Grog

All my bulbs came in, so now I'm running 20k Reef Brite halides for 6 hours a day. The T5 mix is ATI actinic and ATI Aquablue Special with 4 of each. The right side looks a little yellower but that is a bit of an illusion. 1.) That bulb has been running for longer so it's more 'burned in'. 2.) That side had the lights on all week, so the diatom bloom is much more prominent over there. The filter socks are pulling a lot of stuff out of the water. Much easier to deal with than a HOB filter. Hollywood Stunner got moved from the 40 breeder, it needed some breathing room. Also, added some GSP to the back wall, a large plug of Night Eyes zoanthids, pulsing Xenia, and a toadstool. The 40 is basically becoming a Galaxea tank. I'm going to wait a few weeks and then I'll add some plating montis. Zero progress on the canopy or front panels for the stand. The good news is I did get a BUNCH of stuff moved out of the garage and I can actually work in there now. So, even if it is raining, I may get some of that done next week. FTS

Only have one Reef Brite halide, still waiting for the others to come in. (I ordered a three year supply. I'm paranoid, and will order another few years' worth next paycheck. I don't want to be without a source of bulbs in the future.) Anyway, I decided to make the lack of bulbs into an opportunity for comparison. Here are pictures of stock Odyssea bulbs and good name brand bulbs. I've always disliked the Odyssea colors now I have pictures side by side. BTW: not only are the colors horrible but their quality is bad as well. I've seen T5s have the metal crimp leads pull out, and the metal caps come off. ON NEW BULBS! Also, today when I replaced the one halide bulb in the fixture with the Reef Brite bulb, the ceramic on the stock Odyssea bulb just fell apart. You can see in the image that the ceramic had a delamination sort of issue, an internal crack or void. Not good at all. Even if you are OK with the colors from the Odyssea bulbs I would recommend against using them. Their fixtures have come a long way in build quality and reliability than they were a few years ago, but the bulbs are still trash. Here is an image of stock T5 Odyssea actinic vs ATI Aquablue Special and actinic mix. Not really a fair comparison as the ABS brighten it up. But the Odyssea bulbs are very Windex with a slight green. ATI are less so. Odyssea left, ATI right. If I wasn't going to put any coral in this tank, I'd be happy with just these T5. This is the same mix I run in the 40 breeder. The last image shows the tank with T5 and halides running with the ATI on right and Odyssea on left. ATI is much more of an as advertised 20k, blueish white. To me, the Reef Brite halide almost has the same spectrum as the ATI T5 mix, just more power. The Odyssea has a yellowish greenish tint. Not blue to my eyes. But, in actual brightness the Odyssea appears much brighter. Maybe because of perceptions of the wavelengths? Overall, I much prefer the Reef Brite bulbs. I've used those, Phoenix, Odyssea, Radium, and Plusrite and I have to say that I am very happy with these. They are 4X the cost but worth it. The color is good, and PAR was up at 3000 near the surface when Tim and I measured a few weeks ago. 🤯 Not many choices for halide bulbs these days. I'm glad that one option is a good one, even if they are pricey. I'm sure the vendor is going to wonder when I order another 18 of them in two weeks. And yes, the diatom bloom is real.

Got the ATO set up. Installed all the powerheads in the tank and attached them to the wavemaker and labelled them. Put all the 'gear' into a storage thingy and put it under the stand. I need to get the lights on the timer circuits but I'm not going to run all that wiring until the bulbs come in ... Waiting... Plan to start, and attempt to finish, the canopy this weekend. (lofty goals) This is all good progress. I can walk in my living room and my dining room table is clear. A bit of a diatom bloom. Don't want that and bad algae to get out of control. Turned halides off. Only running actinic T5 for 12 hours daily. Ordered some 'specialty' snails and urchins for the tank. Due early next week. The good news is that I feel comfortable leaving the tank with my wife with instructions of "feed it 2x a day" at this point. I didn't feel that way last week. It is in as good of shape as I can expect. Going to Palacios Sunday so likely no updates on this build till next week. 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. 😎