RockRash's 75 gallon build

[RockRash]

i'd leave it be for now,see how she goes... :winking-face:

Thanks, that's what I figured. It works out well because my wife is beyond ready to get the trashcans and rodi unit out of the house lol.
Thanks again @fishguy242 and @Red_Beard for all your help. I probably won't be doing big updates to the tank until after Christmas/new years ( I chose the worst time to finish this build lol) anyway I hope you guys and your familys have a very merry Christmas and a happy new year!

 

[fishguy242]

You guys as well... :winking-face: :)

 

[keelo]

Thank you. I'll be waiting a week or so. The algae barn nitrocycle tells you not to add fish right away. Not really sure, I have a list of what I want but starting out will be a pair of clowns. The kids are dead set on that lol.

Just curious is there a reason you chose to buy the Fritz 900 from algaebarn in specific? I do see at Amazon considering doing that for my build

 

[RockRash]

Just curious is there a reason you chose to buy the Fritz 900 from algaebarn in specific? I do see at Amazon considering doing that for my build

So in doing research on bacteria, fritz is not shelf stable and needs to be refrigerated. Algae barn has a live guarantee so I figured it be best to buy from them ( even brs drop ships from algae barn) and you get 10 cents back on every dollar you spend with them. I figured it was the best option. They ship fast I ordered on Sunday and had my order Tuesday I just kept it in the fridge until I was ready.

ETA: I wouldn't trust Amazon to keep something that needs to be refrigerated, refrigerated.

 

[keelo]

So in doing research on bacteria, fritz is not shelf stable and needs to be refrigerated. Algae barn has a live guarantee so I figured it be best to buy from them ( even brs drop ships from algae barn) and you get 10 cents back on every dollar you spend with them. I figured it was the best option. They ship fast I ordered on Sunday and had my order Tuesday I just kept it in the fridge until I was ready.

ETA: I wouldn't trust Amazon to keep something that needs to be refrigerated, refrigerated.

Thank you I guess I know where I have to go

 

[RockRash]

Well its been a long week! We all got sick last Saturday had to postpone family coming over for Christmas ( doing that tomorrow). We ended up having to put down our pony on Christmas eve. My wife has had him over 25 years, he made it to 38 years old so a solid run but it still put a damper on things.
We finally took the kids to the lfs and am happy to say we are the proud new owners of a pair of storm clownfish. Names have not yet been decided but I'm sure by tomorrow they will be named and a part of family lol.

New clownfish

And a picture of our pony Cricket this was him back in August after a bath. RIP buddy.

 

[Red_Beard]

Sorry to hear about the pony :/ that is hard no matter how you slice it, but to stack it at Christmas while everyone is sick no less. My deepest condolences.

Very awesome deal on the clowns though! Wishing you and your family good health and a happy new year!

 

[RockRash]

Sorry to hear about the pony :/ that is hard no matter how you slice it, but to stack it at Christmas while everyone is sick no less. My deepest condolences.

Very awesome deal on the clowns though! Wishing you and your family good health and a happy new year!

Thank you. That really does mean a lot. It was tough for the kids, the pony for the last few years was on occasional random kid duty but mostly retired. He was able enough to have kids riding him a few months ago. I'll say this "heatley as a horse" means nothing. They can die in a heartbeat if something goes wrong.

I hope the the same for you. Have a happy new year!

 

[RockRash]

Well, not really a update but we came home today to a troubling situation. We left the house this morning around 11am to go to the bank ( our bank is a hour away so we usually make a day of it) after the bank we had lunch and went to a few lfs on the way home where i bought some salt and my new return pump. We also stopped at a petsmart to get a 10 gallon at tank and all the the supplies we needed for a qt setup. We got back around 5pm and we couldn't find one of the clownfish ( Sharkfin) the other one (Magellan) was in front but swimming funny.
After watching them for a 20 minutes ( we found Sharkfin in the top corner) and exhausting the RTR search feature I came to the conclusion they were gasping for air at the top of the tank. Now I've been playing with my flow and placement of my power heads trying to stop my sand bed from blowing away in the middle of the tank. My return pump is way under powered and I'm using the glass lids right now. I guess oxygen levels got really low, I assumed the skimmer would be enough but I guess not.
I decided to put in the air stone I bought for the qt in the corner of the tank where we found Sharkfin and 10 minutes later all was well, they are swimming around acting normal now.

I was worried because I didn't qt the clownfish. My reasoning was the lfs we bought them from buys them captive bred and has them in the same system for a few months at a time before he orders more. I was reckless and definitely got a quick scare tonight before realized the problem.

Tomorrow I'm planning on a water change and I'll be installing my new return pump ( sicce sdc 9.0) I went ahead and ordered some lids from Top Lids. Hopefully upping my flow will solve the problem. I'm happy the fish are good now but it was startling coming home to such a problem. I'm really happy I bought that air pump it probably saved my fish.

 

[RockRash]

Is anyone running a reef mat? I have one and its driving me crazy. It keeps setting off my ATO alarm. I've searched the forum and have tried the suggestions but every now and then my return chamber level goes up and causes a alarm. I have the reef mat set to the slowest advice and honestly I check the level in the reef mat every time I walk by the tank and it doesn't change. However every other day it seems my return chamber water level randomly rises and sets the alarm off. I don't know where else to look. Any advice? I will say it has to be the reef mat because I ran the tank with the ATO for a week while it was cycling and everything was fine. Once I put the fleece in the reef mat that's when all the inconsistencies in the return chamber started.

 

[keepingfishwithnoidea]

Nice tank

 

[RockRash]

Nice tank

Thank you.

 

[Red_Beard]

Is anyone running a reef mat? I have one and its driving me crazy. It keeps setting off my ATO alarm. I've searched the forum and have tried the suggestions but every now and then my return chamber level goes up and causes a alarm. I have the reef mat set to the slowest advice and honestly I check the level in the reef mat every time I walk by the tank and it doesn't change. However every other day it seems my return chamber water level randomly rises and sets the alarm off. I don't know where else to look. Any advice? I will say it has to be the reef mat because I ran the tank with the ATO for a week while it was cycling and everything was fine. Once I put the fleece in the reef mat that's when all the inconsistencies in the return chamber started.

How big is the chamber your sensor is in, and how much distance is between the alarm sensor and the normal low water sensor? I suspect that the issue is a combination of two things. 1, before the water in the reefmat raises enough to trigger the fleece advance, it has trapped some additional water, which the ATO dutifully replaces. And 2, when it does advance, that trapped water flows out now that it doesn't take as much pressure to flow through the clean fleece and has to go somewhere. Is it possible to raise only the overflow sensor? Or even less likely, to make the return chamber bigger so the addional volume has less effect?

 

[RockRash]

How big is the chamber your sensor is in, and how much distance is between the alarm sensor and the normal low water sensor? I suspect that the issue is a combination of two things. 1, before the water in the reefmat raises enough to trigger the fleece advance, it has trapped some additional water, which the ATO dutifully replaces. And 2, when it does advance, that trapped water flows out now that it doesn't take as much pressure to flow through the clean fleece and has to go somewhere. Is it possible to raise only the overflow sensor? Or even less likely, to make the return chamber bigger so the addional volume has less effect?

I think you're absolutely spot on. I spent all morning setting up my heater controller and messing around with my overflow and new pump. Anyway I adjusted my optical sensor so it's sitting lower than the float switch. So far so good I also made some adjustments on the roller advance. Right now everything is working good. However I've learned these last few weeks that means nothing lol. Thanks for the help again. You guys are awesome!

 

[RockRash]

Nothing new but I was excited to see this. I was cleaning the glass and noticed a bunch of little white spots on the glass I cleaned about 2/3rds of the tank before I realized they were moving. I thought the jar of pods I added a few weeks ago died. Apparently not, I have them all over my glass. I feel bad for the hundreds I knocked off and sent to their death in the reef mat before I realized.

 

[RockRash]

The last two days has been crazy windy in SoCal, it finally stopped about 30 minutes ago. Thank God, hopefully now they can get all these fires under control. It was to windy to work so yesterday I set up a qt tank and today I went to my lfs and picked up this little Tomini Tang. He has some minor damage from aggregation on tail but he was eating well in the store and seemed very active.

I'm just observing right now however I do have copper and a hanna checker if needed. I have the lights out and he seems happy swimming around in the pvc pipes.

 

[Saltyreef24]

Nice! Your tank is coming along very well. How are your roller and ato working now after your adjustment?

 

[RockRash]

Nice! Your tank is coming along very well. How are your roller and ato working now after your adjustment?

thank you. Right now everything seems to be working good. I have the roller mat set to the lowest advance on the app that seems to be the way to go.

 

[RockRash]

Made a really stupid mistake today. When I set up my qt tank I mixed up 40 gallons of water in my brute trash can to make water changes quicker. Today I did my 2nd 50% water change. Now the last 3 days I've had copper power in the water dosed to 2.42 recommend by the fish medics because he seemed to breathing fast. I was so focused on getting the copper level correct in my new water I completely forgot to check salinity. Right after I added the new water he started freaking out I checked salinity right away and it was at 1.033! I started adding rodi and got it back down to 1.026. He seems ok now but was definitely stressing for the poor guy. I feel terrible.
Now I checked the calibration on the hanna checker and confirmed with my TM hydrometer. The trashcan has a lid although not tight fitting because I have a heater and pump for circulation. Its been really dry and windy in socal the last week could that much evaporation occurred in a few days? I'm going through more rodi in my display but that all open top and sump. I'm going to notch the lid on the trashcan for the wires so I can close the lid tight.
Lesson learned, hopefully not at the expense of damage or death to my fish.

 

[RockRash]

Well as of 5 minutes ago hes swimming around normally I gave him some food and he is eating good. Hopefully all I did was stress him for a few minutes.