Innovative Marine 150 EXT with a 8 Foot Frag Tank

xiaoxiy · Feb 26, 2023

evo187 said:
that's a bummer man. Is it only in your DT or grow out as well?

RTN always likes to share. So both DT and grow out.

flatlander93 · Feb 26, 2023

That’s awful news. I just got back from fed Moines and was in Iowa city a few weeks ago trying to check out the lfs scene. Iv been out of the hobby for quite a while and was pretty disappointed with the coral selection. Hope you get the situation regulated. Any good places around you visit for frags?

xiaoxiy · Feb 27, 2023

flatlander93 said:
That’s awful news. I just got back from fed Moines and was in Iowa city a few weeks ago trying to check out the lfs scene. Iv been out of the hobby for quite a while and was pretty disappointed with the coral selection. Hope you get the situation regulated. Any good places around you visit for frags?

Hahaha. Welcome to the coral desert known as Iowa City.... A majority of my frags are from hobbyist or online.

flatlander93 · Feb 27, 2023

I talked to the guy at a freshwater store and he said there is someone selling coral in their garage and getting ready to open a store in Iowa city.

xiaoxiy · Feb 27, 2023

flatlander93 said:
I talked to the guy at a freshwater store and he said there is someone selling coral in their garage and getting ready to open a store in Iowa city.

Huh. Wonder who that was/is…

BranchingHammer · Feb 27, 2023

Tank looks amazing!!

hart24601 · Feb 27, 2023

xiaoxiy said:
Huh. Wonder who that was/is…

Probably you….

xiaoxiy · Feb 27, 2023

hart24601 said:
Probably you….

heck no.

xiaoxiy · Feb 28, 2023

I got fed up with cyano on my sandbed and ran chemiclean.

Pre-treatment:

During treatment (there was so much cyano that it turned my water red):

Due to the amount of dying cyano and red water, I decided to abort the treatment after 24 hours instead of 48 hours. My skimmer seemed to do a decent job of pulling out the red-muck from the water after treatment. Look at this kool-aid red skimmate!

Post-treatment:

Bonus video:

hart24601 · Feb 28, 2023

And we all learned to vacuum out what you can before treatment!

xiaoxiy · Feb 28, 2023

hart24601 said:
And we all learned to vacuum out what you can before treatment!

Yep. Valuable lesson learned.

hart24601 · Feb 28, 2023

hart24601 said:
I like it quite a lot. The aluminum stand is fantastic. It’s probably my favorite tank I have had including a couple custom ones.

However not all is perfect. The overflow cover should be class. The acrylic warps. Also the back isn’t clear glass with a coating to be black, it’s acrylic full back. Not a huge deal but would prefer glass. I’m sure they did that to accommodate the external overflow though so I can’t really complain about it.

Sorry xixi, I replied to the question and honestly thought it was my build thread lol

xiaoxiy · Feb 28, 2023

hart24601 said:
Sorry xixi, I replied to the question and honestly thought it was my build thread lol

I got this tank with the goal of being Twinsies. Achievement unlocked.

Tradevg · Mar 14, 2023

hart24601 said:
And we all learned to vacuum out what you can before treatment!

Same exact boat. Shall I let the 48hr cycle complete? Will the red water harm the fish/CUC? No corals yet.

xiaoxiy · Mar 14, 2023

Tradevg said:
Same exact boat. Shall I let the 48hr cycle complete? Will the red water harm the fish/CUC? No corals yet.

Cyano kept disappearing even after I aborted the treatment early. No recurrence yet.

No idea if the red water is actually harmful. Some people have had no issues while there are other posts that suggest it may have started their tank crash.

Tradevg · Mar 14, 2023

xiaoxiy said:
Cyano kept disappearing even after I aborted the treatment early. No recurrence yet.

No idea if the red water is actually harmful. Some people have had no issues while there are other posts that suggest it may have started their tank crash.

Wish I had known this before I started the treatment. I called the company that makes Chemiclean and they said to do a large water change, run carbon till water clears up, suck up as much cyano as possible, then restart treatment. Starting to think Chemiclean was a mistake. Maybe it works better for those with a protein skimmer which I don’t have. I did the parts up to the carbon. Not sure I want to restart treatment - will see how the tank does over the next few days/week. Thanks for your comments.