Another Build Thread You Won't Read

[JoJosReef]

If you're sure it is bryopsis, I would fluconazole it. Bryopsis never goes away unless you eradicate it and CUC is hit or mostly miss when it comes to eating it.

Side note, fluconazole shouldn't affect your corals, except for possible side-effects of treatment like parameter swings, which can be mitigated. This is because Fluc works against cell walls, which are present in plants, fungus and algae, but not animals like your corals, nems, fish and inverts which only have a cell membrane.

I'm about to Flux my tank because (earmuffs) FLUX bubble algae!

 

[Devisissy]

Ordered reef rx.

I ordered a diy lid (DD lid) while waiting for the other lid. Put it together today. My machine sort of scratched the frame even though I left the protective plastic on, so if I try this again I will use a hacksaw not my guillotine. But I do love cutting things with a giant scary blade.
Has a little feeder. A proflific (*sp) jumper will come right out that lid and on to your floor but for the most part with good measurements, aka not ones taken with a picture of a measure tape, it sits snug. A kit the size for a standard 90 eurobraced will do the ninty, and two three gallon cubes with 6 inches left over of frame and two inches left of spline, and a four by four chunk of mesh. With tax and the little feeder hatch 60 bucks and 20 minutes of my time, but I have machines, with a hacksaw maybe a little longer.

 

[TangerineSpeedo]

Ordered reef rx.

I ordered a diy lid (DD lid) while waiting for the other lid. Put it together today. My machine sort of scratched the frame even though I left the protective plastic on, so if I try this again I will use a hacksaw not my guillotine. But I do love cutting things with a giant scary blade.
Has a little feeder. A proflific (*sp) jumper will come right out that lid and on to your floor but for the most part with good measurements, aka not ones taken with a picture of a measure tape, it sits snug. A kit the size for a standard 90 eurobraced will do the ninty, and two three gallon cubes with 6 inches left over of frame and two inches left of spline, and a four by four chunk of mesh. With tax and the little feeder hatch 60 bucks and 20 minutes of my time, but I have machines, with a hacksaw maybe a little longer.

I use the Red Sea ones, I buy the biggest one they make and it is usually good for a bunch of tanks. The aluminum is a thick extrusion, which gives it a nice substance. Yours looks "very nice" <--- best Borat..
NO hacksaw! It has the word Hack in it and may look "hacked" like some bad B- movie horror.
A chop saw will do lovely. I am sure you already know this (but for the other folks out there, and your cousins that live on Hill st.) You can use a wood blade on non-ferrous metals. ie; Aluminum.

 

[Devisissy]

Also these clowns fish suck. So yesterday the boy ate some of the byropsis off the sand bed and that left a dangling piece of rock hanging out his mouth. I tried to catch him with a net to pull it out and in the process his dumb butt spit it out and I was able to remove it from the tank. Today I noticed the female now has the same thing. When she tries to eat she swallows the rock so she spits all her food out. Rinse and repeat. Now the damsal doesn't do this stupid crap. I tried to catch her to no avail. So maybe the rock falls off she lives, she swallows the rock and dies. I don't care she's 12 anymore. If this is the way she goes out then so be it. God clowns are the stupidest fish ever.

 

[Devisissy]

I use the Red Sea ones, I buy the biggest one they make and it is usually good for a bunch of tanks. The aluminum is a thick extrusion, which gives it a nice substance. Yours looks "very nice" <--- best Borat..
NO hacksaw! It has the word Hack in it and may look "hacked" like some bad B- movie horror.
A chop saw will do lovely. I am sure you already know this (but for the other folks out there, and your cousins that live on Hill st.) You can use a wood blade on non-ferrous metals. ie; Aluminum.

My Machine is what we use to cut down window frames. Designed to cut through aluminum. It was way overkill. The jig that holds the frame in place marred my little formed aluminum. A hacksaw with some silicone sprayed all over it would have made quick work of it too. I like how it has the little lip. Very handy. Not trailer court bad.

 

[TangerineSpeedo]

My Machine is what we use to cut down window frames. Designed to cut through aluminum. It was way overkill. The jig that holds the frame in place marred my little formed aluminum. A hacksaw with some silicone sprayed all over it would have made quick work of it too. I like how it has the little lip. Very handy. Not trailer court bad.

Using the term "trailer court" does not make carp eggs caviar...
"Trailer Park" or "Tornado Trap" is the the more appropriate term...

 

[Devisissy]

Using the term "trailer court" does not make carp eggs caviar...
"Trailer Park" or "Tornado Trap" is the the more appropriate term...

Using the term "trailer court" does not make carp eggs caviar...
"Trailer Park" or "Tornado Trap" is the the more appropriate term...

Our shack was on the river. We used to throw raging parties and coast guard would pull up and shine their lights on us from the water. Super annoying. Our fire pit was probably not code for county. Who knows.

 

[Devisissy]

Reef RX is here. Going to dump it in. This will give me a chance to work on my reactor that's leaked from day one since carbon needs to be pulled offline.

Hermits. They have killed almost all of $75 worth of snails. The smallest survive but the larger nerites and conches are all being killed by the hermits. If the shell is near their size they gang up on the poor thing and kill it. I watched it last night. So do I just give up on snails and have crappy hermits, or do I pull all the hermits and they, 7 of them can live in the 3 gallon. Alone. Like the ***** they are. Maybe I should see if a local fish store wants them.

Edited to add, duh I have a sump. That's where they live now. Crap now I need to buy more snails to replace the ones they killed.

 

[JoJosReef]

Reef RX is here. Going to dump it in. This will give me a chance to work on my reactor that's leaked from day one since carbon needs to be pulled offline.

Hermits. They have killed almost all of $75 worth of snails. The smallest survive but the larger nerites and conches are all being killed by the hermits. If the shell is near their size they gang up on the poor thing and kill it. I watched it last night. So do I just give up on snails and have crappy hermits, or do I pull all the hermits and they, 7 of them can live in the 3 gallon. Alone. Like the ***** they are. Maybe I should see if a local fish store wants them.

Edited to add, duh I have a sump. That's where they live now. Crap now I need to buy more snails to replace the ones they killed.

You know what they say in the reef, "like snails to the slaughter."

 

[Devisissy]

Most people at this level (4-5 months) have a crap ton of fish and corals but here I am with salt water rocks. Thank you for hanging in there with this boring boring tank build. No one is reading anyway. This post is boring and not funny so skip.

So I got my ICP back. Aluminum is higher. I am using Maxspect Balls and plates. Low flow and high flow areas of sump. That might be it. Not high enough to even be a worry. Copper is also elevated, but again it's not lethal. My copper test could not even pick up it up. Tin is high, someone told me that's from the tank glass. Iron is higher, but Nyos batch triton test also had elevated iron. So that's probably that. So I need to make a decision on the Maxspect balls and plate. I went with them, because I used them in my pond with amazing results. I thought since my rockwork is sparse they would take up the slack. I have decided to not make any changes until I'm done with the Byropsis treatment. Then I will do some water changes and retest.

I have decided to not do the Moonshiners. It's just so much up front cost and all those bottles and dosing. No it's not for me. It would be 13 bottles daily. Some of these bottles will take years and years to use all of. No smaller bottles are available. Then I ran into some old posts from 2018-2020 where he is asking Randy for help on formulation. So it's like Kent all over again? Hey maybe I will regret it. Maybe not. So it's a no. A sad no. I wanted to do it and have an amazing tank maybe.

Captiv8 Reef Blueprint is cost efficient. I could be up and running for like 5 bucks if I wanted. The customer support is amazing. The email he sent me was through. What hung me up is his calculator figures he sent me a screen shot of were completely different than mine. I don't know if the calculator is not compatible with Google sheets and that's why mine is not like the one he sent, or if I entered something wrong. If what he sent me is what I was able to see then I would have bought the stuff immediately. I am so thankful that he is willing to allow me to email him after every ICP but I have concerns that I need to resort to bothering him instead of using the tool available. He explained to me the expectations on what dosing will do for the tank and had several options on how to achieve said results. I mean you can't ask for anything better. For next to dang near nothing too. So that's sort of something I am thinking about. It's on the back burner for now.

The wife said something last night, she's smarter than me. She said, "What have reefers been using all these years." I was like Kalk and calcium reactors. She was like, "Just do that then." She said it like duh why so stupid? Kalk is an option for sure. But it is messy and that's one piece of extra equipment, same with calcium reactor. It's only 90 gallons, well 100 something with sup. So 2-part is the obvious answer.

Then I got to reading about BRS hybrid with tropic marin. That checks all the boxes nicely. Tropic Marin says, Hey your tank it too new, dont use us for a year, then come on over. It's simple. Easy. Then aqua forest comes over and whispers in my ear, hey, hey you, wanna see what we got? Then they take you into a back alley and instead of a good time you just get robbed and beat up.

So that's what I am up too. Waiting for Reef HD to kill the byropsis. Then I will get some corals finally and more fish. So yeah.

 

[TangerineSpeedo]

Most people at this level (4-5 months) have a crap ton of fish and corals but here I am with salt water rocks. Thank you for hanging in there with this boring boring tank build. No one is reading anyway. This post is boring and not funny so skip.

So I got my ICP back. Aluminum is higher. I am using Maxspect Balls and plates. Low flow and high flow areas of sump. That might be it. Not high enough to even be a worry. Copper is also elevated, but again it's not lethal. My copper test could not even pick up it up. Tin is high, someone told me that's from the tank glass. Iron is higher, but Nyos batch triton test also had elevated iron. So that's probably that. So I need to make a decision on the Maxspect balls and plate. I went with them, because I used them in my pond with amazing results. I thought since my rockwork is sparse they would take up the slack. I have decided to not make any changes until I'm done with the Byropsis treatment. Then I will do some water changes and retest.

I have decided to not do the Moonshiners. It's just so much up front cost and all those bottles and dosing. No it's not for me. It would be 13 bottles daily. Some of these bottles will take years and years to use all of. No smaller bottles are available. Then I ran into some old posts from 2018-2020 where he is asking Randy for help on formulation. So it's like Kent all over again? Hey maybe I will regret it. Maybe not. So it's a no. A sad no. I wanted to do it and have an amazing tank maybe.

Captiv8 Reef Blueprint is cost efficient. I could be up and running for like 5 bucks if I wanted. The customer support is amazing. The email he sent me was through. What hung me up is his calculator figures he sent me a screen shot of were completely different than mine. I don't know if the calculator is not compatible with Google sheets and that's why mine is not like the one he sent, or if I entered something wrong. If what he sent me is what I was able to see then I would have bought the stuff immediately. I am so thankful that he is willing to allow me to email him after every ICP but I have concerns that I need to resort to bothering him instead of using the tool available. He explained to me the expectations on what dosing will do for the tank and had several options on how to achieve said results. I mean you can't ask for anything better. For next to dang near nothing too. So that's sort of something I am thinking about. It's on the back burner for now.

The wife said something last night, she's smarter than me. She said, "What have reefers been using all these years." I was like Kalk and calcium reactors. She was like, "Just do that then." She said it like duh why so stupid? Kalk is an option for sure. But it is messy and that's one piece of extra equipment, same with calcium reactor. It's only 90 gallons, well 100 something with sup. So 2-part is the obvious answer.

Then I got to reading about BRS hybrid with tropic marin. That checks all the boxes nicely. Tropic Marin says, Hey your tank it too new, dont use us for a year, then come on over. It's simple. Easy. Then aqua forest comes over and whispers in my ear, hey, hey you, wanna see what we got? Then they take you into a back alley and instead of a good time you just get robbed and beat up.

So that's what I am up too. Waiting for Reef HD to kill the byropsis. Then I will get some corals finally and more fish. So yeah.

When you get to it, I think you should just let your corals tell you what you should do. In the beginning just water changes should do, then two part, then AFR. Right now my 40g SPS dom. Sucks up everything I throw at it. I am in the process of lowering the two part and boosting the AFR, but I am also dumping K- elements in because those are low. It is an evolutionary process that is ever changing and always will be. I believe the ppl. that are successful with systems, like moonshiners, have a stable tank. Probably all the coral is grown out or it has the same amount of frags etc. But you are far from that at this point. You have done a great job so far and haven’t killed any rocks in your tank. So that is something you have going for you. Plus you just just grew your first "Algae"... Good job!
When it comes time I have some SPS I don’t think you can kill. It will be good first year corals.

 

[CBonito]

If you're sure it is bryopsis, I would fluconazole it. Bryopsis never goes away unless you eradicate it and CUC is hit or mostly miss when it comes to eating it.

Side note, fluconazole shouldn't affect your corals, except for possible side-effects of treatment like parameter swings, which can be mitigated. This is because Fluc works against cell walls, which are present in plants, fungus and algae, but not animals like your corals, nems, fish and inverts which only have a cell membrane.

I'm about to Flux my tank because (earmuffs) FLUX bubble algae!

Sometimes you just have to say Flux it! I've had it with this Fluxing Algae crap myself.

 

[Janci]

Most people at this level (4-5 months) have a crap ton of fish and corals but here I am with salt water rocks. Thank you for hanging in there with this boring boring tank build. No one is reading anyway. This post is boring and not funny so skip.

Most reefers have fish a coral so fast that they are not aware what they got in to (and than there are a few that manage to grow sticks into 3' colonies in 7 months... but them we do not need to take in account)
With a good salt, some regular water changes and a good 3 part dosing you will get a long way already.

 

[Devisissy]

Sometimes you just have to say Flux it! I've had it with this Fluxing Algae crap myself.

Might as well right with no corals I can really make sure to nuke it.

 

[Devisissy]

Most reefers have fish a coral so fast that they are not aware what they got in to (and than there are a few that manage to grow sticks into 3' colonies in 7 months... but them we do not need to take in account)
With a good salt, some regular water changes and a good 3 part dosing you will get a long way already.

This is correct. This is the way.

 

[Troylee]

Most people at this level (4-5 months) have a crap ton of fish and corals but here I am with salt water rocks. Thank you for hanging in there with this boring boring tank build. No one is reading anyway. This post is boring and not funny so skip.

So I got my ICP back. Aluminum is higher. I am using Maxspect Balls and plates. Low flow and high flow areas of sump. That might be it. Not high enough to even be a worry. Copper is also elevated, but again it's not lethal. My copper test could not even pick up it up. Tin is high, someone told me that's from the tank glass. Iron is higher, but Nyos batch triton test also had elevated iron. So that's probably that. So I need to make a decision on the Maxspect balls and plate. I went with them, because I used them in my pond with amazing results. I thought since my rockwork is sparse they would take up the slack. I have decided to not make any changes until I'm done with the Byropsis treatment. Then I will do some water changes and retest.

I have decided to not do the Moonshiners. It's just so much up front cost and all those bottles and dosing. No it's not for me. It would be 13 bottles daily. Some of these bottles will take years and years to use all of. No smaller bottles are available. Then I ran into some old posts from 2018-2020 where he is asking Randy for help on formulation. So it's like Kent all over again? Hey maybe I will regret it. Maybe not. So it's a no. A sad no. I wanted to do it and have an amazing tank maybe.

Captiv8 Reef Blueprint is cost efficient. I could be up and running for like 5 bucks if I wanted. The customer support is amazing. The email he sent me was through. What hung me up is his calculator figures he sent me a screen shot of were completely different than mine. I don't know if the calculator is not compatible with Google sheets and that's why mine is not like the one he sent, or if I entered something wrong. If what he sent me is what I was able to see then I would have bought the stuff immediately. I am so thankful that he is willing to allow me to email him after every ICP but I have concerns that I need to resort to bothering him instead of using the tool available. He explained to me the expectations on what dosing will do for the tank and had several options on how to achieve said results. I mean you can't ask for anything better. For next to dang near nothing too. So that's sort of something I am thinking about. It's on the back burner for now.

The wife said something last night, she's smarter than me. She said, "What have reefers been using all these years." I was like Kalk and calcium reactors. She was like, "Just do that then." She said it like duh why so stupid? Kalk is an option for sure. But it is messy and that's one piece of extra equipment, same with calcium reactor. It's only 90 gallons, well 100 something with sup. So 2-part is the obvious answer.

Then I got to reading about BRS hybrid with tropic marin. That checks all the boxes nicely. Tropic Marin says, Hey your tank it too new, dont use us for a year, then come on over. It's simple. Easy. Then aqua forest comes over and whispers in my ear, hey, hey you, wanna see what we got? Then they take you into a back alley and instead of a good time you just get robbed and beat up.

So that's what I am up too. Waiting for Reef HD to kill the byropsis. Then I will get some corals finally and more fish. So yeah.

Top off with kalk and use all for reef! Very simple and works amazing! It’s the only additives I use on my tank and. It’s 300 gallons sps dominated. No need to dose anything else.. all for reef by itself works great but gets expensive on a tank my size so kalk helps offset the cost and keeps my ph up.

 

[Devisissy]

Top off with kalk and use all for reef! Very simple and works amazing! It’s the only additives I use on my tank and. It’s 300 gallons sps dominated. No need to dose anything else.. all for reef by itself works great but gets expensive on a tank my size so kalk helps offset the cost and keeps my ph up.

Can you believe Petco sells it now? The idea is very appealing. So all for reef is what I switched to on my 3 gallon pico and I have seen some great growth in the aiptasia (not kidding the tank is full of pest corals). But even more cost efficient would be the balling method, the true balling method, with BRS magnesium for once or twice a month adjustments. Randy has some recipes too. For real fun I could add the trace K and A to the two parts when the time comes I need to add the traces. I worked out cost, it's almost the cheapest with initial buy in and everything. I'm set up for dosing 2 part so it's logical.

I need to figure out my par at some point. I haven't even messed with the lighting yet.

 

[Devisissy]

So I could not figure out why the return chamber kept getting overfilled. My plumbing is spot on, then I realized what was happening. My red sea is back siphoning because the ato storage is higher than the sump level. So I have to use their stupid siphon block which is so gigantic and stupid it doesn't work with my trigger ato reservoir. It has to be in the dang reservoir so my five gallons is barely four now. This unit at the time seemed like a slam dunk buy. But all the little extras are poorly thought out, its insanely loud, inaccurate ato monitoring, the temp is never right. So all these extras I thought made it worth the price don't really work. The temp gauge is so high in the sump it's always five to ten degrees off what the controller and glass say.

So anyway. I guess that's "fixed" now.

 

[CBonito]

So I could not figure out why the return chamber kept getting overfilled. My plumbing is spot on, then I realized what was happening. My red sea is back siphoning because the ato storage is higher than the sump level. So I have to use their stupid siphon block which is so gigantic and stupid it doesn't work with my trigger ato reservoir. It has to be in the dang reservoir so my five gallons is barely four now. This unit at the time seemed like a slam dunk buy. But all the little extras are poorly thought out, its insanely loud, inaccurate ato monitoring, the temp is never right. So all these extras I thought made it worth the price don't really work. The temp gauge is so high in the sump it's always five to ten degrees off what the controller and glass say.

So anyway. I guess that's "fixed" now.

You should look and see whether you can purchase an anti-siphon valve from BRS or something. It comes with the Neptune ATK and I dont have any problems like that. It breaks the siphon every time because it's in RO water.

 

[TangerineSpeedo]

You should look and see whether you can purchase an anti-siphon valve from BRS or something. It comes with the Neptune ATK and I dont have any problems like that. It breaks the siphon every time because it's in RO water.

That valve takes up about the same amount of real estate as the Neptune one. I am actually using both systems in one reservoir. I do lose about a gallon because if I had the valve any higher there could be a possibility that it could squirt out the back on to the floor. (IM res). Because the res is so easy to fill I have made my peace with it.