Beautiful progress with the build [emoji12]
Jason's 467 Gallon (120x30x30) Tank Build in SoCal
- Monster Build
- Thread starter KingJason
- Start date
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OP
OP
Geez...so where do I start? It's been a while!
I've made big progress moving all my old fish and coral over...in fact everything is now moved over and the holding bin setup is now taken down. That was massive project! I didn't want to re-use any of the old LR since I had my aquascape the way I wanted it in the new tank, so I had to remove every piece of coral with a chisel or brute force. It ended up not being as hard physically as I thought it would, but it took a long time and was tedious work. You'll see in my pictures I have a lot of small pieces of coral still on my sandbed waiting to get glued to the new rock work. I lost a few coral, but for the most part almost everything survived. I did lose a lot of color in my acros and LPS but after about 2-3 weeks in the new tank many are starting to color up again. So I'm optimistic the'll return to their original glory. The monti's were the hardest to remove and I was left with a lot of fragments. That ended up being kind of a blessing in disguise as I was able to glue all kinds of different monti frags around the tank. Will look pretty cool when they start to grow out.
Stability in the tank is great. I've sent off a few tests to Triton and the only issue I've had so far is low to almost no phosphates. The macro in the fuge has been growing like crazy. However, recently about half the chaeto died but the Caulerpa, Mongroves and other misc macros are all going strong. I suspect this was due to the chaeto consuming all the tank's phosphate and starving itself to death. I got some Seachem Phosphate to start dosing if I can't get it up by increasing feeding. I'm dosing about 50ml of 2 part right now which (so far) has been able to keep alk and calc up and stable. Getting the reactor up is on the list soon. My tempeature is fluctuating a little more than I'd like between 78-80 in any given day. The house AC has kept the tank from going over 80 but I really want to get my chiller running so I can dial that down to fluctuate less. No problem algae thus far. All the algae growth is confided to the fuge still which makes me very happy. I really hope I can keep it that way.
As far equipment goes I have made a little progress but I'm still running things super basic. I have the skimmer, 20-30g doing water changes once a week, have carbon in my socks and dosing 2-part.
I plumbed the manifold to the Ecotech Vectra L1 and that is feeding UV, BRS Jumbo Reactor w/ carbon and the chiller. Unfortunately when I fired it up over the weekend to test I had leaks. I learned the hard way that the Neptune 2" Flow Control Senors HAVE to be sealed with liquid sealant and not plumbers tape/Teflon. I also had to seal my connections to the Vecta with liquid sealant as the Teflon tape leaked on those seals too. Neptune says this clearly in their Flow Control Sensor instructions...but who reads instructions until after you have a problem? So hoping to get this all running soon.
Few Equipment Projects left:
-Finish manifold
-Setup calc reactor
-Setup automatic water changer
-Organize wiring and mount all the apex gadgets (god help me...the wiring on this will be a lot of work)
-Hire the contractor to build the cabinetry around display
-Then find more projects!
The new Crosshatch Triggers from Divers Den are through QT and are now in the tank. They are gorgeous. They also eat a ridiculous amount of food. Right now we are feeding them huge chucks of whole krill and a silver side broken in half. I've also added a beautiful Gem Tang from Pacific Island Aquatics. Hopefully PIA will be sending a Purple Tang, White Tail Bristletooth Tang, Dussumieri Tang and some Anthias on Friday. I've also been very busy buying frags to fill this thing up...the Facebook auctions have me hooked!
Also on my list is to get a camera and learn how to properly photograph this thing. But for now an iPhone w/ Camera+ will have to do. I might try to shoot a video this evening or something to give a better view of the tank. I don't think the pictures below really do it much justice.
Full tank shot as of today:
And a few shots of the mess of coral on the sand
Right Side (Mostly acros or misc SPS):
Middle (mostly Montis):
Left (mostly LPS, zoas, softies and a butte tip anemone):
I've made big progress moving all my old fish and coral over...in fact everything is now moved over and the holding bin setup is now taken down. That was massive project! I didn't want to re-use any of the old LR since I had my aquascape the way I wanted it in the new tank, so I had to remove every piece of coral with a chisel or brute force. It ended up not being as hard physically as I thought it would, but it took a long time and was tedious work. You'll see in my pictures I have a lot of small pieces of coral still on my sandbed waiting to get glued to the new rock work. I lost a few coral, but for the most part almost everything survived. I did lose a lot of color in my acros and LPS but after about 2-3 weeks in the new tank many are starting to color up again. So I'm optimistic the'll return to their original glory. The monti's were the hardest to remove and I was left with a lot of fragments. That ended up being kind of a blessing in disguise as I was able to glue all kinds of different monti frags around the tank. Will look pretty cool when they start to grow out.
Stability in the tank is great. I've sent off a few tests to Triton and the only issue I've had so far is low to almost no phosphates. The macro in the fuge has been growing like crazy. However, recently about half the chaeto died but the Caulerpa, Mongroves and other misc macros are all going strong. I suspect this was due to the chaeto consuming all the tank's phosphate and starving itself to death. I got some Seachem Phosphate to start dosing if I can't get it up by increasing feeding. I'm dosing about 50ml of 2 part right now which (so far) has been able to keep alk and calc up and stable. Getting the reactor up is on the list soon. My tempeature is fluctuating a little more than I'd like between 78-80 in any given day. The house AC has kept the tank from going over 80 but I really want to get my chiller running so I can dial that down to fluctuate less. No problem algae thus far. All the algae growth is confided to the fuge still which makes me very happy. I really hope I can keep it that way.
As far equipment goes I have made a little progress but I'm still running things super basic. I have the skimmer, 20-30g doing water changes once a week, have carbon in my socks and dosing 2-part.
I plumbed the manifold to the Ecotech Vectra L1 and that is feeding UV, BRS Jumbo Reactor w/ carbon and the chiller. Unfortunately when I fired it up over the weekend to test I had leaks. I learned the hard way that the Neptune 2" Flow Control Senors HAVE to be sealed with liquid sealant and not plumbers tape/Teflon. I also had to seal my connections to the Vecta with liquid sealant as the Teflon tape leaked on those seals too. Neptune says this clearly in their Flow Control Sensor instructions...but who reads instructions until after you have a problem? So hoping to get this all running soon.
Few Equipment Projects left:
-Finish manifold
-Setup calc reactor
-Setup automatic water changer
-Organize wiring and mount all the apex gadgets (god help me...the wiring on this will be a lot of work)
-Hire the contractor to build the cabinetry around display
-Then find more projects!
The new Crosshatch Triggers from Divers Den are through QT and are now in the tank. They are gorgeous. They also eat a ridiculous amount of food. Right now we are feeding them huge chucks of whole krill and a silver side broken in half. I've also added a beautiful Gem Tang from Pacific Island Aquatics. Hopefully PIA will be sending a Purple Tang, White Tail Bristletooth Tang, Dussumieri Tang and some Anthias on Friday. I've also been very busy buying frags to fill this thing up...the Facebook auctions have me hooked!
Also on my list is to get a camera and learn how to properly photograph this thing. But for now an iPhone w/ Camera+ will have to do. I might try to shoot a video this evening or something to give a better view of the tank. I don't think the pictures below really do it much justice.
Full tank shot as of today:
And a few shots of the mess of coral on the sand
Right Side (Mostly acros or misc SPS):
Middle (mostly Montis):
Left (mostly LPS, zoas, softies and a butte tip anemone):
Killer Karma
Active Member
Wow that tank looks like its going to be epic! Great job
Acrononomus
Active Member
Awesomeness build out brother! Nice to see some people still use tall skimmers like that.... do you have more info on that pump that was on the glass inside your tank? Is it quiet? Look forward to seeing more!
OP
OP
Any time! It's always fun to show it off.
Thanks!
I love the LifeReef. I don't think I'd get another skimmer after using this one. It cranks and it was beyond simple to dial in.
The internal pumps in the display are Panta Rhei ECM 63's. You can get them at Unique: http://uniquecorals.com/dry-goods/panta-rhei.html. They are German pumps and used in many large public aquariums. They are known for making massive pumps, but their smaller pump size line (smaller for them, huge for us) is starting to make it's way into the US market. For a tank this size, I think they are as close to perfect as I can get. They are completely silent. You can get a little vibration noise from the cord if it's touching the side of a wall or the tank, but once you secure it down you can't tell the pumps are on. My display is totally silent since all my equipment is in the tank room behind a wall so these pumps are a perfect fit for me. Even more important than noise is their ability to push an insane amount of water. Each pump easily pushes a wave 10ft across the tank and I have them both synced together to push back and forth. My tank is heavily SPS dominated so I wanted max flow everywhere. I think these guys do it. I have them both running at 60% and it's a lot of flow. Only downside is that they don't have all the fancy pre-programmed modes that the EcoTech pumps have. I'm coming off using those from my previous tank and I do miss the ability to just set them in a mode like that. The Panta's have the ability to program it all yourself (which I did), it is just a little tedious if you want to deviate from their standard schedules. I highly recommend these pumps.
MarsRover
Well-Known Member
Hey @KingJason have you found that your AGE glass is really easy to scratch?!?
Literally anything scratches mine....and my former tank, an Oceanic with starphire, doesn't get scratched by the things that scratch my AGE. kinda a bummer!
let me know
Literally anything scratches mine....and my former tank, an Oceanic with starphire, doesn't get scratched by the things that scratch my AGE. kinda a bummer!
let me know
OP
OP
I've unfortunately scratched mine in a few spots. I guess that's the trade off you get for the better quality starphire. Luckily I did mine right away so I figured out real quick to be careful.
OP
OP
Another pretty long hiatus between updates!
It's funny...I still have all the same projects on my list from the last time I posted...lol. I blame it on the kids
Few Equipment Projects left:
-Finish manifold
-Setup calc reactor
-Setup automatic water changer
-Organize wiring and mount all the apex gadgets (god help me...the wiring on this will be a lot of work)
-Hire the contractor to build the cabinetry around display
-Then find more projects!
Tank has really just been on auto pilot for the most part. We've added some fish and coral along the way but no major changes. Things are all doing really nice. Most of the little frags are now little mini colonies and almost all have encrusted onto the rock. I ended up losing a few for various reasons. The two that hurt the most were a JF Homewrecker and Walt Disney that an urchin broke off the rock and fell down behind the back of the tank never to be seen again. I've since moved any new frags to a frag rack. It's ugly but that was painful. One day I'll get a frag setup in the garage but I've pretty much run out of room so I'm not sure how I'll work that out.
For fish we've added 5 Lyretail Anthias. They are a fun edition and so far haven't been hard to keep. They are always out and swimming. I'm currently only feeding every other day and I've had them for probably 6 months. We also added a White Tail Bristletooth Tang which felt the wrath of the Gem and Sailfin Tangs when it arrived. I didn't think it was going to make it but it did. Now all 3 tangs almost always swim together in the tank and things are peaceful. I've been on the hunt recently to pickup some more fish but haven't been able to find anything I need to have.
Since I still haven't hooked up the calc reactor, I am just dosing 2-part. Things seem to be doing fine so I haven't been in a big hurry to change anything. I also haven't tested anything for months. I figure it the coral is growing and polyps are out things are good. I did however just send off a test to Triton so we'll see what that comes back with.
I received an Alkatronic unit a week or so ago for testing Alk. It worked great for a week or so but now it's stuck on the same reading over and over again. I think I need to calibrate it again. It will be really cool when I get it hooked up and the calc reactor turned on.
I did have one thing that didn't work out. My mangroves all ended up dying on me. I have so much flow in the sump that it was impossible to get them to root and they kept falling over. After so many falls and sitting in salt water they all ended up dying on me. They were fun while they lasted. My refugium is packed with a few different types of Caulerpa. It's doing a great job and the display is pretty much algae free.
All my equipment has been working great. The only thing I hate with a passion is my Neptune ATO unit. The sensors are crap and unless I clean them daily they don't read anything and it never turns on. I'm going to go back to the breakout box and float switches. I used the same cheap $15 set on my last tank for over 10 years w/o a single problem. The new ATO from Neptune breaks pretty much every other day.
I do about a 40 gallon water change 1-3 times a month, clean out the skimmer once a month and feed the fish every other day or so.
Here are a few updated pictures of the display (I still really need to get a better camera!):
The coralline has built up on the sides pretty bad. I'm slowly chipping away at it but it's a mission!
It's funny...I still have all the same projects on my list from the last time I posted...lol. I blame it on the kids
Few Equipment Projects left:
-Finish manifold
-Setup calc reactor
-Setup automatic water changer
-Organize wiring and mount all the apex gadgets (god help me...the wiring on this will be a lot of work)
-Hire the contractor to build the cabinetry around display
-Then find more projects!
Tank has really just been on auto pilot for the most part. We've added some fish and coral along the way but no major changes. Things are all doing really nice. Most of the little frags are now little mini colonies and almost all have encrusted onto the rock. I ended up losing a few for various reasons. The two that hurt the most were a JF Homewrecker and Walt Disney that an urchin broke off the rock and fell down behind the back of the tank never to be seen again. I've since moved any new frags to a frag rack. It's ugly but that was painful. One day I'll get a frag setup in the garage but I've pretty much run out of room so I'm not sure how I'll work that out.
For fish we've added 5 Lyretail Anthias. They are a fun edition and so far haven't been hard to keep. They are always out and swimming. I'm currently only feeding every other day and I've had them for probably 6 months. We also added a White Tail Bristletooth Tang which felt the wrath of the Gem and Sailfin Tangs when it arrived. I didn't think it was going to make it but it did. Now all 3 tangs almost always swim together in the tank and things are peaceful. I've been on the hunt recently to pickup some more fish but haven't been able to find anything I need to have.
Since I still haven't hooked up the calc reactor, I am just dosing 2-part. Things seem to be doing fine so I haven't been in a big hurry to change anything. I also haven't tested anything for months. I figure it the coral is growing and polyps are out things are good. I did however just send off a test to Triton so we'll see what that comes back with.
I received an Alkatronic unit a week or so ago for testing Alk. It worked great for a week or so but now it's stuck on the same reading over and over again. I think I need to calibrate it again. It will be really cool when I get it hooked up and the calc reactor turned on.
I did have one thing that didn't work out. My mangroves all ended up dying on me. I have so much flow in the sump that it was impossible to get them to root and they kept falling over. After so many falls and sitting in salt water they all ended up dying on me. They were fun while they lasted. My refugium is packed with a few different types of Caulerpa. It's doing a great job and the display is pretty much algae free.
All my equipment has been working great. The only thing I hate with a passion is my Neptune ATO unit. The sensors are crap and unless I clean them daily they don't read anything and it never turns on. I'm going to go back to the breakout box and float switches. I used the same cheap $15 set on my last tank for over 10 years w/o a single problem. The new ATO from Neptune breaks pretty much every other day.
I do about a 40 gallon water change 1-3 times a month, clean out the skimmer once a month and feed the fish every other day or so.
Here are a few updated pictures of the display (I still really need to get a better camera!):
The coralline has built up on the sides pretty bad. I'm slowly chipping away at it but it's a mission!
lolgranny
Well-Known Member
Lovely tank! AGE does great work. My tanks almost same dimensions as yours. I wish I would have gone 34” deep rather then 30 but oh well. You have to love trying to clean the back walls. Scuba gear ON! Haha keep up the good work!
OP
OP
Update time!
From the last update until about 2 months ago I've been pretty busy with life and the family so the tank took a little bit of a back seat. I snail shell got stuck in the venturi of the LifeReef so it was down for about a month and a half. I had to tear it all down to finally figure out what the blockage was. Because of this I ended up with a wonderful cyano problem. Been battling it for about a month now and making a bit of progress. Back to about 30-40 gallon weekly water changes and the skimmer is pulling loads of junk out. During that we unfortunately lost a bunch of frags which is a little depressing. Almost all the established corals pulled through and all the fish are fine. Many are now nice size colonies and look great.
Still dosing 2-part. I've been slowly moving it up. I'm only doing about 60ML/day of each which must be low. I think I get away with it because I'm doing decent size weekly water changes....but I'm sure it's slowing the growth of my SPS. I also haven't got around to getting the ALK monitor back online which I really need to do as I'm simply guessing. Definitely an example of what not to do!
I don't think I've done anything new with my equipment. It's all working great. The nights have recently been really cold (for us at least...down into the low 40's) so I just purchased another 300w heater so I'll be running 3x 300w. The garage get's cold at night!
I did organize the wiring so it's all tidy now and all the various APEX components are mounted on the wall. Much better looking and safer too.
So this is what's left on the equipment side:
-Finish manifold
-Setup calc reactor
-Setup automatic water changer
-Hire the contractor to build the cabinetry around display
-Then find more projects!
We added 3 new fish a week or so ago: Regal Angel, Hippo Tang and a Sohal Tang. The Regal and Sohal are fine and dandy, the Hippo promptly got his tail bit off by one of the Cross Hatch Triggers. To our surprise he's hung in there and his tail is almost fully back and is doing great. We were lucky that he's a pig so even without a tail he still ate and was able to make it.
Here are some new pictures and a video of the tank. Fish won't stay still!
From the last update until about 2 months ago I've been pretty busy with life and the family so the tank took a little bit of a back seat. I snail shell got stuck in the venturi of the LifeReef so it was down for about a month and a half. I had to tear it all down to finally figure out what the blockage was. Because of this I ended up with a wonderful cyano problem. Been battling it for about a month now and making a bit of progress. Back to about 30-40 gallon weekly water changes and the skimmer is pulling loads of junk out. During that we unfortunately lost a bunch of frags which is a little depressing. Almost all the established corals pulled through and all the fish are fine. Many are now nice size colonies and look great.
Still dosing 2-part. I've been slowly moving it up. I'm only doing about 60ML/day of each which must be low. I think I get away with it because I'm doing decent size weekly water changes....but I'm sure it's slowing the growth of my SPS. I also haven't got around to getting the ALK monitor back online which I really need to do as I'm simply guessing. Definitely an example of what not to do!
I don't think I've done anything new with my equipment. It's all working great. The nights have recently been really cold (for us at least...down into the low 40's) so I just purchased another 300w heater so I'll be running 3x 300w. The garage get's cold at night!
I did organize the wiring so it's all tidy now and all the various APEX components are mounted on the wall. Much better looking and safer too.
So this is what's left on the equipment side:
-Finish manifold
-Setup calc reactor
-Setup automatic water changer
-Hire the contractor to build the cabinetry around display
-Then find more projects!
We added 3 new fish a week or so ago: Regal Angel, Hippo Tang and a Sohal Tang. The Regal and Sohal are fine and dandy, the Hippo promptly got his tail bit off by one of the Cross Hatch Triggers. To our surprise he's hung in there and his tail is almost fully back and is doing great. We were lucky that he's a pig so even without a tail he still ate and was able to make it.
Here are some new pictures and a video of the tank. Fish won't stay still!
OP
OP
Our newest fish is through QT and in acclimation, a Juvenile Harlequin Tusk! I had always wanted to add a Harlequin Tusk to the tank and when I saw a Juvenile popup on Diver's Den I jumped on it. I think it's always fun to buy smaller fish and watch them grow up in the tank. This one is really fun due to the colors being totally different from an adult so we'll get to watch that change as well.
This one has had a pretty wild ride so far. When we introduced it into the tank I didn't put it into acclimation. Although my Crosshatch Triggers have been real pricks lately they haven't really shown aggression to fish that don't look like Anthias (Anthias on the other hand beware...). So I thought this guy would be safe. Well...he was fine with the triggers but my stupid mystery wrasse got his/her panties in a bunch over the Tusk and wouldn't leave it alone. It disappeared after the first day and I figured all was lost. I was pretty bummed and only thing I thought I could do was remove the mystery wrasse. I got out my fish trap and even a hook and line to try and catch the mystery wrasse but I couldn't get him. I could have caught all the other fish 10x over but of course the one I was after didn't want to bite...I ended up giving up after a few days of fishing and using the trap.
So this was 4 weeks ago. Yesterday while working in the garage near the sump I noticed something in my overflow chamber...it was the Tusk! He was swimming around in the chamber right before the filter socks flow into the sump. I was amazed to say the least and super happy that it wasn't dead. I ended up having to almost drain my entire sump to catch the little bugger but I did and now it's in the acclimation box in the display. Fed him last night and he is eating and looks just fine. It's a tough little bugger. I plan to leave him in there for about a week and release. Hopefully the mystery wrasse leaves it alone but I'm guessing it won't be that easy. Hopefully the Tusk can get his energy up and fight back when he get's released.
This one has had a pretty wild ride so far. When we introduced it into the tank I didn't put it into acclimation. Although my Crosshatch Triggers have been real pricks lately they haven't really shown aggression to fish that don't look like Anthias (Anthias on the other hand beware...). So I thought this guy would be safe. Well...he was fine with the triggers but my stupid mystery wrasse got his/her panties in a bunch over the Tusk and wouldn't leave it alone. It disappeared after the first day and I figured all was lost. I was pretty bummed and only thing I thought I could do was remove the mystery wrasse. I got out my fish trap and even a hook and line to try and catch the mystery wrasse but I couldn't get him. I could have caught all the other fish 10x over but of course the one I was after didn't want to bite...I ended up giving up after a few days of fishing and using the trap.
So this was 4 weeks ago. Yesterday while working in the garage near the sump I noticed something in my overflow chamber...it was the Tusk! He was swimming around in the chamber right before the filter socks flow into the sump. I was amazed to say the least and super happy that it wasn't dead. I ended up having to almost drain my entire sump to catch the little bugger but I did and now it's in the acclimation box in the display. Fed him last night and he is eating and looks just fine. It's a tough little bugger. I plan to leave him in there for about a week and release. Hopefully the mystery wrasse leaves it alone but I'm guessing it won't be that easy. Hopefully the Tusk can get his energy up and fight back when he get's released.
jasonrusso
2500 Club Member
Congrats! Still has the eye spot on his dorsal.
OP
OP
Ugh...so just got my Triton test back and somehow in the last month my Tin level has jumped up. So now the battle of finding the needle in the haystack of equipment that could be adding it.
After doing some reading I've purchased some CupriSorb and will use that to try and get it down as quick as I can.
I'm hoping I can find the source but I don't think it's going to be easy. No obvious signs on any of my equipment or magnets.
The two new things I have added in the last month are: Dastaco Reactor and ARID Reactor which is powered by a new manifold pump (Vectra L1). All had been dry until about a month ago. Both have very minimal electronics and I can't see how it's them and they're all brand new...but they are the new things so they'll be the first I tear apart. Godspeed...
After doing some reading I've purchased some CupriSorb and will use that to try and get it down as quick as I can.
I'm hoping I can find the source but I don't think it's going to be easy. No obvious signs on any of my equipment or magnets.
The two new things I have added in the last month are: Dastaco Reactor and ARID Reactor which is powered by a new manifold pump (Vectra L1). All had been dry until about a month ago. Both have very minimal electronics and I can't see how it's them and they're all brand new...but they are the new things so they'll be the first I tear apart. Godspeed...
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