Meleve's Reef was talking to Amy King from Eel Lady Aquatics about Eel keeping.

So I started doing weekly water changes and bubble scrubbing for 45 minutes after a water change and it worked for me, my nutrient levels are consistently going down without having to use any more Phosban L and the algae was almost all gone.

A couple of weeks later I had a major bacterial bloom.

I was determined to get out of the rut that I was in........I watched more videos in YouTube and FB and I came to the conclusion that I needed a sand bed, I always had DSB in all my previous systems and I never had any bacterial blooms like this before........The only bad bacterial bloom that I had was back on 2017 and it was my fault for messing with things that I didn't fully understood (DIY methanol denitrator....it was a Fl thing). So I looked at my bank account and realized that it was not in my budget...... so I got 1000lb of sand from Home Depot....lol. 1 day after I added the sand into the tank the water was crystal clear. It took me about 18 hours to rinse all the all purpose sand.

The day I added the sand.

The day after I added the sand.

Bubble scrubbing after a water change.

And slowly I have been checking things off my lists.
In the last 3 weeks I changed 2 out of the 4 diy t5 fixtures with 2 Kessil A500x and I'm so glad that I listened to my friend Mark Kornberg owner and my previous boss of Aquariums Unlimited in Virginia Beach about how good and powerful these little lights are. I added a purple carpet anemone and a small frag of a Toadstool leather and I'm actually having a good time with this crazy hobby of ours.

This is the tank today, 2 weeks behind schedule on water changes.

I was not prepared for winter. I need to build a enclosure for my water mixing station so I can control the temperature of the water.

 

[KrisReef]

I wish I had seen this for free on Facebook,
I will never forgive you friend, and I quit reading about where you mentioned the hurdle you went around.

Good luck with this amazing project. :cool:

 

[Heroca]

Another thing that got me motivated to get things back in track was a little fish that I was introduced by chance from a Home Depot coworker, i was approached by Randy from Plumbing that is an avid fisherman here intheChesapeakeBayarea, asking about saltwater aquariums and how he wanted to keep his bait fish alive longer, so we talked about filtration, flow, over stocking, basic chemistry (ammonia, nitrite, nitrates), bacterias, and he asked if I wanted some of the bait fish to feed my eels and I'm glad that I took him up on the offer. I started with 24 bait fish and after a little bit of research I found the common name of mud minnow, mummichog killifish. Species(Fundulus heteroclitus) and found out that they are the first fish to travel to space which were sent to Skylab in 1973 by NASA because of how hardy and adaptable they are, you can find them in full saltwater all the way to fresh water, in oxygen depleted puddles to fast moving shallow water.
They are agastic omnivores(no stomach and supposed to eat diatoms)and they have a very big appetite. In my experience when getting wild caught fish for our systems, it's difficult to get fish to eat pellets right away. This little fish eat anything and everything, they took to pellets on day 1, no problem. The plan was to gut load them with spirulina, vitachem and krill and freeze them and feed them to the eels. This little fish are to cool to kill and feed so I setup a temporary tank for them with algae covered rocks and water from the display tank with a heater and a power head, no filter and after 2 weeks they eat all the algae from the rocks and whatever foid I gave them.The biggest surprise for me was their appetite for green hair algae. Forget about mollies. These killifish really are algae eaters. They are constantly nibbling on the rocks, glass, any surface that has any green or brown algae.....I was so impressed by the Mummichog killifish that I called Randy and asked if he was getting more of them and he was actually going to upgrade the holding tank that I gave him when I first got the 24 fish. So I bought all of them about100 of them, he had them in fresh water with cooper and I had my 24 in full saltwater so I did a 100 % water change with 1.016 water and replaced the rocks with new rocks covered in algae and after 1 week they ate all the algae on the rocks so I did another water change with water from the display tank and replaced the rocks again with algae rocks from the tank. After 2 months now that I had the fish in a tank looking clean, healthy and fat I decided to introduce all the fish in the tank, the first couple of days were crazy, the eels started to chase the Mummichogs and eventually they eat about 30 or 40 of them, after a week they finally got settled ito the tank and the eels are more active than ever, chasing them but they are to fast for the eels to catch and my algae problem is almost gone. Definitely will be keeping them as part of the cleanup crew.

 

[KrisReef]

Many of us started with goldfish or guppies and more recently with Nemo’s. You might be the baitfish pioneer?
@Paul B - Do you think that there is a book here?:beaming-face-with-smiling-eyes::cool:

 

[smitten with ocean life]

very interesting. such tough things to work through! looks like youre on a roll now though! keep going!

 

[Heroca]

They sale them at bait shops for $6 dz. You can catch hundreds of them with a simple trap with dog food. I don't understand why it's not popular in the hobby.

 

[19Mateo83]

They sale them at bait shops for $6 dz. You can catch hundreds of them with a simple trap with dog food. I don't understand why it's not popular in the hobby.

I’m an avid surf fisherman I catch these little guys by the hundreds in my cast net when I’m looking for mullet. I’ve always been curious how these would look and survive in a reef environment. Very cool little fish, thank you for sharing!

 

[smitten with ocean life]

very interesting. such tough things to work through! looks like youre on a roll now though! keep going!

 

[Dom]

My compliments; this is a really ambitious build!

I have some questions:

Is there enough room from the top of the sump to the bottom of the tank? It seems tight in the picture:

What is the purpose of the bulkheads and plumbing down low? Is it for close loop circulation?

 

[Soren]

@Heroca Quite the story, quite the aquarium!
Now I'm curious for more information and history on mummichog killifish! If they eliminate filamentous green hair algae and survive well in reef tanks without causing any damage, I'd be all for their inclusion in some/all of my tanks!

 

[Gumbies R Us]

Following along!

 

[Heroca]

My compliments; this is a really ambitious build!

I have some questions:

Is there enough room from the top of the sump to the bottom of the tank? It seems tight in the picture:

What is the purpose of the bulkheads and plumbing down low? Is it for close loop circulation?

14" of clearance in the rock sump and 16" in the skimmer side.
Yes, it's for the 3 closed loops.

 

[Paul B]

Many of us started with goldfish or guppies and more recently with Nemo’s. You might be the baitfish pioneer?
@Paul B - Do you think that there is a book here?:beaming-face-with-smiling-eyes::cool:

Could be. Up until recently I always kept a natural, local New York tank going. Those killifish will live forever as will most bait fish from northern waters.

I like to collect the tiny fry when I could get them. They make the best food although the fry may not like that idea . :oops:

Even small flounders and sea robbins but I like the local inverts better and also live forever and grow to engulf your home.