Back to the hobby with a 230 gal system (Build thread)

MikeTheNewbie

Active Member
View Badges
Joined
Aug 16, 2020
Messages
357
Reaction score
244
Location
Michigan
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
Intro -
After 13 years of missing the hobby, I'm back with a plan to geek out with a large peninsula mixed reef tank.
I live in Michigan and have different hobbies like electronics, software, radio control, 3D design, and printing, woodworking, etc. It is a long and ever changing list. I consider myself a newbie in all of them.
I love how new technology is making reefing more accessible and I really like the sense of community within Reef2Ref. I'm a private person but after spending several nights reading through the forums I decided to follow other members' example and start my build thread. I plan to load my plans, bills of materials and share my opinions on the products I use and decisions I make. Hopefully this info will be helpful to others and serve as a log to see what decisions caused success and which ones didn't.

My first upload is a video of my first attempt to aquascape, using CaribSea LifeRock Regular, Arches and Shapes.
Aquascaping v0.1 @ Youtube
Inspired by BRS videos, R2R, and multiple pictures from google search. Constructive feedback will be greatly appreciated!
 
OP
OP
M

MikeTheNewbie

Active Member
View Badges
Joined
Aug 16, 2020
Messages
357
Reaction score
244
Location
Michigan
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
welcome! love the aquascape -- what fish/coral are you considering?
Thanks! I'm still undecided. I think I will be happy with LPS, I like the hammerheads a lot.
I have a long list of fish I like but I still need to analyze it to make sure they are compatible and define the order in which I will introduce them.
Most likely:
  • Black Storm Clownfish
  • Yellow Tang
  • Blue Tang
  • Orchid Dottyback
  • Royal Gramma Basslet
  • Blue Black-axil Chromis
I would love to have livestock that interact between them like schooling fish, pistol shrimp+goby, clowns + anemone, etc. But I still need to do more research. As always, suggestions are welcome.
 

Two Tides Aquarium Supply

Community Member
View Badges
Joined
Sep 11, 2020
Messages
46
Reaction score
42
Location
Pinellas County, FL
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
Glad to have you back with us, and killer scape. I agree with @Kryptonian, great arches make for a sense of visual space through the rock, and the separation between the 3 sections will leave plenty of room for coral in the long run.

I’d call it a great start!
 
OP
OP
M

MikeTheNewbie

Active Member
View Badges
Joined
Aug 16, 2020
Messages
357
Reaction score
244
Location
Michigan
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
And here is the actual tank in the process of cycling.


You can also see the smaller brother I'm planning to use for quarantining. I know it is too close to the main display tank but I don't have a lot of space left for tanks.
I'll share videos of the water mixing station and the sump soon. I have many DIY projects in mind and too little time. Acrylic/mesh top, lightweight canopy, etc.
 
OP
OP
M

MikeTheNewbie

Active Member
View Badges
Joined
Aug 16, 2020
Messages
357
Reaction score
244
Location
Michigan
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
Hi, things are going well. Thanks for asking. Many upgrades made to the system so far. A couple of weeks ago I got dinos on my sand but with help of the community I reacted fast and they have already started receding.
As part of the dino counterattack I stopped doing water changes cleaning the glass.
I hope to be able to take and upload a few nice pictures later in the week.
I'm happy with the aquascape as it has tons of crevices for my 9 Anthias. They cam dissappear in an instant. No coral so far, just 3 small anemones.
 
OP
OP
M

MikeTheNewbie

Active Member
View Badges
Joined
Aug 16, 2020
Messages
357
Reaction score
244
Location
Michigan
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
It's been a while since I saw my build thread and it was nice to remember the beginning of the journey. Here is an update of the current state.
  • Dealing with some spirulina and porocentrum dinos
  • One of my male anthias got popeye but he is recovering
  • I recently added some LPS and a couple of SPS. Unfortunately I'm still too newbie for SPS.
  • Bubble tip anemones are growing and splitting. They haven't left their rock yet so I'm not too worried.
  • I have a few trochus snail youngsters spread across the tank. I saw them spawning and didn't think they were actually going to survive.
I've been busy with DIY stuff, I'll start uploading some of the projects soon.
Pics and video below
20210703_170519_front_50pc.jpg


20210703_170534_back_50pc.jpg

 

Two Tides Aquarium Supply

Community Member
View Badges
Joined
Sep 11, 2020
Messages
46
Reaction score
42
Location
Pinellas County, FL
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
Beautiful. Love how the scape is shaping the tank, mix of activity with fish choice, and that custom canopy you made for the lights is sick!

To Your Success,
- Tyler Moon
Two Tides Aquarium Supply
 

kstripp

Community Member
View Badges
Joined
Mar 29, 2020
Messages
58
Reaction score
97
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
Hey, I have a question for you. In your thread about spirulina (which I found because I'm fighting as well), you posted a screenshot of what looked like Grafana for your parameters log. What database did you use for that, and what are you using for manual entry?

I brought this over here because I didn't want to sidetrack that thread...

And by the way, beautiful tank!
 
OP
OP
M

MikeTheNewbie

Active Member
View Badges
Joined
Aug 16, 2020
Messages
357
Reaction score
244
Location
Michigan
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
Oh thank you very much! It is getting better now that the porocentrum and spirulina are gone.
I'm using InfluxDB2 on a Synology Docker container. I've thought about doing a tutorial to install it on a raspberry pi but I haven't seen a simple/affordable solution for media that supports constant read/writes on the PI.
For manual entries I developed a simple HTML that posts the metrics to InfluxDB2 but I found a way to automagically push the results from the Alkatronic and Mastertronic to the database.
Hope this helps!
 
OP
OP
M

MikeTheNewbie

Active Member
View Badges
Joined
Aug 16, 2020
Messages
357
Reaction score
244
Location
Michigan
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
Tank update for October 2021: No more spirulina or dinos. Aluminum levels back to normal.
 

Aquatic acrobat in your aquarium: Have you ever kept an eel?

  • I currently keep an eel in my tank.

    Votes: 29 14.9%
  • I have kept an eel in my tank in the past.

    Votes: 32 16.4%
  • I have not kept an eel in my tank, but I hope to in the future.

    Votes: 35 17.9%
  • I have no plans to keep an eel.

    Votes: 96 49.2%
  • Other.

    Votes: 3 1.5%
Back
Top