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Wiskey

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Yeah and I’m actually quite upset because when we moved here, I made it very clear to the property management and owners that we didn’t want to move in, unless we could stay for at least 3 years. 5 months later; they are telling us they want to sell the house.

Now I have to sell off a lot of pieces that I intended to keep for many years because I don’t want to risk having anything die while moving.

Man that sucks. I really feel for you, moving these systems is a HUGE pain. I wish you luck! Beautiful tank BTW!

Whiskey
 
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Livinlocal

Livinlocal

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Amazing setup. Great recovery from the quick move as well. I found your thread after seeing your for sale posts. Nice corals for sure :)


Thank you!

Yeah everything recovered nicely, but I have to move AGAIN.

Hopefully this will be the last move before we purchase a home.
 
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Livinlocal

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So I have been putting a lot of thought into this, and I decided I am going to sell all of my coral, or sell as much as possible before we have to move in the next six months. Taking a step back and looking at everything, I don’t want to do what I just did when we moved here. It was way too strenuous to individually package coral, so I am going to be selling most of everything off, then re-starting my collection after we purchase a house.
 

NY_Caveman

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So I have been putting a lot of thought into this, and I decided I am going to sell all of my coral, or sell as much as possible before we have to move in the next six months. Taking a step back and looking at everything, I don’t want to do what I just did when we moved here. It was way too strenuous to individually package coral, so I am going to be selling most of everything off, then re-starting my collection after we purchase a house.

Nothing like a clean start too. Besides, any surprises during the move will be far less stressful.
 
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Livinlocal

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Quick update.

I have started selling off some of my stuff. I was able to sell most of my large colony to locals, and have the rest posted up on here. We may actually end up buying a house before we get out of this place we are currently renting. We wanted to wait until the market dropped a little bit, but we are thinking now is the time. If we do end up buying, that means a large upgrade is in the future!
 
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well here is another shocking update for everybody that is following along. So we ended up waiting on buying a house, because the market in San Diego is the highest it has ever been, with the market looking like it may crash in the next couple years. With that being said, we ended up renting another house, and moved the system. I ended up selling a lot of the Coral, so that made the move easier, but I also decided to take the time and set up a new to me 220 gallon display inside the house, separate from my frag system. I took the time to color match everything, I went with a red and white advanced acrylic sump, L1 Vectra pump, reef octopus skimmer, and 4 Radion pros, along with all the colored PVC to match. There was no expense spared, and as you can see, I put a lot of time and money into getting this set up. This is my first system where I really wanted it to look stunning from all aspects, I’ve have never cared what the sump area looked like.



Here are a few photos hooking everything up.

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I was getting some salt creep from bubbles in my overflow section of the sump, so I decided to make a cover out of some extra starboard That my friend gave me. And it worked very well.

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I also decided to build my own light rail, so I made it out of square tube aluminum, and purchased some mounting screws at Home Depot.

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And then mounted...

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Livinlocal

Livinlocal

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At this point, everything was running great. I had all my coral and fish inside the display, and it was smooth sailing. I had finally set up that exact system I wanted, and it felt amazing.


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Livinlocal

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At the same time, I was also setting up my frag system in the garage, but once the display was finished, I was able to concentrate more on the Frag tank. Here are a few shots. Please ignore the messy wires, I was still routing everything.


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Once I had everything running, I was able to pull some of the Coral’s from my holding tank, and place them in the Frack tank. Now I was on the right track for getting my Frag tank situated.

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Then to the wiring.. this is still a work in progress.

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mmw64

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Hi everybody ! After about 8 years of being in the hobby, I figured it’s about time I create a build thread documenting the life of my system so I have something to look back on. I am always reading everybody else’s build threads, but have not made one of my own. I will mainly use this to document pictures of my corals and fish, along with Sharing my experiences along the way. So here’s a little about my system.

I have had the system for a long time, but recently moved to a new house, 4 months ago and had to move all of this equipment with me. Oh boy was that a lot of work haha. It is set up pretty much like how it was at my old house, with all of the plumbing going through the walls and having the sump/frag tank in the garage. It is/will be a SPS dominate mixed reef.


Current setup, due to change as I upgrade or replace anything:

180g display
60g display refugium/frag tank (garage)
50g sump (garage)
2016 Apex (still hooking up)
60” ATI T5 over the 180
48” no name t5 over refugium/frag tank
(2) MP40qdw
(3) MP10qdw
Water making station
Reeflo gold return pump
Reef Octopus skimmer
Finnex 800w heater
Ecoplus 1 1/2hp chiller
Jbj ATO
Precision Marine calcium reactor
Nextreef carbon reactor
16g quarantine setup


I was able to find some of the pictures in my phone from when we first moved into our new house, so I hope you enjoy the transition to where it is at now.

Here she is in her final resting position. Lots of Cleaning to come...
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Here is a quick photo I snapped after plumbing everything to the main display. In this photo I was filling the system up with tapwater and lots and lots of vinegar for the deep cleaning.
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So after I did a deep clean on everything, I was able to fill it with salt water and hook the chiller up. As you can see, this chiller is a beast! My next challenge was deciding how to mount my chiller so I could hook up my Frag tank.
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Well luckily I have friends in the HVAC industry, and was able to score this mini split wall bracket for $40 using my friends company discount. Next was the frag tank!
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And here is the refugium/frag tank ! This was before I switched to the t5 over the refugium/frag tank. This is when I was using a 175w MH.

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And here is a FTS that I took just a couple days ago!

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If anyone has any questions, let me know! I’m always more than willing to answer whatever I can. Stay tuned for a bunch of macro pictures !!!!

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Great tank. Good work.
 
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Livinlocal

Livinlocal

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Then tragedy struck. This is the last photo I have of my tank. I finished setting It up at the beginning of October, then it had a bad seam failure in the beginning of December. This was devastating. On top of that, my significant other/girlfriend is pregnant, and it was just a disaster.

If it wasn’t for my girlfriend, Megan, it would have been much worse. It’s too much to get into all the details, but to make a long story short; Megan found the leak around 5am right as it started and was able to wake me up with ping second by screaming THE TANK IS LEAKING, THE TANK IS LEAKING. I’ve never jumped up so fast in my life. I got to the location of the tank within 20 seconds, and when I got there, I was literally seeing the eurobrace and corner seams popping in front of my eyes. I instantly rand into the garage to get ratchet straps, then when I came back inside, the seam had separated 6”-8” down the top corner and was about to pop the entire panel. I threw a ratchet strap around the tank, while megan was getting towels, blankets,etc to soak up the water.

I was able to get the ratchet strap on, and a hose into the display within maybe 60 seconds of when I heard megan scream. It was lightning fast, and just nearly fast enough. We got extremely lucky the whole panel didn’t pop off.

Needless to say, I didn’t have the time to take any photos as it was happening, but once I got the ratchet strap on the tank, I took a photo, then took another photo once it was drained. The livelihood of my livestock was what was most important to me. It’s hard to say how much water was lost, but I’m guessing around 75 gallons.


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mmw64

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I also got some very unfortunate news which is going to be forcing me to sell off some of my stuff.

I just can’t seem to catch a break when it comes to rental properties, and unfortunately I am not in the position to buy a house at the moment. Hopefully the next year or two, but we just got word that the owners are going to be selling the house we are renting, so they will not be renewing our lease. So once again, I am going to have to move my system AGAIN. I am not looking forward to this whatsoever.

It has been very discouraging over the last two years with having to move several times because it unforeseen circumstances, But I will NOT be giving up on reef keeping.
Oh no! Used to live in So. Cal. and know how expensive property has become. Sorry you are going to have to move again. Bummer!
 
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Livinlocal

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So stepping back a little, before the picture of the display completely drained.... So now at this point, I am in a chaotic mess. I have the tank drained a little more than 50%, and have no idea what I’m going to do with my fish and coral. I could put some of the coral in my frag system, but I do not nearly have enough space to hold everything. Not only that, but most of my fish wouldn't fit in the Frag tank.

no I knew whatever I was going to do, it had to be connected to my Frag system in the garage. So my first thought was a large IBC tote. Luckily, and extremely lucky when I say this, but I was able to find a 275g IBC tote at 6 AM on a Sunday, less than 1 mile from my house, for $40. It was the only thing that seems positive in this situation. Well I went and picked up the tote, I cut the top off of it, and pressure washed it. Once it was clean, I used the L1 for the return on the 275, and plumed a 2” bulkhead into the 275, so now it was all one system again, like my last two setups in this build thread.

I ended up taking the light rail that I made, and I cut it in half. This way I am able to use two of my Radion‘s over the 275.I do plan on lowering them, but this is what I had to work with for the time being. I sold the other 2 on here, so thank you R2R.

In addition to the Radion’s, I also put two Mp40s, and a eb8 to connect it to my apex that’s running the frag system.

Now my garage is a complete mess LOL but everything is happy.


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Livinlocal

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And some of the plumbing. Again, nothing fancy now, I just needed to get it tied in, around the rest of everything else.

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I’m really not thrilled about this next to the hot water heater, but I don’t have a choice until I get a new display.

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NY_Caveman

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OMG, what a story. Nice save! I cannot believe how fast you worked and how smartly you acted. A little luck helps too. This is my worst nightmare and I only have a 45 gallon currently.

 
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Livinlocal

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OMG, what a story. Nice save! I cannot believe how fast you worked and how smartly you acted. A little luck helps too. This is my worst nightmare and I only have a 45 gallon currently.
Thank you, it was quite an experience to say the least. I’m just glad everything survived and our house wasn’t damaged.
 
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Livinlocal

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So it looks like I am going to be buying a new display this weekend. A 400 gallon, 360° view Cube with center overflow. I’ll post photos when I pick it up.
 
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Livinlocal

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Being that I have had multiple tanks set up in this thread, I’ll probably be creating a new one for the cube.
 

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Dude first off..I'm sorry for all that you have been through. I really feel horrible but from your catastrophe take some reassurance that you taught some of us some valuable triage skills. First, I will for one pick up some dedicated ratchet straps and put those in my fish cabinet next to the tank for such an emergency.

I look forward to seeing your next tank build. Hopefully it gets easier.
 
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