California Cade 1500 peninsula build

[salty_noob]

So after a pretty short wait for my new Cade 1500 Peninsula, it arrived from Algae Barn today, I can't say that the delivery was a success yet, as the crates arrived in a bit of a mess but it's here and I'll start the unboxing and build as soon as I am not working. Picture trying to show the pallet collapsed under the crates, the delivery guy was like "the pallet is trash, I can get it out of the truck and leave on the road". I persuaded him to try to get it into my garage and we made it most of the way before the pallet collapsed completely and left the 2 boxes stacked but with broken straps, leaning over to one side half way through my garage doorway. I'm not sure if the "fault" here is with the way Cade/AB ship the crates stacked on a pallet (935 lbs) or if the shipping company is just incapable of handling it right, but I have to say the response from AB was quick and helpful, so far I am very happy with their customer support.

I'll be transferring some of the (oversized) equipment from my current 55G corner tank along with the critters, and am looking forward to being allowed to have at least one tang... so far I have just ordered the return pump (Sicce Syncra SDC) and heaters (twin BRS titanium elements on an inkbird). I am planning to build it up slowly and am investigating the potential for a Raspberry Pi based controller.

updates as they become available ......

 

[Scottrshoe]

Exciting days ahead! can't wait for pics

 

[fishface NJ]

Congrats on the new tank. Hope all is in excellent shape when you unbox

 

[salty_noob]

Week 2 update : added some LED lights from home depot to the sump area, base is moved to its intended location and I've started playing with the free rocks from Algae Barn. My plan (from painful experience on my current tank) is to leave a 6" white space on all sides to facilitate cleaning and good flow but that feels like I will struggle to incorporate enough rock without it looking cluttered so I guess some of it will end up in the sump. Plan is to have the tank moved into place this week.

 

[salty_noob]

Week 3 update - it's in the house plumbed and ready to fill, now making water as quickly as I can to get it filled. My observations for phase:

If you are moving one of these tanks, the suction cup handles (10") and a gorilla cart make it manageable but you will still need at least 3 strong people.

The Cade plumbing is not as easy as it looks in the videos, but it is possible to do on your own (one or two times it would have been really handy to have a second pair of hands), the piping and fittings all seem to be really nice quality but I am still concerned that the connection to my Sicce return pump is not as secure as I would like because the "barb" fittings that came with the pump were too small and the pipe for the pump that comes with the tank is quite stiff, if anyone has experience with the SDC pumps and this pipe I would love to hear how you did it.

For some reason the 2 power strips in the panel were not the same way around, one had the breaker at the top, the other at the bottom, I'm not sure if that was intentional but it means all of the switches are the other way up as well so this didn't seem like something I wanted to live with. I've flipped one around and it actually tidies up the wiring behind a little as well.

One annoying discovery is that the Inkbird controller is hardwired to the switched sockets and this will not go through the openings in the panel. (you will see in one of the pictures I just temporarily hung it outside), I think I will have to open up one of the holes somehow.

Overall I'm very impressed with the tank and stand, no major issues in set up so far. Can't wait to get it filled and cycling.

 

[Lost in the Sauce]

That's a beautiful tank. I get leaving a standoff between the glass and the rock work but it is severely limiting as far as how's much rock you can get in there for fish habitat.

I don't know your proposed stocking list outside of being stoked to put a tang in (love me some tangs) but I would try to work on the scape a bit more specifically shooting for fish habitat where they can retreat to. Being a peninsula, Your fish just can't run behind the rock to get out of view. I've found the old adage to be correct that the more abilities for a fish to hide, The less they actually do.

This was an issue when BRS was pushing the NSA Fad and a lot of reefers who followed suit, have found the same thing that BRS did in time.

 

[salty_noob]

That's a beautiful tank. I get leaving a standoff between the glass and the rock work but it is severely limiting as far as how's much rock you can get in there for fish habitat.

I don't know your proposed stocking list outside of being stoked to put a tang in (love me some tangs) but I would try to work on the scape a bit more specifically shooting for fish habitat where they can retreat to. Being a peninsula, Your fish just can't run behind the rock to get out of view. I've found the old adage to be correct that the more abilities for a fish to hide, The less they actually do.

This was an issue when BRS was pushing the NSA Fad and a lot of reefers who followed suit, have found the same thing that BRS did in time.

Completely agree with you regarding the limitation caused by wanting to leave a clear gap for flow and cleaning, and this is much more impacting with the peninsula. There are caves in the base of both structures and (most of) the existing rock from my 55G corner tank will be coming over with the critters once the tank is cycled so this will add another layer of structures around the base of the taller one.

No idea what my final stock will look like but it will for sure include a couple of tangs.

 

[Lost in the Sauce]

Completely agree with you regarding the limitation caused by wanting to leave a clear gap for flow and cleaning, and this is much more impacting with the peninsula. There are caves in the base of both structures and (most of) the existing rock from my 55G corner tank will be coming over with the critters once the tank is cycled so this will add another layer of structures around the base of the taller one.

No idea what my final stock will look like but it will for sure include a couple of tangs.

If you do a gradual slope up away from the glass, You can have the rocks starting only a few inches away at the base, with room to clean around.

I didn't realize you had more rock coming over from the 55. I thought what is in there now is it.

 

[salty_noob]

Quick update :

Water is in and all the plumbing seems watertight, pump running at 50% while everything settles out and the cycle gets going.

Why did no one warn me about the stench of Fritz Turbostart.....

Fixed my inkbird/panel problem without having to cut the panel, the socket on the inkbird comes apart very easily and I was able to just thread each piece through and re-assemble on the other side.

Any good suggestions out there for getting the residue from the sand/rocks off of the surface? The flow from the peninsula set-up returns does not create a decent flow of surface back to the weir.

 

[NowGlazeIT]

So after a pretty short wait for my new Cade 1500 Peninsula, it arrived from Algae Barn today, I can't say that the delivery was a success yet, as the crates arrived in a bit of a mess but it's here and I'll start the unboxing and build as soon as I am not working. Picture trying to show the pallet collapsed under the crates, the delivery guy was like "the pallet is trash, I can get it out of the truck and leave on the road". I persuaded him to try to get it into my garage and we made it most of the way before the pallet collapsed completely and left the 2 boxes stacked but with broken straps, leaning over to one side half way through my garage doorway. I'm not sure if the "fault" here is with the way Cade/AB ship the crates stacked on a pallet (935 lbs) or if the shipping company is just incapable of handling it right, but I have to say the response from AB was quick and helpful, so far I am very happy with their customer support.

I'll be transferring some of the (oversized) equipment from my current 55G corner tank along with the critters, and am looking forward to being allowed to have at least one tang... so far I have just ordered the return pump (Sicce Syncra SDC) and heaters (twin BRS titanium elements on an inkbird). I am planning to build it up slowly and am investigating the potential for a Raspberry Pi based controller.

updates as they become available ......

Nice score congratulations!

 

[Longatto]

following. any updates?

 

[salty_noob]

Not too much to report right now, tank is cycling, ammonia has peaked and dropped, nitrites are now dropping but still too high for fish/invert/coral/rock transfer from the other tank. Currently making a mount for the lights, I will post on that when it's complete.

 

[salty_noob]

Quick update as still cycling, have finished mounting the control panel with the Octo Regal skimmer now installed and running just to break it in. I also kicked off my refugium, choosing one of the chambers downstream of the skimmer and installing a grow light. Chaeto from Algae Barn, hoping this will tidy up the tail end of the cycle now that the nitrites are dropping fast, hope to be able to transfer all the critters soon.

The light bar I have made using 2 brackets that came with the "cheap" (US marine) lights I started with before buying the Kessil AP9X that I am swapping from the old tank, I added an aluminum extrusion from amazon and am currently 3D printing some brackets to suspend the lights from the bar. My plan is to use the AP9X from the old tank and add a 360X further along the bar to fill in the coverage,

 

[salty_noob]

One thing I have come across in this build is that the filter socks that come with the cade system (and the ones I got as extras to switch them out) seem to have an issue, unless I am doing something wrong.

When changing the socks, I could not get them to stay seated in the frame properly and of course as they pop up, they cannot be filtering effectively, realized today that they are not staying seated because air gets trapped in the rim because they are rolled over at the edge. If you look at the pictures below you can see the air trapped in the top.

So I tried to fix this by drilling a series of small holes around the rim, they are small enough to not risk any water flowing through, but large enough (kind of, as it turns out) to let the trapped air out. It seems to help the problem quite a lot, see the last picture, but not completely removing all the air, I think it really needs more, or maybe slightly larger holes.

Anyway, I thought I would share in case anyone else is having this issue, or if CADE would like to implement this improvement in their socks, I am sure at $10 a pop, the additional cost of molding a few holes in there is not going to impact your margin too much. Of course, if there is a trick here I am missing, I would be happy to hear it.

 

[Daniel@R2R]

Looks like a really nice setup!

 

[salty_noob]

Finally it's transfer day , tank seems to have cycled effectively, nitrocycle and turbo start gave me a very "as expected" cycle with a big ammonia spike lasting for 7-10 days, nitrites and nitrates appearing as expected transitioning to just nitrates at a moderate level (<10ppm). I think I artificially reduced the nitrates towards the end by starting up my Chaeto based fuge in that last few days. Total cycle time around 3 weeks.

So all the rock, and my minimal set of corals are transferred along with my little group of critters:

2 clowns, 2 bangai cardinals, 1 azure damsel, 1 royal gramma, 2 tuxedo urchins, 1 emerald crab, 1 porcelain crab, 2 peppermint shrimp.

I'm going to allow it settle for a couple of weeks before considering to add any more fish, so it looks pretty empty right now.

The only potential casualty of the move was my pistol shrimp, unless he transferred unseen with one of the rocks, I was unable to find him despite painstakingly and carefully removing and sifting the sand bed.

Here's a few pic's of the current set up, including the 3D printed light hangers, I think they came out pretty well. The light is not enough for the whole tank, but the bar set up will allow me to add another (A360x) to fill in the end.

 

[salty_noob]

So coming out of the cycle, my Alkalinity seems a little low at only 6-ish. I'm going to see if that changes during the coming days and then if necessary try to bump it to 8+.

Other parameters, as a baseline:

Temp 76-76.5 (inkbird control window?)
PH : 8.25 (probe measurement)
Alkalinity : 5.9 dKH (Hanna)
Salimity : 1.024 (Milwaukee)
Pho : 0 (Hanna)
Ammonia "0" (API)
Nitrite "0" (API and "runbo" test strips)
Nitrate : approx 5ppm (nyos)
Calcium : 425 (Hanna)

Not measuring mag yet.

 

[Longatto]

looking good!

 

[hockeyhead019]

Looking real good! Hopefully the pistol shrimp was just tucked up inside of one of the rocks, that's how mine was the two times I moved him.

 

[salty_noob]

So 2 month(ish) update,

Temp 76-76.5 (inkbird control window?)
PH : 8.25 (probe measurement)
Alkalinity : 8.2 dKH (salifert, hanna checker says "0", assume reagent is dead despite expiration date)
Salimity : 1.024 (Milwaukee)
Pho : 0.1 (Hanna)
Ammonia "0" (API)
Nitrite "0" (API and "runbo" test strips)
Nitrate : approx 15-20ppm (nyos)
Calcium : 425 (Hanna)

Got my lights nicely sorted, added an A360x to the AP9 using that as a controller for the smaller light, in case everyone doesn't already know this, the K-link cable is nothing more than a USB-C, so I was able to get one the right length (3 feet) rather than the 10ft k-link (and at much lower cost) to keep things nice and tidy.

All in all looking pretty stable, reduced the hours of light for the Chaeto to try to bring the nitrate and phosphate above zero/zero (seems to have worked) and the few corals that I transferred are looking happier.

Now the bad news, me learning my QT life lesson. Despite buying all my previous fish and inverts from various sources (including petco), I have been apparently very lucky so far. With the tank looking happy and all the inhabitants moved across successfully from the old 55G tank, I decided it was time for a couple of new fish and some additional CUC.

Added some new snails, an arrow crab, a fox face and a powder brown tang......

Despite the fish coming from a well regarded LFS where they were kept in separate tanks and them both looking very clean and healthy on purchase, within a few days of introduction to the tank, the tang breaks out in a massive case of velvet.

So far the tang and my royal gramma are dead, my two clowns are in an isolation tank with copper, but looking quite bad, the rest of the fish are still in the main tank, not showing any signs but not looking like I am going to be able to catch them without ripping the whole tank apart.

At this point I am hoping for the best but accepting that I will probably lose them all and be facing a fallow period before rebuilding, this time with strict quarantine using the old 55G tank.

Happy with the way the tank was progressing but devastated by the loss of fish.

I had to acclimate them very slowly because the water from the store was only 1.019 compared to my 1.024, I am still not sure what to make of a store having their salinity so low, is this normal?