Everything Custom DIY - Tidepool closed loop

[prodbot7]

CORAL DELIVERY DAY!!!! Super exciting! We both woke up and refreshed the FedEx tracking every few minutes.

POV my reaction when the page read “DELIVERED”

Sooooo…. Unfortunately, I couldn’t be there today for the unboxing so the whole thing from unboxing, to dipping, to rinsing and getting everything in the tank, was all on @Kerber13.

Here’s a list of what we ended up getting when @WWC really twisted our arms with their recent sale… Side note, this was my first live sale and OMG it was fun trying to jump in and get corals we wanted before they were snatched up. Definitely didn’t get everything we wanted but all in all, really happy with the haul.

Zoanthids: Tic Tack Zoas Detonator Zoa Mohawk Zoas Fire and Ice Zoas Blow Pop Zoanthids Moon Beam Zoa Echinata: Earthbound Echinata Ahhmazing Echinata Mushrooms: Lime Crusher Yuma Purple Dot Disco Bowerbanki: Rhubarb Pie Bowerbanki Alien Planet Bowerbanki

Favias: Cosmic Cranberry Favia Raspberry Ice Favia Rockin Redneck Favia Celtic War Paint Favia Platygyra: Cosmos Platygyra Regal Platygyra A Mystery Platy (we’re pretty sure it's another regal ) Cyphastrea & Random Stuff Bronco Berry Cyphastrea Mystique Cyphastrea Blue Heron Turbinaria Watermelon Psammo Green Duncan JF Blueberry Blast Hydnophora

Box inside! (We were both expecting a bigger box but maybe efficiency is a virtue?)... pls ignore the dirty glas… it got cleaned later



After delivery, @Kerber13 had to go work his “day job” so he set up the 25 (25!) bags of coral in our “dialysis tank” to temp acclimate and maintain temperature until he could come back and deal with getting everything properly sorted into the tank. Here you can see that he ziptied the bags away from the return so that the tub didn’t overflow:



When he got home, he went in. We dip, remove frag plugs or any excess media, and then rinse twice; visually inspecting each coral before it enters the tank.

He worked in batches. Here are the first few frags in the tank… small but healthy looking!


Meanwhile…. I was making friends with this doge….


Okay, back to coral… as he was working and examining the pieces, @Kerber13 and his little eye spied something squishy…. Could it be a baby mushy!?!



After getting everything in the tank, it was getting pretty late and blues were on so they new little frags are going to hang out in the sand bed until tomorrow… hoping they don’t get pulled under by the pistol shrimp -_-


That's all for tonight, I can't wait to see how he places them tomorrow

 

[Mschmidt]

Thats quite the order!

 

[reddevilant]

This is amazing!!

 

[prodbot7]

Thats quite the order!

Heh we may have gotten a little carried away! We’re already dosing 1dkh & 7 ppm calc and don’t have the dosetronic set up yet going to need to get that going quickly

 

[phxreefer]

Totally inspiring, my wife and I just went to Monterey and decided to redo our 30g shallow into tide pool style after seeing them in person. What’re y’all running under the cabinet? What kinda nutrients and stuff we’re you doing before, and are you planning on changing anything?

 

[Mschmidt]

Heh we may have gotten a little carried away! We’re already dosing 1dkh & 7 ppm calc and don’t have the dosetronic set up yet going to need to get that going quickly

I went a little overboard on my first wwc sale. A little more composed for the @Living Reef Orlando one, knew what I wanted and got it from the tidal gardens. Now I'm on getting ready for some craziness tomorrow with @SBB Corals.

 

[prodbot7]

Totally inspiring, my wife and I just went to Monterey and decided to redo our 30g shallow into tide pool style after seeing them in person. What’re y’all running under the cabinet? What kinda nutrients and stuff we’re you doing before, and are you planning on changing anything?

LOVE to hear that! It is such a fun hobby to share.

Monterey is one of my favorite places, such an interesting shoreline. Is your 30g shallow long? That's a very cool form factor.

We're running most of the usual suspects: skimmer, carbon reactor, uv sterilizer (maybe not so standard), apex (of course they went and released a new one months after we replaced our old one), and a return pump that we're running at about 550 gal/hr. I listed all the brands in the first post if you're curious.

What's a little unique about this tank, and what we're doing differently from the last, is the addition of the closed loop system which allows us to have flow throughout the tank, from the 4 return holes we had drilled in the bottom glass. So far I am *loving* this method compared to having powerheads. IMO having the loc-line with random flow generators in towards the rock scape is a less visually distracting solution. This is giving us *way* better flow than we had in our last tank, but definitely took some doing to figure out and set up.

The other major changes that we'll be implementing in this tank are to plumb in a dosetronic and alkatronic that we've had sitting around... we're going through and replacing all the tubing in the next couple of weeks. We were struggling to dose 1dkh and 7ppm calc *before* we added the most recent batch of coral so I think auto dosing is going to be CLUTCH for us.

As for other things we're doing differently, we're considering getting a mastertronic... but I know that we should prioritize setting up some sort of a backup power supply backup first. Its less fun but will be a huge stressor relief. Also, we're hoping to have improved nutrient export through more mangroves.

Feed:
-Frozen Mysis (1-2x per day)
-Nori (1-2x per day)
-Reef roids (2-3x per week)
-Easy LPS (2-3x per week)
-Phyto feast (2-3x per week)

Dose:
-KZ Trace elements
-Red Sea AB+
-BRS Calc, Alk, & Mg

Water parameters:
Alk: 8.1
Calc: 450
Mg: 1360 (boosting this to 1450 to help with some lingering bryopsis plague & generally reduce nuisance algae growth... also currently dosing fluconazole to deal with it)
Nitrate: 25
Phosphate: 0.125
Temp: 76-77*
Salinity: 1.025

 

[prodbot7]

How do you keep the romance alive? We're doing it with some long distance reefing lol... its his first opportunity to place corals in this tank and he's taking full advantage of my absence.

 

[Kerber13]

I have been reefing for around 13 years now, so I have placed plenty of coral. We share the hobby, now and it is fun to see @prodbot7's eye for coral placement in comparison to mine!

 

[Funlad3]

Pretty sure that @Kerber13 said that @prodbot7 was a better reefer than him in a group text earlier this week. Just keeping him honest

I have been reefing for around 13 years now, so I have placed plenty of coral. We share the hobby, now and it is fun to see @prodbot7's eye for coral placement in comparison to mine!

 

[Kerber13]

That is true but we have fun with it! Excited to experiment and push this tank to its potential!

 

[prodbot7]

Since I’m pretty sure no one cares who’s a better reefer, tank shots under blues… can’t wait for things to grow and we get through the uglies!

 

[prodbot7]

Some fun things planned for the tank(s) in the upcoming month:

-water change (today) we’ve been treating with Fluconazole for bryopsis so haven’t done a water change in ~3 weeks and some corals, gonis and hammer in particular, are looking MAD. Luckily we figured out what was wrong with the skimmer (it was missing a small rubber cap on one piece of tubing) so nitrates aren’t out of this world, but we’re assuming they’re pretty close.

-new because the addiction is real! If you are into bounce mushrooms check out @RIC13 post here… not sure you can beat that price for Sunkist and Frankenstein bounces! Also just added a Picasso rhodactis and two new acans… a blue and pink…. from a friends tank. Will update photos when the lights are on

-cabinet doors came in for the stands! We will be painting these, along with a small(ish) cabinet that will house equipment that doesn’t fit under the stand


-we got a MASTERTRONIC and will be setting it up, along with the alktronic and dosetronic as soon as we have the cabinet painted, semi degassed, and in place… I am so excited! Also, this thing is a lot bigger than I expected/compared to the alk and dose.


- Frag tank… so because we couldn’t fit all the equipment under the stand… and had to add another cabinet… plumbing in a frag tank seemed the logical answer and we just happened to have a spare 20 gal and overflow that we think will do the trick... thank goodness *someone* has been doing this a while and holds on to ehem *some* old equipment


I think that’s about it for this update… updated tank pics coming soon… rock is maturing really nicely but definitely still in the uglies.

 

[prodbot7]

I have the slightly larger version of this skimmer and from what I've found, after it's been broken in, it needs further adjustment to get the levels right! After that final adjustment, it's set it and forget it. I love my Nyos!

Before I get into how I adjust my skimmer, I would like to point out that I keep my water level in the skimmer chamber at the level of the N in QUANTUM. Yours looks pretty dang low which would lead to the problem you're having! I suggest raising the water level first and seeing if that fixes the issue. Regardless, adjusting is always a good idea so...

Start with everything fully open. In case you didn't know (I didn't back when I first got it) the actual pipe itself with the adjustment dial on it can twist. There is a hole at the bottom that will line up facing the pump when fully open. Once everything is open, first start by twisting that pipe so the hole begins to face away from the pump. Do this until you see the water level rise to about a half-inch below the skimmer cup. Then you can start closing the adjustment dial for a much finer adjustment. This will raise the water level to precisely where you want it to be. You should be all set after this!

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I absolutely love this build! Will be following Good luck and happy reefing!

Thank you so much for the advice! After trying to many things we thought it must just be acting up bc of old gunk from the last tank so decided to take it apart, completely clean it, and start the break in all over again... turns out we had forgotten to put pack on a SINGLE SMALL RUBBER CAP.... lol always something!

 

[Funlad3]

Of course there's a frag tank coming. Can't wait to convert the FW tank into an SPS tank

 

[prodbot7]

Of course there's a frag tank coming. Can't wait to convert the FW tank into an SPS tank

I don't know if I feel more judged or seen

 

[Mschmidt]

I don't know if I feel more judged or seen

they gotta see you to judge you.

 

[Kerber13]

Thank you so much for the advice! After trying to many things we thought it must just be acting up bc of old gunk from the last tank so decided to take it apart, completely clean it, and start the break in all over again... turns out we had forgotten to put pack on a SINGLE SMALL RUBBER CAP.... lol always something!

Well you never know when you'll need a spare 20 gallon tank and overflow box!

 

[prodbot7]

Things are happening!! We took apart the cabinet and painted it black to match what the stands will (eventually) look like.

…and now I get to play and set these up!

 

[Funlad3]

…and now I get to play and set these up!

So you finished? It was fun and interactive and easy and user friendly?