Sawdonkey’s 210 Rebuild / Redo

sawdonkey · Jun 24, 2020

I got my peristaltic pump today and got it hooked up. Works great! If anyone is looking for a sub $100 continuous duty pump, this is surely an option. It’s not silent, but not bad, especially when at < 50%. It’s funny how analog it is, but it feels good to push the moving buttons.

sawdonkey · Jun 25, 2020

Made up a batch of the sticky icky tonight.

rusgum · Jul 2, 2020

Hey. Beautiful aquarium.

Blue Spot Octopus · Aug 4, 2020

Nice build thanks for heads up on the Tamco ATO container I think it will work great on my 240 gallon build.

sawdonkey · Aug 5, 2020

rusgum said:
Hey. Beautiful aquarium.

Thank you! Ive been having a bit of trouble lately and many of my corals got colored down and I lost a couple. After about 250 gallons of water changes, thangs are looking better and coloring up again. I was out of town a lot and lost control of alk and PO4, let my DI resin go bad, and also ran some carbon which always has a bad effect on my tank.

Blue Spot Octopus said:
Nice build thanks for heads up on the Tamco ATO container I think it will work great on my 240 gallon build.

Thanks and good to hear on the Tamco. Mine is working well for me. I got a tall one so it doesn’t have a big footprint.

sawdonkey · Aug 6, 2020

Moved some stuff around last night including this little colony.....

sawdonkey · Aug 8, 2020

My calcium reactor is finally going to be stable.

sawdonkey · Aug 19, 2020

I wish I would have pulled the trigger On the peristaltic sooner. For nearly two weeks, my reactor PH has been absolutely flat except for when I make CO2 adjustments or when my skimmer got full, tank PH dropped, and regulator cut off the CO2 to not drive down tank PH any further.

Funlad3 · Aug 19, 2020

I'm jealous of your reactor stability. I don't know what it is with Milwaukee regulators over the past few months, but I can't get them to run steady for the life of me.

sawdonkey · Aug 19, 2020

Funlad3 said:
I'm jealous of your reactor stability. I don't know what it is with Milwaukee regulators over the past few months, but I can't get them to run steady for the life of me.

Is your problem with your CO2 bubble count or your effluent rate? I think I have an old regulator you can have. You’re in Chicago, right?

JCOLE · Aug 19, 2020

sawdonkey said:
Moved some stuff around last night including this little colony.....

Just when I start to think I am getting good growth I run across post like this! LOL.

That is awesome! Love to see full colonies like this. Did you move it to another spot or out of the tank?

sawdonkey · Aug 19, 2020

JCOLE said:
Just when I start to think I am getting good growth I run across post like this! LOL.

That is awesome! Love to see full colonies like this. Did you move it to another spot or out of the tank?

ha! I just moved it in the tank. It was covering a lot of rock work, so I moved it so most of it is now hanging over the edge of the rock work. In its old place, I moved around a few other colonies that were playing bump and grind.

JCOLE · Aug 19, 2020

sawdonkey said:
ha! I just moved it in the tank. It was covering a lot of rock work, so I moved it so most of it is now hanging over the edge of the rock work. In its old place, I moved around a few other colonies that were playing bump and grind.

Looks great. How do you move an entire colony like that one without snapping it in half? How is the colony attached to the rock? My pieces seem to just crumble from the thought of touching them.

sawdonkey · Aug 19, 2020

JCOLE said:
Looks great. How do you move an entire colony like that one without snapping it in half? How is the colony attached to the rock? My pieces seem to just crumble from the thought of touching them.

This one isn’t a big encruster, I basically pried it off the rocks. I glued it back on with a ball of epoxy and super glue on the contact points. I did break off some chunks, but given it’s size, no big deal.

Funlad3 · Aug 20, 2020

sawdonkey said:
Is your problem with your CO2 bubble count or your effluent rate? I think I have an old regulator you can have. You’re in Chicago, right?

Bubble count, but some surgery with a drill bit seems to have it working again. That said, I'd love to swing over and swap frags sometime! Your tanks is looking amazing and I love to see the SPS tanks around Chicago and the burbs; there aren't many left.

Janci · Aug 20, 2020

The progress over the 2+ years on this tank is amazing.
I was searching for Orphek references and stumbled on your thread.
Now following it.

sawdonkey · Aug 25, 2020

Couple of pics:

before and after:

Another before and after. About 5 months and four new heads:

JCOLE · Aug 25, 2020

sawdonkey said:
Couple of pics:

before and after:

Another before and after. About 5 months and four new heads:

Looks great! What is the time between the two full tank shots?

sawdonkey · Aug 25, 2020

JCOLE said:
Looks great! What is the time between the two full tank shots?

Thanks. October 2018 to May of 2020. It’s funny, I barely remember the tank being all frags! I basically put the tank together right before my daughter was born, so it was a crazy busy time. Right now, I’m typing this from the hospital and I should have a son within a few hours.

JCOLE · Aug 25, 2020

sawdonkey said:
Thanks. October 2018 to May of 2020. It’s funny, I barely remember the tank being all frags! I basically put the tank together right before my daughter was born, so it was a crazy busy time. Right now, I’m typing this from the hospital and I should have a son within a few hours.

Awesome! That is impressive growth for 1.5 years.

Congratulations!! Lol, I was doing the same a couple years ago. It can be a long wait sometimes.