Equipment and tank tour, 2 and a half years up and running now. (Pic heavy)

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motortrendz

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Fair enough on unions; like I said I was just curious. Overflow box looks good! Compact but the classic design.
I kinda borrowed the idea from the eshopps box. But instead of paying 140$ I made it with 20$ worth of acrylic I had.
 
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That's a nice looking reef you got there!
Thank you. it's been a constant evolution. Of all the previous systems and adapted what has worked and keeping things stable. This tank has about 2 years left before I buy my 5ft custom tank I really want.
 
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So a quick update today... I removed the hood of my tank cleaned it and cleaned resealed all the wood... and while it was off I removed my 2 AI hydra 52s (that were slowly dying) and the 2 hydra 26s I had behind them. I installed my brandy new ecotech radions. Angled then slightly so the light up the back of the tank a little better. Set them up with my reeflink, and programmed them to run a modified AB+ schedule. and all I gotta say is WOW. What a huge difference. These 2 lights are brighter and crisper than 4 hydras. I'm honestly amazed. Now just gotta figure out the intensity so I dont bleach my coral.

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So my sump is coming together. Just got my filter sock holder for the new build. Its 7in sock holder with a 7in nylon100micron sock, made by octo aquatics @cromag27 , made from 1/4" acrylic and a super strong magnet. Fits perfectly. Thank you

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Took some pics today. Really happy with here the tank is at the start of 2020. All.pics were taken with galaxy note with coral view filter. (Not the best pics but getting better at it) hope you guys like!!

Frag tank is also up and running, got some coral and fish coming this week to start filling it up!!

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So today I FINALLY got my tank tied into the basement sump.
Heres the before...
IMG_20200107_160928_01.jpg


And some after pics... dont mind the wire mess my next project is a control board for the controllers and dosers. I already hooked up the kamoer to the calcium reactor and that's amazing. I have a 4 head doser for my red sea coral colors, and 2 singles, one for vodka and one for lanthanum when needed.
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Just another update, got the plumbing all done and wow with the sump in the basement, you dont realize how much droning noise comes from your tank until it's not there. My skimmer was a diablo 200 with a sicce pump. Was so loud without being loud if that makes any sense. And since I added the overflow box I made to run a modified bean animal drain it's literally dead silent. My wife even asked me if something was wrong with the tank or if the circuit breaker popped. Haha it's awesome.

Also got some frags in the frag tank and 2 new fish.

20200108_123432.jpg
 

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Nice job on the tank. For years I had a bow front/ corner tank and I could never get my power head placement right. Flow was always a problem for me
 
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Nice job on the tank. For years I had a bow front/ corner tank and I could never get my power head placement right. Flow was always a problem for me
As is with me. I love the ecotech mp40s and have used them since they were made. But they're near impossible to use on a corner bow. Having one on each side only creates a vortex at the front center glass and blows sand everywhere and then you barely get any flow over the reef itself. So I did get the nero5s, now they're not as good as the mps as far as programming types(reef Crest and tidal swell doesnt exist on ai platform, nor anti sync in random) but they do have good wide flow from such a small powerhead. And the main reason I got them is bc you can angle them. So I actually have flow across the reef and no more sand storms.
 
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So in continuation, my sump.os complete but the wires are a nightmare. I decided to make a control board. So I got a piece of 1/2" birch plywood and painted it blue.
20200111_111318.jpg


Clean simple look and a solid surface to mount all my controllers and doser shelf.
So after I painted it and beveled the edge I felt inspired. So I grabbed some epoxy and some white tint and white diamond flake (all stuff I have from building the river tables) and decided to make the board a piece of art... what do you guys think??
20200111_122852.jpg
 
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Ok so update: sump and frag tank have been up and running for 20 days now...

A few interesting observations and one I'm struggling with...

At first with in the first few days the main tank never looked better, colors were incredible on my sps water seemed immensely clearer with less particulates floating.

The frag tank had a dino break out after about the first week of being hooked up, but the main tank remained unaffected.

The second week, the frag tank looked terrible, I've been blowing off the frag racks and frag plugs(ocean wonders pre cured) bc of all the dinos and diatoms and using a 10 micron sock to catch everything to remove. I turned off the flow to the frag tank added a bottle of micro bacter7, the next day I Added a clean up crew, amphipods(from an online source) 2 different types of copepods from pod your reef, some phyto and 3 fish to the frag tank.
Water tests show my nitrates have plummeted from 4ppm to .25ppm and po4 has dropped from .10 to 0.00, and my alk had dropped from 10.0dkh to 8.0dkh
Using a calcium reactor. I figured with the larger water volume(almost double) that I was going to need to readjust my drip rate from my original rate.
The main tank started showing patches of cyano and my acros have started to fade a little.

So in order to try to correct my system
I increased the frequency and amount of feeding and also started dosing reef roids to the system 2x a day to try to bring nutrient levels back up. And started dosing 3ml of flourish a day to bring po4 up to a detectable level. And I raised my calcium reactor drip rate to start bringing my alk back up to where my system has been for the last 2 years.

Week 3, frag tank looks much better, small patches of dinos still exist and small patches of hair algae and dinos (new tank uglies, but getting better every day)

For the main tank, things got dicey, this is the part where I say what I did and where I feel I messed up! And probably what I should have done... so I noticed most of my acros have lost their vibrant colors,now I'm worried, a few look thin(if you have acros you know what I mean) within a 24 hour period i lost 3 frags, stn'd from base edges up.(I havent lost a frag in almost a year, doa not included) Checked my nitrates now at 0.00 with a red sea pro kit even though I've increased my feedings by 200% po4 still reading 0.00 alk was now at 9.5.. I ordered sodium nitrate to start dosing nitrates, increased my po4 dosing and stopped vodka dosing... (I dont know y it took me so long to realize that i was now dosing vodka into a depleted system. (Guess old habbits.. yadda yadda) lost another 3 acros 2 days ago to the same stn from the base edges in. This one hurt, 3 really nice mini colonies (large encrusted frags) died out, my pac man, red planet and a Christmas mirabilis. Had all of these for about a solid year and were doing amazing.

All of my frags that are in my frag tank are doing amazing which is kinda funny. But then I thought of something.... the difference at this point is the lighting. Frag tanks lights are not as intense as the main display. Running 2 hydra 26s(non hds) with about 250 par at the racks the display has 2 ecotech xr30w with par ranging from 350-400 (8-10 inches below the surface) at the top of my rocks the 150-175 at the sand bed.

So I think a made a few rash decisions in trying to chase numbers and old habbits.
I should have known better in hind sight.

1. I should have stopped carbon dosing as soon as i realized nutrient levels dropped so low, and I also should have realized that by doubling the water volume of the system that alone would cut levels in half, plus I added a bigger skimmer and better filtration... and I always ran a higher alk bc I had higher nutrients to support the growth. And with the nutrients dropping out I should have left my alk at 8 or even brought it down lower to 7.5 to ease the stress on the corals, with the added feedings should have been enough to sustain life while attempting to get my nutrients back to a measurable reading. I'm slowly letting it come back down to not shock anything. But I'm gonna target 7.5 dkh
2. I really should have dimmed my lights a bit when I noticed the acropora skin getting thinner to prevent burning. Also with the water being noticeably clearer I'm sure the intensity of the lights reaching the corals increased as well, so it's a double hit to them in this aspect. I waited to long for this idea to come to me and it cost me. I lowered them overall by 25% and will slowly phase them back up after I get the system stabilized.

3. I lowered the skimmer flow volume (dc powered pump)and removed my filter sock to allow more nutrients to stay in the water column at this time.

I have noticed less cyano patches in the main display and the dinos seem to be just about gone in the frag tank since I've made these corrections. And the acros seem to have stabilized. Funny thing is all my LPS and softies still look amazing. And my sand bed has turned white again. And all the acros in my frag tank were basically unaffected and still have intense color and PE. (This still kinda confuses me)


Sorry for the super long post. But I dont want this to be an all positive thread and the oh look what I've done.. I want people to see the downs as well, bc that's the reality of reefing. We make changes, we tick things off and upset the balance of a delicate system. Will my system be better in the long run, I hope so, but it's the knowledge and learning experiences we gain along the way that will help others though their tough times. I've noticed way too many times people only ever share the positives of their experiences. But we truly learn from our mistakes and failures. So heres to hoping week 4 brings an upswing of news...

Thanks for reading.
 

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Honesty in Reefing is a good thing! I'm always making note of things others have done, both good and bad.
 
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Honesty in Reefing is a good thing! I'm always making note of things others have done, both good and bad.
Thanks @Katrina71 we all make mistakes. Or move too fast. Were all guilty of it. It's not about the perfect tank(that's boring) it's about the journey and how we make adjustments to maintain our ecosystem
 

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I just made it through your Tank Tour thread from the beginning. Love what you've done running to a basement sump. As I read about adding that frag tank in I was thinking... "oh I should warn him about the risks of adding so much new volume and a new tank to an existing..." and then I got to today's post. Sorry I was late.

Sorry for the losses, but sounds like you have your corrective measures in place now. I had to resort to UV for the final nail in the dino coffin. Well, that is actually incorrect. While I have visually seen any for a month or more, if I take a scrape of the glass and put it under my scope I'd see plenty. So it is not too late for me to let you know that the little buggers are waiting for you to let the nutrients dip.

Hopefully -- unlike me -- you won't repeat my mistakes three times. But if you do please share so I can feel better about myself. :)

Thanks for liking this post:
 

A worm with high fashion and practical utility: Have you ever kept feather dusters in your reef aquarium?

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