Pickupman66's 180 GC build

[pickupman66]

someone asked me for a shot of the equipment setup. sorry for the mess.

and this was sunday morning as I was trying to make breakfast.. they were all in the corner closest to the kitchen. begging for my attention. Silly Fish

 

[ToXIc]

looking good mang!!!!

 

[revhtree Verified Admin]

Looking great love the equipment! HA!

 

[pickupman66]

Camera time. WOW this tank is starting to grow some coral. in 8 months, my Zoanthids have gone from maybe 20 polyps to well over 200. go back a few pages and check out the old photos.
here are the new ones.
Grape Sherbert Acro

Zoanthid Takeover

Blue Indigo Stag

Aqua Delight (had just a few weeks)

??? Acro..

Milli

Tinkerbell Acro

FS I got for Father's day

???? acro..

Pickupman's Pink Poci its almost 3" across now.

Cute little Blasto

Rainbow Poci. I have three colonies of this. these two have encrusted over.

Robin's Egg Acro

 

[pickupman66]

Green Table

Tricolor.

Full tank Shot

Link...

 

[pickupman66]

Issues issues issues..... That has been the last month.. I have been traveling a TON for work. this let to some neglect of the tank. first sign was the beautiful frogspawn decided to brown jelly 4 out of 5 heads! UGH. I have one left that is doing well. hopefully I can get things right and happy. also, several of my acro's were losing tissue at the tips. Overall they looked like Crapola!!!! UGh.. so here are the lessons learned

1. if you use Ecobak, FEED more than just a pinch of food daily (every other day when out of town)(thanks honey). Ecobak works best in a well fed tank. so go ahead and feed them fat fish more. I now feed them two or three times daily. Hopefully this will help as I feel (after reading TONS of threads) the water was TOO clean.
2. Also, Dont run GFO once your ecobak is broke in. there is no need as you starve the bacteria of phosphates they need to process the nitrates etc.... Ugh...
3. Check your PH probe calibration regularly. mine was about .3 off. yea.. it read 8.16 but was actually like 7.8. after learning this, I check the KH more closely and realised it was like 6.1!!! maybe this was part of the issue. So, over the last three days I now have it sitting at 8.3KH. It was really swinging the PH too. now my PH is hovering around 7.9 ish. I plan to check it again nightly for the next week to make sure the CaRx is keeping up. (likely it was not)

Ok. so the lessons I learned are helpful. I used to run a "dirty" system (no skimmer, no pellets, no waterchanges, no carbon). now trying to run a ULNS is the exact opposite. I was feeding like it was my dirty system.

One piece of equipment I did invest in this past month was a Reefkeeper. it started off as a RKL with a PC4 and Sl1, but has been upgraded to the Reefkeeper Elite with the net module. Soooooo....now I can actually monitor the tank from afar. I dont have everything on the system yet. currently it just controls the lights, fans and closed loop pump, monitors the PH and temp and gives me readouts, but I do have other plans for it. I will need about 3 more PC4's, and then I can get everything under the RKE's control.

Still Hesitant on using it for temp control as I have a really nice Medusa controller and a Pinpoint for the CaRx.

 

[pickupman66]

Ah yes.... Kh is now reading 9.3 on teh salifert kit. This is where I feel the tank needs to be. now we just monitor that for a while to make sure the CaRx is keeping up with that and we are back on the road to success...PH still hovers below 8. its sitting at 7.81 this morning.

 

[Zef004]

Hey lindsey it coming along nicely. Sorry to hear about the frogspawn.

 

[pickupman66]

Slowly getting the hang of this big box of water... some days I really miss my old 75....

 

[Reef Breeders Verified Sponsor]

Slowly getting the hang of this big box of water... some days I really miss my old 75....

I know what you mean, I miss my old 45 gallon since I upgraded to my 90.

 

[pickupman66]

Good day today.. got the KH stabilized where i want it. it stayed thru the day. ill test daily for the next week to make sure it is doing just that...

now.. what do do about the Zoanthids that are about to begin to touch my SPS???

 

[pickupman66]

and my new Chalice I got from Harry's Frags... Thanks buddy. good to see you again.

 

[pickupman66]

Growth Shots the first shot of each is from July 1st.

Tinkerbell. it started no bigger than my pinky fingernail. less than 1/2"

 

[gimmito]

Nice coral pics. Looks like you have some pruning to do. ;)

 

[pickupman66]

OH no.. nothing hard will be pruned till January...

 

[Saltgator]

Very nice. Just went thru all the pics. i might have missed it, but what lights are you using?

 

[pickupman66]

:music: Saltgator, I am running 3x 250 watt Metal halides. the bulbs are the $13 Plusrites. in addition, I have 4x 36watt t-5's

 

[Saltgator]

Wow. Sorry, never thought I'd hear someone with an awesome tanks as yours having Plusrites!!!!!!!!!!!! You are not alone, I'm running them too (250 x 3 20k) w/ 2 vho's. Thought I was the only one.:bigsmile: Again, awesome build.

 

[Reef Breeders Verified Sponsor]

Wow. Sorry, never thought I'd hear someone with an awesome tanks as yours having Plusrites!!!!!!!!!!!! You are not alone, I'm running them too (250 x 3 20k) w/ 2 vho's. Thought I was the only one.:bigsmile: Again, awesome build.

Plusrites here too, and no skimmer, my corals are just fine.

 

[pickupman66]

Thanks guys. I'm very happy with those bulbs. I had a pair colorshift from 20k on me the first month. 1000bulbs.com replaced them no questions asked and shipped super fast. Need to get more into them so they continue to carry them.

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