EXT 170 Build

[alpenreef]

I just placed my order for 150lbs of GLR today for arrival on Tuesday 4-2.
Going to order the ext 50 frag tank next week also.

Awesome, did you get the sand as well?
Looking forward to seeing what your experience will be.
I left all mussles and sponges and gorgonias and just dumped the rock and sand into the tank as is. I cranked up flow, filtration and skimmer to max - After a masssive die off and ammonia spike my tank cycled in 4 days. Transfered all my fish 7 days in, and all corals 10 days in including acropora and montis. Tank looks and feels a year old. Florida live rock rocks!
I did have to cancel an order for sand dwelling gobies and shrimp - they would probably get murdered by 2 confirmed mantis and possibly a bobbit worm. I didn’t know they were there until 2 days ago.

 

[X-37B]

Awesome, did you get the sand as well?
Looking forward to seeing what your experience will be.
I left all mussles and sponges and gorgonias and just dumped the rock and sand into the tank as is. I cranked up flow, filtration and skimmer to max - After a masssive die off and ammonia spike my tank cycled in 4 days. Transfered all my fish 7 days in, and all corals 10 days in including acropora and montis. Tank looks and feels a year old. Florida live rock rocks!
I did have to cancel an order for sand dwelling gobies and shrimp - they would probably get murdered by 2 confirmed mantis and possibly a bobbit worm. I didn’t know they were there until 2 days ago.

No mine is going to be bare bottom and acro dominant.
The 6255's are on the lowest setting and they move alot of water. If I crank them up to 100% the random flow generated by the sweeps is incredable.
Mine is being overnighted to my door. Costs a little more but I have a bad back and did it for the convienence. This is how we got live rock in the early 90's.
Their will be some die off but im not concerened.
I will run my skimmer and ozone reactor from day one.
I went with 150lbs based on your system.
I want a 48×18 rock scape no more than 6-8" high. It will look minimal. If I have extra it will go into the 50 once I get it setup.
I intend to have the 48×18 area covered in acro colonies eventually.

 

[Reefering1]

Don't know how I missed this build. Following

 

[alpenreef]

No mine is going to be bare bottom and acro dominant.
The 6255's are on the lowest setting and they move alot of water. If I crank them up to 100% the random flow generated by the sweeps is incredable.
Mine is being overnighted to my door. Costs a little more but I have a bad back and did it for the convienence. This is how we got live rock in the early 90's.
Their will be some die off but im not concerened.
I will run my skimmer and ozone reactor from day one.
I went with 150lbs based on your system.
I want a 48×18 rock scape no more than 6-8" high. It will look minimal. If I have extra it will go into the 50 once I get it setup.
I intend to have the 48×18 area covered in acro colonies eventually.

Nice, 150 will be just enough, my prediction is you won‘t have any extra.
Can‘t wait to see what yours will look like. Dieoff shouldn‘t be

a problem - I bet unwanted hitchhikers will have less place to hide without sand.
As the lights go out, I can hear the mantis click click click.

 

[X-37B]

I mounted the poseidon ozone unit to one of the top cross bars.
I used the 3m fasteners. The Mutiny reactor is now ready for action.
Live rock next week and away we go, lol.
As soon as the rock is in place I will order the ext 50 frag system.
I'm waiting to see if I need all of the 150lbs in the 170.
I only need 1 or 2 pieces for the 50 to get it going. I am going to be using eheim substrate pro in 2 hydro baskets in the sump of the 50 for bio filtraton. They have worked well in my old nano. Their is not much space in the 50's sump but the 2 baskets alow me to run the 9410dc in the same chamber.
Not the best pic but you get an idea of the 50's dims.
I will need to move the pic on the wall. You can see the tape which is stand height and top of the tank.

 

[alpenreef]

Very cool. I use eheim substrate pro in media bags in my QT (in the filter sock compartment). Cycled it in a seasoned tank for a few months. Instant QT cycle.

 

[X-37B]

GLR wont ship until next Monday due to weather. I am in no hurry, lol.
I checked the big three plus sg and ph.
Ph 8.1
Sg 1.026
Alk 8.2
Ca 390
Mag 1280
I adjusted my ca to 420
Mag to 1320.
8.2, 390, 1280 were from Red Sea blue bucket.
Once the rock is in and it starts using alk I will let alk go down to 7 and start dosing esv 2 part.
Once the system is using 30-40 ml of the 2 part I will bring the 818 online.
Alk 7-7.5
Ca 400-450
Mag 1300-1400
These are numbers that have worked well for all my systems in the past.
Next post I should have pics of the GLR.
Once the system has stabilized, should be couple weeks, I will start to populate the system with acros.

 

[BubblesandSqueak]

GLR wont ship until next Monday due to weather. I am in no hurry, lol.
I checked the big three plus sg nd ph.
Ph 8.1
Sg 1.026
Alk 8.2
Ca 390
Mag 1280
I adjusted my ca to 420
Mag to 1320.
8.2, 390, 1280 were from Red Sea blue bucket.
Once the rock is in and it starts using alk I will let alk go down to 7 and start dosing esv 2 part.
Once the system is using 30-40 ml of the 2 part I will bring the 818 online.
Alk 7-7.5
Ca 400-450
Mag 1300-1400
These are numbers that have worked well for all my systems in the past.
Next post I should have pics of the GLR.
Once the system has stabilized, should be couple weeks, I will start to populate the system with acros.

Is your rock base? I'm assuming you no longer use coaxial if you're placing the stand there? You could use those to feed RO from basement if you have one. Or even water change to siphon out.

I'm not looking forward to this storm coming through. saying 10"+ of heavy wet snow with rain, ice and wind. well I'm more ready for the "expected" outage. bought 2 battery airstones that plug into the wall and turn on when the power goes out. Really for when I'm not here since I can run the generator. Also finally hooked up the ATO to the cube so I can skip days of self top off.

 

[X-37B]

Is your rock base? I'm assuming you no longer use coaxial if you're placing the stand there? You could use those to feed RO from basement if you have one. Or even water change to siphon out.

I'm not looking forward to this storm coming through. saying 10"+ of heavy wet snow with rain, ice and wind. well I'm more ready for the "expected" outage. bought 2 battery airstones that plug into the wall and turn on when the power goes out. Really for when I'm not here since I can run the generator. Also finally hooked up the ATO to the cube so I can skip days of self top off.

I purchased 150lbs of premium rock. The tank will be bare bottom with some different types of brain coral on the bottom.
I also want to grow a large colony of pavona, potatoe chip coral on the bottom.
I plan on growing some stags from the bottom to the top along the back.
Here is an old brain and pavona for reference. There are some really cool and colorful brains I have been looking at.
Water changes will be minimal at 4 gallons a month.
Not sure what coaxial means but my ato is in the 8020 to the right of the stand.
My RO/DI is a 275g tote outside the sliding door.

 

[BubblesandSqueak]

I purchased 150lbs of premium rock. The tank will be bare bottom with some different types of brain coral on the bottom.
I also want to grow a large colony of pavona, potatoe chip coral on the bottom.
I plan on growing some stags from the bottom to the top along the back.
Here is an old brain and pavona for reference. Their are some really cool and colorful brains I have been looking at.
Water changes will be minimal at 4 gallons a month.

one day I'm going to find one of those purple candelabras at an LFS. unless I can find a bunch of something else I really want to make up for the $40 shipping. Every time I place an order from RF they are out of the mermaids fan. I figured those two should be safe with the octopus and add some more vegetation. Would like to add a nice big Premium rock to mine too. But need the light toned down still.

 

[X-37B]

one day I'm going to find one of those purple candelabras at an LFS. unless I can find a bunch of something else I really want to make up for the $40 shipping. Every time I place an order from RF they are out of the mermaids fan. I figured those two should be safe with the octopus and add some more vegetation. Would like to add a nice big Premium rock to mine too. But need the light toned down still.

I got my purple gorgonians from a lfs that gets alot of frags/trades from fellow reefers.
I run my lights pretty strong and always have comming from halides for years. This tank will have a ramp up/down and only 7 hours at close to max par of 450 mid level.
Right now im at close to 400 par on the bottom. I will adjust to 300+ on the bottom once the rocks are in place.
My purple gorgs in my old 20g nano.

 

[alpenreef]

Man, I checked a few times today for GLR updates I guess WE can wait another week haha
I have had a few gorgonia that came in with the rock, 2 of which made it and are doing very well now. I have transfered a bunch of sps right away, the stylos, birdsnest and green slimer love the tank with lots of polyps fully out during the day. For some reason my digitata and anacropora less so. No polyps are out.
I dose afr, but am cutting back now because my alk and ca are 12 and 475.

Anyways, good luck!

 

[X-37B]

Man, I checked a few times today for GLR updates I guess WE can wait another week haha
I have had a few gorgonia that came in with the rock, 2 of which made it and are doing very well now. I have transfered a bunch of sps right away, the stylos, birdsnest and green slimer love the tank with lots of polyps fully out during the day. For some reason my digitata and anacropora less so. No polyps are out.
I dose afr, but am cutting back now because my alk and ca are 12 and 475.

Anyways, good luck!

Thanks and good luck to you and your system. I will take luck anytime I can get it, lol.
Curious why the alk of 12? I have always kept my big 3 at close to NSW. I am not a fan of high alk and have never realy undserstood why anyone would run a system higher. Their are some good coral sites, that if you search, you can find that say to keep alk at ocean levels of 8-9. Average ocean alk is 6.5.
I get very good growth on my systems with a range of 6.5-7.5.
I target 7-7.5 when running my carx.

 

[alpenreef]

Thanks and good luck to you and your system. I will take luck anytime I can get it, lol.
Curious why the alk of 12? I have always kept my big 3 at close to NSW. I am not a fan of high alk and have never realy undserstood why anyone would run a system higher. Their are some good coral sites, that if you search, you can find that say to keep alk at ocean levels of 8-9. Average ocean alk is 6.5.
I get very good growth on my systems with a range of 6.5-7.5.
I target 7-7.5 when running my carx.

Alk is 12 mainly because I don‘t know what I am doing
My salt is reef crystals which has alk of 11 when mixed. I do a weekly WC of 20% but alk came down to 8 almost immediately, calcium was very low at 350. So I started dosing all for reef and yeah that‘s where we are now, high alk and high CA. Corals are all super happy and I have reduced AFR back down to minimum.

 

[X-37B]

Alk is 12 mainly because I don‘t know what I am doing
My salt is reef crystals which has alk of 11 when mixed. I do a weekly WC of 20% but alk came down to 8 almost immediately, calcium was very low at 350. So I started dosing all for reef and yeah that‘s where we are now, high alk and high CA. Corals are all super happy and I have reduced AFR back down to minimum.

Well not sure what to say as alk cant drop fròm 12 to 8 immediatley. I would suspect testing error.
Zero po4 is not good either.
If you want some help pm me and we can go from there.

 

[Reniva Ma]

Do you run zeovit or ulns? Haha sorry if I missed it if u mentioned it before I’m a bad reader.

 

[X-37B]

Do you run zeovit or ulns? Haha sorry if I missed it if u mentioned it before I’m a bad reader.

I run no3<5 po4<.1
I run a carx and dose dsr ez trace daily and esv strontium once a week. Its all in the threads.
I have ran a co2 scrubber before but the cost vs results did not add up.

 

[Reniva Ma]

I run no3<5 po4<.1
I run a carx and dose dsr ez trace daily and esv strontium once a week. Its all in the threads.
I have ran a co2 scrubber before but the cost vs results did not add up.

Awesome that’s good to know thanks!

 

[X-37B]

Still no update on my Gulf Live Rock shipment. No hurry.
The tanks ready. Here are a few decent pics. The first is the surface flow from the sweep with the 6255 on low.
Looking forward to getting this system started.
Last one is a video with both 6255's on 100%

 

[BubblesandSqueak]

Still no update on my Gulf Live Rock shipment. No hurry.
The tanks ready. Here are a few decent pics. The first is the surface flow from the sweep with the 6255 on low.
Looking forward to getting this system started.
Last one is a video with both 7255's on 100%

definitely bring something for your car for wet boxes. one of my 5 leaked and the box was soaked but I had brought garbage bags and a tarp to protect car. had a 3' kiddie pool that I didn't think off at the time which would have been better.