Wen’s 150 Build Tread

Wen

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Hello,
I have been procrastinating building this thread, but it’s a great place to document my failures and successes, so here we go.

Started 2010 with a 14 gal bio cube, then 60 gallon, and in 2014:
150 gallon tank
2 Orphek 156s
Life Reef sump/fuge/reactors
AquaC ev skimmer
Happy corals, bright white light!
Water changed weekly from Gulf of Mexico’s finest from 2 miles out.
 
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Wen

Wen

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2016
Dreaded brown jelly disease on favorite frogspawn!!! Why? I had tons of beautiful yellow sponge covering rocks and overflows..one day I decided to scrape it off and particles from it landed on the frogspawn causing bjd. That yellow sponge landed on a healthy fungia (which consumed it before I could remove piece), fungia dead in 1 month.
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I gently turkey basted it daily, did lugols dip, kept doing weekly water changes, and prayed!!!
 
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Wen

Wen

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2017
Sorry for ugly images...
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haha, felt like it was hit with a hammer...toxins got in along nail bed.
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removed palys from my tank, check out those crazy veins!!! (My hands are normally smooth.)
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Happy flame hawk pair..
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Wen

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2017

Couple major things happened:

1st, snail clogged return line of old refugium and 5 gallons ended up on the wood floor. (Apex Leak detectors thankfully shut down main pump and alerted me at work to the disaster.). So, I needed to temporarily move the tank to fix the floor. HUGE job to unload it and slide it around the corner until floor was repaired.
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2nd, Hurricane Irma showed up.
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Added chiller and you can see temporary light canopy. Also rescued 6 fish from our kids’ school before Irma, cause I knew they would die...dumped them in my tank. (Mistake cause Dori carried ich-i find out months later.)
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Day 1 - power went down 2 hours into storm, no problem cause we had a 10 year old house generator to keep fridge and tank powered...
but I was prepared for the worst.

This photo is Day 3, house generator blew a head gasket, no power. I started 3 battery bubblers going and had frozen gallon jugs of rodi water Rotating (in the display)...so I began using those to keep tank temp at 80...house was 90 degrees.

Thankfully a friend loaned us his gas powered generator 24 hours into complete loss of power.
You can see the cords heading outside to gas generator. It could only power the fans (which help cool tank) and return pump. No lights, no skimmer, no chiller...no fridge.

Day 11 - tank is surviving at 81 degrees, I would turn lights on 4-6 hours each day...my hubby purchased larger gas Generator.

Finally the power finally came on. No deaths.
 
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Wen

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Month after Irma moved tank back to original location and took opportunity to change sump area.
2 tigger sumps connected with 3” bulk head / DDR and DOS replaces calcium reactor/ sump right became new refugium
Also, my son made me a shadow box to sit behind aquarium. It looks amazing in person but terrible in photos.
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Lovely coral


Next photo is of my dear fish in Qt. Remember I housed a hippo tang over the hurricane? Well, she had a couple spots of ich for the 2 weeks in my tank. None of my fish came down with ich, so I thought (know better now) that my tank was ich free.
I bought a powder blue-died of ich.
Month later tried a white cheek-died of velvet.

Panic!!!
So I read all I could on reef2reef, unloaded the whole tank again, all rocks and coral to catch every fish. Put fish right into lab quality ttm, prazi treatments and then qt for remining days while the 150 was fallow for 76 days.
I lost 2 of my 3 scooters due to no live rock in ttm. (I even added store bought pods to each transfer.). No other fish loss.

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Agression was high amongst the fish squeezed into this 30 gal IM...thankfully all made it back to 150.

However the fallow Reef tank suffered greatly for the 76 days no fish. All nutrients were stripped out by booming fuge and no fish. Corals lost color...and it’s still recovering.
 
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Wen

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2018
The fun continues... I found these:
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I began dipping everything in Bayer and Revive.

Polyclads, monti eating nudi, and flatworms

I bought a yellow canary wrasse and after strict qt/ttm it went in 150.

I started flatworm stop/coral booster.
Today, no sign of pests.
 
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White tail bristketooth juvenile...love this fish! It’s transitioning now and bright yellow and lavender!
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Favorite frogspawn not inflating so I dipped, nothing came off.
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See white nodule things??
I’m thinking it’s stressed from low nutrition, so feeding meaty foods directly 2x week.
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Current sump, planing to hard plumb this mess soon.
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Orange ball of death coral livin the dream in my refugium.
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It’s this, but I bought from LFS.
 

A worm with high fashion and practical utility: Have you ever kept feather dusters in your reef aquarium?

  • I currently have feather dusters in my tank.

    Votes: 75 37.7%
  • Not currently, but I have had feather dusters in my tank in the past.

    Votes: 68 34.2%
  • I have not had feather dusters, but I hope to in the future.

    Votes: 25 12.6%
  • I have no plans to have feather dusters in my tank.

    Votes: 29 14.6%
  • Other.

    Votes: 2 1.0%
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