Ashburn's 187g endgame tank

[ashburn2k]

Originally I was looking for a 200g marineland DD, because my current 90g is 4 feet wide and I dont want to redo the layout of my frag tank. so my choice for bigger tank would only limiting myself to 4 feet tanks only.

Last week I inherited this amazing tank from @livingwaterplanet, unfortunately the stand wont fit the current location where I will be putting this bad boy in. so that stand goes else where where i can make the best use of it.

between my two jobs and already not a lot of free time, I hope to make the thank upgrade minimal time need, so the animals won't suffer in the brute. and small frag tanks.

progress picture coming soon.

 

[ashburn2k]

How about this beast for start? Excuse me the mess.

 

[ashburn2k]

Latest update, main frame for the stand is up, just need to secure the stand with more screws and center braces

 

[ashburn2k]

Decided to finish it up.

 

[ashburn2k]

Next up, moving new sump under the new stand, and redo the plumbing/wiring.

Also adding the insulation foam board in the back do it actually gets insulated in winter.

Will move the tank in place tomorrow, cant’t wait! I’m excited!

 

[ashburn2k]

and yes it looks like it's a LeeMar tank, this thread has the same size, but side overflow.

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/187g-lee-mar-starphire-eurobraced-peninsula-build.50704/

 

[ashburn2k]

Finally got everything moved in last week, but it wasn't without some casualty. I put some fishes with rocks into my 32g brute with heater and mp40 with mesh cover ( i had some nems on the rocks that I'm not going to bother remove. and the day before I moved the animals back, noticing all my fishes got wiped out but the large goldbar maroon is still alive and kicking ( they were alive and eating gthe day before). turns out that my mesh cover came off and one of the nem walked into my mp40 and caused ammonia spike and killed the fishes in the brute. now looking back, i wish I would just dump all my fishes in the frank tank despite how over crowed it is, at least no one is going to die because a nem deiced to commit suicide.

now i'm down 4 chromis, a yellow tang ( had it for over a year now and it was getting big and fat ), starry blenny, male goldbar.

some corals moved in, still moving stuff around to get best placement/flow

moving on with a updated tank shot.

 

[ashburn2k]

Time for some updates, my tank is now going through a mini cycle, some rocks/sand are covered with brow/film diatom algae, but my snails are pretty good at getting rid of them.

added carbon into my reactor just to polish up the water a bit.
did 30g water change yesterday, everything looks stable, and all in range.
moved some more corals from frag tanks.
got some new fishes as well.

powder brown tang, powder blue is the one doing photo-bombing

this has to be the new fav, tomini tang

the new blue tang, kinda wish I didn't sell my other bigger one... but then again, I never knew that I was getting upgrade this soon.

 

[ashburn2k]

FTS Video as of today

 

[ashburn2k]

SIGHS* things just never stops, one of my lowboy frag tank has a leak, so water was lowered so to stop the leak, but hopefully it can hold until i get home later for a full take down and move corals to the other lowboy.

 

[ashburn2k]

Update since the tank leak.

fixed the frag tank with corner re-enforcement that they wont move, and glue the corner, also added a triangle piece to tighten the corner. so far it hasnt been leaking.

Here comes another disaster, i managed to knock over my co2 tank ( smaller one that i was going to finish up the rest co2 and it's wobbly ) over and hit the calcium reactor acrylic cylinder body, and crack developed starting from the hole at the bottom, assuming it's SOL and not repairable. but thank god i still have my old reactor, will have to refund the buyer $$ and do leak test today.

go some new SPS the other day and all of them are looking really good

I notice the colors are off, I guess I will have to use a real camera and correct light setting for photo shoot next time

 

[ashburn2k]

Thanks to apex, it warned me temperature drop and one of my 300w heater broke, had to throw in 2 100w heater for now until I get another high wattage heater in place.

 

[aztoza]

Goals.
It's also nice to see that things go wrong even for experienced reefers sometimes...and it's rarely a death sentence for the tank. Thanks for sharing.

 

[ashburn2k]

got new test kit refill in.

i know im not supposed to case the #... but here it is.
ph 8.2
and the rest to come later tonight

 

[ashburn2k]

Alk 12.97
Ca 450

New addition

Gold hammer
Beach bum

New calcium reactor

 

[ashburn2k]

i had a carx accident a while back where i did not see how much water was dumping back into the sump, and my tank had plunged ph way down to 5 or something, so i had to raise the ph back to 7 by adding the alk part from a 2part dosing. and lowering the alk little by little since then with water changes. thank god my tank has high nutrients and i haven't had any sps burns.

 

[ashburn2k]

edit: some new corals names for documentary

dbtc: german blue digi from @RandyC
superman monti
christmas tree worm
green porites
CRC rainbow acro
efflo acro
green milli

Pink Diamonds zoa
Spiderman zoa

 

[ashburn2k]

masterflex in place! Thanks @xcaret!
Waiting for 1/2 to1/4 barb reducer to arrive. How do you guys connect the soft tube to ro tube?

 

[ashburn2k]

Just when I thought I’m done with fine tuning carx and the co2, then reactor is leaking, ok fixed that. And just when i thought I’m done with it. the pump failed, now I have to find a way to unglue the fittings and use another external pump. And I’m about to be out of town for a week... maybe I should fix it when I come back.

 

[ashburn2k]

it's been a while since my last update, CarX has been stabilized and dosing. but the hack job on the pump replacement isn't pretty, it's what it is.

Replaced apex jr with apex classic

removed 90% of the nems from DT and jailed them in the nem box.
moved frag egg crate back to the frag tanks, hopefully this time GHA would be under control.

here are some tank shots.

FTS