divekam Posted January 26, 2017 Share Posted January 26, 2017 (This is actually Isaac doing this for a neighbor. He'd like to be active in ARC, but cant find the time. So the "we","my", and "i" below are isaac impersonating kamal for now) My name is Kamal. I've had aquariums for many years. I actually sold my previous tenecor aquarium to Isaac around 2007. I got a new aquarium shortly after in 2007. It is a 175g bowfront. The first attempt went well, 150lbs liverock, white sugarsized sand. Halides and CF actinics. Picked up a ecotech mp40w and some "cheap" chinese LED's around 2010. Around that same time, the tank was looking like it needed some TLC. It was broken down, and re-establish w/ black sand. A second mp40w was added. Things went well, until the LED's seemed to not be working right anymore. they'd flicker, not even turn on sometimes. I trashed the cheapo LEDS (which isaac asked if he could have) and got 3 AI Sol's, and shortly after 3 AI Sol Blue's. Once the lighting was set and tweaked, everything was running very well. Around 2014 the skimmer broke. I had someone coming weekly to perform water changes, and spot treat aiptasia/mojano. Mid 2015 my AI Sol/blue's started flickering, acting up, some led's dead. I trashed the AI's (which isaac asked if he could have). Picked up 3 ecotech Radeon XR15w (or XR30w, will check later) and the wireless controller thing for them. Once those got setup and scheduled things looked good. Water changes and maint got more sparce, then just stopped. one of the mp40w's died at some point. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
divekam Posted January 26, 2017 Author Share Posted January 26, 2017 Sept 2016 Isaac said "we need to deal with this." the majano/aiptasia problem was..... lets just say I had the perfect aiptasia show tank. green bubble algea was prevelant at this point as well. Corals started to not be happy and retract and die off. We took out 1/3 of the live rock and acid washed it. At the same time, we did a 60-70% water change. pre water change the nitrate levels went off the charts under 30 secs on an API kit (suppose to wait 5 mins). Post water change... 60. We ended up getting a more educated guess to around pre-change at 250ppm once we factored the new clean water and the amount it dropped. the corals looks awesome the next day, they loved it. Jan 15 2017 We finally decided to go for broke. We got a 50gal rubbermaid stock tank. Filled it with water-change water from isaac's tank and new mixed water. We took each coral out and fragged off the good viable coral, while rejecting anything w/ any mojano/aiptasia/bubblealgea. frag in a temp container, rinse in a separate container, then into stock tank. We were not worried w/ parasites or anything else, just the evil 3 aiptasia/mojano/bubble. We then pulled out all the live rock and let the ATO backfill water. Ty graciously lent us a skimmer for the stock tank. We then dumped a whole back of pickling lime in the DT. Jan 23 turn off DT pumps, let kalk settle. Jan 25 isaac comes over every couple days to check on the stock tank and display tank. He noticed some mojano on some colonies we didnt trim short. This time around, zero tolerance. We fragged every large colony to short heads... it was heartbreaking and painful, but had to be done. We also found, the morano didnt like being "close" the hammerheads/torches (obviously) so we were able to go a little longer based on their reach. We also places the frags closer together to form a stink barrier for the future. vacuumed the layer of kalk out. shoveled the remaining sand/dead coral/plugs, smaller rocks/etc out. scraped all glass and overflows. used water hose to flush the overflows of kalk, revacuumed water. added tap water to tank, 3 1" chlorine tablets, 1 gallon of bleach. turned on the mp40w and return pump. planning on letting this go about a week or two, as a "sanitation" cycle. We took picts, will past below w/ further updates! Sorry this got long and rambly! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
divekam Posted January 26, 2017 Author Share Posted January 26, 2017 New stock tank on Jan 15... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
divekam Posted January 26, 2017 Author Share Posted January 26, 2017 Going nuclear in display tank... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
divekam Posted January 26, 2017 Author Share Posted January 26, 2017 Better view of stock tank during a checkup visit.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
divekam Posted January 26, 2017 Author Share Posted January 26, 2017 final "skimmer" box to skim surface water... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
divekam Posted January 26, 2017 Author Share Posted January 26, 2017 settled kalk, pre vacuum... semi-clean empty DT (1/25)... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
divekam Posted January 26, 2017 Author Share Posted January 26, 2017 sanitation cycle w/ kalk cloud from sump leftovers... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Isaac Posted January 26, 2017 Share Posted January 26, 2017 following! (hehehe) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FarmerTy Posted January 26, 2017 Share Posted January 26, 2017 final "skimmer" box to skim surface water...You frakensteined my skimmer! [emoji12] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Isaac Posted January 26, 2017 Share Posted January 26, 2017 growing up, i was taught... if you borrow it, return it in better shape. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
divekam Posted February 1, 2017 Author Share Posted February 1, 2017 bleach/chlorine week complete! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
divekam Posted February 1, 2017 Author Share Posted February 1, 2017 old reefoctopus we have to fix: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
divekam Posted February 1, 2017 Author Share Posted February 1, 2017 clean out the sump.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
divekam Posted February 1, 2017 Author Share Posted February 1, 2017 water test the sump just in case we broke a seal Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
divekam Posted February 1, 2017 Author Share Posted February 1, 2017 sump replumbed, pumps cleaned Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
divekam Posted February 1, 2017 Author Share Posted February 1, 2017 tap water, prime, 3gallons of vinegar... a couple more weeks and we'll be salting! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Isaac Posted February 1, 2017 Share Posted February 1, 2017 that was exhausting Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mFrame Posted February 1, 2017 Share Posted February 1, 2017 Following along. What a project, must be a good friend! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Isaac Posted February 2, 2017 Share Posted February 2, 2017 water looks crystal clear today... no leaks. woohoo. a bit more encrusted stuff on the overflows fell off too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Isaac Posted February 6, 2017 Share Posted February 6, 2017 water started getting that translucent white bacterial slime bloom this weekend... typical of carbon dosing... it is running vinegar! new water change, flush... then running ro/di on it this week. should be salted/sand/first batch of rock by this weekend! old skimmer back in action, no leaks! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
divekam Posted February 7, 2017 Author Share Posted February 7, 2017 final water change before we go w/ ro/di. flushing the white slime out now also, attempting to repair a broke mp40 wetside.... unless someone has a dead dry side and wants to sell their wetside? (talk about irony eh @Reburn?) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+BobcatReefer Posted February 7, 2017 Share Posted February 7, 2017 Love the big bowfront! Almost drove halfway across the country to pick one up a couple of years back. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Isaac Posted February 9, 2017 Share Posted February 9, 2017 4 epoxy layers and much sanding later.... gonna wait a couple more days for it to completely set before i test. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Isaac Posted February 14, 2017 Share Posted February 14, 2017 Ro/DI complete, and salted! (used tape to measure and predict... 7/8" per hour). jugs to displace water so we dont waste any when we put rocks in. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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