Bills Reborn 120 gal Mixed Reef Tank

[Billldg]

Learned a lesson today that I'm sure the veterans already know. Filter socks may not be full, but that doesn't mean they aren't clogged! After work I got home and as always the 1st thing I did when I got home was look at my tank and the beautiful frags I have in it and I noticed my water level was almost overflowing onto my hard wood floors. I checked my ATO and found it almost empty. I started dosing Kalk a week ago, so I was worried that my PH and other parameters were high. So the 1st thing I did was check my parameters and thankfully they were not high. As of right now I'm only using a half teaspoon of Kalk per gal of RO/DI water and it only dumped 4 gals of ATO water. my PH was only 8.4, a tick high, but manageable. So I still changed as much water as I had left over from the weekend water change, which was about 8 gals, not much but still made me feel better. Then I checked to see what happened and this is were the filter socks come into play. I noticed that 1 filter sock was overflowing into the 2nd over the weekend but didn't think much of it because I have been periodically checking them and found no debris in them, BAD MISTAKE!!! the linings still clogged up and as a result caused the water to flow out of the overflow into the skimmer compartment. This may not sound like an issue but it slowed down the return flow and caused my return pump to pump out the water in the return compartment. My Tunze Osmolater sensor sensed that and started to add water, and kept adding water until roughly 4 gals dumped into the return compartment. Thankfully I found this and learned a valuable lesson, DON'T BE LAZY, stay ahead of the game and clean the filter socks before they think of becoming an issue. LESSON LEARNED!!! Everything is going good again and frags are looking awesome.

 

[Reztarkreefer]

WOW! Great timing to catch that! On a side note how are you liking the trigger sump? I got the same one a while back and because of my indecisiveness for my build I have yet to run saltwater through it!

 

[Billldg]

So far I like it, can be a little of a pain to get the socks out because the cutout is a little small, but not really a problem because it will force me to clean the skimmer cup as I will have to remove it to get the socks out, it does look cool though, lol! Plenty of room also.

 

[Reztarkreefer]

So far I like it, can be a little of a pain to get the socks out because the cutout is a little small, but not really a problem because it will force me to clean the skimmer cup as I will have to remove it to get the socks out, it does look cool though, lol! Plenty of room also.

That was honestly the first thing I didn't like about it, the blue acrylic piece that sits on top of the filter socks is a pita to remove! Until you get the puzzle figured out. The second thing is there's almost no accessibility to the black drain pipes

 

[Billldg]

Tank is coming along, just kinda at that point where its hurry up and wait. Finally getting some algae in the tank so a clean up crew is going to be ordered. My frags that I had to move into main tank due to a problem with my QT tank are loving the new accommodations and are starting to grow as I am using Kalk and now I'm having to dose to make adjustments.

 

[Billldg]

Another lesson learned today. I had assumed because my refractometer was new it would be calibrated, WRONG! I decided to check the calibration so I used the calibration fluid that came with it, the fluid if properly calibrated will read 1.026 ppm. I checked my refractometer and found it way off. So I adjusted it and them checked my tank water and found it at 1.023 ppm. This explains why my Akl, calcium, and mag were low and I had to supplement to raise them. I'm sure this also effected my frags. So now I have more salt ordered and when it arrives I will start a 100 percent water change, roughly 25 gals a day for 5 days. So moral of the story is never assume because its new its right.

 

[Billldg]

I just found a some great info from Randy Holmes Farley, I going to still do water changes, but as usual and instead add salt water to my ATO and let it raise up between the 2. I will add 1.030 water to my ATO as I don't evaporate a lot of water. Between the 2 I will be able to raise my salinity to 1.026.

 

[Mr.Rocc]

How are the marineland tanks?

 

[Billldg]

So far so good, hopefully it stays that way

 

[Lilmatty5dimes]

Tank and build look great. You'll get a lot more lesson learns in the hobby. Just remember to take it slow. Nothing in this hobby is quick.

 

[Billldg]

Since my last post I have added a carbon reactor, got my skimmer to actually work right and not overflow wildly, and just mounted 15 coral frags with more still to come. I said I would never go sps, but guess what, I just mounted 4 sps frags and will let these grow for a while. If my tank supports sps, as it is a newer tank, then I will get some higher end sps frags. No point in buying high end sps frags if your tank isn't ready yet. I must say that I really enjoy the sps frags though. I started to use carbon in a reactor as my algae was starting to get bad, I also added some GFO, half of recommend for a 120 gal tank. Took my first phosphate readings and they were at 0 ppm, so I turned off my skimmer first. checked it the next day and it was at .02 ppm. Checked it the following day and its back down to 0 ppm. When I feed the coral frags it bumps up but quickly go's back down to 0 ppm. I will pull out the GFO and just run carbon and see how that does. Only have 1 fish make it thru QT and I added it a week ago, talk about a little fish in a big pond, LOL! Not enough load on the tank right now to raise phosphates I guess. Have a big order of fish on the way and hopefully they will make it thru QT and I can add them to the DT. All my LPS frags are growing and are happy.

 

[RICH'S REEF]

The photo of that swing check valve just changed my life! Thank you!

 

[Billldg]

The photo of that swing check valve just changed my life! Thank you!

I see flapper check valves used in commercial and industrial situations all the time, as long as u keep a spare and dip the used one in citric acid every once and a while and swap them out, I see no reason why they couldn't be a reliable check valve for our systems.

 

[Billldg]

Well, my finger slipped and I just purchased 2 Ecotech XR15 G4 Pros, starting to get my parts together to install a T5/LED hybrid system. I'm in no rush as this fixture will cost me over a 1000 dollars. Like so many other people, I said I would only have LPS, and I also said I would only use LED to myself, well I was wrong on both, LOL!!!

 

[Billldg]

Tank is now 4 months old, still a baby.

 

[Dmsick]

Enjoyed going through your build thread. You and I started our tanks at close to the same time. You started yours just a week or two ahead of mine. Would love to see a new pic! Great work.

 

[Billldg]

Enjoyed going through your build thread. You and I started our tanks at close to the same time. You started yours just a week or two ahead of mine. Would love to see a new pic! Great work.

Thanks, keep trying to upload a pic but it keeps inverting it.

 

[Billldg]

Eventually I will post a pic, can't keep it from flipping pictures

 

[Harrison Gordon]

Nice thread you got here. I too want to try SPS as I have LPS and softies but the soft ones are doing poorly and I can't figure out why.
There are definitely many lessons learned--my latest, never leave the tops off the tank, as any fish can jump! (I was just letting them dry overnight from being cleaned)

Would definitely love to hear more about how it's been going, and see pics.....I've only had mine 8 months.

 

[Billldg]

Nice thread you got here. I too want to try SPS as I have LPS and softies but the soft ones are doing poorly and I can't figure out why.
There are definitely many lessons learned--my latest, never leave the tops off the tank, as any fish can jump! (I was just letting them dry overnight from being cleaned)

Would definitely love to hear more about how it's been going, and see pics.....I've only had mine 8 months.

I have a top, just haven't installed it yet. Gonna need it when I put in a Pink Streaked Wrasse. Upgrading my lights because I feel that it my biggest hurdle. I have several SPS frags now and they loose their colors, part of it is because of the tank being young, but I noticed when I moved the frags to the top they started to get some color back which means they don't have enough par which is why I am going to a hybrid with ecotech xr15 g4 pros, will have more par than I will ever need.