Vance’s 700 plywood revival

[Vance]

The original build and actual building of the tank can be found here:

Monster Build - Vances 700 plywood build.

Well the tank has been full for a couple months now and I am confident enough that I'm not going to have an embarrassing catastrophe, that I want to share! I know everyone just comes for pictures so with further ado... Starting space: Framing and whole room tile drip pan to floor drain...

www.reef2reef.com

It had a really good couple years, and a couple not so great years. My fault, kids and life got in the way. Using this thread to document regrowth now that I feel confident to start adding acros again.
March 2020:
Peak of tank before I got distracted,

December 2021
Summer 2020 was not kind to the tank, the temperature raised to 84+, we had no central air, happened so fast and was heartbreaking. Most acro colonies were lost. I lost the motivation to provide care for the tank outside of what kept the shark and fish healthy. By the time I refocused (after I installed forced air into our home and was confident I could control the temp), the tds coming from the RODI was in the 60s, alk and calcium were both bottomed out, and nutrients had been rollercoastering for a year with all the coral loss.

October 2022
Massive amounts of carbon were added to remove anything from the increased TDS paired with very regular large water changes. No growing coral and reef crystals waterchanges brought the calcium and mag up above target levels. I started trying different foods for the shark and learned about PO4 preservatives on seafood the hard way. PO4 was .9 when I caught it with NO3 completely bottomed out at .0 and hair algae starting to grab hold. This picture is after calcium had dropped enough to turn the CaRX back on and PO4 had been below .1 for a couple months. Finally acro growth, months since a coral loss, mag still way too high so monti’s struggle but feeling confident again that things are reigned in.

I have to get this tank turned around, I’m going to try to post a full tank shot of the tank every other month to help me see progress. Fingers crossed it’s finally in the correct direction!!

 

[Vance]

 

[Vance]

Update time: tank is still not where I’d like but headed in right direction, sooooo slow in big tanks. Pics are all radions set to 16500k @50% taken with iPhone no filter or adjustments, not a flattering setting for the tank but easier to notice trends and changes with that being consistent, and that’s as close to how my eyes perceive the tank as i can get with shoddy camera.

Nov. Tank was still pretty green. Especially with the event that triggered this log. Pic is settled from the carnage. There’s quite a bit of hair algae on the back and side, and large thick patches on some of the rock. Can see a few bare spots on the back opening up, hopefully the coralline is still alive under there and mag will finally start to drop. Nutrients have been stripped out for 2 months now and you can see it in the corals, thankfully the rock is loaded with micro fauna and the anthias spawn regularly, think that’s my only saving grace that I haven’t starved out the corals.

Dec. Tank has gone brown and hair algae has finally lost its hold, making sure GFO and cation DI are charged to pull silicate while the diatoms have it biologically active. Still some fuzzy patches but I think the rock is finally done leaching phosphate. A large section of the back has cleared up and have some red cyano patches and bubble algae fighting the diatoms for the remaining phosphate. Ideally I’d like to see the red cyno (green would be better) take over as I strip the silicates from the diatoms, and then I can chemiclean with heavy GFO to pull out the remaining PO4 and put all this behind me.

 

[ShepherdReefer]

super nice.

 

[Vance]

Grr… had another acro die off event last week. Kind of at my wits end.
I painted the kids bedrooms at the beginning of the month but I don’t think the paint and caulk would have enough VOC’s to cause this kind of event, especially with how specific the effected corals were (sps only) clams, lps, softies all look unaffected.
I started going through pumps and equipment to look for rusting steel, I did find this dissolving compression seal on the back of the impeller of my dolphin 6250.

I have a triton test showing up today along with some cuprisorb. Will sample before adding the resin to see if heavy metals have been causing all this over the past 2 years. I’m going to be very disappointed in myself if I’ve been chasing my tail for years beating my head against the wall and it was this bushing all along.
I am at the point where I’m considering just draining the tank, giving everything (rock included) an acid bath and just re-cycling the tank and starting over. I do have Majanos that I would like to deal with, and the tank being drained would allow me to check and see if there is a screw or some other metal contamination rusting out in the substrate…
Guess I’ll wait until the triton test comes back…

 

[Vance]

Time for an update. The last coral die off event was rough. Did a chemiclean treatment earlier than I wanted incase the die off was a bacterial infection. Did not see any improvement in coral health.
Trition test only flagged slightly elevated lithium (the entire rock structure is mortared together, not surprised with that) and iodine was low (have started adding iodine supplements to the sharks food).

As to the rusted bushing on the dolphin pump… dolphin is amazing… this pump is years and years out of warranty but the company did stand by their product and sent a new impeller and seal kit.
After replacing the impeller and adding a massive amount of cuprisorb to the system I could see acros rebounding, coloring up, and putting on growth within days. Sps are growing like they were before 2020 now!!!! That’s a huge deal!!! I think I finally found the source of the die off. It only took 2+ years to find it…

As promised here is the updated picture for this log.

The hair algae still has one small patch on a dead Oregon tort skeleton I couldn’t get out, that I think is still leaching a little PO4, but most on the spot peeled off in a nasty mat last month. Diatoms have receded, other than a light dusting in some shaded portions of the sandbed. Cyno was completely knocked back with the chemiclean. Bubble algae however… oh my… it’s everywhere and thick. The naso is doing what it can with it and has seemed to stop the explosion, I did add a foxface to help him clean up what grabbed hold.

Other than the bubble algae though the tank is doing much much better, it’s very nice to see growth and color again.

 

[djf91]

Awesome tank. I love the dimensions. I’ve never had a fox face that didn’t devour bubble algae.

 

[Gumbies R Us]

Tank looks really good!!!

 

[Vance]

Thank you!

 

[squidarcher]

Looks awesome!

 

[MuggyReef]

Looking great! Giving me some inspiration for what I’d like to do in my next house if I could convince the misses. Literally my dream tank, large and has a shark. Glad you got it back under control cause it’s a beautiful tank!

 

[John Bolden]

Nice tank following!

 

[McPuff]

Glad to see you're back and the tank is on the mend. It can be rough sometimes, that's for sure. I had a rough go for just over a year and it took a long time to get things back to where everything seemed to be stable again (almost two years total!). I definitely empathize with you!

 

[Vance]

Been a while since I had an update: apologies.

My promised FTS.
Still a few patches of algae but getting better. Coral…. I can see it again… little frags do nothing in a tank this size lol

And shark was begging for food and being photogenic so took the opportunity to get somemore

 

[silent1mezzo]

Wow, I can't imagine how difficult it's been but the tank is gorgeous

 

[delv2323]

Vance, how's the build holding up? Any areas weeping, seeping, or leaking?

Looks good...

 

[Vance]

Vance, how's the build holding up? Any areas weeping, seeping, or leaking?

Looks good...

Tank has held up really well. No bowing, or swelling. Really happy with the design.

Only thing I messed up with is the drain holes for the overflow. I forgot to drill them or hadn’t made up my mind when I fiberglass matted it, so they got drilled after, through the mat exposing wood in the cut behind the seal for bulkheads. After year two I noticed swelling in the ply where the drain bulkheads went through, I didn’t sand well enough for the bulkhead rubber to get a good seal. Especially with the hanging pvc; vibration and constantly being abused by pulling and replacing filter socks.

Dried and block sanded, added a smooth layer of epoxy on top and sealed the inside, secured the drain line and added some eyelets to tie filter socks onto to take strain off the bulkhead. Has been dry ever since. That was builder error though should have known better. Very happy with the design and sturdiness of the tank itself.

 

[delv2323]

Interesting...glad it was in a place with a minimally invasive fix.

Have you found the lighting/flow to be strong enough?

 

[Vance]

Lighting? Yes, love my lights, and there is plenty, I think they are at 55% I don’t go much higher than that. I give them a deep clean every couple of years but they’re never that bad. Still the original 10 out of the box radion gen 5s.

Flow?
Is it strong enough? Yes
Would I like more? Always!
Is the cost worth it? No…

Dolphin 6250 return, wide open.
3 vectra on closed loops @75%

Oh it is worth mentioning on here I did finally have to replace a piece of equipment. One of the L1’s fried a couple months ago. So 2 L1’s and 1 L2 on closed loops

 

[Vance]

Oh my, I’ve been slacking on my picture promise here. Done a bit of re-arranging over the past few months. Did lose one acro colony that had been struggling to regain a growth foothold when everything else started taking off again. Still some patches of hair algae, but it has kept itself isolated on dead coral skeleton I left in the tank after the crash. Think it is still leaching bound PO4. Bubble is almost non existent now and cyano seems to be limited and under control. Overall am very happy with the recovery progress it is making. I’ve been chasing alk consumption for months trying to match and can’t keep up so I guess that is a very good sign. Almost to the point where I’m considering adding more acros back into the tank, almost, would like to have a better handle on alk first. Those big clams suck out an absurd amount of carbonate and I think they are still picking up speed, but almost there!

Pictures!

Same deal, lights at 165000k @50% to match previous pictures. MUCH better look to the tank, overall color is back to blue/purple coraline taking back over, corals have regained vibrancy.


Some horrendous quality growth shots, Feb to today. Excuse the Majanos, been trying to get a file keyed onto them in quarantine but they’ve been fighting me. Seems to be a cycle in this tank. Get a file trained on them. Goes in the tank and removes most signs of them for about a year before it starts eating my corals. Go a year without one, Majanos build back up. Rinse and repeat… bane of my existence…

Not quite where I want to be but progress!
ORA skyline granny

Upscales microcladus

Joes rainbow 1.0

Jake Adams Pipeline acro