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AngryOwl
Angry
I'm still debating if I will do that. As I mentioned previously I need to move the other tank first and I want the transition to be as short and smooth as possible. One step at a time though!
Angry Upgrade 120 to 230 Peninsula!
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AngryOwl
Angry
250 pounds of dry rock ordered from Billy's Reef Connection. Buying rock is easily the most unsatisfying purchase you can make... :mad:
The plan is once I get the rock to begin designing my scape. Once I'm satisfied I will cement everything together where needed and then the rock will cure/seed to the date I'm ready to fill the new tank with water.
The plan is once I get the rock to begin designing my scape. Once I'm satisfied I will cement everything together where needed and then the rock will cure/seed to the date I'm ready to fill the new tank with water.
xaflatoonx
Valuable Member
hows the stand coming along? lol
OP
OP
AngryOwl
Angry
Not really any additional progress, it is partially painted on the sump side with just a first coat. I had a late meeting and couldn't get to the rest. I'd like to finish painting, trim and the electrical box this weekend. Electric box is low priority. I want to get this stand in the house asap.
Are you referring to dry rock in general or specifically Billy's reef connection dry rock? From what I've read and been told it is pretty clean, so I will maybe only do water changes and potentially run a skimmer during cycling.
OMGitsManBearPig
Active Member
Dooo it!This looks okay... but what about doing a deep red instead? Not sure if I've seen that done before... everyone seems to either have the inside black or white.
What’s life without a little FLAIR!
OP
OP
AngryOwl
Angry
Whelp that was the only push I needed. To the store we go ;Greedy
OP
OP
AngryOwl
Angry
I have no idea, but in my personal opinion I've built them each way now, I wouldn't build another stand using the standard 2x4 design. My current stand made of 2x4s and wrapped in plywood is bulky and was actually more expensive to build. I don't know if this helps lol
OP
OP
AngryOwl
Angry
OP
OP
AngryOwl
Angry
Making slow but steady progress, most of these things are not very difficult but are time consuming to get right. Waiting on some wood filler to dry then painting the trim. After that it comes inside!
OP
OP
AngryOwl
Angry
No progress made this week so far. I received a pump for my mixing station so I should be able to get it completed this weekend, along with getting the stand in the house.
With that said I think this build might be extended out by a bit. There are several large expenses I need (want) to make in order to get this tank running. The most major hit will be the lighting. I was planning to use the Giesemann Matrix II 60" 8 bulb T5 fixture. This was going to run me about $1200+250 for bulbs. However, I go on BRS today and see that the fixture is now discontinued...
So change of plans, we're going big.... 60" 8 bulb LED T5 ATI Powermodule Hybrid fixture... to the tune of $2500+250 for bulbs... At the start of this thread I said one of my lessons learned was getting what I really wanted the first time. We all plan to upgrade in the future and it ends up costing us more. I will need to wait a little longer to get my hands on this fixture and maybe it will be on sale during black Friday?
Here is a list of the large purchase essentials that need to be made to make the tank switch happen:
Tank: $1000 + $100-200 delivery
Canopy: Lets call it $250
ATI Fixture: $2750
Return pump: $300
Plumbing: $250 (random guess)
Total: $4750
The total above only gets the tank up and running to the point it can function. I will reuse what I can from my current build in the meantime. Most likely finishing the stand will take to the back burner. I still need to purchase the rock to face it and the doors.
I'm sure there will be other small things that add up fast. So far I've been saving my receipts and maybe once the tank is in the door I will start a running total so everyone can see how much debt I have ;Hilarious
With that said I think this build might be extended out by a bit. There are several large expenses I need (want) to make in order to get this tank running. The most major hit will be the lighting. I was planning to use the Giesemann Matrix II 60" 8 bulb T5 fixture. This was going to run me about $1200+250 for bulbs. However, I go on BRS today and see that the fixture is now discontinued...
So change of plans, we're going big.... 60" 8 bulb LED T5 ATI Powermodule Hybrid fixture... to the tune of $2500+250 for bulbs... At the start of this thread I said one of my lessons learned was getting what I really wanted the first time. We all plan to upgrade in the future and it ends up costing us more. I will need to wait a little longer to get my hands on this fixture and maybe it will be on sale during black Friday?
Here is a list of the large purchase essentials that need to be made to make the tank switch happen:
Tank: $1000 + $100-200 delivery
Canopy: Lets call it $250
ATI Fixture: $2750
Return pump: $300
Plumbing: $250 (random guess)
Total: $4750
The total above only gets the tank up and running to the point it can function. I will reuse what I can from my current build in the meantime. Most likely finishing the stand will take to the back burner. I still need to purchase the rock to face it and the doors.
I'm sure there will be other small things that add up fast. So far I've been saving my receipts and maybe once the tank is in the door I will start a running total so everyone can see how much debt I have ;Hilarious
OP
OP
AngryOwl
Angry
"Progress Updates"
Picture heavy followed by a rant about my current tank and its situation.
Got a few boxes of rock in last week. 250 pounds from Billy's Reef Connection, about $1.80/lbs shipped. I absolutely love the giant piece, it will be at the end of the tank as a giant overhang! Getting it to stay will be the fun part!
Here is a little paint job I did on that blueline 100 pump. It wasn't Angry enough before
And last but certainly not least... I've dry fitted the mixing station. Everything is looking good, need to grab another hose tomorrow and glue it. Hopefully everything is good to go and I'll do a walkthrough of how it works.
Picture heavy followed by a rant about my current tank and its situation.
Got a few boxes of rock in last week. 250 pounds from Billy's Reef Connection, about $1.80/lbs shipped. I absolutely love the giant piece, it will be at the end of the tank as a giant overhang! Getting it to stay will be the fun part!
Here is a little paint job I did on that blueline 100 pump. It wasn't Angry enough before
And last but certainly not least... I've dry fitted the mixing station. Everything is looking good, need to grab another hose tomorrow and glue it. Hopefully everything is good to go and I'll do a walkthrough of how it works.
OP
OP
AngryOwl
Angry
;Hilarious I couldn't help myself, I think we can all agree the yellow had to go... Also this was pretty time consuming lol
Rant incoming.
OP
OP
AngryOwl
Angry
Pics added.
As I mentioned in a previous post one can say I have started paying much more attention to the tank, keeping notes of all changes and testing parameters consistently. Simply summed up as pulling my head out of my .
Throughout this past month and half my corals have been looking great. Growth is taking off on my purple stylo, to the point I can notice it daily without pictures. The tester corals on my frag rack were also doing pretty good. But this Sunday/Monday I noticed one of the acros taking a turn for the worse... and a turn that has been a consistent frustrating pattern. I noticed it started to STN... while the other acro started to go from blue to brown.
The purple stylo looks amazing... tester birds nest is super fluffy. Weird green coral (acro??) looks fine, ugly but fine... and the other stylo looks good as well. With that said I can confirm my ALK has been stable holding at 7.4 +-1. Last water change was a few weeks ago and was only 5g. Parameters below (tested Sunday):
Alk: 7.3 hanna
Calc: 400 red sea
Mg: 1500 red sea
PO4: 3ppb == .009ppm hanna ulr phosphorus
NO3: .25ppm red sea
Since August 3rd I've been exclusively feeding frozen food once per day at night. I've since increased the amount I feed to about 3-4 cubes. Before each feeding I dose 2ml of Reef Energy part A or B. I dose on alternate days (i.e. part B today, part A tomorrow)... and I feed a little amount of reef roids everyday. I take a butter knife and get a small amount on the tip.
I'm cleaning the glass about every 2 days... the point being that nutrients are present.
Today I test par with my seneye.
Top of water: 375
Purple Stylo: 160-180 (for reference this is about middle of the tank)
Frag Rack: 120-150
Par numbers are for those who will say "your nutrients are too low so you're burning them with light"...
I suppose lastly I would like to add I'm running an rain2 algae scrubber that doesn't grow super great. I run it 6 or 8 hours (I forgot) and I only run 2 of the 4 lights. At this point the overflow weirs are growing more and better algae than the scrubber....
I'm running a 6 bulb ATI fixture, 4 Blue+, 1 true actinic, 1 aquablue special. 2 bulbs start at 6:30am, all 6 run from 11:30am to 6:30pm and lights out at 10pm.
This is pretty frustrating to watch happen over and over. I'm welcome any feedback or theories about what could be a legitimate root cause... but I'm not looking to turn this thread into an argument on low vs high nutrients... LED vs T5's... High Par vs Low Par... etc.
tl/dr: Tank is running consistent, all corals doing amazing (including other SPS), coraline growing awesome, but acros eventually STN.
Acros: Aug 10th left, Sep.7 right on all pics not labeled. Also I'm pretty sure these are 2 bulbs vs 6 bulb shots, #noob
Other frags and growth shots:
As I mentioned in a previous post one can say I have started paying much more attention to the tank, keeping notes of all changes and testing parameters consistently. Simply summed up as pulling my head out of my .
Throughout this past month and half my corals have been looking great. Growth is taking off on my purple stylo, to the point I can notice it daily without pictures. The tester corals on my frag rack were also doing pretty good. But this Sunday/Monday I noticed one of the acros taking a turn for the worse... and a turn that has been a consistent frustrating pattern. I noticed it started to STN... while the other acro started to go from blue to brown.
The purple stylo looks amazing... tester birds nest is super fluffy. Weird green coral (acro??) looks fine, ugly but fine... and the other stylo looks good as well. With that said I can confirm my ALK has been stable holding at 7.4 +-1. Last water change was a few weeks ago and was only 5g. Parameters below (tested Sunday):
Alk: 7.3 hanna
Calc: 400 red sea
Mg: 1500 red sea
PO4: 3ppb == .009ppm hanna ulr phosphorus
NO3: .25ppm red sea
Since August 3rd I've been exclusively feeding frozen food once per day at night. I've since increased the amount I feed to about 3-4 cubes. Before each feeding I dose 2ml of Reef Energy part A or B. I dose on alternate days (i.e. part B today, part A tomorrow)... and I feed a little amount of reef roids everyday. I take a butter knife and get a small amount on the tip.
I'm cleaning the glass about every 2 days... the point being that nutrients are present.
Today I test par with my seneye.
Top of water: 375
Purple Stylo: 160-180 (for reference this is about middle of the tank)
Frag Rack: 120-150
Par numbers are for those who will say "your nutrients are too low so you're burning them with light"...
I suppose lastly I would like to add I'm running an rain2 algae scrubber that doesn't grow super great. I run it 6 or 8 hours (I forgot) and I only run 2 of the 4 lights. At this point the overflow weirs are growing more and better algae than the scrubber....
I'm running a 6 bulb ATI fixture, 4 Blue+, 1 true actinic, 1 aquablue special. 2 bulbs start at 6:30am, all 6 run from 11:30am to 6:30pm and lights out at 10pm.
This is pretty frustrating to watch happen over and over. I'm welcome any feedback or theories about what could be a legitimate root cause... but I'm not looking to turn this thread into an argument on low vs high nutrients... LED vs T5's... High Par vs Low Par... etc.
tl/dr: Tank is running consistent, all corals doing amazing (including other SPS), coraline growing awesome, but acros eventually STN.
Acros: Aug 10th left, Sep.7 right on all pics not labeled. Also I'm pretty sure these are 2 bulbs vs 6 bulb shots, #noob
Other frags and growth shots:
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OP
OP
AngryOwl
Angry
Not much done today, picked up the hose I needed and some hose hangers. I glued up the PVC end that goes in the tank. I already wish I used an elbow at the bottom but we'll see how this design works. This end will not need to leave the tank, it will drain and fill... can't wait to get this operational. Maybe tomorrow... need more Angry spray paint
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