My Build Thread

[monkeyCmonkeyDo]

I'm glad the uv worked out for u bro.
Reef on!
D

 

[Ricox]

Great build! I would love to know the current stocking list for fish and coral?

 

[rhostam]

Great build! I would love to know the current stocking list for fish and coral

Hi, sure thing. I think this list covers it:

• 5 chromis (Fab 5)
• 2 clownfish (Bertha and Marvin)
• 1 lawnmower blennie (Rygel)
• 1 pajama cardinal (Blasse)
• 1 naso tang (Daffy aka "Lips")
• 1 yellow tang (Fin)
• 1 hippo tang (Gloria)
• 1 whitetail bristletooth tang (Wobblewink)
• 1 six line wrasse (not yet named)

• 6 spotted porcelain crabs
• 6 emerald crabs
• 1 cleaner shrimp (Jaque)
• 1 bogessi peppermint
• 1 flame scallop
• 3 fighting conch
• dozens and dozens of assorted snails and crabs
• 6 assorted urchins
• 1 sandsifting starfish

• 6 euphyllia glabrescens
• 2 euphyllia divisa
• 1 sarcophyton
• several colonies of assorted zoanthid and palythoa
• 2 nemenzophyllia
• 1 plerogyra sinuosa
• 2 catalaphyllia jardenei (green, crimson)
• micromussa lordhowensis (single colony, and assorted singles)
• 2 goniopora
• 1 "hawaiian punch" BTA
• 3 bali stichodachtyla tapetum
• 10 phymanthus crucifer
• 5 assorted gorgonian
• 1 "button" scolymia

• caulerpa "fern"
• caulerpa mexicana
• caulerpa "grape"
• caulerpa prolifera

 

[Ricox]

Thanks for the reply sounds like a great tank! I've always wanted a peninsula style tank!

 

[rhostam]

It appears that I’m slowly removing phophate that may have been absorbed by the rock and plaguing my system for weeks.

For the first time my phosphates have dropped from 0.4 ppm to 0.25 ppm. This is still not great and certainly not on target, but it’s a slow change that hopefully won’t shock the tank. It will likely take at least as long as it did to get to its present levels.

I don’t use socks except to polish water. But I’ve decided that I am probably still feeding too much or at least not exporting enough. Refugium is doing great and so do most of the tank inhabitants. I still lament losses that I attribute to the high phosphate.

To help with this issue, I’ve installed two new Klir fleece rollers. They’ve only been installed for a few days, but I can say that they are definitely working. This in addition to regular cleaning of the sump chamber I hope will help further reduce excess nutrients in the system. I’ll be testing again this weekend to see just how much of an impact I’m having.

Finally, I built a contraption meant to plumb into the new UV, but it was simply too bulky and not a great fit. My wet runs surprised me. I knew elbows and stuff increased head pressure, but not in amounts I noticed. So I’ve ordered some new fittings and am going to try again this weekend. Some thing smaller.

Coralline algae seems to do just fine under the Tunze fuge lights. The cheapo UV filter barely moves water but it has served its purpose. Can’t wait to install the new unit.

 

[rhostam]

I finally made time to install the new Pentair 40W UV sterilizer. The cheap unit I bought off Amazon when I had a bacterial/algal bloom that got bad finally died and ever since I’ve had a resurgence of nasties.

Though am trying to dial back, I generally overfeed. I expect some algae in the display tank until I find the right balance. Sure enough, algae on the glass is so regular now that I have to clean at least once daily. I’m relying on heavier export to help with this. I was surprised to see cyano and dinos pop back up so quickly. I’ve been battling phosphates, but I don’t expect this adventure. /s

Anyhow, I thought about hard plumbing, but access is quite tight and braided hosing just seems a better fit for my install.

Question: I thought my COR15 would provide enough flow to meet suggested rates for the UV. But it turns out I’m getting a peak of about 695 GPH. It is fine to operate at this lower rate until I can swap this COR15 for the COR20 I have servicing the return? COR20 is only running at 55% for my return. My intent is to operate small media reactor(s) off of the same pump as UV.

Here are a few pictures:

 

[rhostam]

So it's been a spell since the last update. I wish I had cool stuff to share, but I don't.

A few months ago, I posted about how I had lost some corals. I believed at the time that it was due to a sustained phosphate spike. I still think that was the case, but the battle to lower phosphates over time has been long and arduous.

In the time I've been battling this issue, the following things have happened/are ongoing:

• GHA is out of control. Weekly brushing/manual removal, and I still can't stay ahead of it for long.
• PO4 is still higher than it should be (though I'm due for a retest today) - it's been hovering at about 0.25 for a long while. I take this to mean that the rock is still leeching PO4.
• I have bouts of cyano that I am also fighting on and off.
• It would appear that I am also still fighting dinos, as well.
• I've lost several more members of my coral family:
  • 2x Cynarina
  • 1x Pectinia
  • 2x Euphyllia glabrescens
  • 2x Catalaphyllia jardenei (green and a "black" one)

Over the weeks, I've done the following/ have some additional notes:

• Nitrates are still basically undetectable, so I popped in some cubes of frozen here and there - but I'm not sure what frequency I should be doing this to get it to register anything. At least not while GHA persists in abundance.
• I've cleaned my sump several times - each time I do, I suffer massive macro die-off, which leaves a bunch of dead matter in the sump and recirculates.
• I have introduced RowaPhos to the system to extract excess PO4 from the system slowly. It appears to be working but at a snail's pace. I'm hesitant to use a higher dose for fear of a precipitous drop that may shock something.
• I've added a new replacement CUC from ReefCleaners. This bit worries me as something appears to be picking off my snails. I thought it was the larger hermits, but I sequestered them to the sump, and it still happens. I see more and more empty shells each day. The other day I saw my hippo grab a snail by its shell and take it for a swim before dropping it. She didn't return or seem interested after that - she seemed to be playing. But I've not read of tangs eating snails... or playing with them. So not sure what to make of that. The new CUC was hundreds strong (sized for a 200g tank).
• I've noticed that my UV flow has dropped a bit further - so I need to go in and do a cleaning to see what is up. But I know I need to replace the pump (COR15) because it never delivered the flow the Pentair 40W required; it was just something I had. I'm stuck since I don't know what size pump to buy.
• The inhabitants that remain (coral) appear otherwise healthier than they've seemed in a while - so that pleases me, but I'm still bothered that I let it get here in the first place. I was reminded of the succulents I brought in for the winter and kept safe in the garage. After that I thought was the last-frost period in May, I put the succulents back outside, and the next day, temperatures dropped to sub-30s with a bit of snow! - they died.
• My system seems so out of whack that I'm at a loss. For instance, I have a REVERSED flow in my sump from the skimmer chamber to the return chamber. Though I haven't adjusted ANYTHING, it is likely a result of the next issue...
• Additionally, though I'll confirm in the next few days, I've had three Neptune PMUPs fail in the last six months. I was dealing with water level issues and couldn't believe PMUPs were the problem until I tested three different ones. At this point, I'm hoping it is the power supplies, I just need to dig them up.
• The nifty little lights I bought to light the sump areas turned out to be junk. The magnetic clips seemed neat - but the units were so easy to knock down, and if they fell in the water - no bueno. Their battery life is also pretty atrocious. I'll probably find some water-resistant light strips at this point.

I have to say that I'm pretty bummed right now. I have quite a bit not going on in my personal life, but also NOT a lot is going on (see below). LOL. Seeing my tank in this state, like for many on this forum, is heartbreaking as this hobby is a refuge for me. I thought I had my ducks lined in a row. I thought I had taken the advice of those before me and prepared for many situations I was told I'd face. But to directly cause an issue and not realize it until it became critical - ayee, how embarrassing and also depressing.

Below (personal NON-REEFING stuff/ rant)

This past June, I quit my job of 10 years and one month to the day. Since high school, I have always held a job. I always had a job while attending the University of Texas at Austin. How did this come to pass? I didn't even have an offer waiting. I just needed out. I needed to recenter. Identify what was important to me and go after it.

I was promoted to manager over a year ago, and the man who hired me left the company (along with most executive/senior management and all of my good coworkers/peers). This man (a founding member of the company) was also my friend. He rose in rank as the company grew until he became VP. This VP trusted me and allowed me to take the helm and do the work I was hired to do. The team I managed were some of the few that remained. Since the departure of the VP, all the business wants us to do is more with less and less and less. I had flagged many folks (my team or not) as high risk for departures. Yet, no one cared. No one reached out to them to ask how to make things better. Instead, they let decades of institutional and product knowledge walk out of the door each time, feigning surprise for a minute and then quickly pivoting to "okay, who can take on their work?" I wouldn't be complicit anymore; I owed myself and my team better.

I don't mind being a hard butt, but I mind taking advantage of people. We were getting some good stuff done. Standardizing practices, toolkits, documentation, source control, etc, across the globe, took a lot of effort - but we were making inroads. Over the past two years, however, we suffered a massive RIF, and after that a lot of attrition. Meanwhile, more and more projects and priorities were being added to the docket, but with no clear steering by our executive teams and with zero project management resources. They just expected it to all get done and ASAP.

After months of direct interaction with our CTO, I realized the cause was lost. You see, he ascended the ranks at one of the company (UK) as a developer and is the only executive hold-over from the recent merger. This CTO only relates to developement and has zero operational empathy (I managed the global team of DBAs as well as worked as a senior DBA). He point blank and told me, peer managers, and our team that he didn't know what we did. He wasn't in a position to help. He felt that all of the competing parties (resulting from zero hard decisions being made during the merge process) should just come together, pool resources, and agree to do work. Since when has too many chiefs been a good thing? Never mind not enough Indians.

Anyhow, I provided 30 days' notice and offered to fly to the home office to get in some training time for a few of the backfilled new hires I brought on, take the team out for final outings and dinner, and here I am now jobless and a bit spooked. Now that I've taken a month off to decompress, I need to find a new job, which is a bit scary. I'm a hugely adaptable technologist, but my entire career has been one of solving problems and learning what I needed to solve those problems. All that is to say that I worked diligently to solve problems of my existing employer and learned things that aren't in high demand - that and some of my skills have altogether atrophied as a result of performing more leadership functions over time. Ouch. How did I get here?

 

[Jeffcb]

So it's been a spell since the last update. I wish I had cool stuff to share, but I don't.

A few months ago, I posted about how I had lost some corals. I believed at the time that it was due to a sustained phosphate spike. I still think that was the case, but the battle to lower phosphates over time has been long and arduous.

In the time I've been battling this issue, the following things have happened/are ongoing:

• GHA is out of control. Weekly brushing/manual removal, and I still can't stay ahead of it for long.
• PO4 is still higher than it should be (though I'm due for a retest today) - it's been hovering at about 0.25 for a long while. I take this to mean that the rock is still leeching PO4.
• I have bouts of cyano that I am also fighting on and off.
• It would appear that I am also still fighting dinos, as well.
• I've lost several more members of my coral family:
  • 2x Cynarina
  • 1x Pectinia
  • 2x Euphyllia glabrescens
  • 2x Catalaphyllia jardenei (green and a "black" one)

Over the weeks, I've done the following/ have some additional notes:

• Nitrates are still basically undetectable, so I popped in some cubes of frozen here and there - but I'm not sure what frequency I should be doing this to get it to register anything. At least not while GHA persists in abundance.
• I've cleaned my sump several times - each time I do, I suffer massive macro die-off, which leaves a bunch of dead matter in the sump and recirculates.
• I have introduced RowaPhos to the system to extract excess PO4 from the system slowly. It appears to be working but at a snail's pace. I'm hesitant to use a higher dose for fear of a precipitous drop that may shock something.
• I've added a new replacement CUC from ReefCleaners. This bit worries me as something appears to be picking off my snails. I thought it was the larger hermits, but I sequestered them to the sump, and it still happens. I see more and more empty shells each day. The other day I saw my hippo grab a snail by its shell and take it for a swim before dropping it. She didn't return or seem interested after that - she seemed to be playing. But I've not read of tangs eating snails... or playing with them. So not sure what to make of that. The new CUC was hundreds strong (sized for a 200g tank).
• I've noticed that my UV flow has dropped a bit further - so I need to go in and do a cleaning to see what is up. But I know I need to replace the pump (COR15) because it never delivered the flow the Pentair 40W required; it was just something I had. I'm stuck since I don't know what size pump to buy.
• The inhabitants that remain (coral) appear otherwise healthier than they've seemed in a while - so that pleases me, but I'm still bothered that I let it get here in the first place. I was reminded of the succulents I brought in for the winter and kept safe in the garage. After that I thought was the last-frost period in May, I put the succulents back outside, and the next day, temperatures dropped to sub-30s with a bit of snow! - they died.
• My system seems so out of whack that I'm at a loss. For instance, I have a REVERSED flow in my sump from the skimmer chamber to the return chamber. Though I haven't adjusted ANYTHING, it is likely a result of the next issue...
• Additionally, though I'll confirm in the next few days, I've had three Neptune PMUPs fail in the last six months. I was dealing with water level issues and couldn't believe PMUPs were the problem until I tested three different ones. At this point, I'm hoping it is the power supplies, I just need to dig them up.
• The nifty little lights I bought to light the sump areas turned out to be junk. The magnetic clips seemed neat - but the units were so easy to knock down, and if they fell in the water - no bueno. Their battery life is also pretty atrocious. I'll probably find some water-resistant light strips at this point.

I have to say that I'm pretty bummed right now. I have quite a bit not going on in my personal life, but also NOT a lot is going on (see below). LOL. Seeing my tank in this state, like for many on this forum, is heartbreaking as this hobby is a refuge for me. I thought I had my ducks lined in a row. I thought I had taken the advice of those before me and prepared for many situations I was told I'd face. But to directly cause an issue and not realize it until it became critical - ayee, how embarrassing and also depressing.

Below (personal NON-REEFING stuff/ rant)

This past June, I quit my job of 10 years and one month to the day. Since high school, I have always held a job. I always had a job while attending the University of Texas at Austin. How did this come to pass? I didn't even have an offer waiting. I just needed out. I needed to recenter. Identify what was important to me and go after it.

I was promoted to manager over a year ago, and the man who hired me left the company (along with most executive/senior management and all of my good coworkers/peers). This man (a founding member of the company) was also my friend. He rose in rank as the company grew until he became VP. This VP trusted me and allowed me to take the helm and do the work I was hired to do. The team I managed were some of the few that remained. Since the departure of the VP, all the business wants us to do is more with less and less and less. I had flagged many folks (my team or not) as high risk for departures. Yet, no one cared. No one reached out to them to ask how to make things better. Instead, they let decades of institutional and product knowledge walk out of the door each time, feigning surprise for a minute and then quickly pivoting to "okay, who can take on their work?" I wouldn't be complicit anymore; I owed myself and my team better.

I don't mind being a hard butt, but I mind taking advantage of people. We were getting some good stuff done. Standardizing practices, toolkits, documentation, source control, etc, across the globe, took a lot of effort - but we were making inroads. Over the past two years, however, we suffered a massive RIF, and after that a lot of attrition. Meanwhile, more and more projects and priorities were being added to the docket, but with no clear steering by our executive teams and with zero project management resources. They just expected it to all get done and ASAP.

After months of direct interaction with our CTO, I realized the cause was lost. You see, he ascended the ranks at one of the company (UK) as a developer and is the only executive hold-over from the recent merger. This CTO only relates to developement and has zero operational empathy (I managed the global team of DBAs as well as worked as a senior DBA). He point blank and told me, peer managers, and our team that he didn't know what we did. He wasn't in a position to help. He felt that all of the competing parties (resulting from zero hard decisions being made during the merge process) should just come together, pool resources, and agree to do work. Since when has too many chiefs been a good thing? Never mind not enough Indians.

Anyhow, I provided 30 days' notice and offered to fly to the home office to get in some training time for a few of the backfilled new hires I brought on, take the team out for final outings and dinner, and here I am now jobless and a bit spooked. Now that I've taken a month off to decompress, I need to find a new job, which is a bit scary. I'm a hugely adaptable technologist, but my entire career has been one of solving problems and learning what I needed to solve those problems. All that is to say that I worked diligently to solve problems of my existing employer and learned things that aren't in high demand - that and some of my skills have altogether atrophied as a result of performing more leadership functions over time. Ouch. How did I get here?

It has been a minute. Your tank is looking good. I got rid of Cyano by increasing flow and lowering light for a while. I added 2 WAV pumps to the 3 ReefWaves I had on the 900. Sand shifting Star Fish and Fighting Conchs help stir the sand bed. I don't clean the sump at all. Not a good idea. A lot of good bacteria there.

Remember this, when one door closes another door opens. Sounds like it was time for a change. Good luck!

 

[rhostam]

It has been a minute. Your tank is looking good. I got rid of Cyano by increasing flow and lowering light for a while. I added 2 WAV pumps to the 3 ReefWaves I had on the 900. Sand shifting Star Fish and Fighting Conchs help stir the sand bed. I don't clean the sump at all. Not a good idea. A lot of good bacteria there.

Remember this, when one door closes another door opens. Sounds like it was time for a change. Good luck!

So I had increased flow quite a bit. So much that my overflow was very, very noisy, and sand would swirl around the bottom. I turned the flow down just enough to prevent both conditions (except for one corner where the sand cyclone looks fantastic and the clownfish love to swim in/around). But it didn't seem to make a difference for cyano/dinos.

I finally did a blackout, though. Three days. It worked. I was so relieved. The sand is now nice and white, and the GHA is nice and green (LOL).

Now I need to start plucking out GHA and hope I've dealt with the nutrients issue. I ordered the wrong reagents and am waiting until my next big order (to qualify for free shipping).

I have conchs and hundreds of snails and crabs, and a starfish. I did have more than a few snails die around the time the outbreak was at its worst. I can't tell if it is from the elevated nutrients, the ingested cyano/dinos, or if something else is killing them. My elegance corals would catch quite a few, but that wouldn't explain them all. I recently ordered a new batch of CUC (also in the hundreds). Their numbers are starting to go down again based on all the upside-down and empty shells I'm seeing.

I have a few new issues that have popped up, though.

• Dead goniopora.

Just what it sounds like. I had one just randomly develop BJD. It was so vibrant and extended a day or so before. Then it just wilted and succumbed to BJD. I did my best to extract all BJD with the JT device and then rinsed the area in H202.

• Klir Failures

My Klir4 roller mats no longer work in tandem mode (master/slave). That sucks. I'll need to retrofit them to control them directly with Apex. I tire of crappy products. CoralVue has been silent/unengaged on the issue, now my second with a second product (IceCap, being the other). I don't think I'll be buying or recommending their stuff anymore. The only positive from this failure is that I put them in to heavily increase export - and when I did it, I noticed many of the tank inhabitants to be less happy. Since I've implemented a bypass on them, things are once again happy AF. So, in my new configuration (post-retrofit), I'm going to place one Klir in the first sock bank and pair it with a diverter cap. I'll also place the second Klir in the second sock bank paired with a diverter. This will allow me to let some of the water make its way through the system freely while still being able to polish the water when I want. Maybe I'll do that. Hehe.

• More FMM Failures

I had another two FMMs fail. Or so I thought. These guys just blink an orange light and bleep incessantly. After engaging Neptune's support (which is not doing so hot right now) and deciding some other things, I believe I've narrowed the issue down to an AB cable further upstream. Why suddenly it would fail (if it is the issue) is beyond me!

I'll be doing a lot of work this weekend to clean up the cabinets, etc. since all this mess occurred. I have to say that my experience with Neptune is turning into a negative one.

Thank goodness I had spare equipment, etc. One more failure and I'll jump into Hydros to see how it fares. I'll need a job first.

Taken on my birthday:

 

[rhostam]

Quick updates:

• FMM’s we’re not the problem.
• The primary USB (1-Link) port on a backup COR20 controller was the problem. The pet would deliver power, but that’s all. Used the secondary port and everything downstream started working just fine.
• Dinos are back! Implementing next round of measures.
• Trident went nuts and I suddenly had to recalibrate. Confirmed with Hanna KH meter:
  

 

[Jeffcb]

So I had increased flow quite a bit. So much that my overflow was very, very noisy, and sand would swirl around the bottom. I turned the flow down just enough to prevent both conditions (except for one corner where the sand cyclone looks fantastic and the clownfish love to swim in/around). But it didn't seem to make a difference for cyano/dinos.

I finally did a blackout, though. Three days. It worked. I was so relieved. The sand is now nice and white, and the GHA is nice and green (LOL).

Now I need to start plucking out GHA and hope I've dealt with the nutrients issue. I ordered the wrong reagents and am waiting until my next big order (to qualify for free shipping).

I have conchs and hundreds of snails and crabs, and a starfish. I did have more than a few snails die around the time the outbreak was at its worst. I can't tell if it is from the elevated nutrients, the ingested cyano/dinos, or if something else is killing them. My elegance corals would catch quite a few, but that wouldn't explain them all. I recently ordered a new batch of CUC (also in the hundreds). Their numbers are starting to go down again based on all the upside-down and empty shells I'm seeing.

I have a few new issues that have popped up, though.

• Dead goniopora.

Just what it sounds like. I had one just randomly develop BJD. It was so vibrant and extended a day or so before. Then it just wilted and succumbed to BJD. I did my best to extract all BJD with the JT device and then rinsed the area in H202.

• Klir Failures

My Klir4 roller mats no longer work in tandem mode (master/slave). That sucks. I'll need to retrofit them to control them directly with Apex. I tire of crappy products. CoralVue has been silent/unengaged on the issue, now my second with a second product (IceCap, being the other). I don't think I'll be buying or recommending their stuff anymore. The only positive from this failure is that I put them in to heavily increase export - and when I did it, I noticed many of the tank inhabitants to be less happy. Since I've implemented a bypass on them, things are once again happy AF. So, in my new configuration (post-retrofit), I'm going to place one Klir in the first sock bank and pair it with a diverter cap. I'll also place the second Klir in the second sock bank paired with a diverter. This will allow me to let some of the water make its way through the system freely while still being able to polish the water when I want. Maybe I'll do that. Hehe.

• More FMM Failures

I had another two FMMs fail. Or so I thought. These guys just blink an orange light and bleep incessantly. After engaging Neptune's support (which is not doing so hot right now) and deciding some other things, I believe I've narrowed the issue down to an AB cable further upstream. Why suddenly it would fail (if it is the issue) is beyond me!

I'll be doing a lot of work this weekend to clean up the cabinets, etc. since all this mess occurred. I have to say that my experience with Neptune is turning into a negative one.

Thank goodness I had spare equipment, etc. One more failure and I'll jump into Hydros to see how it fares. I'll need a job first.

Taken on my birthday:

Happy Belated Birthday!

I put a Lawn Mower blenny in my RS250. I didn't have much but he never stops working and has all but eliminated my gha. You may try one. A lot of character that fish.

 

[rhostam]

Happy Belated Birthday!

I put a Lawn Mower blenny in my RS250. I didn't have much but he never stops working and has all but eliminated my gha. You may try one. A lot of character that fish.

Thanks for the well wishes!

I have one named Rygel the 17th. He is fun, but he doesn’t seem to scape the rocks like he used to. He was among the first in my aquarium and was always so active. He is still curious and seems to enjoy watching what goes on outside of the tank. But he no longer grazes or at least not as much. I’m getting a bit worried about him.

I read not too long ago that they don’t actually eat the GHA, but rather the GHA is just in its way. They scrape the rock for bacterial films and possibly nascent algae films. I’m starting to believe that’s the case, because there is plenty of GHA for it and when I do notice him grazing it’s the clean areas of the rock that urchins have cleared.

 

[Jeffcb]

Thanks for the well wishes!

I have one named Rygel the 17th. He is fun, but he doesn’t seem to scape the rocks like he used to. He was among the first in my aquarium and was always so active. He is still curious and seems to enjoy watching what goes on outside of the tank. But he no longer grazes or at least not as much. I’m getting a bit worried about him.

I read not too long ago that they don’t actually eat the GHA, but rather the GHA is just in its way. They scrape the rock for bacterial films and possibly nascent algae films. I’m starting to believe that’s the case, because there is plenty of GHA for it and when I do notice him grazing it’s the clean areas of the rock that urchins have cleared.

Urchins are great grazers. I have both Pencil and Long spine. They do like the taste of Coralline but it grows back fast.