TheKingInYellow goes bare black bottom - 50g SPS dominant!

[TheKingInYellow]

Anyhow, project mostly complete, I spent a ton of time sanding down a 3/4" coupler and jammed it together. It sucks but it'll hokd until I can get an adaptor shipped in (at my own expense, thanks D-D!)

The key to fitting everything was removing one baffle on the left side of the sump and using the remaining one, plus some rigid piping from the feed pump to make a support for the algae scrubber.

The Clarisea fits at the front of the sump next to the skimmer and I should be able to reach everything for maintenance. I had to replace two bulkheads to make this work but it's a cleaner solution and it's all connected with silicone tubing if I need to move anything around.

I was worries about the leftmost chamber being wasted space but I have the output from the scrubber feeding into it now, so I moved the Marinepure balls into that as well. I'll plumb the carbon reactor output into it as well to provide more flow as well. That reactor and the ATO are the last bits to add to the system, and then on to cable management.

The cycle looks complete and the QT fish continue to look good and eat well. Sold have a fish in this tank in two weeks or so!

 

[motortrendz]

Wow man build looks awesome. Following for sure!!!

 

[TheKingInYellow]

Bae caught me slippin'

Honestly the first time I saw him with this colouration I thought he was sick or dying. I rapidly learned that they have Chromatophores in their skin, and that this is simply 'blend' mode. He's eating like a pig so I assume he's fine.

 

[Blutspitze]

Sorry about the trials and tribulations of re-doing the plumbing; the new setup looks great, though! Hope that the permanent part(s) needed come in soon, as well.

Incidentally, I didn't know fish could have bad hair days

 

[TheKingInYellow]

Yeah the new plumbing is much simpler although losing the Bean Animal overflow sort of sucks. I might try and put a reducer on one of the pipes and seeing if I can fake it that way. Dual durso is a bit noisy and there is no room in the new plumbing for a gate valve.

 

[TheKingInYellow]

Looking for overflow advice:

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/help-silence-my-overflows.645410/

 

[TheKingInYellow]

Managed to quiet my Durso setup with some air valves, and took the opportunity to blackout my overflow plumbing!

 

[TheKingInYellow]

Okay so the cycle is definitively finished, I've done a couple of water changes and got my nitrates down to about 20ppm.

The foxface and damsel have one more week in QT before they move into the display and my LFS just got in a Multibar Angel that they are holding for me, so things are finally going great right?

So of course, I have to have some sorry of disaster. During my water change today, I knocked my Apex display directly into a bucket of saltwater. Sigh. Soaked it in fresh water and I'm letting it dry but I'm guessing it's going to be an expensive mistake.

I mean I guess I don't *need* the display but it's so handy to have!

 

[Blutspitze]

Love the fix for the Durso noise. Glad that it worked well. Mine's under a cover and canopy so it doesn't carry too much, but it can be bothersome on occasion.

Seriously sucks about the display . Very sorry to hear. It is good that it's not a critical piece, but as you said, it is nice to see things at a glance since we don't all have a spare tablet lying around

 

[TheKingInYellow]

Three more days and I'll move the first fish into the display, and reload the QT. In the meantime, got a much nicer pic of Mulder!

 

[Blutspitze]

Three more days and I'll move the first fish into the display, and reload the QT. In the meantime, got a much nicer pic of Mulder!

Finally had some time for a proper morning routine, it seems. Huzzah!

 

[TheKingInYellow]

Got the Osmolator wired up last night finally. Just the carbon reactor to connect and then I can deal with wires.

Last thing that is bugging me is pH. Runs between 7.7 overnight, and barely squeaks over 8.0 during the day. Debating adding a BRS CO2 scrubber, but $20 a month in media isn't particularly attractive :/

 

[TheKingInYellow]

So I was watching my pH on fusion today and it didn't even hit 7.9 today. I figured out why when I got home.

The osmolator stuck on and I had the high water level sensor set high enough to not freak out when the returns turned off so it dumped about 4g of fresh washer into the tank. Thank God I didn't have any corals yet.

I think it failed due to bubbles on the sensor but I'm not sure. Salinity dropped to about 1.023 so not terrifyingly low anyhow.

The good news is that this means that the QT tank and the display are at the same salinity, so I'm considering moving Mulder and Scully up to the display tonight. It's only about a 20 day QT but there is zero sign of disease and both are aggressively eating as soon as I feed the tank. There is even a tiny bit of brown growth on the rocks for grazing.

I'll let the extra freshwater evaluate and finish acclimating the fishes to 1.026 that way.

 

[Blutspitze]

So I was watching my pH on fusion today and it didn't even hit 7.9 today. I figured out why when I got home.

The osmolator stuck on and I had the high water level sensor set high enough to not freak out when the returns turned off so it dumped about 4g of fresh washer into the tank. Thank God I didn't have any corals yet.

I think it failed due to bubbles on the sensor but I'm not sure. Salinity dropped to about 1.023 so not terrifyingly low anyhow.

The good news is that this means that the QT tank and the display are at the same salinity, so I'm considering moving Mulder and Scully up to the display tonight. It's only about a 20 day QT but there is zero sign of disease and both are aggressively eating as soon as I feed the tank. There is even a tiny bit of brown growth on the rocks for grazing.

I'll let the extra freshwater evaluate and finish acclimating the fishes to 1.026 that way.

That's pretty scary! Glad that you figured it out, though! And hope it's an easy fix.

 

[TheKingInYellow]

Fishies are happy in the display tank



Also, a miracle! The Apex display still works!

 

[TheKingInYellow]

...and please welcome our next guest to the QT tank!

 

[Blutspitze]

Hooray! So much good news to be had. Glad to hear/read it all. Looking great!

 

[TheKingInYellow]

Man I have so much trouble reading these kits. I want to add a few snails and maybe a shrimp but I'm concerned on my current nitrate levels.

What do you think my nitrates are?

 

[TheKingInYellow]

Local guy suggested cutting the sample 50/50 with RO and that came back between 5-10 pretty clearly, so I think 20ish is right. Should be okay for inverts, and I'll try dosing NoPox for a bit since doing more water changes just seems wasteful at this point.

 

[TheKingInYellow]

The Angel in QT is doing fantastic, eating flake, Mysis, and picking at Nori.

Picked up NoPox today and I'm dosing 3ml a day. I also started acclimating a basic cleanup crew, with 6 Astrea snails and a cleaner Shrimp in this batch, and I'll add 6 Trochus snails once my LFS has them back in stock.