Marty's 8' 300g/sump room build. ~750g system

[crusso1993]

That is a good one.

This is nice too and other related threads by subsea are interesting.
https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/2...m-on-top-with-30g-ecosystem-mud-macro.421526/

Yes, it is very nice. Thanks for sharing!

 

[crusso1993]

Updates?

 

[Mshort03]

Updates?

Updates... ya gotta say it's been quite the week for me. What was supposed to be a fun filled memorial day weekend for me ended up with a broken hvac unit and me running around finding parts, working on it till midnight one night all with O success and then getting the nice $13500 bill to replace both units. Bright side is that I will have all new high efficiency trane units and touchscreen thermostats..downside is ita 13500 friggin dollars! 4 months after I bought the home! Grr....
I bought a portable ac unit to use till Wednesday when units get replaced. Its keeping house cool but these 95 degree days are giving it a run for its money.

As for the tank let's just say I'm extremely thankful i bought that chiller as an "insurance policy". It has completely saved me from losing everything and has certainly paid for itself in this one experience.With the high heat it did manage to keep tank to safe level but it certainly was working for it.

The ac in room was also on non stop.. after wed when new units are in I'm gunna swap out the unit in room for the new one I just bought as it's a bit bigger. With all the t5 in the room it gets pretty hot and I'd like a bigger unit to handle it. I also considered switching to led for one of the tanks to try and save some on the heat...but that will be decided later.

@Dyanna Diaz is on her way to LFS today to pick up a few wrasses to add to the gang. Divided leopard, black leopard And orange back will be joined in us today

Another thing I did get started last Sunday was my phyto farm. I love feeding this stuff it really helps with the corals I feel and it feeds the bottom of the food chain which is quite important.

Today when I get home from work I'm gunna cut this in half, seed the other container and then pour rest into display. Next week I will harvest 50% of each and keep going on that way. I should get about 3 gallons a week which I plan to use most of in all of my system. I have another container for fridge to hold some for smaller systems where I wont do such a large dose at once I'm thinking dumping 1.5-2 gallons a week in display..should be adequate considering volume.

 

[crusso1993]

Some great adds with the wrasses and doing your own phyto. Pics of the wrasses would be cool.

As for the hvac; holy crap! $6750 a unit sounds a bit ridiculous to me. How many tons are they and why are they so costly. The touchscreen add-ons are sweet but, even with them, that $13,500 price tag sounds very high to me. Sorry you're having this happen right after getting the house.

 

[Mshort03]

Some great adds with the wrasses and doing your own phyto. Pics of the wrasses would be cool.

As for the hvac; holy crap! $6750 a unit sounds a bit ridiculous to me. How many tons are they and why are they so costly. The touchscreen add-ons are sweet but, even with them, that $13,500 price tag sounds very high to me. Sorry you're having this happen right after getting the house.

I will get some pics when I'm back from the beach! And yes I couldn't afford phyto buying phyto for this size tank so this is great.

As for the hvac Its all all electric house so I have heat pumps.. the house has two units, 2 ton and 3.5 ton. In getting trane heatpumps and air handlers coming. The downstairs one is the broke one th upstairs works.. 6 for downstairs 7 for upstairs (upstairs also has 3 zones) I decided to do both because they are ten years old, Goodman brand (crap) and I dont want to go through this stress again so I'm redoing whole house. We plan to raise family here so wont be moving anytime remotely soon. Now well have all new high efficiency hvac system.. also I got the electric bill for while this unit was on its way ou and its 487 -__- funnnn

 

[Mshort03]

Split the phyto this am and got the other jug going

I'm really impressed with how dark this was! I already have made my money back plus some on my initial 16oz purchase. I left 1/4 In each grow container and took half to feed.

I split this between the three systems with most going in display obviously.. I have a feeling I'm gunna end up with more of this than I know what to do with lol... guess that's a good problem to have considering.

Also got a few shots of the display fuge...looking mighty jungle-y up in here!

I dont really plan to manicure this stuff. Just gunna let it grow in all wild n natural looking see what that produces

My soap fish, Chuck, even decided to make an appearance. Hes so dang ugly I love him. He was at my lfs living under this one rock for 2 years and i finally said UK what? I got the perfect home for him!

Leaving for the beach for the girlfriend's birthday.. when home I'll snag pics of the new fish and my orange passion I just got

 

[crusso1993]

Split the phyto this am and got the other jug going

I'm really impressed with how dark this was! I already have made my money back plus some on my initial 16oz purchase. I left 1/4 In each grow container and took half to feed.

I split this between the three systems with most going in display obviously.. I have a feeling I'm gunna end up with more of this than I know what to do with lol... guess that's a good problem to have considering.

Also got a few shots of the display fuge...looking mighty jungle-y up in here!

I dont really plan to manicure this stuff. Just gunna let it grow in all wild n natural looking see what that produces

My soap fish, Chuck, even decided to make an appearance. Hes so dang ugly I love him. He was at my lfs living under this one rock for 2 years and i finally said UK what? I got the perfect home for him!

Leaving for the beach for the girlfriend's birthday.. when home I'll snag pics of the new fish and my orange passion I just got

Bottle up that extra phyto and sell it! (Yeah, I know, probably not worth the hassle.)

Chuck is the dude!

Fuge tank is looking good (to me)! I cannot recall where you bought your macro but Boom Corals is running a "buy 2 get 1 free" sale. Might be worth checking out.

 

[Mshort03]

Well the hvac is installed..glad that's over

The tank instantly went down almost 2 degrees having the normal central air back on..deff feeling a lot less stress now that I'm not constantly relying on the chiller.

Since that's back working I was able to upgrade the ac in the room with the new one we just bought. Its 14000 BTU compared to the 10000 BTU that was in there..and it's barely any larger physically so that's nice.

It's been going about 2 hours and so far it has room about 3 degrees cooler over all. It's still warmer than I'd like in there but for now it's much better. Eventually I think I will upgrade this room to a ductless heat pump system which will provide both ac and heat should I ever need it...and free up this shelf space for something else...like another tank!

I have been debating the led switch on the 90 grow out tank for a few days now.. I havent seen any growth in this tank since setting up even tho display is growing very well and its same system. Before switching back to "what I know" with the LEDs, I decided to switch out some bulbs.. i now have 5 blue plus bulbs and 1 coral plus. I like this setup much more. Corals look better and oddly it feels like it puts off less heat. I'll let this go for a bit before making my final decision.

Here's the 3 coral plus 3 blue plus

And now the 5 blue plus 1 coral plus

Another thing I noticed is the reflectors on this fixture has water spots on it..this will reduce reflection and might be another reason to lean towards the led but well see.


I also Did a little work to the phyto station.. got the lights mounted and hung the air pump..got tired of hearing it vibrate through other side of wall lol

I added hard tubing so it's more uniform with the bubbles and air distribution between the two.

Finally got around to adding the float switch to the rodi container.

BRS finally had the optical sensors back in stock so I ordered two so I can set up that automatic rodi unit I was talking about. I may be ordering that booster pump tomorrow as I feel it will really just complete that system.

While i ordered that i also ordered a lunar module and a 5 string moonlight string to run off the apex. I had a moonlight on my old 90g and loved it so obviously I need one on the 300. I also ordered 1/8" netting to make tops for the tanks..completely sick of losing small fish to jumping or going in overflows. Those 4 wrasses we just got? Ya.. all in sump/overflow. -__- these things will be here tomorrow.

I will say with a big tank comes big problems. Seems like every time I turn around theres something else I need to deal with..like right now it's the water mixing station.. the garage gets super hot. I insulated the whole thing but it didnt help that much.

Look at the temp of my saltwater right now

Even if I wanted to do a water change right now I wouldn't be able to. Over the course of the 600g I'm sure this wouldn't be extremely impactful, but the 90g in which I do the water changes and is also grow out would have a giant spike in temp..not to mention the 125 or even grabbing 5g of water for the living room cube. So now I need to find a way to keep these containers a bit cooler. This is a problem I certainly did not forsee.

I have that other ac unit now that was in fish room..and I've considered running it in garage set at like 75 but I dont wanna be sucking up all this electricity...not to mention I'd have to cut another vent for it which i dont want to do impulsively. Flipside Running a chiller on my mixing station seems just...well...c'mon...no.

If someone has a suggestion about how to keep these cooler other than what I've suggested PLEASE share it.

I made a big coral order on cherry corals, got a lot of super nice pieces that I havent seen in my area so I'm very excited to have some new stuff. They will get delivered next Friday which is my next day off from work.

Quick photo of the mantis getting ready to murder a snail.. I'm gunns get him a better home set up soon with some sand n such to dig in.. maybe a 10g.

Here is my SC Orange Passion I got from a local guy.. this has always been one of my favorite acros and I got a nice chuck to start me out

Sorry for the low quality photos.. had to zoom in since it was about 2 feet away from me lol. A nice camera would certainly improve my photo game.

 

[Jon Fishman]

> $13k in HVAC? Home-Insurance coverage?!?!

 

[Mshort03]

> $13k in HVAC? Home-Insurance coverage?!?!

Yea..6k to do downstairs (heatpump/air handler) and 7 for upstairs. 2 ton and 3.5 ton.. House is almost 3000sq/ft. Since they were both original to house and same crap brand I decided to just do it all. Buy once cry once as I like to say. Still hurt pretty frikkin bad tho I must say. Home owners insurance doesnt cover this type of thing and my home warranty would only cover up to 1500 of repair and required their own guys.. I didnt have time to wait for all that. The sellers paid for the home warranty ($600) so I'm not out by not using them.. maybe something cheaper will go wrong in house and I can call them then..lol

 

[Jon Fishman]

yeah, Home warranty is what I meant..... but yeah, that sucks.... last house was 3,600 sq and had two forced air heat and two central air units, and we replaced all 4 at once.... so I feel ya!

 

[Mshort03]

Got the reef cam mounted tonight. It's an Amazon cloud cam.. honestly not at all impressed with it but I had it laying around so why not.

I put the more yellow tinted polyp lab lens over it so it's not so drowned out with blue. This is what it currently looks like with just blues/t5 on.

 

[Mshort03]

TODAY IM VERY EXCITE!

Believe it or not I've never ordered coral online, and today I changed that. I visited cherry corals and got 8 super nice pieces to add to the collection

These will be here next Friday or Monday depending on which day they can ship them for me.

When I got home I had a few other goodies waiting.

Already got the moonlights installed and will start working on the tops next.

I'll program this thing later.. I want to do custom setting with it but cant seem to figure that out (in my 5 minutes of trying)

After I got them up I got sucked in with the coral viewer from the top down.. here's a few shots.

 

[Mshort03]

This one I got from the LFS about 3 weeks ago as a complete brown turd for $60 (hand sized)... its shaping up quite nicely

This one was 20 bucks and totally dark brown. Got it a week ago..starting to show some serious potential

Now to make 4 screen tops..

 

[crusso1993]

Looking good!

 

[Mshort03]

Quick morning update..

Got the moonlights programmed to my liking, offers a bit of extended view time at night (as if I need to be up past midnight) and then also offers an even dimmer viewing early in the am so I can look at it before work before they go out completely for rest of day

I also got the screen tops made for the tank. The center two have a bit of a gap due to my over the back return, but it's mostly covered. If I'm still having issues I'll buy the extra pieces to make the screen notch out around the returns and close this gap

I also got some new macro algae from a local guy...traded labor of an oil change for a couple pieces of it lol. Its red string of Pearl's macro..looks super cool

I also did my first full phyto harvest last night. Took 50% from each one and filled this 2.5g jug right up

I used the whole jug between all the systems. I dumped 2/3 of it in display... my dosing method was quite a lazy one lol

Over weekend I also watched my buddy Mike's tank and he had been holding my beloved emperor angel for me for last 4 months from when I moved and had to tear down the fish only. He was 1 inch when I got him now hes 3 or a little more. I put him in display fuge for now where he will stay for a few months.. now that I have him back I've been forced to make some design changes..

Here's a few quick shots of him/display fuge

The 125 now has 100lbs of rock in it, I'm gunns grow it out all sps reef which I'll frag from, there will be lots of racks in the 125 display too for after I cut them, and I'll move all lps and soft corals to a 40b which I will plumb in. Also I feel this is gunna help system be more stable, and create better flow. The big open 125 proved challenging to get random flow in...need some scape to move all around. I'm gunna build a rack at end of room to hold the 40b frag only tank, the cube tank from living room for nem propogation (I got an upgraded tank already lol) and a 10g that I'm gunna make for the shrimp..give him some sand and a whole little world to better suit him in. this will all be plumbed to the 125 to increase water volume. I then will be able to put angel in 125 which will be good for couple years, and when hes too big for it..well....I guess we just have to get another big fish only tank right? ...in due time..

I'll get pics of 125 tonight as the water was too cloudy last night to get one. I'm also gunna paint trim on new cube tank and get that drilled and ready for upgrade. I still have to install and program the apex optical sensors..hopefully today. A new 6 inch dryer vent came in so I can upgrade the exhaust of the new ac unit, the current 6 to 4 inch reduction doesnt have me very comfortable.

 

[crusso1993]

Quick morning update..

Got the moonlights programmed to my liking, offers a bit of extended view time at night (as if I need to be up past midnight) and then also offers an even dimmer viewing early in the am so I can look at it before work before they go out completely for rest of day

I also got the screen tops made for the tank. The center two have a bit of a gap due to my over the back return, but it's mostly covered. If I'm still having issues I'll buy the extra pieces to make the screen notch out around the returns and close this gap

I also got some new macro algae from a local guy...traded labor of an oil change for a couple pieces of it lol. Its red string of Pearl's macro..looks super cool

I also did my first full phyto harvest last night. Took 50% from each one and filled this 2.5g jug right up

I used the whole jug between all the systems. I dumped 2/3 of it in display... my dosing method was quite a lazy one lol

Over weekend I also watched my buddy Mike's tank and he had been holding my beloved emperor angel for me for last 4 months from when I moved and had to tear down the fish only. He was 1 inch when I got him now hes 3 or a little more. I put him in display fuge for now where he will stay for a few months.. now that I have him back I've been forced to make some design changes..

Here's a few quick shots of him/display fuge

The 125 now has 100lbs of rock in it, I'm gunns grow it out all sps reef which I'll frag from, there will be lots of racks in the 125 display too for after I cut them, and I'll move all lps and soft corals to a 40b which I will plumb in. Also I feel this is gunna help system be more stable, and create better flow. The big open 125 proved challenging to get random flow in...need some scape to move all around. I'm gunna build a rack at end of room to hold the 40b frag only tank, the cube tank from living room for nem propogation (I got an upgraded tank already lol) and a 10g that I'm gunna make for the shrimp..give him some sand and a whole little world to better suit him in. this will all be plumbed to the 125 to increase water volume. I then will be able to put angel in 125 which will be good for couple years, and when hes too big for it..well....I guess we just have to get another big fish only tank right? ...in due time..

I'll get pics of 125 tonight as the water was too cloudy last night to get one. I'm also gunna paint trim on new cube tank and get that drilled and ready for upgrade. I still have to install and program the apex optical sensors..hopefully today. A new 6 inch dryer vent came in so I can upgrade the exhaust of the new ac unit, the current 6 to 4 inch reduction doesnt have me very comfortable.

Man, you've got a lot going on again. I'm really liking the look of the display fuge more and more the traded macro looks pretty cool.

I'm a long-time fan of Emerpor angelfish and have owned a couple, through the years, that grew from juve's to adult.

With the additional tanks to be added, how many will you have and what will be the new total gallonage? I should know but kinda lost track. Plus, I have a hard time counting higher than my fingers!

 

[Mshort03]

Man, you've got a lot going on again. I'm really liking the look of the display fuge more and more the traded macro looks pretty cool.

I'm a long-time fan of Emerpor angelfish and have owned a couple, through the years, that grew from juve's to adult.

With the additional tanks to be added, how many will you have and what will be the new total gallonage? I should know but kinda lost track. Plus, I have a hard time counting higher than my fingers!

Thanks! I really am liking the fuge as well. Wish I got the blue algae from that website you recommended but it was 35 shipping for a 20 piece.. I couldn't justify it. Maybe I'll find some other colors soon tho.

The emporor and queen are my two favorites. When I get him into the 125 I'm gunna look for a juvie queen so they can grow up together

As for having a lot going on...yea.. I litterally dont know how to sit still and the fish room is my adult play room So I'm stuffing it as full as I can with all the cool stuff With the new rack I'll have a total of 9 tanks running across 3 different systems lol. (This rack wont be fully running for month or two im sure) The display system is set, but the new ones to be added will be tied to the 125 frag system so it's more stable and plus I envision that tank having more nutrients which will be good for what I'm trying to do with it. The new total gallons will be....~910 gallons! So with that...I'm gunna give a premature "tHaNkS" to you @crusso1993 because now I'm gunna need to hit that 1000gallon mark because I'm already just so darn close after this.. hmmmmm...the thinking train has departed for a journey, I'm sure @Dyanna Diaz is gunna be quite happy you did this to me! Haha.

 

[crusso1993]

Thanks! I really am liking the fuge as well. Wish I got the blue algae from that website you recommended but it was 35 shipping for a 20 piece.. I couldn't justify it. Maybe I'll find some other colors soon tho.

The emporor and queen are my two favorites. When I get him into the 125 I'm gunna look for a juvie queen so they can grow up together

As for having a lot going on...yea.. I litterally dont know how to sit still and the fish room is my adult play room So I'm stuffing it as full as I can with all the cool stuff With the new rack I'll have a total of 9 tanks running across 3 different systems lol. (This rack wont be fully running for month or two im sure) The display system is set, but the new ones to be added will be tied to the 125 frag system so it's more stable and plus I envision that tank having more nutrients which will be good for what I'm trying to do with it. The new total gallons will be....~910 gallons! So with that...I'm gunna give a premature "tHaNkS" to you @crusso1993 because now I'm gunna need to hit that 1000gallon mark because I'm already just so darn close after this.. hmmmmm...the thinking train has departed for a journey, I'm sure @Dyanna Diaz is gunna be quite happy you did this to me! Haha.

Hhhhmmm... a nice 90g will put you right at 1,000! No need to thank me and let @Dyanna Diaz know I do accept checks!

 

[crusso1993]

Hey there... haven't seen you in a while. Any updates?

I'm guessing you've been slammed with work and other life events and hope all is well!