Angry Upgrade 120 to 230 Peninsula!

[AngryOwl]

Nice frag.
How do you manage Alk at this moment?
I think I did not see or read about a doser yet?

I've never had that kind of polyp extension before, it's nice to see! Now let's just hope I can replicate it throughout the life of the tank. Easy enough right? ;Playful

I'm not dosing Alk or Calc yet. I did have to buffer it up to my desired levels before adding the frag. Red Sea blue bucket mixes up at around 8.2 - 8.3 dKh when mixing at 1.025 sg. I've had the tank running for a few weeks and it's been shown that even in storage containers the Alk level in the water will slowly drop. I got a 7.7 reading, threw 40ml 2 part in and Alk was spot on at 8.3 yesterday evening.

My plan now is to test every day. I need to see, even with limited corals, how the tank is reacting and understand when I need to make adjustments. If the tank takes a week to go from 8.3 to 8.0, I may consider throwing on the doser at a very low rate. This could be as low as 1-5ml/day.

Hope this makes sense... Still finishing my latte

 

[AngryOwl]

Great build! I really enjoyed reading through it, and now I’m anxiously awaiting your updates to see how this tank does.

I had one thought a few pages back when you were wondering why the 120 might be struggling with acros. I saw that you run your lights from early in the morning to late at night. I run Radions on my tank. I remember that when I was first setting them up I tried to have the lights run for 14 hours. A little warning box popped up saying that their research suggests the lights shouldn’t be on for more than 12 hours a day. I know many people also run their lights for more than half the day, and I have no idea if LEDs have different suggestions than T5s in this department. But it might be something to consider if you find yourself in the same boat of throwing your hands up in the air and wanting to start over. I have good feelings for this tank though, so hopefully it won’t ever be something you have to look into.

Awesome comment! Thanks for the kind words

The photoperiod is something I've been doing more research on and talking with other hobbiest about. To give a brief background, I picked that long of a schedule because I use to feed twice per day so I needed the fish awake before I left for work... However, now I only feed once a day in the evening. (will explore autofeeders in the future).

In several discussions with other people it is the general consensus a 6:30am-10pm light schedule is too long. Furthermore, with respect to T5 specifically, it was suggested a 4-5 hour peak photoperiod is preferred. Interesting... I was running a max photoperiod from 11:30am-6:30pm...

So I decided to take this advice and apply it immediately to the new build. Light schedule is as follows below:
2 T5 Bulbs - 8:30am - 10pm
2 sbreefbars (leds) - 10am - 10:15pm
All bulbs (8 T5 + reefbars) - 1:30-6:30 -- infact looking at this in conjunction with my par readings, I'm going to knock it back 1 hr. 2:30 -6:30.

I will be monitoring this factor closely as I add things to the tank because I'm not entirely convinced that the level of par I'm getting is acceptable... in the sense I believe it is too high.


Dang I talk a lot...

 

[AngryOwl]

Little surprise coming tomorrow

Oh and look! I got my badge!

 

[Janci]

Congratulations on the badge.
There is no way back now.
I love goodies. Even if they are not mine.

 

[xaflatoonx]

Following again. Great updates and thanks for sharing.

I am getting my sump tomorrow and the tank hopefully first week of feb.

 

[AngryOwl]

Little starter pack and some more tester corals arrived Friday! Adam from battlecorals sent me 7 but 1 came DOA and another didn't make it though the night... but no worries, I like what he selected for me and all pieces are great size!

I also got a clean up crew package from saltwaterfish.com as well. Simple package to get the crew started.

Lastly this weekend I broke down the 120g and it is officially offline! Whataday! Now my living room looks somewhat normal again... something I think my wife appreciates

 

[count krunk]

I used to run my metal halide for 8 hours a day. As that was the only light on the tank

 

[AngryOwl]

Following again. Great updates and thanks for sharing.

I am getting my sump tomorrow and the tank hopefully first week of feb.

Awesome stuff! I'll be checking it out as you progress!

 

[AngryOwl]

I used to run my metal halide for 8 hours a day. As that was the only light on the tank

I'd suspect you get pretty high par readings from those lights?

 

[AngryOwl]

Video of me tearing down the 120 last weekend if anyone is interested. In regards to my YouTube channel I don't want to come off in this thread as I am only trying to get you to watch or subscribe.. I've seen other 'Build' threads where it is only YouTube links. Of course I want you to watch and promote my videos but if you don't have any interest that is fine and I will always continue to do write ups along with videos!

 

[Janci]

That is an angry break down.
Glad you passed this episode and can focus now on the 230G.

 

[AngryOwl]

That is an angry break down.
Glad you passed this episode and can focus now on the 230G.

;Hilarious You are embracing the Anger!

Glad this thing is broken down now, can't wait to sell it... need the extra cash for sure. I've begun my taxes and I'm looking at roughly owing around $1600.... so yup. That's fun. Got a ticket this weekend too and waiting to see how much that will steal from me as well.

 

[count krunk]

not sure a ticket is stealing

are you an independent contractor or something? Owing taxes is something i had the (mis)pleasure of doing when I was a commercial boat captain from 18-23. any sort of refund i get now is glorious

 

[AngryOwl]

Any money not spent on my tank is stealing! Also, any money spent on my tank is stealing

I am not an independent contractor though... just a normal scrub working day to day like everyone else. February last year I switched jobs and got a huge pay increase. As a result I guess not enough taxes were being taken out between me and my wife, even though we both claim 0. I'm not really sure why they don't just take out the required amount from the start but I just changed it to send additional money each check.

If it wasn't complicated enough by wife is transitioning to become a full time real estate agent so we will be blessed with 1099's and sending quarterly taxes. If I ever receive another refund in my life I will feel lucky.

For anyone wondering, I am in the information security field performing third party risk assessments for a large financial institution.

 

[xaflatoonx]

Houston Market is bonkers - add in Woodlands, Sugarland and katy and you have a goldmine as a real estate agent.
Have a good tax accountant give you an estimate on how much your early tax will be and just save it on the side.
Plus, her being in real estate - i am sure you can benefit from a bunch of tax breaks -
need a reference for a tax guy?

 

[AngryOwl]

Houston Market is bonkers - add in Woodlands, Sugarland and katy and you have a goldmine as a real estate agent.
Have a good tax accountant give you an estimate on how much your early tax will be and just save it on the side.
Plus, her being in real estate - i am sure you can benefit from a bunch of tax breaks -
need a reference for a tax guy?

You have a good numbers fluffer? I'll take it!

 

[xaflatoonx]

PM sent.

 

[AngryOwl]

Interesting observation today...

Today was the first day my lights have ran their full schedule. This includes a peak 4 hour period.

During the 4 hour period pH went from 7.96 to 8.21 (old tank maxed out at 7.7 or barely 7.8 on a good day)... Max pH was 8.0 before today... and temperature went up 2 degrees. I may add a fan just to keep things more stable.

I think the pH increase as a result of a ton of light is interesting. My hypothesis is hair algae photosynthesis is increasing causing an uptake in CO2 and increased O2 causing a pH increase.

Rocks are covered in algae currently. What will be interesting is seeing how the corals respond to this much light. I'm on the lookout for burned tips.

Anyways... interested if anyone else has observed this.

 

[Caruso86]

Really been enjoying your build and you taking us along for the ride! Kick butt system!

 

[AngryOwl]

Really been enjoying your build and you taking us along for the ride! Kick *** system!

Thank you! Glad you are enjoying this Angry journey Hoping I can figure this reefing thing out and make this a true showcase tank!