Hemmdog’s 90gal Seaciety and 40gal Vale of Shadows

[Hemmdog]

Now we’re cookin’ with gas.

Vacuumed my skimmer chamber out since I was in there.
This thing is a beast, the bubbles seem much more turbulent compared to my old reef octopus. This baby is pumping 600gph on its own. I also really like how you can route the air intake from a “fresher” air source, or a CO2 scrubber ideally. I have it sucking in from outside the stand in the back. Excited to see some dark skim in the morning!

Thanks again @Musovski for the late night upgrade idea

 

[Hemmdog]

Wait..Tank, delivery, and plumbing for $500???

Yessir! I ended up plumbing it myself, I was getting impatient waiting for my LFS friend to be free. I got tips from my LFS buddy though lol. I’m actually replumbing it sometime soon to a herbie instead of a durso, the wife can’t take the noise anymore.

The delivery was the best part of the deal, and the sump IMO lol.

 

[Hemmdog]

Does anyone know the long term effects of over dosing acropower? Turns out I’ve been doing the weekly dosage as the daily for about 2 months... acros seem happy? Should I switch to the recommended daily dose (3.46ml) immediately? Or ween them down over a few days? Thanks for any insight

 

[Doctor Faust]

Yessir! I ended up plumbing it myself, I was getting impatient waiting for my LFS friend to be free. I got tips from my LFS buddy though lol. I’m actually replumbing it sometime soon to a herbie instead of a durso, the wife can’t take the noise anymore.

The delivery was the best part of the deal, and the sump IMO lol.

Dude that's a steal. Just those sumps are in that range new, and I don't know what an old sump would look like lol. Congrats! The cabinet does look sturdier than my Red Sea. I guess I shouldn't be too hot on the Red Sea 525 either...

 

[Hemmdog]

Dude that's a steal. Just those sumps are in that range new, and I don't know what an old sump would look like lol. Congrats! The cabinet does look sturdier than my Red Sea. I guess I shouldn't be too hot on the Red Sea 525 either...

Haha thanks man! The red seas are awesome to, I would love one of their big displays for sure! But yea this stand seems pretty indestructible, it’s nice to have one less thing to worry about lol.

 

[Mark Gray]

Nice build

 

[Hemmdog]

Nice build

Thank you so much! I’ll check out yours!

 

[neoGeorge]

Equipment:
What I had
-360we
-360 spectral controller
-mp10wqd

What I knew I needed
additional light
return
skimmer
heater
powerhead(s)

I really figured maybe I’d spend around $1000 to $1500 on equipment, yea that didn’t happen..

Made a huge BRS order

Big ticket items were:
Reef Octopus VarioS-4 DC controllable return-$260
Kessil 360we- $350
Reef Octopus eSsence S-130 Skimmer-$300
Tunze ATO 3155-$200
Cobalt Neotherm 300watt heater-$140
Maxspect gyre xf230 (2) with advanced controller- $320

Special grade reef sand 40lb dry-$40
Special grade reef sand 30lb live-$63
Jager 150watt heater for backup-$20

Impulse buys
BubbleMagnus BM-T11 with 3 1-liter res-$370
AquaMaxx fluidized media reactors standard size (2)- $160
Sicce pumps for reactor (2)-$72

Good times, the total came out to $2,854. A little over my initial estimate, clicked submit order anyways.

At this point I had to stare at all my goodies in my living room for another month before my rocks were done cycling haha.

Wow, that is quite a haul! Nice job on the stand, cleanup and curing - you're obviously intent on doing this build right!

 

[Hemmdog]

Wow, that is quite a haul! Nice job on the stand, cleanup and curing - you're obviously intent on doing this build right!

Thank you so much! Yea I was trying to do everything right this time unlike my first reef, my biocube, haha. Both are still great tanks, the biocube just took a little longer to get there.. haha.

 

[neoGeorge]

2 months after water in I transferred my coral. Just one fell swoop of all the nicer/higher end coral and stuff I just really like into the 90. I had tons of different rainbow acans I’ve been growing out from single heads.

You get the point, lots of lps I’d grown fond of. I may edit this post in the future and upload a bunch more pics from my 32 before I transferred everything over.
The flame angel, black leopard wrasse, and my euphilla/random zoas are all I left in the biocube.

But yea; just basically put on my full arm reefin’ gloves and gently shook each lps by its base and they detached remarkably easily. I then placed them in my go2 saltwater bucket and walked a few of them over at a time and placed them all on the sandbed in the 90. I was just trying to do it as fast as possible I was freaking out during this part. I use my reef to calm my anxiety not cause it lol. It was pretty wild, I didn’t realize how many frags I had acquired. It was at least 30 frags . I did transfer one of my bigger liverocks I had in the biocube, a very mature rock that I see pods on and my black leopard wrasse would be picking at all the time.

I didn’t really plan it out to much, sps on top, monti-land on the left, acan-land on the right, zoa garden in the middle, chalices low and in interesting spots on the Tonga branches. A lot has encrusted completely now, but there’s still a few frags I’m considering moving/doing a total rescape. I just don’t know how I would even go about that in a big tank like this. I would need help for sure.
Here’s some pics from right after I transferred the coral.

After I moved the coral I brought the other 360we over. It looks clean!

Nice placement of the tank!

 

[AllSignsPointToFish]

Yessir! I ended up plumbing it myself, I was getting impatient waiting for my LFS friend to be free. I got tips from my LFS buddy though lol. I’m actually replumbing it sometime soon to a herbie instead of a durso, the wife can’t take the noise anymore.

The delivery was the best part of the deal, and the sump IMO lol.

You know, my durso was noisy too until I installed a strainer on the water inlet (mostly to keep wayward fish out of the sump). I had to make an adapter out of a PVC coupling, but one unexpected benefit is that the durso is darn near silent.

 

[Hemmdog]

I was feeding the fish and I noticed I had an extra fish in the bunch!

My cleaner wrasse that I haven’t seen in 4 months!!! I assumed he jumped and the cat ate him or something! My mind is blown!! This tank will never stop surprising me!
If a fish goes missing I check my overflow for fish, I check my sump for fish, I look at the tank all day. How is this possible? Do some wrasses hibernate or anything for months at a time? He was eating like a champ just now like he hadn’t seen food in years! Honestly, please chime in!

 

[AllSignsPointToFish]

That's awesome! I have no idea how that happens. I'm glad you found him alive!!

 

[Hemmdog]

That's awesome! I have no idea how that happens. I'm glad you found him alive!!

Me too! Lol

 

[sawdonkey]

Does anyone know the long term effects of over dosing acropower? Turns out I’ve been doing the weekly dosage as the daily for about 2 months... acros seem happy? Should I switch to the recommended daily dose (3.46ml) immediately? Or ween them down over a few days? Thanks for any insight

I’m not sure about overdosing, but I was adding a decent amount daily a few years ago, and my tank started getting funky algae and just generally looked dirty.

 

[Hemmdog]

I’m not sure about overdosing, but I was adding a decent amount daily a few years ago, and my tank started getting funky algae and just generally looked dirty.

Yea I had a nitrate and phos increase. No algae issues in my tank (yet), but it was looking pretty dirty for doing regular water changes. I assumed the nutrient increase was because the addition of my trigger and feeding more for him. But now I’m thinking it must of been the acropower. I let the tank run without any acropower for 5 days and just started doing the correct dosage today lol. Numbers are back to decent values today. 10nitrate .09 phos

 

[neoGeorge]

I was feeding the fish and I noticed I had an extra fish in the bunch!

My cleaner wrasse that I haven’t seen in 4 months!!! I assumed he jumped and the cat ate him or something! My mind is blown!! This tank will never stop surprising me!
If a fish goes missing I check my overflow for fish, I check my sump for fish, I look at the tank all day. How is this possible? Do some wrasses hibernate or anything for months at a time? He was eating like a champ just now like he hadn’t seen food in years! Honestly, please chime in!

My Yellow Assessor has done this trick before - disappeared for days, and just when I gave up hope, s/he appeared at feeding time!

 

[Hemmdog]

My Yellow Assessor has done this trick before - disappeared for days, and just when I gave up hope, s/he appeared at feeding time!

Niceee haha. Yea I’ve had fish missing for a few days then return, usually my leopard wrasse. But this is was long! Literally 4 months with no sight of him. So strange.

 

[Hemmdog]

You know, my durso was noisy too until I installed a strainer on the water inlet (mostly to keep wayward fish out of the sump). I had to make an adapter out of a PVC coupling, but one unexpected benefit is that the durso is darn near silent.

I just saw this comment now, how did you make the strainer? I’d be down to try that before tearing all my mature pipes apart lol.

 

[AllSignsPointToFish]

I just saw this comment now, how did you make the strainer? I’d be down to try that before tearing all my mature pipes apart lol.

So, this is what I did. I have 1" drain lines, and I purchased a 1" suction screen like this.

I had on hand a 1" socket by thread coupling like this.

I didn't want to glue the screen directly to the drain piping, and I noticed the two fit together snugly like this.

I cut the threaded end off with miter saw and slipped it over the bare end of the drain piping like this.

I originally installed this after a little clownfish found his way into the sump, but I never expected it to silence the flow like it did. My durso is almost completely silent unless I need to clean it (which is also nice to have an audible alarm ).