BBMarlin

I'll take 23

Not trying to be an acronym Nazi but I figured I would correct a couple of things for those that might be confused: GFO = Granular Ferric Oxide (Phosphate sponge) GAC = Granular Activated Carbon (Absorbs contaminants from the water) GAC is what may contribute to HLLE.

Update! It’s been a while since I’ve updated and the tank is doing great! This time around I’ve been doing things a bit differently with my reef mainly surrounding nutrient levels. My tank is now running "all natural", no GFO, no bio-pellets, no skimmer!! I do not have **any** chemical or mechanical filtration in place and things are doing great. I do have a GAC reactor running to mitigate any coral warfare and any other impurities that may get introduced unknowingly into the water column. I’m loving my new lowtech approach and am currently dosing over 100ml of 2 part a day (this is the highest consumption I’ve ever had with this tank). This amount of consumption does make me a bit nervous as a small mistake with my water chemistry could have dire consequences for my reef. I think I need a bigger tnak!! 😊. With the higher nutrient levels, I do have to deal with a bit of algae/cyano. I think I need to add a few more snails and urchins to help with the hair algae but the cyano is ever-present. I simply syphon the cyano out weekly with my small water change. Looking forward, I like tanks with very large acro colonies and I’m excited that mine are on their way to becoming quite large. Things really are in need of a “haircut” as several colonies are touching. Here are a few pics from today.

I'll take 7 and 40

Whenever I have a diatom issue it's typically related to my di filter. Check the age of all your filters and see if you notice an increase in activity after a water change even if you show 0tds.

The dinos are making a comeback. I’m fairly certain it is from the aminos (acropower). Has anyone else notice more dino activity with increased amino dosing? Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Found a hitchhiker in my tank tonight - I guess he has become tired of anemone island and needed a way over to the main rock formations! The turbo does not look very happy, lol.

Thanks! Let me know when I can stop by for some frags Yep same one, I chopped up the colony and saved one frag. Put it lower in the tank but still wants to grow like crazy!

I can’t believe it has been over 6 months since I refactored the tank! Things have been going great and I’m getting good growth and color with my acro acquisitions. Thanks to several of you guys that have sold me frags! Been struggling with dynos for a few months but looks like I’ve finally rid myself of that ugly mess. Not sure what did the trick as I tried several things in parallel including: syphoning snot weekly, increasing nutrients, adding a filter sock, adjusting lighting schedule and adding GAC. On the livestock side, I’ve had a fish go carpet surfing and a bleeny vanish but other than that things are great. I’ve been really happy with my OR lights, not quite the growth that I would get with MH but that’s OK as I am getting great color. It’s been nice to really keep an eye on what is going into the tank and so far I haven’t introduced pests of any kind…knock on wood. Acros are still small but at least they are growing and still have plenty of room for more! Sorry for the blurry pics.

Alright this update (pics) were from about a month ago. Things have progressed nicely but currently I have a major diatom outbreak going on that I’m working through. My rock has been cycling for like 5 months so it must be the new sand that has an abundance of silicate. Other than that, things are going great and are beginning to stabilize. My sump area is now water proof, accessible and simplified, stand is no longer about to crumble, and the OR LEDs are AMAZING! I’m ready for some frags! Who wants to take my money ??

Update! I finally started to tear things apart and decided it’s going to be best to drain the tank to be sure that I have eradicated the cloves and give the tank a good cleaning with a vinegar bath. I’ve moved all my fish and coral to a 29G tank while I work through the rebuild. I hope to keep loses to a minimum and I’m inspecting the corals daily to make sure I get all the cloves before anything is reintroduced into the display as they are everywhere! Once I removed the sump and had a look at the stand it is not looking good at all. The particle board is swollen and is concerning, I figure any day now it could have collapsed as the bottom of the back wall has completely separated from the floor panel. I’ve decided that I will add 1x4’s across the back wall to reinforce it and 2x4’s in the corners and at the front (tri-pod). The sides panels and front of the stand are in good shape. After I finish this, I’m going to add shower pan liner to water proof everything underneath. Previously I had soft plumbing into the sump. I removed the old barbed bulkheads and will be hard plumbing everything with a manifold to further simplify my setup. I had 4 maxijets running in the sump prior to the tear down which was cluttering my sump and taking up way too much space! I’m glad I am finally getting around to this project, I think if I would have waited much longer I would have had a catastrophic failure of the stand on the second floor!

Light rack came in yesterday. I think it turned out great! Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I'm using this link as inspiration for my mount. My objective was nothing hanging...the ceiling in the room are too tall and I don't want a shelf on the wall. I have no experience with metal work so I'm working with local sponsor to help build a steel frame that will attach to back of stand to mount the two fixtures yet offer a telescoping mount to detach for easy access to full tank top. http://www.salt-city.org/showthread.php?33906-Ocean-Revive-S026-dual-light-mount That is a sweet looking stand and great idea for the detachable portion. I've spoken with the folks at eztube and the lip inside those tubes is either 1/4" or just over 1/4" depending on if you choose the "recessed" model or not. The knob on the light is at 1/2" so I should be good with the smaller design. No metal working experience required for this, they cut all the pieces and you use their composite (or metal) connectors to adjoin the pieces.

Lights arrived a few days ago! Now it’s time to start thinking about how I am going to hang them. With my half circle tank, I do not have the luxury of lining up the lights end-to-end. This issue is compounded by the fact that I only have a ~18”x24” opening for these two lights to hang over. I think trying to hang them independently from the ceiling is going to be troublesome given how close they need to be together to minimize light spillage and also I plan at some point to add in moon lighting or maybe a T5 or two. So, I think I’m going to try to order some tubing from these guys and see if I can make a light rack: eztube.com, this rack will give me a place to attach additional lighting over time while still maintaining a small footprint. I worked up a few sketches so I can get an idea of how much tube I will need and if the exterior knob on the T247 should reside “within” the rack or “above” it. It will come down to how far the lip is positioned on the tube wall so I don’t end up with the light resting high on the knob end. I'm waiting to hear back from them with details.

Christmas update: Rocks continue to marinate in 85 degrees and are looking fantastic. PO4 has been coming down since adding the GFO and performing water changes. So far, I’ve done two 100% WC’s and latest PO4 test was 26PPB, not bad in the limited water volume I have the 50lbs of rock in. I picked up an acrylic rod online, and also some of those drive way markers for supporting my rock structure. Are these ones that I bought at Lowes “reef safe”? Feels like they are fiberglass. For lighting I think I’m going to go with two of the Ocean Revive lights. Ebay is looking like the cheapest place to order from, anyone had any issues with these lights from Ebay?

Rock and roll

Thanks Rory. I've got all items for Plan A in stock so going to try that first. I will let you know!

Yes, it is cheaper and best used in removing phosphate in bulk. It can scrub phosphate down to a lower range but you will usually need GFO to get the lower end. It is potentially toxic to fish which is why it's application in a separate tank like yours is ideal for treatment.While you can directly apply it to the curing tank and remove the participate it creates with water changes, I feel it best to drip in a 10 micron or smaller filter sock to catch the precipitate ensuring none make it to your reef tank. By the time you order lanthanum chloride and the filter sock though, it may start becoming cheaper to just run GFO if you have it, especially if this is a one-time application of it as it is dispensed by drops and you'll have a whole bottle of it leftover. If you just want to run lathanum chloride without the sock and just rinse your rock really well afterwards, you can order the lanthanum chloride online. I bought the commercial version but I think there's a cheaper version. https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00CMQZZJ6/ref=sxts1?ie=UTF8&qid=1480863191&sr=1&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_FMwebp_QL65 Also, some have been using "phosfree" from local pool supply stores. I haven't used that so I would research just in case. Thanks for the information, Ty! Going to do the 100% WC and plumb in a GFO reactor today. I'll keep the lanthanum chloride in my back pocket for now.

Good idea. I've got a bunch of GFO but not sure I want to waste it on this. Where do I find lanthanum chloride, is it cheaper than GFO?

Figured I would check up on the BRS fiji rock that is cycling. It started off with a foul smell (rotten eggs), which has subsided after about 7 days. Checking for water quality now (PO4), I’ve never seen my Hanna testing vial for PO4 change colors, yikes!: It was flashing 200 which I would interpret as a max value without checking docs. Guess I'll be doing a 100% WC tomorrow!

Ok thanks anyway, I think those are too big. Probably need the 1" version.

I ended up with several extra marine pure balls if you need them, will sell at a discount. Also, I have 2 blocks that I haven't listed for sale yet. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Do you have the 1" or 4" blocks?

Thanks Ty, I'll take a look at the fluke tabs. I figure the Phillips is probably going to be in the neighborhood of a Radion Pro. Just want to make the right purchase now if I can future proof my setup, as you can see I don't change things up much. lol. Your success with the OR's definitely has me leaning that way.

That is a Purple Stylophora, great bulletproof SPS. I will let you know when I break it off the rock.

Hello ARC, let me introduce my tank. I started this tank at the beginning of 2010, it’s seen many ups and downs over the years and I’ve been unfortunately in a down period over the past year or so. At one point I was stocked with 30+ SPS corals that were thriving. Several years, a few ALK swings and the long term starvation of my corals (excessive GFO) has left me where I am today. I’m starting this build thread to document my tank refactor. I also have this blasted clove infestation that I must have received as a hitchhiker on a mariculture acro. It has spread like wild fire and I cannot control it. I must replace all rocks and sand to eliminate this pest and while I’m add it I need to upgrade my lighting. Not to mention it’s been close to 7 years with this tank in its current iteration, so it’s time to rethink my old-school setup a bit. I also think all the cloves are starving other corals for nutrients which are compounding my problems with SPS. Plan is to have all of this completed in the next several months. Current equipment: 76G Oceanic Half Circle Aquarium 25G precision marine sump Reef Octopus skimmer Various reactors, currently running biopellets and GFO 1 250W MH and PC actinic. 3 12” BML strips for corners (odd shaped tank) MP40 Tunze nano streams Jebao RW 40 Tunze mini wave box ~100lbs live rock Aquamedic doser (BRS 2 part) Arctica chiller Fish: 2 clowns six line wrasse yellow tang The Refactor: Lighting: I really want that new Phillips fixture but I don’t know when it’s coming out or if I can wait, I might just go with the Ocean Revive for now. Aquascape: ~50lbs BRS dry rock (cooking currently, on week 3) I want to go with a more “modern” aquascape, maximizing negative space to give my fishes some more room to swim. I think 50lbs will be plenty, I plan on drilling the rock and using acrylic rods to stabilize the formations. I need to shore up my MDF stand, I still have no idea why this material is used by the OEMs but mine has deteriorated significantly. I plan on adding some 2x4s along the back edges while my tank if about half drained during rock removal and coral QT. Open Questions: I’m wondering if I even need my wave box any more given the Mp40, Jabao and nanostreams, does anyone still run a wave maker? I’m still a sucker for a standing wave, maybe the MP40 is big enough to generate one for my tank I just need to try it. Sure would be nice to simplify my flow a bit . Should I use one of those ceramic blocks, especially when I start to remove my rock? (see my plan below) The plan to eliminate the cloves: Remove all corals that I want to keep and quarantine for 30 days and diligently inspect for the cloves every couple of days. I expect many accidental frags to come of this process for the encrusted corals in addition to an overall trimming of everything else, so keep an eye for a forsale thread for some great clovefree frags at a great price! Add ceramic biomedia block to sump Remove left rock structure (most infected with cloves) and all sand and leave the right structure for biological filtration (~60lbs rock 40lbs sand) Add a few pieces of 4” PVC for fish cover Wrap tank in black plastic and remove light Keep it like this for 30 days Big 20G water changes weekly to compensate for dying coral Remove right rock structure (~40lbs). Verify no coral life Add newly cycled rock to tank Begin to reintroduce coral from QT Once things stabilize being to restock!