Novahobbies 110g Build History and Log. So THAT'S where all my money went!

[novahobbies]

For anyone who's never done this.....swapping sand ain't easy. I did it in two batches, so as not to mess with my biological filter too much.

My Blue Spot was NOT happy about his home being removed. But look at all the stuff he'd collected under there! Little packrat, that fish. I found a couple zoa frags that had "disappeared" over time down there in his hole.

It was cloudy for a while. Did the other side 1 or 2 weeks later.

But boy, what a difference the sand color makes against the corals.

And when it was all done, it was like night and day.

 

[novahobbies]

I hope people have been enjoying this fast-forward build thread. I've been transcribing some from an older site that I just don't go to very often, and it's very interesting to go back and see the progress through the years. We've had some setbacks (one big one, hopefully the last one, is still coming!) over time, but so much of this hobby is in the journey. We need to be open to changes, learn new habits, and be observant of our pets, but they give back so much in return.

So let's stop and take stock of a couple changes that were made around the end of 2014. We started having some issues with the drivers on the chinese LEDs...they would flicker and strobe, and the light they produced didn't feel as strong. At the suggestion of Siptang, I swapped my lights out for a pair of RapidLED Onyx fixtures and a Bluefish lighting controller so I could program them to ramp up gently for a sunrise/sunset effect. These lights have served me well and I still use them today. I also swapped the broken Koralias out for a pair of Jebao WP-40 powerheads. The Koralia Evolutions are IMO a terrible pump. All 4 of them failed with the same issue: their impellers swelled up, rusted, and jammed in the housing. And they all managed to do this within months of each other, all of them just outside of the warranty date. I called to complain to Koralia, they didn't give a dang, so I won't ever be using Koralias again. Thanks but no thanks, not for the price I paid on those.

Can you tell I'm still upset about that??

So yeah, those got swapped out for Jebaos at the end of 2014. Also at this point, I got a new SCA-302 cone skimmer to replace my Marineland 100. This is the skimmer I still use and I LOVE it. Perfect size skimmer for this tank, easy to use, and skims like a champ.

Oh, yeah. New lights demanded a new canopy. Needed something taller it turns out. So.....new canopy was built. Almost identical to the old one, just taller.

You can see another absolute necessity in these pics. A clear screen top to prevent jumpers. And, because my African Leopard is a champion backflipper into the overflow, I had to install some gutter guard in the overflow so it went up as far as the net. No jumpers these days!

 

[novahobbies]

And a video. March 5th, 2015. It was a good day.

 

[themcnertney]

 

[novahobbies]

Dan, I'm dying over here! lol

 

[novahobbies]

May and April of 2015 gave me a lot of beautiful growth and great color.

 

[novahobbies]

Here's the post I've been dreading to make.

August of 2015. I wish I had better news to say, but......this tank experienced a massive heat-related crash in August when my central AC was out for almost a full week. I tried keeping it cool w/ frozen RODI bags, but the cumulative heat + reduced light caused a systemwide crash that LITERALLY happened in the space of 24 hours. It was heartbreaking to watch. One evening, looked at the tank before bed, thinking, "OK, corals look stressed, but tank is still OK," and the next morning waking up to a cloudy tank of decaying coral tissue and dead fish. I presume that a few corals nuked themselves, causing a drop in O2, killing fish, causing more pollutants in the water, killing....basically everything else.

I WAS able to save a few corals that next morning by hauling them out of the main display and putting them in the bedroom tank (the bedroom was cooler than the rest of the house). Some of my easier SPS corals made it out, along with some of the zoas. Naturally, all my acros didn't make it. Much of the plating Montis were encrusted and couldn't be removed, but I was able to get a few frags of the plates off. LPS like my nuclear frogspawn and golden torch didn't live through it either. As for fish......only 2 fish survived the micro-ELE. Ironically they were fish you'd consider "delicate," but....hey, I'm not complaining. My blue-spot jawfish and my African Leopard wrasse both lived. As did, VERY surprisingly, my blue Linkia sea star. But all the other fish, some of which I've had for years (including my beautiful and GIANT Mystery wrasse and my fat'n'happy Potter's angel), all passed away that day.

You can imagine how I felt. I actually had the tank up for sale for a couple months, with just those fish in it, since I didn't have the heart to re-stock. I took care of my bedroom tank but left the big display alone. Didn't care how much caulerpa grew in there, didn't dose the system, nada. Just fed the fish and went on my way, not looking at that corner of the house. It's as though a family member died, and we didn't know what to do with their room. We didn't want to deal with it, but it stubbornly refused to just go away on its own.

Fast forward to December of 2015. Yes, the tank sat nearly empty for that long. But by December, I'd finally made the decision that (1) nobody is going to pay me even half of what the system is worth, and (2) even if I don't bring it back to its full glory, at the very least I can clean it up and add a little color and movement in the tank so it's enjoyable to look at again. I spent a full day doing a marathon algae pruning session, did a couple large water changes, and got the skimmer cleaned up. Fortunately just as I was making this decision, a local reefer here was getting rid of a few fish, including a Desjardini sailfin that he'd had for 3 years. Excellent. Free fish to start in on the caulerpa control, and I don't even have to QT him. I also hit up a local shop for a few cheap frags (dragonsoul favia for $15?? Yes PLEASE). The second and hopefully final tank crash was over, and it was at long last time to clean up the mess. I tell you what. Disaster can happen in a heartbeat. Algae can take over the tank in what seems like the blink of an eye. But the aftermath? That takes weeks.....and weeks it took. But the only way to clean up after that kind of even is slow and steady, one thing at a time. While I was doing all that, I put some feelers out to my local aquarium club, looking for free or cheap frags to replace the extinction level event. Little did I know how humbled and grateful I was about to become from the responses......

 

[novahobbies]

Here is an inventory of what was saved, and what was lost, on that terrible August morning. Thankfully I WAS able to transfer a lot of coral to the bedroom tank. But the list ain't pretty, no two ways around it.
Corals that were lost in the August crash:
1) ORA Neon Green Birdsnest
2) Bird Of Paradise Seriatopora
3) Ponape Seriatopora
4) Supernatural Monti Cap (Orange w Green polyps)
5) Green Monit Cap
6) Pink Stylophora (Catspaw)
7) Sprung’s Stunner Chalice
8) Purple Acro w/ Green Polyps
9) Red Planet Acro
10) Golden Torch
11) Green Frogspawn
12) Neon Green Trumpet
13) Unnamed Purple Acro

Corals I saved:
1) Purple Poci
2) Green Poci
3) Purple Monti
4) Red Monti
5) Orange Setosa
6) Monti Spongodes
7) Neon Cloves
8) Almost all my Zoas
9) About half my Ricordea collection
10) Dragon Soul Favia
11) Yellow Scroll Coral

Fish I lost:
1) Mystery Wrasse
2) Potter’s Angel
3) Desjardini Tang
4) Sailfin Blenny
5) Green Mandarin
6) Naoko Wrasse
7) Pylei Wrasse
8) Bartlett’s Anthias
9) Red Velvet Wrasse
10) McCosker’s Flasher Wrasse
11) Midas Blenny
12) Tiger Wardi Goby

Fish & Sea Star I saved:
1) Blue Spot Jawfish
2) African Leopard Wrasse
3) Blue Linkia Seastar

 

[novahobbies]

After the tank was clean, I started asking around my local club. Told 'em the issues, asked if anyone had any free or cheap frags they felt like donating. And boy did they come through. I had people, some of them just online local acquaintances, messaging me with cheap or free stuff. A couple local stores even phoned me up to see what I needed. The outflow of help and well-wishes was truly inspiring, and awesome in the fullest meaning of the word. I planned a single day where I hopped in the car, and picked up a TON of beautiful coral. I'll post the list, but let me first tell you that all of this cost me less than $40, plus gas, for everything.

Green Ponape Seriatopora
Jedi Mind Trick Monti
Sprung's Stunner chalice
2 pieces of green monti cap (one looks like it may have an orange background, but I can't tell yet)
Strawberry Shortcake acro
Peach Monti Digi
Valida tricolor acro
generic "Purple Acro," looks like some kind of A. walindi but purple, not red
2 other unidentified brown acros
Bird of Paradise Seriatopora
ORA Neon Green Seriatopora
Green Staghorn acro
Pink Milleopora
Yellow (it ain't yet, but it should color up) Porites
Green Duncan
LA Lakers scroll coral

It's been 4 months now since I picked these pieces up, and I'm still incredibly grateful for the club members help. I'm also happy to say that everything they gave me (plus the few additions I've added since then!) have all been doing beautifully.

These past few posts have been rough, even to go back and type. Thankfully the work you'll see from here on out is essentially all current tank stuff!

 

[novahobbies]

Here's a few recent shots.
My M. bipartitus African Leopard Wrasse (tank crash survivor #1)

The O. rosenblatti Blue-spot Jawfish (tanks crash survivor #2!)

Naoko's wrasse:

Female Rhomboid:

Desjardini (with the McCosker's in the background)

Don't think I have a good shot of him yet, but my Potter's Angel just came out of QT last week and is now in the display tank as well. I love the colors of Potter's Angels. They're a little difficult to acclimate but worth the time and trouble.

 

[novahobbies]

Potters Angel!

 

[revhtree]

Great tank!

 

[novahobbies]

Wow, it's been a while since I've updated this! Well, I'm happy to say the tank is still doing well. I've had the usual occasional snags (balancing Alk with Ca, a fish disappear for no good reason, a beautiful chalice grown huge only to die suddenly over the course of 2 days) but on the whole, I've been very happy with the tank direction. Here's some recent shots...most under actinics, but you get the idea.

 

[novahobbies]

 

[Lionfish Lair]

Nova!! How are you! Beautiful shots.... sorry about the sucky stuff!

 

[novahobbies]

Renee! Good to see you! I'm well, thanks....how is the family and the fish-fam? Thanks for the kind words about the photos. One day I'm going to convince a professional to come in and shoot the tank. That would be fun.

Sucky stuff can be exactly that....but we have to roll with 'em, don't we?

 

[novahobbies]

Did a 20g water change last night and spent some time relocating a couple corals, plus adding some new ones from the frag rack to their final homes. Here's a FTS from this morning.

 

[Jason mack]

Amazing build too read .. !!! Nice tank

 

[Kcstoker1]

Following, Richard. Love the tank and the story. I've had major mishaps every 3-4 years, too. It's good to know I'm not alone, lol. I love your use of the tall space. Best of luck with everything moving forward.

 

[novahobbies]

Thanks for your kind comments! I'm going to try and update this more often. Here, this happened just now....

Photobomb level: expert. I was trying to get a photo of the damage between the Stylophora coral (background) and the ORA neon green birdsnest in the foreground. They were much closer together and were really going at it....I had to separate them last night. The fish had other plans for the shot.