Our Dream Tank

[Ditto]

Good evening,

Finally making good progress on getting the cabling, and layout of all the equipment finished.

On the left-hand side, the MP60 will be placed, power of the Fleece, sump light, and Avast Marine Ozone Circulation pump.

We used Velcro and then epoxy the one end to the Stand so not to use screws and then stuck another piece of Velcro on the controllers, Power Supply and so forth.



Then made a few stands using this (https://www.homedepot.com/p/1-2-in-x-48-in-x-8-ft-White-PVC-Trim-H120AWS6/205309788)

Controller Stand: The Return Pumps (Return 1 and Return 2) had heat sinks on the back of them so wanted to mount them only attaching the top and the bottom.


Fits perfectly inside the Tank Stand




Needed a small stand to hold all the light power supplies: (Allowed me to use the small space between the tank and the chimney)

Needed to make a stand for the KH Director and the ION Director also:


Working on next:
ATO and AWC Connection to Tank
Finish connecting and Configure KH Director and ION Director
MP60 and MP40 Flow Schedule
Configure Ozone Generator

 

[Ironwill723]

Looking good...Where did you pick up the bracket holders for the MP40 controllers?

 

[Ditto]

Good Morning,

@Ironwill723 - I used these:

VorTech Driver Mount

store2.ecotechmarine.com

 

[Ditto]

Good Morning,

Late last night we setup the MP60 and MP40 for the tank.

Qty 3 MP60 are going on the Left Side Wall and will provide the primary flow. Subject to change once we add rock but for now we spaced them equally across the Left Side Wall with the Middle one being higher then the other two.


Qty 2 MP40 were placed on the back wall on the right hand side of the tank. We did a test with some beads and the MP60 flow seem to make it to the other side of the tank when they are all in sync but the beads would sometime just become stagnate. To eliminate this we placed the MP40 on the back wall to just eliminate any possibility of dead spots on the far right side of the tank.



With the Powerheads placed we needed to set a schedule. Since the MP60 had the latest code on them we could not downgrade them to have them controlled by the GHL ProfiLux 4. So we had to use Ecotech Mobius Software.

Below is the Details of the Schedule:
MP60 were placed in Sync to have the same pattern flow across the entire tank.
4 Hours Reef Crest 6:00am-10:00am - 90%
8 Hours Nutrient Export 10:00am - 6:00pm - 80%
4 Hours Hours Lagoon 6:00pm - 10:00pm - 60%
8 Hours Hours Constant 10:00pm - 6:00am 40%

MP40 - Placed in Anti- Sync with max power of 50%

Schedule inside Mobius below:

 

[Ironwill723]

@Ditto I have a brand new non mobius mp60 qd controller if you would like to trade shoot me a pm.

 

[Ditto]

@Ironwill723 - Thanks for the offer but for now I will just control them with Mobius.

At 6:11am this morning @LiverockRocks (Tampa Bay Saltwater) emailed me and said it on the plane your first shipment. 14 Boxes worth which is 150 pounds of base rock and sand for a 270 gallon tank. We did do the TBS package for a 150 gallon tank which would be 300 Pounds of rock. We are not sure if this is to much and if it is we will move the extra into some of our other tanks.

At 2:12PM the flight arrived in New York and at 3:05PM the rock was loaded onto our truck for the short 1 hour commute home.


Then at 4:00 we had it unloaded and is now spread throughout the dining room floor.

And as always Buddy had to make sure the boxes were ok each and every one of them. Get ready for pictures as we unbox, and also do video's on the sand and the live rock!!

 

[Ditto]

Good Evening,

From the time the rock shipped to the time it was in the tank was approx. 12 hours. Very little time out of water was the rock and if it had sponges on it it was out of the water even less .

The packing @LiverockRocks did was outstanding. The Sand game double bagged with a thick plastic also submerged in water. The Live rock was tripled bagged and was submerged fully in water. All the packages temperature upon arrival were 74-75 degrees, measured with a digital thermometer so well insolated from the heat and cold.

None of the bags had a bad smell, no dead fish or stale ocean smell. The water within the bags were clean, except when I started moving the sand around. None of the boxes had leaks and overall condition of the boxes were excellent, thank you Southwest Cargo. The Styrofoam on some of the boxes were cracked but I believe this is expected.

As for the quality of the sand. Impressed, it is a hard course sand allowing my powerheads to run normal without the fear of sand blowing all over the place. It reminds me of the ocean floor bottom. We did find within the sand 3 Mini Starfish all alive and now inside the new tank moving around. The sand did cloud my tank but in all honesty expected but the filter roller will just run overtime the next few hours cleaning it up.



The base rock was just as much as a surprise. A good assortment of rock sizes and shapes and thank you @LiverockRocks for the arch shape rocks. I did not expect those and some great flat rock pieces also which can serve as a great base. We have some feather dusters, some plant life, sponges, what looks like clams, and some thins I need to take pictures of and ask.

No die off that we could see, or smell and all the rock pieces were fully submerged upon arrival. We inspected the rock for any bad critters and did not see any. All rock was cleaned off with tank water that we drained to make room for the rock and placed right into the tank. Since I only ordered 150 lbs no stacking of the rock was needed so it all fit on the bottom of the tank allowing us to quickly place the rock into the tank knowing we will stack it later on. I did take picture of this because some of the rocks had them and I was not sure what they were so I picked them all off and placed them in a QT cell in my Sump.



Better pictures once the water clears




We did pick up a few sea Urchins also:


Seeing what we see now we can not wait to see what the final rock shipment is going to look like.

Video's soon to be posted once Youtube encodes them

 

[TigerReef]

@Ditto - I'm excited to follow your newest build! Thank you for all your help over the years.

And to Mrs. Ditto - KICK CANCERS A.. !! Your reefing family is here cheering for you!

 

[Jubei2006]

Looks good! Great equipment so far! What changed your mind in going from the Mitras LX7206s to the Amazonas lights (just curious as I have 4 7206s and 2 7204s over my 500gallon). Also how do you like the ION director (I have the profilux4 as well and the KH director installed about a month ago). Good call on the TBS live rock. I started with dead rock and am looking at picking up some of their rock to dark cure for 60 days (I have a fully medical quarantined fish tank so no velvet or ich), mainly to increase biodiversity in my tank. Please keep us update on the good (and bad). Thanks for sharing with us, looking forward to future updates!

 

[Jubei2006]

The shells look like limpets BTW. https://tpwd.texas.gov/fishing/sea-center-texas/flora-fauna-guide/jetties/jetty-life/false-limpet

 

[Ditto]

Good Morning,

@TigerReef - Thank you for the kind words. She his on her 7th treatment it makes her tired, but she keeps fighting each and every day. The new tank is a major highlight for her. She was like a little kid with the flashlight looking for things on the rock, and this morning was finding new things in the tank.

@Jubei2006 - We love the LX7206 and may kick myself for this decision(They are on the other tanks), but we wanted to try mounting the lights higher and not have them over the tank and go with no canopy. We both enjoy the open concept and having the lights right above the tank was something we did not want to do with this one. Hence the Icon960 which are over 7ft above the bottom of the tank. I plan to post specifically about the light, the good and the bad now that I have had more time playing with them very soon.

The ION Director was working great on the previous tank so carrying it over to this one I hope to have the same results and will begin posting those initial results on this tank once it back online. (Been busy hooking everything else up hehe)

We went with Live Rock on our first tank twenty years ago, but it was dry rock when we did our other tanks. We like how you can sculpt unique structures with dry stone, but we feel the biodiversity you receive on the Liverock is just something that should not be overlooked. We had great success with both methods. Mrs. Ditto wanted live rock, and if it takes her mind off what was going on with her cancer by having her search the stone with a flashlight looking for stuff, so be it. She was all over the bags opening them and flipping rocks with her blue flashlight. I told her to wait until she saw the next live rock set next week. Even early this morning, she was like, oh, the water is clear look what that oh look the urchin moved she was all excited.

And thank you for telling us what that snail is, as they are now back in the main display tank.

 

[Ditto]

Good Afternoon,

As Promised more photo's of the rock. With the tank cleared (We need to clean the glass) you can easily see all the rock. We did not sculpt anything but placed the rock along the bottom of the tank so that it was in the water as quickly as possible with as little disturbance.

Quick shot of the entire tank:


Some Green Algae on the rock.


We liked how this one was Arched.

Orange Sponge underneath this one rock.


This one was a very deep red/purple in color.





All different sizes and shapes.


Not sure what this black line is?


Another Orange Sponge


This is florescent in color a Cyan/Blue Green Feather Duster?


Plant Life has been seen all over the base rock.


Another Nice Arch









Overall thoroughly impressed and we can not wait for the next shipment..

Today's Water Test Results are in:
Ammonia: 0
No2 and No3 are both reading 0 also.

 

[Jubei2006]

Rock looks nice! Personally the "feather duster" Id pull the rock and quarantine it just to make sure it's not an aiptasia (looks more like tentacles than frills on my screen). Otherwise looks like some halimada calcareous algae, and some nice sponges. I know it doesnt help you now, and dont think light penetration would be good with the 7206s, but I have a no canopy tank with the lights about 18 inches above the water. Ballast are fun enough hidden by a dry erase board at ceiling level.

 

[Ditto]

@Jubei2006 - We would have initially but is aiptasia multi-color? I thought it was a dull brown color. So we have pulled it out and placed it in the QT tank. That is an excellent idea with the whiteboard for the power supplies. Great rock scape also for your tank!!

 

[Jubei2006]

There are several species of aiptasia, and some have more color than others. This article has a collection of pictures, some of which are sorta pretty for such a pest.
https://www.saltyunderground.com/article/22-aiptasia-anemone-control-and-information

Guess it could also be a curley cue anemone, which would be a much better find. But for me, I wouldnt take the risk in my dream tank. I unfortunately already introduced aiptasia in my 500gallon. Though I had all my corals clean, quarantined, new plugs, and covered up suspect areas with superglue and epoxy. Still ended up with aiptasia. So now growing berghias to fight the problem. Good call on quarantine. Id take care of it like it's a curleycue, and if it starts multipling in the quarantine, well......its done for.

Thanks, we thought for days on how to hide 6 ghl powerbricks. I was up stairs cleaning up my kids arts and crafts, and saw it. Thought hey.....its white, it matches the ceiling, its good size, and its trimmed in aluminum like the first three to 4 feet of the power cord. Ran it past my wife honestly as a joke, and she thought it looked pretty good too. So there it is.

But enough about my tank, lets get to the goodies on yours!! You got a fish list you're adding to your existing, or is that a secret and we're going to find out?

And forgot to say.....but all your fishy friends here are pulling for your wife to be well and sending good vibes her way!

 

[Ditto]

Good Morning,

@Jubei2006 - We have not decided yet on the final fish, but some fish resided in the last tank and are in QT again, waiting to return home.

A Pair of Clown Fish
A Pair of Barnacle Blennies
A Cardinal Fish
A Hawkfish that my wife calls Prickles
4 Zebra Dart Fish

What we plan to add, I am little the wife decide as she been picking them. She wants fish that will be out and about, which all but the Zebra Dart Fish like to swim the tank. The Blennies she likes the most as they dart in and out of their rock all day, but they seem very hard to find.

I told her that eight fish with a tank of this size would look very sparse

 

[Ditto]

Good Afternoon,

We received our 1 gallon Reef Snacklepack @Dinkins Aquatic Gardens . As you can see from the photos below, the bottles came well stocked with Pods and they are moving around.



They were moving around within the bottle like no tomorrow.



The Phytoplankton is a rich green color, and upon opening the bottle and doing the sniff test, the smell of no death or decay.

The Pods water was crystal clear with a perfect salinity of the new tank, and we allowed the bottles to get to room temperature and drop them in. Tonight when the lights are a bit lower, we will add the Phytoplankton.

Will for sure use them @Dinkins Aquatic Gardens again!!

 

[Jubei2006]

Good Morning,

@Jubei2006 - We have not decided yet on the final fish, but some fish resided in the last tank and are in QT again, waiting to return home.

A Pair of Clown Fish
A Pair of Barnacle Blennies
A Cardinal Fish
A Hawkfish that my wife calls Prickles
4 Zebra Dart Fish

What we plan to add, I am little the wife decide as she been picking them. She wants fish that will be out and about, which all but the Zebra Dart Fish like to swim the tank. The Blennies she likes the most as they dart in and out of their rock all day, but they seem very hard to find.

I told her that eight fish with a tank of this size would look very sparse

Sparse??? that's a kind way to say invisible! I like my lyretail anthias a lot. They are always out, generally peaceful with my other fish. Your green nog looks very nice!

 

[bnord]

great build thread - following - best of luck

 

[Ditto]

@bnord - Thank you!!

@Jubei2006 - Yes she really wants fish that are out and about and will not hide. I will suggest to her the lyretail anthias and see what she thinks.