Ludnix's 120g reef and Coral Room!

[ludnix]

That's it...I'm buying a 3D printer. So many cool things you can use them in the hobby for.

If you need any further convincing check out my archive of reef related free 3d print models, there's some really clever ideas in there I hope to print in the future!

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/3d-printed-aquarium-parts-archive-thread.599807/

This is going to be a fun one for me to follow. I'm loving the photos.

And thank you, There will be many more photos to come as I start the coral room!

 

[Salty Lemon]

If you need any further convincing check out my archive of reef related free 3d print models, there's some really clever ideas in there I hope to print in the future!

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/3d-printed-aquarium-parts-archive-thread.599807/



And thank you, There will be many more photos to come as I start the coral room!

I'm definitely checking it out. Thanks.

 

[ludnix]

While we are on the subject of the 3d printer, I have been taking some time off selling parts to make some upgrades to the setup.

I found an old metal brake that was completely frozen with rust in my parking lot at work. After a lot of TLC and elbow grease I got it working again and bent up some steel 24 gauge sheets into a new 3d printer enclosure. I used aluminum rivets to hold it all together as I'm not setup for welding.

Magnetic tape holds an acrylic panel on the front, I wanted to switch to an all metal enclosure for fire safety and make something a little bigger to support a larger print volume in the future.

I also printed out a new ball and socket mount based off something I found on thingiverse. I had to whip of the webcam housing to match in Tinkercad.

Printing some of the dosing clips in the new setup:

A headphone stand for my desk:

 

[ludnix]

I made an ebay order for some astrea snails this past week. I really do not like to order from ebay but reefcleaners and other invert sites didn't seem to have astreas in stock and they are my favorite. I sold my two extremely large turbo snails as they kept bulldozing over glued in frags.

It took two tries with one of my shipments getting stuck in the post office over memorial weekend but I ended up getting 25 Astrea snails and yellow highlighter acropora via priority mail. I am shocked the acropora made the 3 day journey. I won't bother trying again with ebay in the future I think, I'll stick the usual vendors when it comes to future coral orders.

I was also traded the birdnest branches which I stuck into a ball of putty. I think it's going to take a lot of trimming and sculpting to make it look good, but hopefully if it grows well I will have the opportunity to do so.

The eBay Yellow highlighter acropora with it's polyps outs.

The snails all ended up moving away from where I originally put them and there's a distinctly cleaner circle expanding from that location so they seem to be eating well! I am really surprised to have all 25/25 survive!

 

[ludnix]

I'm still struggling to find this tank's ideal parameters and the delicate balance between those and maintenance schedules. Right now I'm thinking it serve the corals well if I raised my alkalinity to closer 9 or higher. Keeping it from dipping as far down as it used to has helped tremendously with SPS losses, but I still am getting some burned tips on the green slimer which I suspect is due to my low alk and high nutrients. I am doing my best to keep nutrients down with waterchanges but until I can setup a refugium I think keeping the alk might be a way to help stop the burned tips in the mean time. If I'm totally off base I hope someone will chime in!

 

[ludnix]

I ended up losing one of the $15 acroporas a friend brought back for me. It's the little stick in the front of this photo. It seemed to slowly recede from the base, I suspect it couldn't handle my high nitrates currently.

The ebay highlighter acropora is doing really well though and seems to be a better candidate for these conditions. The strange pink coral behind it seems to be developing axial polyps so maybe it is just a weird cut of an acropora. Time will tell! The purple coral to the left is getting hints of turquoise/green in the base, a couple of the polyps have gotten a pretty blue hue from above but it's hard to capture on camera.

ORA laura's purple polyp continues to grow well! I think this coral really took off for me once I increased it's flow.

A full tank shot for posterity. Overall things are doing well I would say. The high nitrates is my biggest issue right now but I think ultimately that will be easier to solve when the coral room is up. I'm extremely attached to the foxface who's a little problematic with both waste production and nipping, so I may want to make this tank mostly LPS/softies eventually which would suit the high nitrates and SPS nipping inhabitants. I will have plenty of space for the acroporas and other corals in a more controlled environment soon.

 

[ludnix]

I was able to slide my phone alone the right side of the tank and get this side view of Laura's purple polyp acropora:

The tank is chugging along, I had to increase my dosage of calcium and alk from 50ml a day to 54ml. Coraline is really taking off since the dosing has been stable, the rocks are finally looking purple!

 

[ludnix]

It's been a while since I have updated everyone on the coral room's progress. It just recently got insulated and the drywall guys got started today. I have outlets on the ceiling for future lighting needs and outlets at about 5' on the wall with two seperate 20A circuits. This wall on the left is where most of frag tanks will be.

This is the wall where the frag tanks will go. Each box of the two large boxes on the middle of the wall are their own circuits. The lighting outlets on the ceiling are another separate circuit.

E
Exhaust fan controlled by hygrometer or manual control. I am hoping this will help mitigate moisture.

Drywall progress they made today!

 

[ludnix]

The walls have mud and texture! There is one more pass of sanding to be done today but then it should be time to paint and have the electricians close up the electrical boxes! The contractor still needs to install the fiberglass sink I refurbished earlier in the thread and install overhead lighting. I can't wait!

The texturing mud had not finished drying when I took this photo which is why it's darker in some areas. This photo captures the area I am planning to have the frag tanks in. The the square boxes at about 4' up are each their own dedicated 20A circuit to power a few banks of frag tanks eventually.



Back to the 120g, I tried out some new seaweeds for the fish as a special treat. I got a bag of mixed species harvested from the Mendocino coast, a neighboring county to where I am. It's harvested by kayak and dried in the sun, a mix of Kombu, Sea Palm, Wakame, and Nori. They seemed pretty into at first but then disinterested later, by the time I came back a few hours later it was all gone though.

 

[ludnix]

Where we last left off the coral room had it's drywall and mud applied. Since then we have made some serious progress!

I started with painting the walls, the right wall and far wall are both being painted a dark blue "Ocean Radiance" by valspar. The other two walls are a Silver I don't remember the name of also by Valspar. I chose a semi-gloss Optimus paint with hopes that it will wipe up easy incase of salt spray or similar aquaria related messes.

Next I applied a garage floor primer in prep of applying an epoxy coating. I used Rustoleum Garage floor primer and boy was it stinky. I turned on the exhaust vent and opened the window for the afternoon after I applied it. It's a dark grey that you see the in the following photos.

24 hours later the primer is ready for the epoxy coating. I went with Rustoleum Rock Solid Garage Floor Epoxy in Metallic Blue. It takes 2 boxes to do a single car garage. If it weren't so expensive I think this room could have used 4 boxes to get a blue that matches the picture on the box, but regardless I am happy with the coating I have ended up with so far.

These photos show the first box after it was applied to the first half of the room. I'm proud of myself for not painting myself into a corner literally. You'll have to take my word for it that I did the second half too because I was too exhausted at the end of it for any more photos. I will get some close ups once I've had a chance to clean up the room.

 

[ludnix]

A small direct vented furnace was installed. This will allow me to keep the room closer to tank temperature during the winter, hopefully reducing the electric bill when the room is fully stocked. All of the circuits in this room are commercial 20A circuits with a total of 7 circuits in here. It's extremely overkill but I am happy to have to not have any electrical limitations except for the potential energy bill!

I am super happy with these LED bars that were installed. They are 0-10v dimmable at the switch and use the same technology I used to light people's aquariums when I was a custom LED builder. Granted they are a lot warmer in coloration, but they share the same extremely efficient design. The electrician needed some plate covers for where the metal flex conduit meets the ceiling before they could raise them to their final height and trim the excess hanging wire.

The contractor made me a nice little counter for my sink. This is the same sink I restored on page 1 of this thread, which was about a million years ago (okay, it was only 5 months ago, I swear it feels like forever).

The countertop was found here on the property (our location used to be a countertop facility). I think it needs a coat of sealant because it darkens when wetted even though it feels polished. I'm not a mason so I don't know much about counter tops or sealing them, but I saw a lot of bottles of countertop sealer here when we first looked at the building.

I also ran into some cheap Olive barrels! I am hoping to use these for RO and Saltwater storage once they have been cleaned and maybe painted. They were appealing to me because they had that wonderful intersection of being reef safe and cheap! They have only had Olives, Water, Salt and Ascorbic Acid in them, nothing that I would worry about for a reef. Once they are thoroughly cleaned I will install a float valve in one of them and connect it to my RO/DI unit.

That's it for today! There's going to be a lot more action in this thread now that most of the construction out of my control is over!

 

[ludnix]

More work on the fish room!

Sink counter is painted silver and RODI fully connected now with the drain line attached to a saddle piercing valve under the sink. I am planning on gluing a wood trim on the edge of the granite and giving that a round over. If it were going in my home I would round over the granite and polish it, but I know first hand how much work that is and it's not necessary for a coral room.

The humidity controller which activates the exhaust fan. I need to setup a large display hygrometer in the room so I can see what it actually ends up at.

A full tank shot of the lobby 120. This tank is staying in the front lobby but I'll be fragging it back soon when the new low-boys arrive for the coral room.

Laura's Purple Polyp is still growing well but it gets a burn mark in the middle when I don't keep up on the bi-weekly waterchanges. I did one today though!

The birdnest is getting nice and spikey with the alk and calcium stabilized.

Coming soon: I am expecting 3 zoomed lowboys to arrive next week and I can start framing the stand for them!

 

[ludnix]

I found a little ball anemone on one of the rocks in the 120g. I took a little video in case anyone hasn't seen one before. It's a harmless hitch hiker as they don't seem to multiply at a dangerous rate like aiptasia or majanos anemones.

 

[ludnix]

I've started work on the frag tank stand with the help of @Cobystolz. I need to insert some cross braces in the top and bottom still and then plywood over the two horizontal surfaces. This should be able to hold two of the lowboys and sump.

 

[ludnix]

Small progress made on the stand as I put in some cross bracing and played around with some plywood for the tops.

 

[ludnix]

With some advice from here on R2R I got to work on getting a good seal on this porous granite countertop. It's been made smooth but never sealed fully. If you spill water on the surface you can see the granite get dark and soak the water up. This won't do for a fish room!

After applying the first coat it started to soak up and left some very visible rings and lines in the granite. I was pretty concerned about it's appearance but I would give it a chance to dry and see how it looks then before panicking.

The next day it's looking totally uniform again, whew!

Most importantly it passed the first water spill test

I went ahead and applied a second coat today and think that should be good for this year. It will need further treatment and sealing annually since it's a natural stone.

 

[ludnix]

I have not been able to update in a while but a lot has happened! California is suffering from forest fires down in the central region of the state. We are fortunately pretty sheltered from wild fires where I am located but we were still affected by the power company's power safety shut offs. This resulted in no power to the aquarium for a few days at a time several weeks in a row. I ultimately was prompted to buy a generator to cope with future power shut offs but I am ready for next time!

Full tank shot: October 2019

During the first power outage my battery backup was able to keep the tank pumping for 6 hours or so before it died out. With the power outage estimated at 36 hours I had to resort to airating the aquarium with a tire inflator and my vehicle. I was able to run this for about 15-20 minutes in the evening and morning. I was fortunate to not suffer any fish casualties.

Air stone in the reef tank connected to a tire inflator.

Tire inflator running off my car parked outside.

 

[ludnix]

When I wasn't worrying about power shut offs I found some time to install the overflow on the first low boy. I 3d printed this overflow out of ABS plastic as a proof of concept. I want to refine the idea some more but eventually will release the files for download. Once printed and assembled the overflow was siliconed down.

I then drilled the glass for two bulkheads. I think I will make the overflow big enough for 3 on the next version so I can run a full bean animal.

I started work on priming and painting the stand so I could get this tank on it!

 

[ludnix]

I hung up two of the Vipar Spectra LED lights over the low boy's eventual positon.

First coat of black enamel paint rolling on the back of the low boy. I like the glossy black enable for tank backgrounds because it's easy to wipe up salt creep off.

I was fortunate enough to get this Proclear Red Flex 200 sump from a local reefer. It's going to be visible so it's nice to have such a clean and organized sump setup.

Final coat and tank in position!

 

[ludnix]

I'm running late on the updates this past month! Fortunately a lot of progress is being made in the actual coral room itself though!

The frag tank got filled and leak tested.

I have the sump plumbed though I still have some changes I would like to make in the future. For now we are operating sucessfully though!

Honeycomb Frag Racks

I got to work on designing a new frag rack system. I have designed these 3d printed ABS or PETG honeycomb grids. I feel like there are lot of advantages to these over the usual light diffuser material. In addition to looking better they are small manageable grids that can be removed for easy cleaning. They are mostly flat (just 2-3mm thick) and can be quickly brushed clean in the sink. You can relocate a small patch of frags and pull out a single plate for cleaning. With a few extras they can be quickly swapped. The legs fit into the honeycomb pattern with a friction fit that keeps everything nice and snug. They legs are also stack-able so you can adjust the height of the frag racks.

You can see the progress of the total rack as my parts come off the printer. Section by section it can be all joined together, I think about 21 plates covers the whole low boy though I don't know that I will actually want to fill that much of the tank up.

I will be releasing these for sale on the R2R marketplace later on when I have had a while to play with them and continue testing. So far they are working great but I want to have them finalized before releasing them to the wild. I will post the STL files in the 3d archive when I do!

First frag tank corals!

I have added a bunch of frags of various things that were duplicates or not doing well in the 120g. They should do much better in the frag tank without urchins, hermits and tangs nipping at them. The 120g is doing well but is always struggling with high nutrients due to not having a refugium. That's a project for another day though.

The flow is currently provided from the Vortech return pump and two old koralia power heads. I would like to switch them out for some gyres someday but for now they will do the trick.