WVNeds 56 gallon Column Tank

WVNed · May 7, 2018

From humble beginnings, well my garage. My son moved out of state to North Carolina and stored his tank in my garage. It was just sitting there all sad and empty.
I took my live rock from my 30 gallon cube plus some more from the LFS and a few shells from the Outer Banks.

And a plan was born. A FOWLR tank. 40 pounds of live sand, 50 pounds of rock
I had a skimmer and a MP-10 and a heater. So I got a cheap light and some fish.

I used to keep corals but life got busy and had a tank crash (energized) and I quit and had only been keeping fish.

Flashback.
2009 20L
Maxijets and those water director things that spun around.

I needed some stuff and created an account at BRS. Ah yes, a new wet side for an MP-10. Great people who had it in stock. WOW an Open box MP-10. I'll just take that too. WOW a forum. I'll go read that so I end up lurking here.

What beautiful tanks.

Oh noes. I got the urge again.

Well now I got 2 MP-10s and a skimmer. I need a much stronger light

OOps I am poor. Stuff inside me broke and 2014 and I had to quit work. It was kind of important stuff called brain. Old age sucks. I'm 58 and it is what it is. I know people that lived to be 105 and others that died in their 30's. You deal with the hand you are dealt.

This tank. Great for freshwater angelfish in an apartment. A mixed reef. I don't know.
30x18x24. Lets look at 30 inch light fixtures. Well that ends that. There is almost nothing and they are all big bucks.

Hmmmm, Chinese Black Boxes. SB Reeflights. Email them. No answer dang. Amazon.
Viparspectra.
I need to light a space 15x18x24. Tiny but deep. So tuff to do. It might work though.
No guts, no glory. The GODs of reefdom will hate me. I have sinned.

I claim special dispensation.

165 watts and they fit and have a timer.

How to hang them. Ah yes PVC pipe. The do-all of reefing.

The stand is tiny and has a shelf in it. No way to get a sump in there.
So I did a Tunze ATO and put a reservoir down there.

Those lights They seem to be working OK but OMG is that hanger ugly.

The fish and few crabs and snails from the FOWLR are doing great. These new biologic additives are amazing. Some Tims All in One, Seachem Pristine, Microbe Lift Special Blend. That thread on Vibrant is interesting.
Wow it works.

Ican has maybe some other stuff. That LiveAquaria websight. Let's do it.

Oh crap. I got the brown dino diatom algaes of death.

Well in a nano reef when all else fails turn up the light, turn up the flow and change the water.

so I did.

Well look at that. It worked. Just like it does in a nano-reef.

Lets try again on that light holder. Perhaps some stainless M6 coupling nuts from McMaster-Carr.

Version 2.0

Oh and that flow thing. I got more with a Maxspect XF230 gyre. I used a Jebao pp-15 for a short time but I could never get it just right.

Now it's just right.

Wow that was a long story. Except it wasn't very long at all
That box of bare rocks at the beginning was March 29th 2018.
The brown goop has passed and the green goop has passed.

Today May 7 2018

I have
Cerith snails 24
Astrea snails 24
Nassarius snails 7
Cleaner shrimp
Rock nem
Neon dottyback
2 Domino (3 spot) damsels
Pink spotted watchmen goby
Bi-color blenny
Mushroom corals 2 kinds
Hammer coral
Xenia 2 kinds (weeds. I know. Why does ORA attach frags to bricks you could build a house with?)
GSP (Yes I want to grow weeds for now)
Green buttons (Even more weeds from GARF. I got GARF goo.)
I have added pods several times and will again.

It's going to be be really hard if we cant get live rock anymore. I understand why but it makes me sad. The one million cool things that make your tank work come in a rock from the ocean.

If you read all that I thank you.

Happy reefing. It's fascinating isn't it?

This isn't a tank build thread cause I didn't have to build anything. Well except the hanger for the light and I haven't painted it black yet. I do have the paint already.

NY_Caveman · May 7, 2018

WVNed said:
From humble beginnings, well my garage. My son moved out of state to North Carolina and stored his tank in my garage. It was just sitting there all sad and empty.
I took my live rock from my 30 gallon cube plus some more from the LFS and a few shells from the Outer Banks.

And a plan was born. A FOWLR tank. 40 pounds of live sand, 50 pounds of rock
I had a skimmer and a MP-10 and a heater. So I got a cheap light and some fish.

I used to keep corals but life got busy and had a tank crash (energized) and I quit and had only been keeping fish.

Flashback.
2009 20L
Maxijets and those water director things that spun around.

I needed some stuff and created an account at BRS. Ah yes, a new wet side for an MP-10. Great people who had it in stock. WOW an Open box MP-10. I'll just take that too. WOW a forum. I'll go read that so I end up lurking here.

What beautiful tanks.

Oh noes. I got the urge again.

Well now I got 2 MP-10s and a skimmer. I need a much stronger light

OOps I am poor. Stuff inside me broke and 2014 and I had to quit work. It was kind of important stuff called brain. Old age sucks. I'm 58 and it is what it is. I know people that lived to be 105 and others that died in their 30's. You deal with the hand you are dealt.

This tank. Great for freshwater angelfish in an apartment. A mixed reef. I don't know.
30x18x24. Lets look at 30 inch light fixtures. Well that ends that. There is almost nothing and they are all big bucks.

Hmmmm, Chinese Black Boxes. SB Reeflights. Email them. No answer dang. Amazon.
Viparspectra.
I need to light a space 15x18x24. Tiny but deep. So tuff to do. It might work though.
No guts, no glory. The GODs of reefdom will hate me. I have sinned.

I claim special dispensation.

165 watts and they fit and have a timer.

How to hang them. Ah yes PVC pipe. The do-all of reefing.

The stand is tiny and has a shelf in it. No way to get a sump in there.
So I did a Tunze ATO and put a reservoir down there.

Those lights They seem to be working OK but OMG is that hanger ugly.

The fish and few crabs and snails from the FOWLR are doing great. These new biologic additives are amazing. Some Tims All in One, Seachem Pristine, Microbe Lift Special Blend. That thread on Vibrant is interesting.
Wow it works.

Ican has maybe some other stuff. That LiveAquaria websight. Let's do it.

Oh crap. I got the brown dino diatom algaes of death.

Well in a nano reef when all else fails turn up the light, turn up the flow and change the water.

so I did.

Well look at that. It worked. Just like it does in a nano-reef.

Lets try again on that light holder. Perhaps some stainless M6 coupling nuts from McMaster-Carr.

Version 2.0

Oh and that flow thing. I got more with a Maxspect XF230 gyre. I used a Jebao pp-15 for a short time but I could never get it just right.

Now it's just right.

Wow that was a long story. Except it wasn't very long at all
That box of bare rocks at the beginning was March 29th 2018.
The brown goop has passed and the green goop has passed.

Today May 7 2018

I have
Cerith snails 24
Astrea snails 24
Nassarius snails 7
Cleaner shrimp
Rock nem
Neon dottyback
2 Domino (3 spot) damsels
Pink spotted watchmen goby
Bi-color blenny
Mushroom corals 2 kinds
Hammer coral
Xenia 2 kinds (weeds. I know. Why does ORA attach frags to bricks you could build a house with?)
GSP (Yes I want to grow weeds for now)
Green buttons (Even more weeds from GARF. I got GARF goo.)
I have added pods several times and will again.

It's going to be be really hard if we cant get live rock anymore. I understand why but it makes me sad. The one million cool things that make your tank work come in a rock from the ocean.

If you read all that I thank you.

Happy reefing. It's fascinating isn't it?

This isn't a tank build thread cause I didn't have to build anything. Well except the hanger for the light and I haven't painted it black yet. I do have the paint already.

Sometimes a “build thread” is a show off thread. Great write up. Thanks for sharing.

WVNed · May 7, 2018

I can certainly show off, ask my wife.

miPapareef · May 7, 2018

Great write up and style. Really glad I read that. Good luck and keep us updated. I have a feeling there’s more coming in this tanks story.

And oh ya, that’s a build thread.

WVNed · May 13, 2018

I seem to have lost the ability to take a decent picture.
I used to take ones like this.

or this

but anyway.

6 weeks in and everything seems to be going well.

I have a clean end

and a dirty end.

which happen to correspond to which way my gyre pump runs.
so I ordered another one this morning.

Tanks in the past had stuff with on off switches or you plugged pumps in and they ran and you pointed them somewhere.

Now everything has options. I got my flow so far with a voodoo mix of reef crest mode and short pulse mode and variable pulse mode that changes at night to.....
lights with 2 timers, 2 channels and 10 levels.

every time I add something to the tank I feel like I have to re balance everything.

For you old times......... Go get some 3 diopter reading glasses. The Dollar store here has them here. They are like a magnifying glass that leaves your hands free.

I have added a blue ridge coral... strange thing, feels like a light piece of plastic in your hand and wants to blow around the tank.

A fighting conch I have named Noo Noo ( from teletubbies)....
again I claim special dispensation. I had one of these.

well still have both actually, in their 20s now.

and an emerald crab.

WVNed · Jun 2, 2018

Just past 2 months now. The tank has settled in and the brown stuff has eased. I could get rid of it entirely but there are things eating it and the tank is still fairly sterile otherwise.
The coralline algae is coming on the rocks. I am happy to see it.

I have managed to keep everything alive so I ordered some more corals from LiveAquaria that will come next week. I switched the tank to Tropic Marin Pro Reef salt. I always used IO for fish only tanks but have better results with Tropic Marin for reef tanks. I tried RC for 2 water changes and got some strange results so it went into the garage.
The Viparspectras are set to 80% channel 1 and 20% channel 2. This seems to be where they will stay.

I moved the gyre pumps to a vertical placement in the back corners and I like the flow much better this way. The blue ridge coral will only come out if I blast it with the PP-15. The MP-10 wont do it. I have ordered 2 PP-8s and am going to try them across the top for some higher flow.