AZMSGT build thread

AZMSGT · Nov 23, 2020

vanpire said:
WOW. This is amazing progress Ken. I have been meaning to ask you what type of rocks are those? I saw the pics out of the water and couldn't tell.

Caribsea rock.

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I used E-Marco 400 cement and BRS extra thick super gel super glue to build it up.

I have many pieces left over I can do a good deal on. It sells for 6.99 a pound. I’ll do $2 a pound.

AZMSGT · Nov 23, 2020

ScottB said:
Dude, you are not just waiting around. Great progress. Feels like just yesterday you were reporting on the seam fail.

That is a fine look you have going there. I've been transitioning my scape over to something roughly similar in order to:
a) achieve much better flow
b) allow me to keep the sandbed well managed
c) space out my colonies for a better reef aesthetic

Are you going to bring back ALL of your old coral? Or more specifically, what are you NOT going to put back in? I removed or fragged up probably 75% of coral by volume.

All my coral are being stored in a friends tank. Hopefully we can put them back in the tank in a few months.

AZMSGT · Nov 24, 2020

Progress pictures.

been running for 24hrs. I added bacteria in a bottle to help.

Sump and everything is churning along. The media in the sump is all from the previous tank. I kept it at temp, fed and circulated while I got the new system up and running. So it should have allot of my original bacteria in it.

KH Director waiting till I get closer to adding coral back to the tank. The stand it’s on is on rails and the rack will slide out for easy work on the KH and future ION director.

Power cabinet is a little neater but I still have the sensor cables for the GHL system to clean up.

AZMSGT · Nov 29, 2020

Fish are back in. 50% of my old rock is in to seed the tank as well as all the media I had in the sump. It’s not pretty at the moment. But that rock should do a good job of spreading bacteria to the rest of the rock. Also there is allot of coral bits still on that rock so if it starts to make a come back I would call the tank ready for my other pieces to start go back in.

ScottB · Nov 29, 2020

Looks good to me as I get what you are trying to do. In the midst of a gradual re-scape myself and trying to minimize system noise.

In your shoes I would feed fish heavy. Yes, it might contribute to the "uglies" but that is natural and manageable over time. All those sterile surfaces invite dinoflagellates otherwise. Get some film algae going, I say. Coralline can overtake that.

What are your near term expectations for biome development? Just curious.

Sorry you had to go through all that, but don't you think your new scape is almost worth it?

AZMSGT · Nov 29, 2020

ScottB said:
Looks good to me as I get what you are trying to do. In the midst of a gradual re-scape myself and trying to minimize system noise.

In your shoes I would feed fish heavy. Yes, it might contribute to the "uglies" but that is natural and manageable over time. All those sterile surfaces invite dinoflagellates otherwise. Get some film algae going, I say. Coralline can overtake that.

What are your near term expectations for biome development? Just curious.

Sorry you had to go through all that, but don't you think your new scape is almost worth it?

Yea, I really like the new scape. I am feeding heavy and I also added several bottled bacteria products that I keep on hand. Fritz, microbactor, bio spira and API Marine quick start. I’m a firm believer in diverse bacteria seeding.

Before I moved the fish I had already had added the bacteria products and sump material the day I started the tank. So it was running a week already before I added the fish and the old rock.

I know I’ll go through diatoms but hope I can avoid dinos. As a matter of fact I’m already seeing diatoms pop up. I also added in my snails that I had so they and the tangs will keep most algae under control... I hope.

AZMSGT · Dec 10, 2020

Nice to see some progress. Coraline is starting to spread from the old rock to the new tank and components. Little .25mm specs needed to get scraped off the glass. The old rock coraline is coloring back up from it's ordeal in the 55G tank under plain white LEDs. Lastly some bits and pieces of encrusted frags are showing some growth and life. This tells me my tank is progressing nicely and I will start putting back some corals soon. Will start with the LPS and go from there.

vanpire · Dec 10, 2020

Glad to see that it is doing well.

ScottB · Dec 11, 2020

AZMSGT said:
Yea, I really like the new scape. I am feeding heavy and I also added several bottled bacteria products that I keep on hand. Fritz, microbactor, bio spira and API Marine quick start. I’m a firm believer in diverse bacteria seeding.

Before I moved the fish I had already had added the bacteria products and sump material the day I started the tank. So it was running a week already before I added the fish and the old rock.

I know I’ll go through diatoms but hope I can avoid dinos. As a matter of fact I’m already seeing diatoms pop up. I also added in my snails that I had so they and the tangs will keep most algae under control... I hope.

That is a very solid update; glad to hear it. I like your bacteria approach. I have been pondering why my sticks have been lacking in PE these days and my nutrients kinda creeping up. Think I need to reseed again.

AZMSGT · Dec 11, 2020

ScottB said:
That is a very solid update; glad to hear it. I like your bacteria approach. I have been pondering why my sticks have been lacking in PE these days and my nutrients kinda creeping up. Think I need to reseed again.

What are you doing for export of nutrients? When my phosphates would climb, I would run GFO on timed running times to drop the phosphates. As nitrates climb I would crank up my algae scrubber Which would also bring phosphates down. It takes time and testing to find the balance but I kept everything well fed.

ScottB · Dec 11, 2020

AZMSGT said:
What are you doing for export of nutrients? When my phosphates would climb, I would run GFO on timed running times to drop the phosphates. As nitrates climb I would crank up my algae scrubber Which would also bring phosphates down. It takes time and testing to find the balance but I kept everything well fed.

This system is a 300G frag. I run socks, skimmer and refugium. My refugium hours used to be 4-6 hours but now 20 hours. I do about 15% WC every 2 weeks. PO4 stays between .1 and .15. Any higher and I drop a bag of Rowa in a sock for a week. It is my nitrates that have been rising to around 30 now despite upping refugium hours.

I have a ton of big fish in there -- tangs, foxface, algae blennys -- so I don't have much of an algae issue. Just limited PE on tenuis.

AZMSGT · Dec 12, 2020

YAY, added 3 corals in the tank yesterday. A Hammer, Frogspawn and Bali Green Slimmer. Here is a pick of the softies. these were all in the tank previously and now they are back. They have refilled and are expanding. While I don't have a picture of the slimmer it's got great PE.

AZMSGT · Dec 14, 2020

I wrote an article on how to modify the plumbing on these tanks. I'm running stock configuration at the moment. But soon will have a few changes to what is there. Once I get my UV and flow sensors back up and running I'll show the plumbing changes. In the mean time here is the article:

How To: Convert 32mm PVC pipe to 1" pipe. Red Sea plumbing used as an example.

One question that comes up allot is "How do I convert my metric plumbing to US spec?". Red Sea owners are always asking this. Here I will explain what Red Sea owners need to do to get a clean finish and conversion. Also the adapter I use can be...

www.reef2reef.com

Also I added 20lbs of miracle Mud to the sump today. Why? it seems to work well for some very advanced Acropora hobbyists. It adds allot of the trace elements that acros need. I'll probably add another 10lbs, I wasn't sure if I would have the room. Going to try to add back more coral in a week or so.

AZMSGT · Dec 16, 2020

Using my Redsea plumbing modification in the post above I installed one of my GHL 9000 flow sensors on the return line. These normally come with 25mm or 3/4” connectors and restrict flow through the 9000s. The 9000 flow sensor has an opening of 32mm/1”. So it was a horrible bottleneck point.

A member here on R2R (@Member No 1) made these 1” pipe adapters to replace the small 25mm Union connectors. The return flow is now better than it was in tank version 1. I was never able to get above 1750lph before, that was with 25mm and 3/4” pipe. When I hooked this up with the new 1” plumbing I jumped to 2150lph. I also took out two 90 degree elbows and installed 2 45 degree parts. That was without making any pump speed adjustments. Varooom.

Here’s the standard Redsea plumbing for reference.

Here’s the plumbing the way I had it in my first version. This has me using the 25mm 3/4” plumbing.

ScubaEthan · Dec 17, 2020

I love your rockscape! Can't wait to see how it looks with coral growing out. And thank you for your article contribution on the plumbing.

AZMSGT · Dec 17, 2020

ScubaEthan said:
I love your rockscape! Can't wait to see how it looks with coral growing out. And thank you for your article contribution on the plumbing.

Thank you, yea. hoping that the corals fill it nicely. The article was a spur of the moment thing. I found that adapter and saw just how useful it was I had to tell others.

AZMSGT · Dec 19, 2020

More corals back in the tank. Special thanks to @SawCJack00 for taking great care of these and others. Also thanks to him for being a great friend in a time of need.