The wagos make it seem like they thought ahead for easy serviceability, but then the soldered pots???I do!
Warning incoming LED prong
They use Wagos!!!!
the blue and white are original, my replacement driver used blue and brown wires.
My 270 Gallon Build with remote garage fish room : 460 gallons of crazy
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Twitchy
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Update time!
we had a very productive weekend. the propagation tank is coming along nicely.
Stand assembly
spot picked out, and board mounted.
Table all leveled, and lights mounted. I added a secondary board to the right side to help distribute weight to the ground, just so it is not relying on the shear strength of the screws alone.
Painted a foam board black, for distributing pressure on the bottom sheet of glass
Tank assembly!
all the tape
Removing all the tape the next day
Ahhh it looks so cool!! time to start plumbing, so I can do the leak test in the next couple of days.
we had a very productive weekend. the propagation tank is coming along nicely.
Stand assembly
spot picked out, and board mounted.
Table all leveled, and lights mounted. I added a secondary board to the right side to help distribute weight to the ground, just so it is not relying on the shear strength of the screws alone.
Painted a foam board black, for distributing pressure on the bottom sheet of glass
Tank assembly!
all the tape
Removing all the tape the next day
Ahhh it looks so cool!! time to start plumbing, so I can do the leak test in the next couple of days.
I am also concerned with the bottom of the acrylic tank if its not supported the bottom will bow down and cause undue stress on the seams and fail (maybe the support is there and just not visible in the pic)
Great setup, and the GF deserves and applauds, my wife doesn't want a fish tank at all after my last one where I flooded the RODI station.... that won't stop me dreaming of a 8-10' (plywood?) Tank with a fishroom to keep the noise down.
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she has several supports running front to back, as well as a cross support down the center to brace the bottom of the tank, and prevent acrylic sagging. The stand is designed to distribute the load out to the legs, while looking like it shouldn't be able to. My only concern when designing the stand was torsion failure, due to the tank being narrow compared to its height, and extruded aluminum not handling that load type well, so I bolted it to the wall to be safe.
One of the oddest Issues I had when I acquired the tank, was that my stand was too level... aluminum extrusions don't like to bow, and the tank had close to 1/4" of a bow in the bottom due to years on its previous wooden stand... It took 2 weeks for the weight of the water to flatten it back out during leak testing.
I think my next crazy stand will be cantilever based to really make people go "wow"... now to convince the GF to let me take out the wall and fill it full of steal I beams, to distribute the craziest load yet.
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Twitchy
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A little Update:
I have been mostly letting things settle, and stabilize a bit so not a whole lot of updates the last couple of months.
I have added a couple of frags here and there, gotten a few new fish through QT. hopefully the next few months are ones of sitting back, and watching some growth.
The frag tank has been mostly just a home for "big Bertha" a rather large purple tang we acquired a little while back back to keep algae at bay in the frag system (pics of the setup coming soon) Although she mostly spends her day waiting for my hand to come into the tank... why wait for me to put the nori on the clip when you can get it from the source.
As for keeping things stable... I started off originally using kalk to dose Ca and Alk. always worked great in my smaller systems... but the tanks demand has started exceeding my dosing, and the amount of daily saturated Kalk water being added is getting silly. I have started additionally dosing sodium bicarbonate, to keep my Alk up, but my Ca consumption has also recently started exceeding what the kalk is adding. Thankfully this is a much slower problem then the Alk consumption, but It is clear that Kalk is no longer the right tool for the job. After I return from my next work trip, I plan to swap out my kalk dosing for calcium chloride dosing. which is more inline with a traditional 2 part dosing setup.
I have also been dosing phosphate, and nitrate, to try and keep them above 0. Which keeps the red slime away, and to try and keep my sad excuse of a euphyllia alive.
I recently upgraded the lighting a bit. I was getting tired of the upper clutter, and the shadowing I was seeing around and under my first stick that I added to the tank. I took the dive and bought a Aquatic life T5 Hybrid fixture and mounts to put my existing hodgepodge of LED lights into . I love how much cleaner the lighting looks, and the additional T5 lighting packs a punch during the mid day cycle. Below are before and after shots. (disregard the lean in the final shot, the cables seem to stretch a bit, and had to be readjusted a little)
Tank under full lighting coming soon
Before:
After:
I have been mostly letting things settle, and stabilize a bit so not a whole lot of updates the last couple of months.
I have added a couple of frags here and there, gotten a few new fish through QT. hopefully the next few months are ones of sitting back, and watching some growth.
The frag tank has been mostly just a home for "big Bertha" a rather large purple tang we acquired a little while back back to keep algae at bay in the frag system (pics of the setup coming soon) Although she mostly spends her day waiting for my hand to come into the tank... why wait for me to put the nori on the clip when you can get it from the source.
As for keeping things stable... I started off originally using kalk to dose Ca and Alk. always worked great in my smaller systems... but the tanks demand has started exceeding my dosing, and the amount of daily saturated Kalk water being added is getting silly. I have started additionally dosing sodium bicarbonate, to keep my Alk up, but my Ca consumption has also recently started exceeding what the kalk is adding. Thankfully this is a much slower problem then the Alk consumption, but It is clear that Kalk is no longer the right tool for the job. After I return from my next work trip, I plan to swap out my kalk dosing for calcium chloride dosing. which is more inline with a traditional 2 part dosing setup.
I have also been dosing phosphate, and nitrate, to try and keep them above 0. Which keeps the red slime away, and to try and keep my sad excuse of a euphyllia alive.
I recently upgraded the lighting a bit. I was getting tired of the upper clutter, and the shadowing I was seeing around and under my first stick that I added to the tank. I took the dive and bought a Aquatic life T5 Hybrid fixture and mounts to put my existing hodgepodge of LED lights into . I love how much cleaner the lighting looks, and the additional T5 lighting packs a punch during the mid day cycle. Below are before and after shots. (disregard the lean in the final shot, the cables seem to stretch a bit, and had to be readjusted a little)
Tank under full lighting coming soon
Before:
After:
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Little Mini Update: Well I finally got around to ordering some stuff from @Battlecorals, and holy cow! I have never been so impressed ordering something online. Adam really goes above and beyond, the coral was well packaged, communications on point, just a overall wonderful experience. He ended up having to sub out my valida, but he tossed in a couple of freebies, and I'm now officially hooked. Never thought these corals would actually look better in real life then in the website photos!!
I cant wait to see these guys really start to open up over the next couple of days.
Just after getting them on into the tank yesterday.
Just after the lights came on this morning.
Photo bomb by the lawnmower blenny
I cant wait to see these guys really start to open up over the next couple of days.
Just after getting them on into the tank yesterday.
Just after the lights came on this morning.
Photo bomb by the lawnmower blenny
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A couple more photos. I aquascaped a bit, and I like the results.
Never posted a finished shot of the frag tank. nothing much to look at yet, but in time hopefully she will be full of frags. Still need to fix my dangling cords.
Never posted a finished shot of the frag tank. nothing much to look at yet, but in time hopefully she will be full of frags. Still need to fix my dangling cords.
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Well It has been an adventure. Currently the system is battling dinos and green cyano. I have been slowly increasing nutrients by dosing NO3 and PO4. During my last work trip disaster struck, and the entire bottle of potassium nitrate ended up in the tank. This caused a dino explosion the likes of which I have never seen. The egg crate in the frag system floated up, with the rock still on it!
The few frags in the system were not happy. This event caused my tank to stop consuming alk temporary which caused my alk to start climbing, which burnt the tips on a couple of acros in the display. I had my hands full when I got back... A good cleaning, getting my alk back in check, and some fresh carbon has been helping things along. The display has been dealing with cyano as well due to this, but I have been letting it ride, as it will out compete the dinos.
Such a trooper
I have been unhappy with the frag systems turnover, I had undersized the overflow with a 1" line which has made it harder to get the dinos out of the frag tank, and into the UV. so I took it up to a 1.5" overflow while redoing my mixing station. I really like how it all turned out, even though I had a mishap, and cracked the tank at the return bulkhead leaning on something I shouldn't have.
Fixing my return crack. I drilled a second hole at the end of the crack, to keep it from spreading, and cut a glass plate to fix her up.
I also have been working on cleaning up the fish room a bit, and finally found a use for these organizers I picked up in France a few years back.
The few frags in the system were not happy. This event caused my tank to stop consuming alk temporary which caused my alk to start climbing, which burnt the tips on a couple of acros in the display. I had my hands full when I got back... A good cleaning, getting my alk back in check, and some fresh carbon has been helping things along. The display has been dealing with cyano as well due to this, but I have been letting it ride, as it will out compete the dinos.
Such a trooper
I have been unhappy with the frag systems turnover, I had undersized the overflow with a 1" line which has made it harder to get the dinos out of the frag tank, and into the UV. so I took it up to a 1.5" overflow while redoing my mixing station. I really like how it all turned out, even though I had a mishap, and cracked the tank at the return bulkhead leaning on something I shouldn't have.
Fixing my return crack. I drilled a second hole at the end of the crack, to keep it from spreading, and cut a glass plate to fix her up.
I also have been working on cleaning up the fish room a bit, and finally found a use for these organizers I picked up in France a few years back.
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Friday marked the end of a 5 day black out, I was dosing microbactor7 during the day, and H2O2 at night to get dinos, and cyano back under control . Tonight things are looking pretty good compared to two weeks ago.
this poor acro is bleached, and his tips are still burnt with some algae growing, but he no longer has dinos growing on his tips, and he is still holding on... he even has a polyp or two out today. Can't wait to see if he pulls through.
his buddy doesn't look very pretty at the moment, but is very happy the sun is starting to come back.
everyone else seems very happy the dinos, and cyano has been knocked back a bit.
this poor acro is bleached, and his tips are still burnt with some algae growing, but he no longer has dinos growing on his tips, and he is still holding on... he even has a polyp or two out today. Can't wait to see if he pulls through.
his buddy doesn't look very pretty at the moment, but is very happy the sun is starting to come back.
everyone else seems very happy the dinos, and cyano has been knocked back a bit.
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Mini update: The dinos have been staying away thankfully, but I am still battling Blue/Green cyano in the display. I finally bit the bullet and ran a round of Chemiclean... we are about a week post treatment, and the tank is looking great. Time will tell if the effort in getting things back in balance has paid off, or if we are only half way up the hill. The 2 acros that were burnt still are not looking great, but they are not dead/ worse yet, so we will continue to wait and see. I have been temped several times to just toss them, but I know the mental payoff will be huge later on if I can manage to bring them back.
In other news, I have a bunch of LED lights that came with the 600, and I felt they would be a better fit for the frag system. so I swapped them out for the 500 watt LEDs, and placed them above the Bloodstock system. They will still only be running at 10% power, but they are perfect for giving a nice even spread of light over such a large tank. I am pleased how my little frame came out.
freshly mounted over the 600 gallon monster.
In other news, I have a bunch of LED lights that came with the 600, and I felt they would be a better fit for the frag system. so I swapped them out for the 500 watt LEDs, and placed them above the Bloodstock system. They will still only be running at 10% power, but they are perfect for giving a nice even spread of light over such a large tank. I am pleased how my little frame came out.
freshly mounted over the 600 gallon monster.
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Little update: Things have been looking happy as of late. I am still dialing nutrients in, I feel I have a solid week or two of testing and tweaking before dosing is tracking along with uptake, but I am liking the results so far. NO3 is settling down around ~ 2.2PPM, and PO4 around .07PPM. The Cyano/ Dinos have been staying away. The 2 acros I burnt real bad did not make it, but everyone else has been recovering.
The xenia, and GSP have been going nuts the whole time.
this monti had some burned spots that have started growing back over lately
my green slimer was unphased by all the tank chaos... what a beast
green monti starting to get his color back
this duncan has just been doing his thing the whole time
the JF homewrecker still doesn't look like much, but he is loving life right now.
almost lost this monti, he still has a ugly spot in the middle, but has been happy as of lately.
This guy is showing his little green bits again.
The xenia, and GSP have been going nuts the whole time.
this monti had some burned spots that have started growing back over lately
my green slimer was unphased by all the tank chaos... what a beast
green monti starting to get his color back
this duncan has just been doing his thing the whole time
the JF homewrecker still doesn't look like much, but he is loving life right now.
almost lost this monti, he still has a ugly spot in the middle, but has been happy as of lately.
This guy is showing his little green bits again.
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Update time: Things are growing well. The GSP on the back is starting to take off. Everyone seems happy so far, and best of all everyone's color is back!
The Spirorbid worms are going nuts, and its starting to bug me... I guess that will be the next thing I work on, followed by polishing some derp scratches in the acrylic.
The Spirorbid worms are going nuts, and its starting to bug me... I guess that will be the next thing I work on, followed by polishing some derp scratches in the acrylic.
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