o2manyfish - 750g Display Tank, 1500g System with Outdoor Frag Tanks

[11f150]

Holy cow you have hit some serious bumps in the hobby. You are a true hobbyist, I will give you that. I hope you don't have any more issues come up.

 

[o2manyfish]

Deltec is the bomb

So I know some of you are OCD when it comes to your tank maintenance and routines. I'm a lazy reefer. With quantity and automation, I do my best to keep my tank maintenance to a very minimal schedule.


If they would finalize these robotic glass cleaners I could leave my tank totally untouched for weeks at a time. Because other than cleaning the glass there isn't too much I do regularly to my tank. Carbon get's changed once a month, Auto feeder gets filled every 2-3 weeks. Kalkwasser every 3-4 weeks. C02 every 8 weeks. Calc Reactor every 12 weeks. Water changes when the seasons change.


Now when it comes to my skimmer I don't touch it often. I have a Deltec 702 that has been running for about 9 years I think. All my equipment is outside the house, built inside counters and cabinets on the back patio. So when the countertops are down everything is out of sight and out of mind. My RO waste water dumps into my skimmer cup, and then that drains to a sewer line.


So without having to dump a skimmer cup, I may go 4-8 weeks between cleaning the skimmer. In the 9 years I have had my Deltec skimmer I have had 1 pump lock up. There was an electrical fire that scorched the side of the skimmer and burned up the Eheim plugs. I chopped the charred wire, put some new plugs on the pumps and away they went.


In the last 9 years I have probably pulled the Eheim pumps off the skimmer maybe 5-6 times to clean. Once in the past year I pulled the skimmer out of the cabinet and let it run vinegar for a few hours to clean everything out.


I bought a new ozonizer about 8 weeks ago (rated at 650mg/hr, and since I started using it my skimmer pulls out just solid black gunk. And the stuff is so thick that the skimmer usually has black foam coming out of the top of it.


I am hosting the local reef club meeting on Saturday afternoon so I figure I might do some system clean up. Tonight I take off my skimmer cup to clean it. Before I put the cup back on I reach in and clean out the neck, and just for giggles I reach into the skimmer and discover one of the pumps isn’t pumping. I check the pump and it’s warm but not hot.


So I drain the skimmer and pull the pump off and the impeller is frozen in place. I get some pliers and carefully try to remove the impeller and it won’t budge.


So I get a little more forceful and I get the impeller to grind about ¼ turn, but I can’t pull it out.


I pull off the second pump and it looks fine. So I pour some vinegar into each pump.


I figure for the cost of a Deltec pump and an impeller I might as well buy one of the new fangled skimmers with a low energy DC pump.


After an hour of not finding any great short fat skimmers to fit under my counter, other than the $2k or $3k Deltec I decide to go check on the pump.


I go downstairs and the impeller slides right out of the pump. Calcium built up in the pump and bound the impeller. But it must have gotten real hot because there is a ¼†ring around the top of the impeller that is melted.


I take a razor blade and start slicing the burnt plastic off the impeller, giving it a shave to make it smooth again. A few minutes later I go pop the now somewhat smooth impeller into the pump, plug it in and Voila the pump spins!!


I put the pumps back on, and after hand tightening the second pump, I remember I forgot to check the O-Rings. So I pull off the second pump and the bottom O-ring is missing. So I’m out with the flashlight looking all over the ground, the counter, inside the cabinet, and I can’t find the F’ing O-ring.


So now I am ****** off. So I decide I better check the first pump for O’rings, so I take it apart and low and behold on the bottom union, I have two O-rings sandwiched into the union.


Bing Bang Boom, and my abused Deltec skimmer is back up and skimming !!!


The thing is a mule!


Dave B


PS -- Tomorrow I will decide whether it's prudent to buy a new impeller or look for a new more efficient skimmer.

 

[Tattoo]

Dave, AMAZING roller coaster of emotions as I was thrilled with your success only to have my heart drop with your losses! You not only are a great writter and inspiration for so many of us reefers, but a great teacher as well. I was fortunate enough to not only see the current stage of your beautiful tank at the SFVR meeting, but learned hands down more in 30 minutes with your fragging lecture and hands on fragging my own frags that i could have ever imagined! You are an amazing asset to this hobby and I'm so excited to keep reading and learning from you. I'm Orlando (wyldtyme) and fellow member of SFVR...

 

[o2manyfish]

I have kept lots of blastos over the year, and always enjoyed the colors. About a year ago I picked up a group of Aussie Blastos. They had nice red green colors. I put them on the bottom of the tank, in a low light area (lit by led) with minimal flow.


They survived the tank crash last year. And they have had a major growth spurt. The heads have gotten huge. I took some photos to show a friend tonight, and thought I would share here as well. Also took a couple of quick coral shots. No Macro lens and I didn't mess with the camera settings so they seemed to come out a little over exposed.




So here is a closeup of the blasto colony

Hard to get the relative size of the heads from the photo because there is nothing to compare the size to. But the big heads are about 2.5". Here is a center shot of the tank that helps show the size a little better.

Here are some quick coral shots.

Here are a couple of full tank shots

Here is a shot with the Fiancee's Achilles Tang. Had it for about 6 weeks now. Pretty shy for an Achilles. As with my past Achilles and Powder blues this one has a case of ich. The ich gets worse at night. But the fish Has a good healthy appetite, eats any kind of food offerred.

 

[skinz78]

Glad to see you are bringing it back from the crash, that one was a brutal one. Everything looks great and I hope the Achilles kicks that Ich for you!

 

[o2manyfish]

Many of you saw the devestation to my tank last fall when the topoff stuck and crashed my system.


While doing massive water changes to try to stop the death, I found a batch of newly hatched Bangai cardinals in my outside sump.


The outside sump is a 240g tomato bin, with about 400lbs of live rock. There is a collection of fish which have been adopted from people breaking down their tanks that live in the rock sump. Included was a pair of Bangai from Greg R's tank overhaul.


With 100's of corals dying, and all the tanks connected, I marveled at the baby fish, but couldn't do anything to save them. To do the massive water changes on my system, I had to drain the rock sump and then fill it back up with a garden hose while dumping in bags of salt.


I started off with 11 baby fish.


Well, I have 10 baby bangai from the first batch, and now there is over 20 baby bangai in the rock sump (or was) from what appear to be about 3 different age ranges.


I don't supply any food to the rock sump. The sump is filled with tons of pods and algae and all the fish outside fend for themselves quite well.


About a month ago it appears that 5 of the biggest bangai followed each other over the overflow in the rock sump and ended up in my filter sump.


I spotted them while doing some filter maintenance, It was a week till I could empty out the reactors and catch them.


I called Greg R and gave him a pair, and put one pair in my display tank to see how they would do.


About 3 months earlier I had tried a baby in the display tank and it vanished in minutes.


But after 2 weeks now they babies are doing well and eating food added to the tank.


So without further adieu, after 30+ years in this hobby my first baby fish...

Here is one of my 3 tailspot blennies who likes to sit in my Alveapora

Tank Shots

 

[revhtree]

Wow man so cool about the baby cards and bravo for how your tank is looking today!

 

[DrBoxedWine]

following!

 

[YHSublime]

Wow... you have really bounced back! Your build was encouraging, thanks for sharing all the ups and downs. It's looking amazing!

 

[MrDJeep123]

I don't even know what to say. How everything is setup is amazing. I love the outside frag tank! I have to be honest, after the second time...I'd be done for a while. Kudos to you for continuing.

 

[o2manyfish]

Don't you just hate getting old. In the past I could build an entire system in a weekend. This time switching our the halides for the Radions took me 2 weeks and I'm not done yet.


But the lights are up, and so far they look good.

Eight units, mounted on sch80 pipe frame. Right now they are just "hung". I have some linear actuators I hope to use to raise and lower the lights. I mounted the front bank of Radion at an angle to try to get more forward shining light. I had good results over the years angling the front halides to get the light at a better viewing angle.

I picked up some new fish this week. No jumping for joy yet, have to wait several weeks to see how they settle down. So far picking at the rocks voraciously.

And you know having one is cool but....

And a pair is nice, but...

Let's hope a trio convinces them to all start adjusting quicker.




Also came across this little one. It has an unusual pattern on the top stripe. Interested to see if this turns out to be 'neat' as it grows up or icky.

 

[o2manyfish]

Here are some fish and coral shots under the Radions.

Left side of tank

Middle of the tank

 

[o2manyfish]

This Atlantic Blue survived the tank crash. He was living in the outside frag tank and the Fiancee thought he deserved to come to the big tank. So now he is in the big tank and has gotten huge. He's well behaved with the tanks current inhabitants, but goes crazy when we try to add a new Achilles (last try at the Achilles got his butt kicked and is thriving in the outside frag tank). Going to try to catch this guy with a small fish hook this week....

This was bought as a flat frag, just an encrusted plug without a branch. It's really starting to look like a coral now.

And lastly, I have this guy for several years now. The female jumped out of the tank last year. I think it's a great looking fish, but most people don't even notice it in the tank.

And here is my new project. Started a couple of weeks ago. 28x28x30 starfire cube, with 100w led.

These are just some starter plants. Have a large lot of plants shipping in this week to give this tank a good jump start. Want to do mostly live bearers. Had our first two batches of babies show up last night and this morning. Not enough foiliage for them to survive easily yet, but working on it

 

[YHSublime]

It's interesting to see the switch to Radions, why did you decide to do it?! I'm a huge fan of the led/t5 combo. DT looks AMAZING and cool little side tank. Looking at your tanks, nobody would know you ever had any hitches! Cheers, thanks for the update!

 

[Eienna]

Ho.ly. Mo.ly. What a reef!!

 

[o2manyfish]

So before taking down the Halides I did some Par readings so I could adjust the Radions accordingly.


I made this little chart to try to help out. After my last post, I went and checked the Par of the Radions with them all set at 54% and then I did a quick little bit of adjustments.

The Radions are not evenly spaced across the tank, and that is by design. Because I look through the right end of the tank while sitting in my living room, the righ pair of Radions are pushed to the edge of the tank for better lighting. At the moment the left end of the tank is not getting enough light. So I have to build a longer rack to seperate the left hand Radions farther apart and get more illumination on the end of the tank.


But this seems to be a good starting point. I have a couple of Linear Actuators that I want to use to raise and lower the racks. I need someone to fabricate a couple of mounts to hold the actuators against the wall or the ceiling. Anyone interested in doing some light fabrication in exchange for frags ?


Dave B

 

[o2manyfish]

So the 10 day update on the Multibar trio is they seem to be doing well. Occassionally I see one pick at the prepared foods, but they definitely enjoy picking off the rock work. They all appear to be healthy and they have bulging bellys


Much to my delight they have decided to call the right hand back corner of the tank home. Which means while sitting in my living room watching tv, when I look into the fish and into the right end of the tank I usually see at least one of them without having to get up and search the tank.


One of the fish that I lost in the crash which was really special to me was my Venustus Angel, as seen in my avatar.


Over my decades in the hobby I have tried several times to keep the Venustus with minimal success. The Venustus in my Avatar went into my tank and thrived in the tank. And wasn't as shy as Venustus I had had in the past.


So I have been not only searching for a Venustus, but had other people looking for me as well.


Low and behold this morning I get a text that somebody found one.

And as you are probably starting to realize, I always like to increase my odds of success, so not one but......

My pair of Flamebacks seemed curious of the new duo, they did some minor posturing, but no aggressive behavior.

And of course the big angel, the Goldflake came over to see who the new angels on the block were.

They have been in the tank for a few hours now and they are calmly swimming about in the tank. One of them was hunting and picking at some sponge after just a few minutes in the tank. None of the existing fish in the tank seem to pay any attention to them at all, which is nice.


My past experiences with Venustus is they usually run for the cover of a cave. And pleasantly both Venustus seem to stay within about a foot of each other.


Dave B






PS - The tiny Bellus I picked up when I got the multi-bar is an aggressive little eater and devours all the different prepared foods that go into the tank. The Bellus are a great little angel that really seem to immediately enjoy being in captivity. They are easy to keep fish, no aggression issues, and they leave everything in a reef tank alone. Anyone looking for an angel to add to their reef if they get the opportunity to get a Bellus should take it.

 

[revhtree]

Wow just wow and amazing!!

 

[airin]

Amazing tank!

 

[o2manyfish]

Rev & Airin,

Thank you for the compliments. Enjoying the tank so much more as it starts growing in.

Dave B