Don't call it a comeback! 50 gallon refresh/rebuild/transfer.

[JTP424]

I know it's been a hot minute since I've posted, my 15 gallon is still doing ok, ran into a few issues here and there, lost a few corals, some stupid mistakes like things too close or letting a dosing container run dry...

Finally starting my first large build!

A gentleman near me was selling his livestock on Nextdoor, he was moving etc. Went to go look at everything and we ended up making a deal on the whole tank set up instead of just the livestock.

It's a 50 gallon freshwater that's been converted.
Two 10 gallons plumbed in the bottom of the stand for a sump/refugium, original AI primes, and a whole bunch of other goodies.
Massive toadstool, a bunch of cabbage, zoas, kenya tree etc, and a handful of fun fish...If I recall, one or two pajama cardinals, a red stripe(i think angel?), a clown, diamond goby, cleaner shrimp, damsel etc.

Picking it up this weekend, here's the kicker!
I'm putting it in a house I don't live in yet, but will be moving into. Moving in with my girlfriend (fiancé hopefully pending Christmas) as soon as both of our houses are ready for me to move... So I'll be over there multiple days a week to check on it etc.

Bonus it'll get me over at her house more to do more work on it to get it ready.

SO!!!
Here's the plan....

Catch the fish and put them in 5 gallon buckets with bubblers.... These are going to go in the cab of my truck, the drive is about an hour... do we think they'll be ok temp wise? it's in the 50s outside, but they'll be in the truck cab, plus when they get in the new place I can have heaters put in... Probably max two fish per bucket...

Coral on rock to go into 5 gallons as well. No concerns on these...

Drain tank and pack up sand (I have 40 lbs of new I'm adding, going to rinse the old and re-use as well)

Tank will go in the cab of my soon to be FILs truck... stand will go in the bed of one of the two.... everything else is equipment etc so buckets and boxes.

Putting in new sand as said above, some more rock structure, and going to use half of my t5 hybrid to supplement light...

I'll have new saltwater sitting and waiting at the new location, so a quick citric wipe down and RO scrub before re-assembling.

Anything else I should consider? (Beyond peoples thoughts on corals etc :P)

I feel I lucked out on this find, price is right and the dude is super awesome.
*Guy was kind enough to let me know it had a bit of a bristleworm infestation which he didn't know until I said I wanted it, he wanted to make sure I was still interested, I appreciate the integrity.

 

[Rocks reef]

You have a great plan for the transfer sir! Keep us posted!

 

[JTP424]

We were able to get everything in one trip and one truck.
Guy gave me a bunch of extra goodies. Bunch of various buffers, supplements, as well as a brand new 10 gallon.

Confirmation of Livestock:
Red Stripe Angel
Blue/Yellow Damsel
2 x pajama cardinal
Diamond Goby
Standard Clown
Giant toadstool
Bunch of Kenya Tree
Cabbage/Leather
Multiple zoa colonies

Update to follow.

 

[JTP424]

So unfortunately the day/night of the transfer I had a concert to go to that evening... So had a very small window of setup time to get things running at the new location.... Had to make some decisions...

Cleaned the stand outside, removed all the salt creep I could find and cleaned the sump the best I could. I'm keeping the rubble in it for now and keeping it wet, I'll probably take it out and rinse it at some point. Unfortunately I'm not going to be able to get the sump fully operational before I have to step away from the tank for a few days, I have several HOB pumps and I'm sure there is enough bacteria in the big chunks of rock to suffice until then. It's actually a really nice stand, plywood, not MDF so I have no concerns regarding structure, the top that housed the lights got beat up with salt so I'll probably rebuild that and how it held the lights... The lights are another story!

Premade my saltwater, but with it being the midwest it's starting to get cold and I forgot to get the water up to temp prior...

Set the tank and cut some egg crate for the bottom, the pieces of rock are big and heavy, no need to damage the bottom glass.

Filled it with fresh salt and about 50 lbs of new rinsed sand. I kept the sand that was previously in the tank and I'm going through and rinsing as well and sifting out the vermatid tubes and dead bristleworms. Temp was about 65 when it was first filled. Fish are all in coolers with bubblers.

Threw half of my T5 Hybrid on top so I could see what I'm doing, that area of the house has no lights for some god awful reason!

After we got out of the concert, the tank temp was up to 75, fish were moving slow and cooler water was cold.... acclimated faster than normal and put the fish in....

As the fish warmed up they started moving again...
Everyone seems good, I feel bad for the Angel... I know it's not the correct tank size for him, so he may be moved/sold.

Photo of the tank before we went to the concert:

Premaking saltwater since I don't have an RO/Saltwater station at the house this tank is living in.

Stand is clean!

 

[JTP424]

Didn't really do any acclimation for the coral/rocks, temp was low and didn't want to wait too much longer.... dropped them in quick along with some PVC for the fish, I'm going to be adding new marco rock when I have time to redesign the scape....

Put in a single HOB for now, the other one I have needs to be cleaned, I think its a Tidal 55? Picked it up from @mjszos. Also put in two wavemakers due to the tank length. Some more egg crate on top for light support until I build out the top again. Have it on a timer for about 4-6 hours a day right now....

I won't be able to get back to the tank for a few days, set up an auto feeder, and have my GF at the house keeping the water level stable with RO until I come back....

Next trip is going to be working on the scape, adding a second HOB, and some more setup regarding the top until I can get the lights/top running. I've also got a ATO reservoir the guy gave me that needs an acid dip....

 

[JTP424]

Sooo the lights....
Looks like (3) AI Sol Blues??
A bunch of Individual LEDs are out on them.... I think I can get 2 decent full lights if I combine the pucks that have the most LEDs still running.... Where I work has an lighting engineering lab... so I may bring in the ones that have a single LED etc and see if they can teach me to resolder them to get a few more 3 led pucks...

They also need a really good scrub down. When I rebuild the header I'm going to give them some more airspace for the fans...

Took them apart and swapped pucks tons and tons of times (I think there may be some pin connectors that are dirty, going to grab my cleaner from my automotive kit to try and fix)

Ran into an issue, the screws were too corroded into the aluminum block. One light I was able to remove the cover fully, the second I broke a screw off in the housing, but it still has three... May eventually try drilling it out....
third... all four screws broke... need to find my lock pliers and get some pb blaster in there....

Ended up with two solid lights when all is said and done, both have 4 sets of 3 leds in the center, and the outside are all 2 leds.
The last light is just a mix of single LED or two LEDs, I'll bring the pucks into work as noted above and see if I can get some (3) LED pucks out of all 8....

Need to pick up some replacement screws for the housings... as well as come up with a better hanging system...

The lights on their original mounting setup:

Noting pucks w/ 2 or 3 leds and adjusting...

Putting back together....

Before cleaning the heat sink...

Another before...

progress...

 

[JTP424]

Lost one of the pajama Cardinals overnight, he was looking a little rough to begin with.... the other ones tail is probably going too.... I need to spend some time to rebuild the scape to give the fish some more hiding spots.... but focus first was just to give everything a healthy environment.

Dropped in a AutoAqua Ultimate ATO (Had one leftover) Until I clean the Hydrofill, also put in some Chemi-blue just to be on the same side.... Phosphates on a Hanna ULR was reading .9 but I had fed them about 2 hours prior.

Moved some of the wavemakers around as well to get flow all across the tank.

Salinity - 34.5, so letting some evaporate to hit the right mark (Hanna)
PH - 7.4-7.8 (API)
DKH - 10.8 (Hanna)
Magnesium - 1205 (Hanna)
Nitrate - 9.8 (Hanna)
Ammonia - 0-0.25 (API)
Temp - 75-77 varies, working on correcting with a bigger heater

Next steps...

Part A
- Finish rinsing old sand clean, tons of red and gross water coming out still. using basically a litter scoop to get out all the dead bristleworms etc.
- Put in all the old cleaned sand
- Pick through rocks in scape, toss ones with duplicate corals, (unless anyone wants some crazy growing Keny) and re-arrange what is in there, probably still fill about 1/2-2/3 of the tank
- build a night cave/alcove heavy structure to fill the rest
- PUT IN GROUND PROBE (I've got one, never used one before....)
- This step should be completed this weekend

Part A.2
- Acid clean ATO, it has algae in it....

Part B
- Figure out a lighting schedule /mixture
- I've got (2) T5 hybrid halves (4 bulbs total), (2) Ai Prime HDs, (1) Current Loop 48' light, (2) AI Sol Blues, not sure which to use....

Part C
- Rebuild Hood/Light hiding structure
- old hood had rusted hinges and the ply was delaminating, have some solid bamboo wood etc I can rebuild it with. Need to find proper hinge replacement etc,
- using light choice, determine proper mounting etc.
- I may get this partially done this weekend as well.... Probably buy new door hinges when I do this.

Part D
- Rebuild Sump/Refugium
- Confirm tube between tanks is watertight
- Replace tube with actual bulkhead if not
- rebuild HOB overflow
- replace hoses with solid plumbing

Just a few more things to do right?!??!?
RIGHT!?!?!?!?!



Fish seem to have better color and are swimming around more...

 

[JTP424]

Ok, so most of this weekends projects are completed.

Rinsed about a quarter of the sand and put that in the tank to fill in a bit. Need to do some more but it is taking a while to get it really clean....
Kept almost all of the previous scape, stacked things and set them so they have a more interesting structure.
Built a cave heavy structure, dropped that in between the gaps. I think it looks better now.
Ground Probe and Temp controller installed. We're at a constant 78 now.

T5 light half is on for about 6 hours a day now with a supplemental blue LED, corals seem to be ok. Once the tank is self sustaining I'll grab a par meter and see what else can be done.

Tank sits about a quarter inch off level. Nothing too crazy but there is a slight angle of the water.

Going to buy some new cabinet hinges today, old ones are pretty rusty. Merely aesthetic but might as well do it.
Might try to organize some cables later as well, also figure out some shelving system etc.

Clownfish looks.... interesting... he chills at the top most time, hopefully he's just being a dumb clown.

 

[mjszos]

A little delayed, I’m not very active on R2R these days. Indeed a Tidal 55.

Glad to see the tank coming along, friend!

 

[JTP424]

A little delayed, I’m not very active on R2R these days. Indeed a Tidal 55.

Glad to see the tank coming along, friend!

I completely understand! Hope you're well!

 

[JTP424]

Finally got the AquaGadget RO tank cleaned....
A few days soak with Muriatic and some super long spindly brushes for the water level...

Before:

After

Going to work on replacing the ATO this weekend, might drop in a coral from my 15 gallon for fun.
Some more cleaning of the sump and prepping it and its overflow box for use.
Waiting until I get some redundancies to fully use the overflow box...Still running off the two HOBs.
This has gotten me wanting to start up my 30 frag again though....

 

[JTP424]

Ok! So unfortunately I didnt have time ti get the bigger ATO installed. But I got more sand in the tank and put in a gyre! First one I've used so I have it turned super low on constant until I figure out a program....
More to follow!

 

[JTP424]

The fish like the girlfriend better than me...
Haven't seen the damsel any time I've been over there but he comes on out for her....

 

[JTP424]

I've gotten confirmation that the engineering team in my office is willing to solder in new leds for the Sol Blues.... they've even provided me with which LEDs to get!!!
I'll post links shortly....

 

[JTP424]

Ok!
So I've been working on both updating the LEDs/lighting, as well as trying to get the sump up and running again...

The LEDs will have to wait until Christmas, due to costs etc, but should have two full Sol Blues by the time I'm done, I have one complete, just need to get the other one running...

The sump...
I ordered what I thought was the correct thing from Autotopoff.com...
Ended up with a DC plug.... instead of a 3 prong... Images on site and order both show what I intended....
Have emailed the shop with no response, so started dispute with paypal, and ordered a second...

Toadstool polyps are starting to extend!

 

[JTP424]

Also need an emerald crab for all the bubble algae in this tank... oof...

 

[JTP424]

Got the sump up and running!!!
Starting with just bags of Matrix, and the two bags of Chemi-Blue I had in the HOB.
Not running the skimmer as I don't want to strip the water column COMPLETELY.
Have the Fuge light set up too for when I drop some Macro in there.
Corals from @Corals.com came in and they are GORGEOUS. Can't wait for them to grow out....
Autotopoff.com came through and got me the right part! Super easy to deal with. HIGHLY recommend them for anything autotopoff/float related.
Having issues keeping up to temp in the cold... it's in single digits here in the Chicago area...
So a new heater is on it's way... I realized I'm adding around 15 gallons of more water to this and running off underpowered heaters as is....

 

[Corals.com]

Got the sump up and running!!!
Starting with just bags of Matrix, and the two bags of Chemi-Blue I had in the HOB.
Not running the skimmer as I don't want to strip the water column COMPLETELY.
Have the Fuge light set up too for when I drop some Macro in there.
Corals from @Corals.com came in and they are GORGEOUS. Can't wait for them to grow out....
Autotopoff.com came through and got me the right part! Super easy to deal with. HIGHLY recommend them for anything autotopoff/float related.
Having issues keeping up to temp in the cold... it's in single digits here in the Chicago area...
So a new heater is on it's way... I realized I'm adding around 15 gallons of more water to this and running off underpowered heaters as is....

Thanks again for your order! Looking forward to seeing how those grow out for you!

 

[JTP424]

No photo update on this one, the zoas and birds nest from Corals.com went into my 15 gallon display, that update will be coming shortly.
The Kenya tree is growing fantastic.
Got a T5 Sunpower 4 bulb to run on this thing, so I can simplify the lighting...
Going to run 2 bulbs with Super Actinic Giesemann and Super Purple Giesemann for a few hours, main PAR coming from 2 AquaBlue Coral Giesemann.
With that addition I'll need to watch my temps. Since I'm running an inkbird I'm going to put a fan setup in my sump on the cooler plug.
Once I get a tunze ATO I have on order that will be used in this tank as well.

The Pitho crab from Reefcleaners took out all my bubble algae in this tank, super happy!

Planning on moving the two clowns from my 15 into this tank as I found a six line for the 15!

 

[Minifoot77]

Burning the midnight oil huh?