Jackson's Old School 200 IM Nuvo Ext

[jackson6745]

Give us an update!!!!

A lot has changed!!! Tank is just about at the 6 month mark.

Tank is doing ok, had a little mishap with my salinity. My calibration fluid was off and I ended up running a salinity of 1.022 for a while. Growth suffered a bit, I developed some of those acro blisters on some pieces (which seem to be going away), overall not a big deal. I will be cross referencing with other devices from now on. I trust the Tropic marin hydrometer more than anything but I was lazy only using a calibrated refractometer (2 calibration fluids were off).

Besides that, I ended up with a Walt Disney colony from a local reefer that was taking down his tank. Had it for about 6 weeks and it's growing fast! Going to grow it ridiculously large on my center rock :) Sometimes you're in the right place at the right time.

The display tank is kind of cluttered right now. I have a 95g Fiji cube 60x24x16 that I will be plumbing into the system as a frag/growout tank. All the corals on tiles in the display and a bunch others that are crowding the display will be transferred over. That was kind of the plan the whole time which is why I put so many frags in there.

Anyway, I'll give a photo dump and make sense of it all as time goes on lol

 

[REEFRIED!]

Looks beautiful man. Nice job

 

[jackson6745]

Looks beautiful man. Nice job

That’s bud. Work in progress.

 

[tritonpower]

Looking great

 

[JumboShrimp]

Tomorrow is delivery day. Tank, stand, and sump from IM will be delivered to my garage. The pricing and quality was too hard to pass up on the complete set, so I went that route. After a recent move into a new home, my wife banished me to the basement :). I'm cool with it. I installed a slop sink, added a 100amp sub panel, improved insulation, and I'm sure I'll be making more environment changes as time goes on. I keep a large dehumidifier running continuously so hopefully that keeps the humidity at acceptable levels.

I've been gathering equipment since the summer. I knew I wanted to run halide again so I kept my eyes open. Didn't know how scarce this stuff became so I bought a bunch of stuff to keep me going for many years should I keep this route long term. I managed to get my hands on a 72" giesemann spectra which is the holy grail of halide fixtures IMO. I'm running 250w Magnetic ballasts to start. I think this would be fine considering that this ballast drives bulbs over 300w and the tank is shallow.

I've been curing 90lbs of live Austrian rock since September and have been conditioning a bunch of fish in the rock tank so there is some level of bio load for the start of the tank. I'm not expecting a cycle, same as my last bunch of tanks. Hopefully I can keep cyano and uglies at a minimum

Equipment choices are basic proven stuff. Dual stage Ranco Controller, Bubble King double cone 200, flow I have mp 40's, mp 60, gyres. Eheim heaters, kamoer dosers, many 5 gallon pails of ESV 2 part :), and lots of salt. No ICP/no water change for me, not at the moment ;).

I'll post some progress pics in time. The biggest challenge is going to be getting this thing downstairs to my basement. Probably will need a moving company. Whatever, I'll figure out out :) My little 25g nano is holding a few gems to seed the tank until I hit up some buddies for some more :)

Very excited for you!

 

[Gumbies R Us]

A lot has changed!!! Tank is just about at the 6 month mark.

Tank is doing ok, had a little mishap with my salinity. My calibration fluid was off and I ended up running a salinity of 1.022 for a while. Growth suffered a bit, I developed some of those acro blisters on some pieces (which seem to be going away), overall not a big deal. I will be cross referencing with other devices from now on. I trust the Tropic marin hydrometer more than anything but I was lazy only using a calibrated refractometer (2 calibration fluids were off).

Besides that, I ended up with a Walt Disney colony from a local reefer that was taking down his tank. Had it for about 6 weeks and it's growing fast! Going to grow it ridiculously large on my center rock :) Sometimes you're in the right place at the right time.

The display tank is kind of cluttered right now. I have a 95g Fiji cube 60x24x16 that I will be plumbing into the system as a frag/growout tank. All the corals on tiles in the display and a bunch others that are crowding the display will be transferred over. That was kind of the plan the whole time which is why I put so many frags in there.

Anyway, I'll give a photo dump and make sense of it all as time goes on lol

I love all the coral that is in there!

 

[jackson6745]

To continue on with the story of this system lol ......

The 95G Fiji cube 60"x24"x16" has been plumbed in. The plan this whole time was to move many of the corals in there to grow out and reduce the amount of corals in the display to grow them large. I also needed to lower my aqua scape since I made it too high from the start (rookie move).

Had an unexpected surprise to whole plan. I discovered acro eating flatworms in my display on several pieces. I'm not one that can live with and mitigate their damages. I need them out. I went through this in 2005 in a 120g tank but I didn't have a frag tank back then so it was more difficult.

All acros were removed from display, remounted, and dipped in my concoction of KCL and bayer and transferred into frag tank. There was a lot of coral in that display tank! The acros are spreading their polyps in a sigh of relief from those little sob's :) I will be dipping the racks several times over the next 6 weeks before putting corals back into the display.

Last pic shows a lower aquascape that is acro free at the moment. A little cloudy from moving stuff around.

 

[Reefering1]

Can you share your concoction please? How much of what are you mixing and where are you guys getting bayer these days(link)? And the dip, how long, how often? Anything to watch out for?

 

[jackson6745]

Can you share your concoction please? How much of what are you mixing and where are you guys getting bayer these days(link)? And the dip, how long, how often? Anything to watch out for?

Bayer changed names. Goes by BioAdvanced now. Amazon product ASIN B001DKEOK8
I use about 3ml in a QT of tank water, Just enough to give the water a slightly cloudy haze. You can't really overdose. It's gentile on corals but you don't want to make it too cloudy where you won't be able to see those little sob's die! I also add 20g of KCL into the same mix just to be sure. Within a few minutes whatever is going to come off of the coral is already off. I usually leave it in for about 20 minutes just to kill white/black bugs should there be any. The corals look great with full polyps shortly after dip.

 

[Reefering1]

That's simple enough!! Now which bioadvanced is that? There seems to be many(link is dead)

 

[jackson6745]

That's simple enough!! Now which bioadvanced is that? There seems to be many(link is dead)

Oops. It’s the bioadvanced complete.

 

[Reefering1]

This one?

 

[jackson6745]

This one?

That’s the stuff. They should add acro eating flatworms to that kills list lol

 

[Reefering1]

Thank you sir. Lol. I did notice it didn't say anything about acropora... the things we put in our tanks huh

 

[jackson6745]

Thank you sir. Lol. I did notice it didn't say anything about acropora... the things we put in our tanks huh

Last time I went though an AEFW war I used Tropic Marin Pro Cure. That stuff really messed up the corals. It’s crazy how toxic yet gentil the bug juice is on the corals. I wear gloves when I’m dipping just in case.

 

[fishface NJ]

What a beauty! Oh your DT is very nice too. Good luck clearing out the Flat Worms

 

[jackson6745]

What a beauty! Oh your DT is very nice too. Good luck clearing out the Flat Worms

Thank you and thank you

 

[fishface NJ]

I have been following you since you started this thread. My love is acros and wrasses....everything else is blaaaa

 

[jackson6745]

I have been following you since you started this thread. My love is acros and wrasses....everything else is blaaaa

I was addicted to wrasses in my last tank, didn’t go with sand this time so I only have a few mainly for pests. A few beauties before the Hawaiian ban. I could only imagine what this would cost today!

 

[jackson6745]

Polyp Extension has really increased since getting the corals into the frag tank. The same water parameters have been maintained, so it's either from less flow (still decent), no more worms, or perhaps less light under led. I dunno. Just putting this here in case it all dies. At least I get to look back at pics :).