Grog

Clean-up crew arrived today. Acclimated and added to the tank. I put about 5% of them in the sump to help with the remaining algae on the live rock. Reef Cleaners does a good job. Well packaged and almost no DOA. Smaller pump arrived today. Installed. Noise in living room down from 30db to 20db. I'm about to mess around with electrical routing and put in power heads tonight.

Clean! I like the drawer underneath and the white color. And don't feel bad, you are not the only one to see a warranty tick away while something is in the box. Good job!

Lights came in. This is the fun stuff. Played around with them and I can likely make 2 fixtures work. Here they are on legs on the glass tops and the spread and illumination is great. With a canopy they will be higher off the water and get more spread. I'm thinking I have a solid plan. These fixtures are combined are 2X 250W halides and 8X T5 24W bulbs So right around 700W of light. This picture is with the stock Odyssea garbage bulbs. It will only get better when my ATI and Reef Brite bulbs come in. The plan is to replace the stock bulbs with a 20k Reef Brite halide and 2X ATI Aquablue Special and 2X ATI Actinic in each fixture. Canopy build will be this Saturday and Sunday. Tank was NOISY. So, I worked that last night. One pump was too big and loud. Replacement in bound. Pump swap dropped the noise 15 db. I'll deal with powerheads and wave makers later this week. And yes, there are fish in this tank. Even though they are camera shy. You can strain and see a dotty back in the bottom left and the lemon peel angel in the middle right. None of them like this tank move chaos.

That is very much like what I was thinking. I was thinking of just opening the front facing panel, but the halfway split opening clamshell is even better. This will be my Saturday project. Need to get the lights mounted in there and hidden. They should be in today.

The tangs and the lunare have the zoomies in the new tank. Looks like they are loving the room to 'stretch their legs'. The dotty backs are fighting way less. Almost to zero now. The wrasse was breaking up the fight. Strange behavior but it really looked like he was stopping the fight. Getting schooling behavior out of the chromis. I'm happy with the larger tank and looks like the fish are too. I want to keep the hair algae out of this tank. It looks good now and it needs to stay that way! Didn't hesitate and ordered a 180 Gallon clean-up crew from Reef Cleaners. I've always have had good dealings with them. Only CUC I need to add is urchins and peppermint shrimp. Only one urchin n my old tank and it looks sad. When we did the move, I only noticed a single peppermint shrimp too. Not sure where the others went to, or if they have been eaten by the triggerfish..... But the cleaning crew is on the way. I'll likely put a few of them into the sump. We didn't put sand in the sump. Old rock that had algae went there after scrubbing. I think a few of the crew down there will help that out a lot. I know this thought is a bad one... But I think I have room for more fish.

The tank cleared up overnight. I'm liking the 'shelves'. It will be good for coral placement. Triggerfish is digging the holes in the Texas holey rocks... I did some testing today. Put a halide fixture over it to see how I liked it. I liked it. So, I pulled the trigger on 3X 24" halide T5 fixtures. Adding another 250W halide to each side will make it look nice. I was very reluctant to go with 3X halides but that is what it will take to look good, so that is what is being done. I like the Odyssea fixtures, but the ballasts and bulbs are trash. This pic is with a Reef Brite 20k bulb. I'll run those in the new fixtures. The plan is to run the Odyssea ballasts for a little bit and replace with another ballasts. FWIW the Reef Brite bulbs are packaged super well. No worries about a broken bulb in shipment. Going to build a sort of a canopy next. The idea of how I want it to look is still percolating in my brain. I want to elevate the lights off the glass for heat and spread reasons. Also, I don't want the legs of the fixtures on the glass so I can open up the top and feed, clean, scape, etc. (And I'm tired of burning my arm on the halides.) I'm definitely going to add some exhaust fans to the 'canopy'. And.... I want to hide that light spillage you see in the picture. I want a block in front of the fixtures, so I don't see the halide anywhere but the tank. Details to follow as I work this out in my mind. I'll probably wake up at 4:00 AM with the full drawing in my head.

The fix worked. Tim and I got the 180 moved in today. Thanks man!!! Here is an initial shot. I'll get another tomorrow when it is cleared up. Lot of the fish went hiding. Clowns? They don't care and popped right out. Grog

Tim and I resealed the center brace. Interesting note: One end of the center brace did not have any silicone in the butt joint. Only caulking around it. So, IMO the original build was not done correctly. But, it held for 30 years like that, and finally gave away. We caulked the butt joint, have it clamped into place, and caulked around the seams. I'll recaulk after. Glad I had a few tubes of the ASI silicone left over from the seal. Bar clamps keeping the tank from bowing. Top clamps to keep the brace up against the trim.

Insert Bee Gee's Tragedy music here.... Filled the tank. Started taking water out and adding sand.... I was done. Went inside for a drink. Came outside to close the glass lids so it doesn't evaporate so much, and splash everywhere. Center brace popped! 😬 Got two bar clamps on it now. Drained 75G of water out. Gonna silicone it at lunch. That was the one silicone joint I didn't redo. Figures.

Forgot to do the FTS. Tank ain't perfect but I'm happy with where it's at. Tomorrow it will get a 10% water change and that caulerpa will get pruned big time.

Added a gold torch back to the tank yesterday and it is opening up. Hopefully, my euphyllia funk is gone from the tank! Oh, there is my monti and the blue crab (crab bottom right under the monti's rock.). His color seems to be sticking. Galaxea has a name now. Bob. Don't know why but Bob seemed fitting. The Night Eyes zoanthids have really adjusted to the tank and are spreading fast. Other side of the tank, they are filling in gaps in the rocks.

Tank being shut down. This is my final update on this thread. All livestock is going into the Heavy Build next Saturday. Also, I've added a final FTS of this build. And yeah, the hair algae is bad. Ongoing issue but I'm dealing with it. I'm ok with sharing the bad pictures and not just the good stuff.

Not going to post a picture as it basically looks like last time. But it is plumbed. Filled with water and running. It will replace the 75 next weekend. Woot! Progress. Liking the filter socks. They drop the noise level big time. Need to trim about 1/2" off of my stand pipes and drill some siphon breaks in the return line assemblies. Other than that it is ready for the move on Saturday. Thanks for the help Tim!

Maybe using a drill press instead of a hand drill, or a wooden jig, to prevent the torquing and assumed slight binding at the end of the cut?

Water change yesterday. No real updates but the Hollywood Stunner is liking the T5 lighting. Like a lot! Tons of growth. This will be it's tank soon. Had to remind myself. Macros are not nutrient export unless you actually remove it from the tank. Pulled a boatload of caulerpa out. I think it is out competing the hair algae. I'll take that a a minor victory. Pic of the Stunner. All the white edges are new growth. Pretty much all since the light change. Still hoping it blues up..... Oh well. Can't have everything 🤣

The word I hear the mot regarding lawnmower blennies is : personally. And they have it for sure.

You may be right. He does like to perch on stuff.

Cherub angel, blenny, royal gramma.

So, Every morning, I notice that my Hollywood Stunner has about 1/2 a teaspoon of sand and or gravel in it. Something is filling the cup up. I don't have crazy flow stirring up the sand bed, so something or things, are putting sand in the chalice. It is not directly on the sand bed either, and its edges curve upwards. Who is the cuprit? A snail? A fish (blenny) or something else? Seems like an odd thing to do... My plating monti does not get these deposits. Something likes the HS.

Looking at that made my teeth hurt.

Something cool. One of my crabs. Not sure if it's the mitrhax or pithos has molted and changed colors to a powder blue. I'm liking this. I think it is the mitrhax as the pithos have a different shape. He's been hanging out under the Hollywood Stunner and munching algae. 😎

Welcome back! I'm beginning to think people don't actually leave this hobby. Only tank long vacations.

I guess today is a progress report day. Other corals I don't talk about a lot. Purple Stylo: Not sure why this isn't on everyone's beginner or easy to grow coral list. Looks like the 'stick' corals but super easy to grow and isn't fazed by anything. As in, I've seen crabs hanging on it, snails, light changes, nutrient levels, it is fairly bullet proof. So much so when I got the frags in the mail, they had good polyp extension on arrival, in the bag. I liked the purple so much I bought some green to go along with it. But the purple is a great color in the tank. Highly recommend. Here is what they looked like when I got them in May of 2023. Small frag. Here is what they look like today. Excellent growth and the frag plugs are totally encrusted. Yes, there is an algae problem. Not sure why but that one rock is a trouble spot in the tank. I scrape it weekly. But hey, I'll show the good and the bad. This hobby is fun, but it ain't all roses. The Caulerpa I don't mind so much but the hair algae is awful.

Happy Friday people! Here are Galaxea doing Galaxea things. I looked back at old pictures of this one. It is growing well. My best guess is about 25-30% increase in size via polyp counts and eyeball math. It appears to be expanding outwards not vertically. The side on the right is where I see growth. The colony is not radial per say, it has become kind of liver shaped. My hope is that this one takes over the middle of the tank and fills in spaces between the rocks. Second picture is the green variant. It is growing too. The things on the bottom were indeed new heads. Picture from today attached and you can see the polyps emerging. I'm in agreement with Tim though, I the white spongy stuff is some sort of sponge. It is strange. It grows and contracts over the weeks. IMO the green variant is a much slower grower. It almost NEVER has any sweepers. I'm not saying it doesn't, but I've never witnessed any out. I guess the white one makes up for it. Last picture is the whiter Galaxea when I bought it in April of 2023 for reference.

A little bit every day... Got glass tops cut at a local glass shop yesterday and picked them up this morning. Way cheaper than buying stock ones. They are just big enough to cover the openings but I can slide them towards the center brace to get access without actually removing them. I'd call them eel-tight. And eel-tight will be good. Sump is done and I put it underneath. Fits just right. Have lots of room to the right for gear. I'll start working plumbing next. May not get the tank wet again till after Panama. I don't think my house sitter is up for dealing with a leak in the garage. 🤣 I'm happy with the Fiji Cube sump baffle kit. It fits well and was pretty easy to install. I should be able to have a deep sand bed and several inches of water on top of it. I need to think of what oddities I want to put into this area. The intent is to keep it cryptic, so maybe a non-reef safe star and the mantis may end up there too. I'm not going to run any lighting in the sump. No macros, no reverse lighting schedule etc. Just a plain old sand bed and a few rocks. One other thing I learned from my previous builds. I didn't go with the largest sump I could fit. I think this will work fine, and I have enough room to mess around in there. When I had the larger sump under my 140 it was a total PITA to service pumps and clean it. This will make cleaning filter socks, pumps, swapping rocks out all way easier.