OINK! I'm a Pig. 200g Reef Savvy, Bashsea, Royal Exclusiv -Direct sunlight- In wall w/ IKEA fishroom basement sump build

[drtechno]

A big welcome to the first official members of my tank: the Tiggerpod:

just doses them and away they went. Pretty sad that I get excited about watch little pods swim around but it’s been a while since my last tank, Haha. Next week my Ecopods and 528 pods arrive from AlgaeBarn to diversify the population.

 

[drtechno]

Not much progress in the last couple weeks. Just started dosing 2 part with the DOS, and trying to bring parameters in line with 440/9/1350 Ca/dkh/Mag. Yes no corals yet, but want to make sure I have a good understanding of how this will all work.

Anyway, automatic water changes have been set up at 2 gal/day via DOS and it’s working great.

As far as in the tank itself, I am having some trouble with the MP40 in the rear pushing too much sand when I try to blast flow across the back. I have been experimenting with different MP40 flow directors like the one below, but it’s pretty tricky as none of the are a very narrow flow. I may have to switch to a different pump with narrow flow to push water across the rear of the tank without moving the sand too much.

In other news, I have ordered my first fish from marine collectors so waiting for them to go thru quarantine and ship-

Purple tang
White tail bristletooth
Gem tang
Desjardin tang

So hoping they will get here soon

 

[tylr9m482]

nice tang selection! Are they the only ones you plan on adding or possibly more tangs down the line?

 

[drtechno]

nice tang selection! Are they the only ones you plan on adding or possibly more tangs down the line?

Ya, to be honest, we had at one point thought of adding a 5th acanthus tang (mimic or powder blue) but in my old tank, the powder blue, while beautiful, would bully absolutely ANY fish that was introduced into the tank. While a larger tank and more tangs would likely distribute that aggression more evenly, I didn't want to risk it. Considering I want to add a whole host of fish anyway, I didn't feel like I really needed to add a 5th tang.

I'll post up my planned stock list in a bit, as most of it is already set with Marine Collectors, and set to be delivered in 4 phases one month apart.

 

[drtechno]

Not much to update while I wait for phase 1 of the fish. Water parameters are finally stable, pH is stable at 7.7 (a bit low but I’ll try to raise it with kalk once I start getting coral) and ATO/AWC are on autopilot. Very pleased with the Apex so far.

The only thing I wanted to add is that I figured out why my new MP60 was vibrating so much. No matter how I adjusted the wet side, it would vibrate especially above 50% power. So I disassembled the wet side and found this sticky junk all around the impeller shaft base. Maybe this was residue from the “lubricant” they used? In any case I cleaned it off with alcohol and reassembled everything. Bam. Immediately the MP60 was absolutely silent even at 75% power. Very pleased with how well this worked out.

In any case, this is what it looked like:

 

[drtechno]

Just doing cable management and fine tuning of things while I wait

 

[drtechno]

Got my Trident set up this last weekend. It’s much more accurate than I had hoped as it is reading within <5% of my RedSea test kits. And while I don’t think this is great practice, I’m using the original reagents from TWO years ago. Apparently they are still good well after their expiration (?). Im going to continue using my expired reagents and just validate everything with my Red Sea test kit on occasion. They are dead on right now so not about to throw them out

my pH is pegged at 7.7 which is not great. So before I get a co2 scrubber, I’m going to switch over to Kalkwasser (currently just dosing 2 part). The avast marine k1 is on backorder but I’m in no rush as I’m no where near ready for coral.

I finished under the tank today using some power brick mounts off of etsy (bless 3D printing !!) and some cable management.

Next, ready for some fish!

 

[drtechno]

First three arrivals from Marine Collectors has arrived, happy and healthy. The Gem, Purple and Desjardins Tangs. The white tail bristletooth is delayed until later this week it seems. But these guys are a blast. So much personality. The purple tang thinks he’s the boss but none of aggression is overt. They all just school together most of the time, but then he just reminds the others every now and then. Lol

Anyway, hardware wise there haven’t been many changes except for trying to program the Apex

 

[drtechno]

So I am going to start putting up some full tank shot updates now more regularly.

To be honest, I don’t know what’s going on. The tank has been up now ~2 months with fish in it for 2 weeks. There is not a spot of algae no matter how much I feed these pigs. I’m not going to say it yet, but have I really avoided the “ugly stage” ? I mean, I don’t really know what to do next. More fish are on order (continuous 4 week cycle of deliveries from Marine Collectors).
Do I just start adding some beginner corals?? I dosed the Helix coralline algae (figured no down side) but it’s too soon to see that.
I was just expecting a disaster but it’s clean as a whistle.

The Radions are at 50% and Kessils are still off. Do I just start cranking the lights slowly to SPS levels next??

 

[drtechno]

 

[inetjnky]

<deleted due to double post>

 

[inetjnky]

Hey man finally getting a chance to check back in with your build! Tank looks awesome!! Suprised to hear about the seals on your flow sensors are leaking. I have two on my setup and never had them leak once. I did however use aquarium safe silicone on the threads when I put it together. On your mp60, the shaft should be greased after cleaning before you put them back together. I cleaned mine up too when I got them and found that the ceramic shifts broke on the majority after I pulled them apart for their first cleaning. Ecotech warrantied the shafts but once I started greasing them I’ve not had a problem since. Just something to keep an eye on. I’ve had my overflow going strong now for almost 3 years and found my first salt creep going down the back of the tank in the middle. Hoping it was from when I raised up the lid to clean my ph probe in the overflow and not an actual leak. I greased the two rubber gaskets pretty good when I setup the tank so praying it’s not actually leaking and it’s just from the lid.

Fish selection looks great!! I need to do an update on my build thread. So much has changed.

 

[drtechno]

Hey man finally getting a chance to check back in with your build! Tank looks awesome!! Suprised to hear about the seals on your flow sensors are leaking. I have two on my setup and never had them leak once. I did however use aquarium safe silicone on the threads when I put it together. On your mp60, the shaft should be greased after cleaning before you put them back together. I cleaned mine up too when I got them and found that the ceramic shifts broke on the majority after I pulled them apart for their first cleaning. Ecotech warrantied the shafts but once I started greasing them I’ve not had a problem since. Just something to keep an eye on. I’ve had my overflow going strong now for almost 3 years and found my first salt creep going down the back of the tank in the middle. Hoping it was from when I raised up the lid to clean my ph probe in the overflow and not an actual leak. I greased the two rubber gaskets pretty good when I setup the tank so praying it’s not actually leaking and it’s just from the lid.

Fish selection looks great!! I need to do an update on my build thread. So much has changed.

Thanks man.
Yea, I would love to see your update At least post up an FTS.
What did you grease your MP60 shaft with?
And let me ask you directly for advice - if everything looks stable (great, actually) from an algae/ugly phase perspective, do I just start cranking on the lights to get them to SPS levels? Right? I don't think there is anything else that I am forgetting to do before I start cranking them higher.

 

[drtechno]

One more quick photo while the time of day is right- this is what happens with the afternoon sun into the tank. Will be curious to see PAR measurements at some point but there’s definitely direct sunlight hitting it, no doubt about that. So far no problem spots in the direct light.

 

[inetjnky]

Yes crank your lights on, don’t wait. Ride out the ugly phase. If you get cyano start dosing prodibio bacteria 6x the amount it say on the package. I use Molykote 111 on my mp60 shafts. I also use it on any rubber seals and gaskets. It’s reef safe.

 

[drtechno]

Yes crank your lights on, don’t wait. Ride out the ugly phase. If you get cyano start dosing prodibio bacteria 6x the amount it say on the package. I use Molykote 111 on my mp60 shafts. I also use it on any rubber seals and gaskets. It’s reef safe.

Awesome! Thanks for the tips.

Cranking lights as we speak. Kessils fired up after being off the last month as well. Love the added shimmer
Will report back if things go south, lol

 

[Ironfish]

Amazing Build and Step by Step details! I love that Fish Room downstairs! I wish I had the room for that!
I saw you are not using the BK Deluxe 250 anymore? Did you move down to a 200? Or a different skimmer?
Cheers!

 

[drtechno]

Amazing Build and Step by Step details! I love that Fish Room downstairs! I wish I had the room for that!
I saw you are not using the BK Deluxe 250 anymore? Did you move down to a 200? Or a different skimmer?
Cheers!

Thanks!!

Yes, thank goodness I had a large unfinished basement that allowed me to put the stuff right below the tank. It was quite the project to get it all together, but a fun way to pass the time over the years. Pretty cool to be able to tell the relatives that we did everything in there ourselves, from installing the vinyl flooring to building all the furniture/stands (fine, we didn't install the counters, haha). I amaze myself when I look back on it.

Great question in terms of the skimmer. We went from the BubbleKing Deluxe 250 to the Deluxe 200. Couple things drove this decision - to be completely honest, the primary decision was that the custom sump design was (in my opinion) screwed up. I had sent them the dimensions of all of the compartments, to accomodate the BK 250 skimmer and shrink the fuge section, but they built it the same way as the original stock 60-gal design that we used as a base. This meant that the BK250 had to be rammed in that compartment and barely fit. I didn't discover this until far later in the project, as I wasn't installing things in real-time due to the display tank delays. In addition to this, a lot of info started surfacing on the web and on BRS, that you should really be under-sizing your skimmer. The BK250 would have been pretty oversized. In light of this, and still being new, I opted to sell the new BK250 and get the BK200, as there was only a small price differential after the sale. The BK200 fits much, much better, and is likely the correct size I needed from the get-go, given the roller mat and fuge.

 

[drtechno]

I haven’t been particularly impressed with the JBJ heater controllers as the temp range seems to be 2 degrees despite everything I’ve tried. That’s not stable enough for what I am looking for, so I ordered up the Helio controller and will run that as my primary heater controller. I don’t think my backup heater has fired a single time in the last couple months so maybe I slightly oversized them, but I guess a better indicator will be when winter hits, as the basement gets colder. I have seen people get great results with this controller, so before I get a Ranco or something similar, I wanted to give this a try

Otherwise, my Bristletooth Whitetail came yesterday and is chilling in his Octolids acclimation chamber. I got the biggest one available so that the fish have some room in there, and it’s working great! Very happy with it. We will see how the other tangs react when the lights come on later today. Plan on keeping him there a week to make sure everyone is happy with each other. Very curious where he will come out in the pecking order

 

[Troylee]

Nice set up! Should be a beautiful tank once you get it stocked up! I personally would give that tang a day or so and let him loose! If you see aggression a mirror taped to the side of the tank works wonders.. I just added a gem last night to my established tang gang and only my sailfin is being a jerk! Ugh… he been occupied with a mirror the last 8 hours