Ken's 215G Build

[kenchilada]

Tangs are still alive but breathing heavily. I believe the methylene blue saved them last night. I don’t know if they will make it. They’re still breathing hard.

They’ve been in this tank 17 days... not sure why I’m having ammonia problems now. The filter definitely is not keeping up. I’m doing 10G water changes and adding Prime.

Reefs are easy compared to quarantine tanks. It’s really a different animal.

 

[Manny’s Reef]

Bud Im sorry to hear about the difficulties you're experiencing. For what it is worth, your experiences are making me second guess whether or not I will setup a QT tank for when I start acquiring fish. I just may have to pay the extra dime and buy from Marine Collectors.

 

[kenchilada]

Bud Im sorry to hear about the difficulties you're experiencing. For what it is worth, your experiences are making me second guess whether or not I will setup a QT tank for when I start acquiring fish. I just may have to pay the extra dime and buy from Marine Collectors.

Yeah I’m conflicted. Quarantine is easy enough but ammonia management is difficult. The Seachem badges do not seem reliable and I’ve lost confidence in them.

I have an Aquaclear 70 and an airstone in this tank for two weeks now and this ammonia spike happened. I just added a large sponge block soaked in bottled bacteria with a maxijet 900 on it. Hopefully it helps. Planning another 10G water change tonight.

Now I see what I think is bacterial infection on his fin. I have meds for this but antibiotics can deplete oxygen, so I’m not sure what to do. I’m hoping humblefish and friends see my other thread soon and can advise. They’ve been great so far.



For really expensive fish I plan to use paid quarantine. I definitely do not trust myself to that degree yet. Plus it doesn’t cost that much more when I consider what I’ve spent just on salt for all these water changes!!

 

[kenchilada]

My tangs have recovered from ammonia burn thanks to methylene blue and help from the @Humblefish crew. I think my mistake was over-feeding frozen food. I got lucky this time. Still battling a bit of finrot on the whitetail but going to try to transfer these guys out of copper tomorrow and take it from there.

 

[kenchilada]

First two 20G tanks done with copper and metro. Transferred everybody to a new 40G. Still need to do prazi, but otherwise these guys will be first fish in the DT in a couple weeks.

 

[kenchilada]

Getting ready to brace under the house, run a couple 20 amp circuits, and do plumbing for easy water changes. I have off five days this week to work on it starting Wednesday.

Also going to build the canopy soon. I just ordered this thing...

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Tubular motor I will use to raise/lower my light rack. I looked into actuators (overkill and too loud) and winches (too clunky). Tube motor is plenty strong and low profile. Plus it has a cool remote! I’ll build a custom housing for it in my canopy with a couple pulleys to route the cable. It’s really hard to find details on these lift systems so I’m going to try to do a build thread on it.

The one thing I can’t find is a suitable take up reel. I want a reel so the aluminum rod doesn’t make contact with the cable. Hopefully that would prevent aluminum from getting into the tank.

The rack will hold the huge Sunpower fixture and all the Kessils. I also am ordering a ton of fans to build cooling into the canopy to exhaust the T5 heat out the side.

Lots to do.

 

[kenchilada]

Thinking a bit more about the reel I need for my tubular motor. All I really need is something to shield the rod from the cable and prevent corrosion and aluminum dust. I could paint the rod to seal it, then slide the rod into something else for the cable to ride on. The outer diameter of the rod is 2.5”, so I need something with an inside diameter of 2.5”.

I found out that silicon automotive exhaust hose is 2.5” ID. Probably only need a foot or two...

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Or this shop vac hose... might try this first...

 

[kenchilada]

Ordered a couple of pulleys. These will mount in top of the cabinet and run the cable from the motor housing to hang the lights.

Also @ocpondpoacher has modeled a take up reel to fit the tubular motor! This looks perfect, can't wait to get a couple of these 3D printed. This idea came from an old RC thread that @sdreef pointed me to. Never could find anything like it for sale.

 

[sdreef]

Ordered a couple of pulleys. These will mount in top of the cabinet and run the cable from the motor housing to hang the lights.

Also @ocpondpoacher has modeled a take up reel to fit the tubular motor! This looks perfect, can't wait to get a couple of these 3D printed. This idea came from an old RC thread that @sdreef pointed me to. Never could find anything like it for sale.

I tried to find a something like this, and wasn't able to piece it together. Happy you were able to find a solution. Will be great to see this come together.

 

[kenchilada]

I can officially put water in the tank now.

Braced under the floor today. Double 2x10” screwed and glued, Jack posts every three feet on concrete pads. The beam is directly under the front edge of the tank.

I also ran two 20A circuits, added a 1-1/2” waste drain and two 3/4” lines behind the tank. This will be for push-button water changes later.

 

[kenchilada]

Fish doing good in quarantine. Getting very fat!!

 

[kenchilada]

Got the tubular motor for my light lift. Lots to work out here. I need to put all this in Sketchup and figure out how to mount it in the canopy.

 

[kenchilada]

Bought a small copperband and scopas tang. The copperband was eating frozen brine and mysis at the store, and he’s eating pretty well in QT so far. I want to try some clam and masstick but afraid to cause ammonia bomb.

The crazy thing is... I put a tiny bit of nori in a clip for the scopas and this copperband is eating the hell out of it!!

 

[Gablami]

Bought a small copperband and scopas tang. The copperband was eating frozen brine and mysis at the store, and he’s eating pretty well in QT so far. I want to try some clam and masstick but afraid to cause ammonia bomb.

The crazy thing is... I put a tiny bit of nori in a clip for the scopas and this copperband is eating the hell out of it!!

Sounds like you got a good one. Take your time on QT and fatten him up. Sometimes going into gen pop, they go on a hunger strike.

 

[kenchilada]

Sounds like you got a good one. Take your time on QT and fatten him up. Sometimes going into gen pop, they go on a hunger strike.

Thanks for the tip. Been 20+ years since my last copperband so I can use all the tips I can get.

 

[kenchilada]

All I have left to do is build the canopy and do the plumbing. I have all the hardware and parts.

Canopy design is finished except for tiny details I'll figure out in the shop. The blue rod in the sketch is the tubular motor rod that will operate the light lift via remote control. The cable winds on the black reel, goes through the pulley, and down to the light fixture. Should be able to have the light be anywhere from 0" - 18" off the surface.

 

[kenchilada]

EIGHT FEET TALL! The guy in the sketch is six foot. My wife's going to hate this.

 

[Gablami]

this.

Trying to figure out how you’re going to get 12+ powder blue tangs to coexist peacefully.

 

[kenchilada]

Trying to figure out how you’re going to get 12+ powder blue tangs to coexist peacefully.

That's what the schnauzers are for!

 

[kenchilada]

Canopy frame is built. Will skin it tomorrow, trim Friday, paint and stain this weekend if I can keep up this pace.

Then just plumbing and aquascape left.