Mrbluewildcats Build Thread and Life Story

mrbluewildcats

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If you want to skip to the pictures, might be a good idea. I had some time on my hands....

My name is Russell and I am a huge University of Kentucky Wildcat fan just in case the member ID didn't give it away. I live in far Western Kentucky where the men are men and the sheep are nervous. Wait, that's somebody else.....but I digress

I took the plunge with a used 125G cichlid tank I drove 300 miles to pick up back in the late 1990s. Learned about cycling, constant battle against nitrates, and fell in love with the python water changer when I found out about it. Became worried about tannins when I found this huge, awesome piece of driftwood and threw it in the tank, then realized they weren't that big a deal as my pH was on the high side to begin with, and wasn't lowered much at all, possibly due to frequent water changes.


Then came 2009, and that ended that. It was the year of the ice storm, and if you're not familiar with it there's a Wikipedia entry:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/January_2009_North_American_ice_storm

The article talks about people going without power for a week, but I knew some that went without for over a month. For some reason, my fish didn't much care for freezing, and I can't blame them. I didn't either. We had to drive 50 miles to get gas as the gas stations had no power for their pumps. (Yes, it was uphill. Both ways.) Once things thawed out I threw in the towel and sold everything fish related I had.


I moved in 2017 and really missed the fish, so I thought why not dig a koi pond? Not that I'm particularly fond of shovels but I saw some awesome designs including a few using retaining walls with glass built in for viewing. Then Petco had tanks on sale with a 125G and stand for $499 about 2 hours away. Where I live we don't have an LFS though we do have about 8 McDonald's. A fish sandwich wasn't going to cut it, so I drove to Clarksville, TN, loaded up the truck and moved to Beverly. Or, home that is. Set the tank up in the living room and thought...now what.


My cichlid tank also had clown loaches which became my favorite once I got past the part where some would lay on their side for a while without being dead...that was a bit hard, especially for my daughter. So the clown loaches would be a great place to start maybe, but then there's that saltwater route I've always had in the back of my head and thought it was just too expensive. After googling some fish, I saw chromis that were only $4.99. What, $4.99! I paid more than that for just about every fish I had in the freshwater tank. What? Clownfish can be bought for $20? Hey, this isn't as bad as what I thought at all.

(Meanwhile radions just sat patiently waiting for me so they could say hi, like the spider to the fly.)

Hmmm, what's a sump if it's not pumping out water in your basement? Reefoogium? Time to start studying, and the term voracious came back just as it had in the cichlid days (most of which I've forgotten by now, but back then I was fairly familiar with Lakes Malawi and Tanganyika without having actually gone to Africa.) I read a lot online, then I read some more. Watched videos, wore Google out, found there were copepods, chaetomorpha, zoanthids, live rock, dry rock, coralline, protein skimmers....wait, does that dude have a meth lab? Baffles weren't just used in ships and barges? Ah, 52 weeks of reefing. This looks good. (And it was.)

I put the fish part which had drawn me to the saltwater side on hold and concentrated on researching the mechanical and chemical side of the hobby. I spent no telling how many hours looking at sumps, how and why to build them this way or that way. Thanks to everyone in the hobby for agreeing 100% on the best way to design a sump by the way. (I didn't realize my eyes could roll that big. Can you sprain a cornea?) After hours, days, weeks and months more of devouring information and methods on all (well, a lot of) aspects of marine tanks I decided on a mixed reef tank. Corals, how cool are they?

(The radions still waited. Patiently, in the darkness.)

Now to select a protein skimmer, RODI unit, return pumps, powerheads, heaters, and everything else that's needed. Build the sump, design the aquascape, choose livestock, pray for forgiveness, and so on.

(Patience exhausted, the radions introduced themselves.)

One light to rule them all,
One light to find them,
One light to bring them all,
And in the darkness bind them,
In the Land of Reefkeeping where the corals lie.

Just like with sump design, special thank you to everyone for the very clear consensus on which light is best and why. While that's obviously untrue, radions are pretty high on the list so that's what I chose. Hey, $4.99 chromis, what the heck happened? I ordered everything (Yeah, right, but enough to eventually get some water in the tank.) Somehow I summoned the courage to drill the tank for the overflow box and by the time that second disc of glass hit the towel believe me, I was sweating bullets.

Was this supposed to be a build thread? I'm lonely, give me a break.

After moving the tank back inside I turned to the sump, measured each compartment and siliconed the baffles and dividers in; took me about 5 minutes (Hahahahha. Sorry, sometimes I amuse myself.) Laid the dry rock out on the deck, did some more drilling, threw plastic coat hangers in there somewhere...hey, look, it's reef welder. This also took about 5 minutes. You can ask my daughter even thought somehow she was texted maybe 500 images on design. Must have been that other guy.

RODI installed, plumbing done, rock and sand in, sump ready.... here we go. Time for water. Oh, crap. I forgot to glue any of the PVC. (Just kidding, I'm not the brightest bulb in the pack but didn't make that mistake.) Sweet, no leaks. Pumps work, all right! Sand has settled now let's add some ammonia. Shaken, not stirred. No bubbles so it's good. (I still contacted the manufacturer and had them email me an MSDS sheet.) Ammonia test...oops. Never knew API test kit could go that dark of green. Recalculating....water change...there we go. More than 5 ppm, but I'm in no hurry and the bacteria began to multiply. Began to add fish, bought a coral or two, ordered a third radion, and now it's almost exactly 7 months after water was added. GSP was easily the fastest growing coral, oooh...let's glue it to the back. That's cool. The rastas started at 3 polyps, now we're at 13 so that's a good sign. Watching the corals grow now, excited to see a lot of coralline spots on the back wall and almost covering one of the return nozzles. Waiting to see if the clownfish host an anemone (Wrong! Anemones host clownfish! Uhm...let's not go down that road.)

Gigantic thanks to everyone on this forum for the shared knowledge, brilliant ideas, beautiful tanks, and patience with always politely answering the many questions of newcomers. (Hmmm...what's that Aerosmith song? Dream On?) Seriously, 99% of posts are so amazing. (If not more, but my math skills are temporarily on hold due to calculating possible impact on alkalinty of raising nitrates while counting drops for that magnesium test....did I shake for fifteen seconds or thirty ....hmmmm...)


This community rocks and I'm so glad to have found it. Probably everyone skipped to the pictures by now, but thanks nonetheless.
 
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mrbluewildcats

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Okay, now for the particulars.

TANK

125G Mixed Reef Tank
75G sump
150G actual volume, give or take

EQUIPMENT

Sicce Syncra Silent 3.0 Pump 714 GPH
Current USA eFlux 6009 DC Pump 1050 GPH
AquaMaxx ConeS Q-2 In-Sump Protein Skimmer
Eheim Jager TruTemp 250W Heater (2)
EcoTech Marine Radion XR30w G4 Pro LED (2)
EcoTech Radion XR30w Gen3 LED (1)
Maxspect Gyre Generator XF-130 Powerhead
Hydor Koralia Evolution Powerhead 750-850 GPH (2)
Hydor Koralia Nano Powerhead 565 GPH
Tunze Osmolator ATO 3155
AA Aquarium Green Killing Machine Internal UV Sterilizer with Power Head 24W

LIVESTOCK

One Spot Foxface Rabbitfish
Powder Brown Tang
Flame Angelfish
Royal Gramma Basslet
Orchid Dottyback
Blue-green Chromis (5)
Midas Blenny
Lawnmower Blenny
True Percula Clownfish (2)
Black and White Ocellaris Clownfish (2)
Yellow Watchman Goby
Yellow Clown Goby
Bangaii Cardinalfish (2)
Cleaner Shrimp
Tiger Pistol Shrimp
Peppermint Shrimp (2)
Rock Flower Anemone (5)
Mini-Maxi Carpet Anemone (2)
Rainbow BTA
Green BTA

CORALS

A bunch. Probably too many, but...
Various zoanthids, palys, blastos, favias, torch, hammer, duncan, stylophora, GSP, xenia, acans, toadstool leather, kenya tree, etc.
 
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mrbluewildcats

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And the pictures...
20190712_194554.jpg


Early design of the aquascaping that I didn't use.

20190725_193411.jpg


Pretty much what I went with.

20190726_205649.jpg


Cool, it's a fish tank.
 
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mrbluewildcats

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RODI unit installed.
20190713_162506.jpg


Hey, let's build a sump.


20190714_191300.jpg


Here we go, now we're getting somewhere.


20190727_140920.jpg


Connect part B to part C, carry the one. Hey, who has the flux capacitor?


20190727_193829.jpg
 
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mrbluewildcats

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Didn't realize how strong lighting was using the coral lab template with the radions at 100%. Surprised the corals I had weren't mostly bleached. My son helped me take par readings all over the tank and now run from 0 (where it's shaded from the rock) to 450 (on the very top of the highest rocks). Most spots read in the low 100s to 200. Stylophora I have was getting just over 600 par once it was acclimated.
 

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Nice job on the build thread so far! A lot to like here - keep up the good work!
 
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Tank video update right before I scraped off the cyano and GHA. Vibrant is on the way, see how that does vs the GHA. at the end are the frags from the live sale of @WWC the other day, excited to get them placed pretty soon!

 
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This duncan was one of my first corals. The first picture was taken in September 2019. It started looking unhappy with some shriveled tentacles and others looking like they were bitten off or something. Second picture is what it looked like in January. I moved it to a frag rack and discovered an emerald crab I haven't seen in months right below where the duncan was so looks like he was nipping at it. All this time the duncan had just the 3 heads it had when I bought it. I moved it to a frag rack first of January then a couple days ago moved it to a new spot in the tank with less flow and on opposite end where the crab was. Just noticed today it's adding on 5 new heads! Not sure how long they've been growing, but definitely looks happier although some of the tentacles are still a little stringy. New heads in last picture taken today. Also have dialed in alkalinity and calcium over the last month, both staying really stable. Alk at 8.3-8.5 and calcium 420-450.

20190909_120433.jpg 20200101_110141.jpg Screenshot_20200302-150842_Gallery.jpg
 

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Love you opening post. I grew up in Nicholasville just south of Lex graduated from UK in 2000. Freshman year was Tubbys first winning the whole shabang. Live in Denver now. To see sheep or a UK game on TV is few and far between. Go Big Blue.
 

A worm with high fashion and practical utility: Have you ever kept feather dusters in your reef aquarium?

  • I currently have feather dusters in my tank.

    Votes: 65 37.1%
  • Not currently, but I have had feather dusters in my tank in the past.

    Votes: 59 33.7%
  • I have not had feather dusters, but I hope to in the future.

    Votes: 25 14.3%
  • I have no plans to have feather dusters in my tank.

    Votes: 26 14.9%
  • Other.

    Votes: 0 0.0%
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