Restarting my 225 3' x 5' x 2' After 4 years

[mch1984]

The mess? I think the back yard looks good, and I dig the pond. I'm lucky enough to have a wife that doesn't mind the tanks at all. Her rule is they have to look nice, no wires sticking out every where and stuff like that. Were hoping to add to our house in the next few years, well be expanding the kitchen, dining room, and adding an additional bedroom/multi function room. If we do that will become my man cave/tank room/ office. Maybe when we do I can put my monster in it.

 

[H@rry]

Awesome. I love it!

 

[Monkeynaut]

Yeah, what an awesome yard!

 

[Tomoko Schum]

Wow, very, very nice! Looking forward to seeing more pictures

 

[mehaffydr]

When the weather gets warmer we will have a NARC get together at my house.

 

[Tomoko Schum]

Great, another volunteer!
I am looking forward to it

 

[mehaffydr]

I have been in Wisconsin and Chicago all week on business. Now I remember why I moved to Alabama other than the extremely nice people here. Most mornings it was temps in the negatives and never above 20 during the day with quite a bit of snow. My flight was supposed to be yesterday but that flight was cancelled so I just got home tonight. The good news I came home to find that the pump for my skimmer has been delivered. I have the MRC2R skimmer with a 30" extension. I chose the Blueline MD70 pump. This pump is very powerful rated at 39' head and 1750 Gal per hour. I cant wait to get it hooked up tomorrow morning.

 

[mehaffydr]

Today I went to Aquatic Cove and purchased a Calcium test kit. Thought I should start making sure things are were they need to be. Calcium is at 400 so I will work to get that up just a bit. Ammonia was at 0 so looking good there.
I started building a stand for my skimmer today as it is an external skimmer and needs to drain into the sump so it needs to be above the sump.

That's my official helper Harley my 20 week old Black Lab.
Below is what it looks like assembled. I started painting it and will complete the stand tomorrow.Its kinda overbuilt but it is good and sturdy.

 

[mehaffydr]

Yesterday I finished painting the stand for the Skimmer. Tonight I hooked up all of the Plumbing and fire up the skimmer pump. Everything seems to be working great. Lots of bubbles and No leaks Yea! Just about time to start adding some fish to this system. My granddaughter is asking me everyday if we can get Nemo for our tank. I guess I'll have a pair of clowns as I find it very difficult to tell her no.

That my chiller behind the skimmer on the shelf I'll be hooking that up but right now not needed.

 

[Mark Gray]

I did not have room either and my wife is not real fond of my tanks so I built a building out behind the house near our pool. It has a bathroom on one end and my workshop and tank room on the other end. This is a view of the building. Please excuse the mess around it I have been working on tank.

Below is My 5000 Gal Koi pond it is 12' x 16' x 50" deep. I built every bit of all of this myself over the last 2 years its been quite the project.

Really nice Koi pond I would love to do this some day

 

[mehaffydr]

Really nice Koi pond I would love to do this some day

Thank you, It was a lot of work but it sure is a nice place to just chill and throw food to the KOI.

 

[icedgxe]

The tank is coming along great. The old setup looked so natural. Beautiful backyard as well!

 

[mehaffydr]

Well this was the weekend to get my fish I had been gathering up into the display tank. All are eating great and looking good. Its great to have an active reef going again. Still a long way to go but I'm super excited. Spent most of the weekend just sitting in front of the tank. Still have to work out lighting issues as the lights I have seem to all have issues. I have 3ea of the Chinese LED black boxes but 1 doesn't work at all and 1 only the Blue channel works the white with Red and Green is out.I have a 6 tube TB 36" and only 2 lights will fire up. I have an Outer Orbit 2x250 MH with 4ea T5 and only 2 of the T5 bulbs are working. Right now I have 1 Chinese black Box the 2 MH 250 and 4 bulbs of T5. I am think I will buy 2 SB reef light 32" LED's and put one on each end with the 2 250MH in the middle. Sorry pics are from my IPhone 5 so not that good.​

Fish I have are.
Purple Tang
Desjardini Sailfin Tang
2 Clowns
Sleeper Gold Head Goby
2 Blue reef Chromis
Royal Gramma
Potters Angel
Still looking to add;
Powder Brown Tang or Blue Hippo just haven't decided yet.
Maybe a few Fire fish
Other than that Corals and maybe a Rose Bubble Tip Anenome.

 

[mehaffydr]

I haven't updated lately but I have been busy getting the tank work completed.
I purchased some 1 1/2" thick foam from Lowes and cut to fit the stand to cut down on noise, Next I will be covering the outside. I'm thinking I will use White FRP panels this should be a nice clean look.
I also bought some new lights. I had a lot of old mix match lighting but it seemed like every fixture had issues. My MH-T5 fixtures only 1/2 of the T5's would light. My LED black boxes some worked and some partially worked, they were all old so I decided it was time for new lighting. I don't have the budget for Ecotech and I did have good growth with the old Black boxes so with the new improvements being made I decided on new updated Black boxes. I looked at a few and read a lot of reviews on this forum and others. I liked SB reeflights but they had none in stock so I was concerned about warranty service and general service if they don't have the commitment to have them in stock. I ended up deciding on Mars Aqua. They have stock in the US and I like that they have more Blue than White about 65/35 instead of the others that are closer to 55/45.
I bought 4 of the Mars Aqua lights and then got some aluminum angle and made a fixture that I painted white, to hold them all along with one of the old black boxes I had that still worked. I've only had them a few days but I do like them so far. I have the blue channel at 60% and the white at 40% but may adjust to get them at the level that looks best.

Still have to get out the zip ties and do some wire clean up.

 

[mch1984]

I like the hanging system, tank is looking good.

 

[mehaffydr]

It was a good day today some cloudiness apparently from a Bacterial bloom cleared overnight just in time for the arrival of some nice coral frags I bought from @WorldWideCoral last weekend during their Live sale. The corals are looking great with polyp extension after only a few hours in the DT.
My Tangs ( Purple, Desjardini Sailfin and Powder Brown) are eating like pigs and seem to be getting along fine. No aggression so far.

 

[Tomoko Schum]

Looking great!! Can't wait to see it in person. I hope you can host a club meeting sometime this year
I see LED fixtures on your neat light hanger. I see two units on each side. What is the one in the center?

 

[mehaffydr]

Looking great!! Can't wait to see it in person. I hope you can host a club meeting sometime this year
I see LED fixtures on your neat light hanger. I see two units on each side. What is the one in the center?

I would love to host s NARC meeting at my house this spring or early summer
The center light is also LED it is an Old Black Box that I had. The only one that still worked
It has a lot different appearance in the photo most likely because of different lense type.
I may order 2 more of the Mars Aqualights for the center just need to see how I like it for the next couple weeks and maybe do some testing with a par meter

 

[Monkeynaut]

I love this setup. It has come together very nicely these past few months!

 

[mehaffydr]

I love this setup. It has come together very nicely these past few months!

Thank You I appreciate your comments.

Latest update I needed to do something to deal with smelly skimmate from the MRC skimmer. I loked at skimate lockers sold commercially but for $200.00 I could buy alot of nice frags from Harry so I needed a better solution. I bought a large clear container and a few plumbing parts and some carbon infused foam and put together a nice DIY project.

Yes the skimmer needs a good cleaning but it sure is doing its job.
This cost me about twenty bucks.