BornToHula's 240 Gallon Build

[Wade]

Thanks.  I've been using 55 gallon drums made from white poly but really like the look of yours.  I have them for several years and don't remember if they're considered food quality either.  Oh well.  Thanks again.  Don't want to derail your build thread so it's all good:)

[BornToHula]

Got the calcium reactor up and running.  Only issue so far is I'm having a hard time getting a constant effluent flow. The reactor is fed from my return pump manifold. I'm shooting for 30 drips a minute, but once I crank the needle valve on the reactor lower than about 120 drops a minute it tends to stop flow completely.  Maybe not enough pressure from the manifold?

[FarmerTy]

Is the needle valve before the reactor or after?

[Isaac]

i feed my CARX and my sulfer/anaerobic reactors w/ a secondary pump w/ only 1/4" tubing and needle wheel valves (usplastics has them cheaper than BRS, same exact ones).  you need the head pressure isolated for accurate constant flow.   I have everything else manifolded because they dont need a tight constant like the reactors I have do.

[BornToHula]

37 minutes ago, FarmerTy said:

Is the needle valve before the reactor or after?

The needle valve is built into the reactor at the feed line.  The knob marked with the red arrow shows where I adjust the flow.

[BornToHula]

14 minutes ago, Isaac said:

i feed my CARX and my sulfer/anaerobic reactors w/ a secondary pump w/ only 1/4" tubing and needle wheel valves (usplastics has them cheaper than BRS, same exact ones).  you need the head pressure isolated for accurate constant flow.   I have everything else manifolded because they dont need a tight constant like the reactors I have do.

What kind of pump do you use for your reactors?

[Isaac]

1 minute ago, BornToHula said:

What kind of pump do you use for your reactors?

super old rio 2600 i think.. ill have to check my build thread and come back to update  

EDIT:  waaaay off:  -rio1100 (anaerobic coil + calcium reactor)

[BornToHula]

I managed to get the effluent rate coming through at a pretty consistent rate at different drip rates.  The secret is to adjust the needle valve very slowly. 

I did notice my regulator's solenoid is switching on an off fairly often.  Is this normal?  My CO2 bubble rate right now is 10 bubbles per minute. Apex is set to turn on CO2 at 6.7 ph and off at 6.6 ph.  The current settings aren't quite keeping up with my tank's alkalinity needs so I will need to adjust some things. With how fast the ph drops in the reactor at 10 bubbles per minute should I just increase the effluent flow?

[Isaac]

I put a 5min delay on mine, to save the solenoid a little bit:

Fallback OFF 
Set OFF 
If CaRktr > 6.58 Then ON 
If CaRktr < 6.55 Then OFF 
If pH < 7.89 Then OFF 
If Outlet Leak_A2 = ON Then OFF 
If Outlet Levels_A5 = ON Then OFF 
If WtrChg CLOSED Then OFF 
If RefuLo CLOSED Then OFF 
If Outlet PwrSvPumps6 = ON Then OFF 
If Outlet PwrApex_A12 = ON Then OFF 
Defer 005:00 Then ON 
 

My flow rate is about 0.13 liter/min.. i was aiming for 0.10, but it seems to clog faster that way.. I have higher alk issue because of this though (ca/mg are perfect)

 

[BornToHula]

Have a few fish in quarantine.  Going to start an ich treatment (ich shield powder) and PraziPro. I considered doing the tank transfer method for ich treatment, but the cost for doing it on 40g tanks adds up quickly. (Sorry for the blurry pics)

 

Also I wanted to prevent algae from growing in the overflow - its pretty hard to clean back there with the canopy on, so I made a cover out of acrylic. I still need to adjust it a tad bit, but it turned out pretty well for a 20 min project. I should have done it sooner!

 

[+SChrisEV]

34 minutes ago, BornToHula said:

Have a few fish in quarantine.  Going to start an ich treatment (ich shield powder) and PraziPro. I considered doing the tank transfer method for ich treatment, but the cost for doing it on 40g tanks adds up quickly. (Sorry for the blurry pics)

 

Also I wanted to prevent algae from growing in the overflow - its pretty hard to clean back there with the canopy on, so I made a cover out of acrylic. I still need to adjust it a tad bit, but it turned out pretty well for a 20 min project. I should have done it sooner!

 

 

Very nice, I've been thinking about doing the same for mine.  My only concern is I've had on two occasions a wrasse jump into the overflow.  With the lid, they might end up on the lid and then... RIP.  Any concerns/ideas on that?  I was thinking about maybe making it a good bit taller, hopefully, a little harder to jump onto.

[BornToHula]

1 minute ago, SChrisEV said:

Very nice, I've been thinking about doing the same for mine.  My only concern is I've had on two occasions a wrasse jump into the overflow.  With the lid, they might end up on the lid and then... RIP.  Any concerns/ideas on that?  I was thinking about maybe making it a good bit taller, hopefully, a little harder to jump onto.

I considered building a 5" wall on the front and sides of the overflow cover to prevent any fish from jumping on it, but I have screen lids I made that go to protect against jumpers. The screen lids would need to be re-worked to be compatible with a tall overflow cover.  There is about a 3/4" gap between the overflow cover and screen lid that I probably should address.  I'll probably just add a lip to cover up the gap.

 

 

 

[BornToHula]

My view in the evenings:

I got some gel filters for my iphone camera, they seem to work well at taking not-so-blue photos.

  

Edited May 3, 2017 by BornToHula

[BornToHula]

An example of the difference the gel filter makes. Top pic in the last post had no filter.  Here is the same angle with the filter on.

 

[BornToHula]

Received a trio of golden assessors today from Diver's Den.  They are smaller than I was expecting (I got these sight unseen after a shipping mishap on my initial order from DD last week) but I think they should do OK.

I was going to order a 4.5" blue throat trigger, which would go in the same 40g QT tank, but I may hold off since these guys may fit in the trigger's mouth. I could maybe split the QT with lighting diffuser material, but that wouldn't necessarily stop the assessors from wondering over to the wrong side.

[Isaac]

wow tiny!    ya got some salt creep there 

[BornToHula]

All the fish in QT are doing well... *knock on wood*. The 3 basslets will be going into the tank on the 23rd if they still look ok.  The 2 firefish and 3 chromis will be going in on the 25th which is when the ick treatment will be complete. These will be the first fish additions in about 10 months, so I am pretty excited.

I also did some work on the fish room.

I mounted the RODI system and installed a booster pump to raise my psi from 45 to about 90.

Painted the water tank stand with some waterproof paint:

Made a stand for and moved the 75g to the fish room.  This will be the deep sand bed & macro algae refugium. Still need to clean it and install the plumbing (which will be a challenge).

 

[BornToHula]

Long update on the tank...

FISH

The golden assessors, chromis and fire fish are the display tank as of last week.  

The chromis are all doing fine. One of thefire fish is active and acting like normal.  The other one is MIA. I haven't seen it since I put it in the tank almost a week ago.  The two smaller golden assessors are also MIA.  I briefly saw the large assessor for a split second.  I think the assessors are just shy and hiding, the firefish I have my doubts on. Not sure what happened to him.

During the move my tiger pistol shrimp did not make it. He was paired with a Pink Spotted Watchman Goby. I've since tried twice to introduce new tiger pistol shrimps to the goby, but he has killed both.  I'm not sure why he has decided he no longer wants a shrimp partner. I still may try one more time, because I love watching the pairing.

I also purchased 5 Carberryi Anthias from Reburn that are in QT.  Will be doing a copper treatment for a preventative ich treatment then they will be put in the tank.

REFUGIUM

I FINALLY got my sand in for the deep sand bed refugium, got a really good deal on them but they took a long time to get here. The UPS man did not like me, 7 40lb bags of oolite sand.

For the refugium, I was planning on doing a deep sand bed with straight from ocean uncured live rock, but I have been researching and thinking about using half of the 75g refugium as a cryptic zone instead. The other half would still be for growing macro algae.  Steve Tyree's speech at last year's C4 got me thinking about it, and I recently saw a cryptic zone set up on another member's tank.  From what I have read, a deep sand bed does not need to be lit to function property, so the portion of the bed that is in the cryptic zone wont be affected negatively from not getting any light. I'm about half way done with Tyree's book on the topic and will decide what to do once I finish it.

CHRYSOPHYTES

I am still battling chrysophytes in my tank.  After posting and asking a few questions on Reef2Reef it was recommended I need to raise my Nitrates and Phospates (both were always reading zero).  So I have been dosing stump remover and have consistently raised my nitrates to 5ppm.  I drastically increased my feedings, but the phosphates kept reading zero, so I have purchased some Seachem Phosphorus that I will be dosing starting today.  Goal is to have 0.05 ppm phosphate. I don't fully understand how this will help get rid of chrysophytes, but there were 3 people saying that it helped them get rid of it on their tanks. It was recommended to do manual removal of the chryso every day as well, but the work has been wearing down on me after doing it for a week straight with no results as of yet.

There have been reports of some different methods also working for battling chrysophytes. They include: 

1.  3 day blackout, dosing vibrant and skimming VERY wet during those 3 days.  I have already tried vibrant and blackouts, but never together.
2. Running an oversized UV filter.  This method is the most expensive, so I don't want to go this route unless all others have been exhausted.
3. Dosing fluconazole. People mainly use this for bryopsis, but there have been people who tried this for chrysophytes.  There was never any updates on whether or not it worked for them or not but there doesn't seem to be any harm in dosing it.

RODI & SALTWATER HOLDING TANKS

When I drilled the water tanks for bulkheads I drilled the holes too low to properly install the bulkheads, so I had to go with uniseals.  One of my holes seems to even be too low for the uniseals because it developed a very slow leak in it.  I tried a new uniseal and had the same leak, so I have caulked the seal with silicone to see if it will stop the leak.  It has been curing for 24 hours so I will be filling the tank with RODI tonight to see if the leak has been fixed.  Fingers crossed, or I'll have to buy a new tank.

 

[+olaggie01]

I'm very interested in your cryptic fuge. I've wanted to have one set up for a long time but never had the room. Please go that route and let me know how hit works. I've got part of my sump that gets little light and the sponge growth is amazing. I've also wanted to try a Xenia fuge but never had the room as well


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[+BobcatReefer]

13 hours ago, BornToHula said:

During the move my tiger pistol shrimp did not make it. He was paired with a Pink Spotted Watchman Goby. I've since tried twice to introduce new tiger pistol shrimps to the goby, but he has killed both.  I'm not sure why he has decided he no longer wants a shrimp partner. I still may try one more time, because I love watching the pairing.

That's a bummer, man.  I absolutely love my shrimp/goby pair.  

[BornToHula]

Look who decided to come out and join the party for the first time this morning! (Sorry for the bad pic)

All three Assessors were out and about swimming with the other fish and eating. They are still pretty small compared to the other fish, but they were swimming around with the tangs (my largest fish) just fine.

Still no sighting on the other firefish.  I'm not holding my breath on him.  I wonder how the current one would react if I added another?

3 hours ago, olaggie01 said:

I'm very interested in your cryptic fuge. I've wanted to have one set up for a long time but never had the room. Please go that route and let me know how hit works. I've got part of my sump that gets little light and the sponge growth is amazing. I've also wanted to try a Xenia fuge but never had the room as well


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

Strongly leaning that way.  The science on the filtration capabilities seems pretty solid, and worse case, even if it doesn't filter much everything in it will look super cool. Still need to do a bit more research on how to properly set it up to make sure I can properly implement it.

3 hours ago, BobcatReefer said:

That's a bummer, man.  I absolutely love my shrimp/goby pair.  

Me too.  I'm wondering it would help if I make a little acclimation box for the pistol shrimp so the goby can get used to it before I release it.  If he kills a 3rd one, he'll most likely get traded in so I can get another pair.

[+BobcatReefer]

I wouldn't even give him the chance. Seems like aggravation and money on your end.

[BornToHula]

1 hour ago, BobcatReefer said:

I wouldn't even give him the chance. Seems like aggravation and money on your end.

Probably true, but he was the first saltwater fished I ever purchased, so he will get one more final shot! 

[+BobcatReefer]

Well, he's WAY prettier than my (paired) goby, that's for sure!  Changed my mind - gotta give him another shot! 

[BornToHula]

I've been having a much harder time increasing my phosphates than I thought I would. I've been trying to raise them to .05ppm to help battle the chrysophytes.

At first I tried to raise it naturally by feeding more.  I went from a 1 cube and 1/2 a sheet of nori a day to 3 cubes, full sheet of nori, and added reefroids coral food.  I still couldn't get any readings on the Hanna Checker after a week of increased feeding.  I didn't want to increase the feeding further so I went ahead a bought some Seachem Phosphorus to start dosing.  After 3 days of dosing between 5 and 15ml each day, along with continuing to feed the increased amount I finally got a reading on the checker!

I'm going to keep dosing the phosphorus and keep the increased feeding until I get to .05ppm then watch the levels closely to see how they change. I hope I can wean off of dosing the phosphorus and just keep the increased feeding amounts. 

I had always been very careful on how much I feed, but I guess at my current tank size vs stocking ratio its almost impossible to overfeed.  I have seen some cyano pop up, and haven't seen a decrease of chrysophytes yet, but I'm hoping I'm on the right track.