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BG's 180 Reef


bgautrea

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So I finally broke down and built a 180. I've had a 40B for about the last 5 years and have wanted to go to a large tank for about the last 4 years and 10 months. I got a PA 180 with the stand and canopy. Ordered it a few weeks back from Jake and Francis over at RCA and it came in last week.

Got my 40B moved to a temporary home in my laundry room this past Friday and the new tank in the house on Saturday and plumbed by Sunday.

I plan on re-using my lights (Kessil A350 and AI Hydra 26HD), return and skimmer Axium X120... At least until the skimmer wont suit me anymore.

Over the last several months I have been collecting a lot of what I needed like rock, sand, a big fat gyre powerhead and plumbing parts. I also ordered baffles from Melev's reef for a new 40B sump that I picked up during a dollar a gallon sale a couple of years ago.

I was given a set of hand-me-down 4' T5HOs with Coral Plus bulbs and 48 DIY CREE LEDs, heatsinks, and dimmable power supplies. 

I've had rock in an old 46 bow front for the last 2.5 months. Started adding microbacter7 bacteria and snails to it about 1.5 months ago then a bottle of 5280 Pods and phytoplankton from algae barn a few weeks back.

I got the sand and rock into the tank after getting water flowing through (using a 20Long as a temporary sump) and have an old Remora HOB skimmer running in it for the very interim as well. All my snails are roaming around the tank now and I've also started to see the pods that I added on the glass. I've also added another does of Dr. Tims One and Only to kick more bacteria in.

Now to wait it out before adding any fish and getting coral moved from the old 40B. My plan is also to frag all the coral from the old 40B so i can get rid of the rock and the pests I managed to get in the 40 over the last 5 years (mostly little brown flatworms and these green tentacled coralimorphs that i cant figure out for the life of me how to get rid of).

Speaking of fish, my thoughts on fish are:

  • Royal Gramma (my only fish in the 40b)
  • 4x Lyretail Anthias
  • Snowflake Clown
  • Kole Tang
  • Maybe a Nasso Tang
  • Wrasse (not sure what type yet)
  • and maybe a Bicolor Angel or Venestus Angel

Below are pics I've taken so far.

 

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Thanks...

I plumbed a bean animal overflow with a close channel (full siphon), open channel, and emergency drain into the overflow box. The drains were a real PITA though and the tideline external overflow needs some improvements. The biggest problem was squeezing the 90s into the external box. I had to trim the 90s to get them to fit inside. it was a lot of trial and error.

This is it behind the tank right now. You can see that the 90s barely fit in there and you can almost see how much I had to cut off (the logo stamped on the 90 is halfway missing on the open channel) of the 90 to get it to fit.

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  • 3 weeks later...
On 10/9/2019 at 6:30 PM, bgautrea said:

The drains were a real PITA though and the tideline external overflow needs some improvements. The biggest problem was squeezing the 90s into the external box. I had to trim the 90s to get them to fit inside. it was a lot of trial and error.

I just purchased one of their tanks with the same overflow...and had the same problem. They have a new fitting now that fits better...called the Magpie Mini or something. I'm guessing you're good to go now though. 

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  • 1 month later...

The 180 has been running for almost 3 months now. No fish in it yet (have some in QT, more on that in a minute), but I do have lots of snails. I started with about 20 trochus snails from algae barn when I was curing the dry rock then added another 10 when I first setup the tank. About two weeks later I noticed I had some tiny snails. Those tiny snails have turned into somewhere in the neighborhood of 50 green pea sized trochus snails now. 👍

Now my fish in QT are another story. I ordered 5 Dispar Anthias and one Snowflake clown. 

IMG_20191219_120706.jpg

They arrived and went into a 20g QT with matching parameters. Two of the anthias looked like juveniles and the others were quite a bit larger with two of the larger maybe being males. When I put them in, one of the juveniles and one that looked to be male were breathing very heavily and wedging themselves under the PVC elbows immediately. I later put a few frozen brine in and all fish but those two began eating. The next day those two were looking worse so i began medication - furan2, metro, and kanaplex. Things started looking better over the next several days and everyone began swimming and eating. There was a little shyness here and there but all seemed to be doing OK.

I ran through the whole treatment for kana, metro, and furan, ran carbon for a couple of days did a water change, and everything was looking good. 

Next I began Prazi. Got through that over the next 5 days and all was looking well. Did another w/c and went on to start the copper.

Started Copper Power - 3ml AM and 3ml PM. This is where things turned bad. The next morning, the clown is laying on its side, and one of those juveniles is not looking well. Everyone seemed lethargic, but the clown was in the worst shape. 

The clown's tail and fins started to really shred, its face is starting to lose some of the white and looking slimy. I thought it looked like it might have brook. So I paused the copper, did about a 50% w/c and began with quick cure to try to save the clown. Ran through that treatment for 3 days then moved all fish to a sterile QT.

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The clown is now much better but... the anthias... not so much. The two juveniles are looking really bad as is one of the other larger ones.  Over the next 3 days, I lost those three, one per day. The two juveniles first, then the larger one. I only had a chance to save the larger one since the others died overnight. I tried giving it a Ruby Reef bath, but it still died.

The last two anthias and the clown have now been through a ruby reef bath, and back into another sterile QT.

I really feel like I failed these fish. I'm not sure what else I could've done.

Anyone have any thoughts in hind-sight?

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I wonder if you had an ammonia spike?  I see you have a hang on filter, but how did you get a bacteria population established?  I keep sponges in my HOB filter and seed them with Dr. Tim's.  I also keep some marine pure balls in the QT to allow bacteria to grow.  The other thing that helps a lot in a QT is to run an airstone

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What are the numbers of fish you were thinking of fully stocked?  Your list seems pretty light for a 180 and fish poop is the best source of nitrogen and phosphorus for corals.

 

Don't beat yourself up over your fish loss.  Stress will affect each fish differently and Anthias can be tricky even for the hardiest species.  I've also seen over the last several years quality go down.   Anecdotally from my suppliers world wide there's a growing market at the same time Fiji and Indonesia have restricted exports.   There are fish I that have completly disappeared from my suppliers lists.  Many species are hugely more expensive.   And sizes have shrunk, what used to be a small is now a medium.  

 

(Here's a fig. 3 from a paper by SHantz, et al, that reviewed the data from something like 208 experiments from over 55 research papers showing the benefits of fish poop)

Effects of Nitrate.jpg

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This doesnt help with your current predicament, but I've had great success with Chloroquine Phosphate as opposed to copper for prophylactic QT. No measuring, huge range between therapeutic and deadly, and most importantly no pathogens in the DT with a few cycles of fish under my belt. 

And I have to echo jolt on this, that doesnt look like a pathogen that killed them. That looks like ammonia, o2, temperature of medication as opposed to a disease. 

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@jolt I suppose it could be related to ammonia. The Seachem ammonia alert disc never indicated ammonia, but really i take it with a grain of salt because i've never seen any color besides somewhere between the OK yellow and the light blue alert. My primary method of removing ammonia has been to do a w/c. I had no sponges or anything else in, but I did dose the 20G QT with bio-spira before adding the fish. However now that I'm thinking about it, I never did that to the 10G sterile tank i moved them to after the formalin... and that's the tank they died in.

@Timfish 100% agree with the data you posted (even though i've only anecdotally seen it).Fully stocked my plan is to have the

  • The Anthias,
  • The clown,
  • a bristletooth tang (kole or white tail maybe), 
  • blonde naso,
  • wrasse (melaranus or similar),
  • something else,
  • and Fat Gramma (my overweight 5 year old Royal Gramma) 

IMG_20191227_093354.jpg

 

My biggest obstacle to getting all these fish into the DT is the QT. I seem to lose fish in QT every time I do this. I know it's the best process for maintaining a health DT, but i sure do miss the days when i didn't know any better and just drip acclimated then dropped the fish in the DT. 🙄

 

 

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I havent had problems in QT with CP, its the dang shipment DOAs that are killing me. Now I'm noticing that the prices arent that much better, the hassle is higher, the fish quality isnt great (ie smaller) and the guarantees are now credit based and not refunds. ugh. 

with respect to the badges, I have seen them change colors but I have a sneaking suspicion that they don't "keep" well at amazon or other online retailers. I have some that have tested positive via salifert test but show non detect on the badge. I periodically dose prime to my QT tanks to knock down the ammonia. 

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@victoly I read before hand that Chlorquine Phosphate (CP) isn't safe with Anthias which is why I went with the Chelated Copper this go around. https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/fish-and-treatment-guidelines-with-chart.283450/ 

Last time I got new fish I used the TTM, which I assume worked to eliminate any Ich that may have been present, but I think it's super stressful for the fish to be caught every 72 hours. HAH... for me and the fish. But TTM only works for Ich and not the other parasites. not to mention that I now have a 180 in my office, a 20 QT in my dining room, the old 40 in my laundry room (until i can frag everything and QT my inverts and fat gramma). and i'd still need one one more tank for TTM. My wife is going to kill me! 

As for Prime, I have it on hand, but it cant be used with Copper AFAIK. It un-bonds the Amines from the Copper which instantly makes the Copper toxic. :( 

I agree that it may not have been any infection or parasite that ended up killing the fish, which is why I feel like I failed them.

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  • 1 month later...

Just a little update:

I've moved a few pieces of hardware from the old 40B to the 180 now. Kessil A350, Hydra26hd, 2 jaebo powerheads, and the Axium Skimmer. The skimmer will eventually be undersized, but it's doing alright for now.

I added a Reef Octopus Calcium reactor not long ago. Still trying to get it dialed in, but I think I'm getting the hang of it. Not sure if it's this reactor or what, but it does tend to make noise as the CO2 is sucked through the pump. I get a decent build-up of CO2 at the top of the reactor every week or so also that I need to purge out. The reactor has a recirculating loop, but that just seems to make more noise of CO2 going through the pump. Still not 100% certain that I don't have an air leak into the intake of the pump somehow. Also need to figure out how to best route all the tubing. It looks terrible after all the other work I've done 😐

I also added a Kessil H160 for a fuge light. Cheato I got from algae barn isnt growing yet, but there really arent many nutrients to feed it yet either.

That's about it for the hardware.

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Sadly I ended up losing all the anthias and the snowflake I had gotten back in December. I must have done something really bad during that QT. I am really disappointed in myself over that. I really liked those fish and now I'm gun shy using an aggressive QT protocol.

I did get a couple of new fish from Marine Collectors though. MC does all of the QT and ship directly to you. Got a nice melarnus wrasse and a kole eye. Also have the blonde naso coming from them too. Elliot over there has been great to work with.

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I also picked up some small Picaso's from @benroman The clowns are being "monitored" in the old 40B. I should have a nice little set of fishes to get going with after I'm satisfied they are free of anything that would hurt my other fishes.

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I've also turned that 40 into a frag tank for now until I'm happy with the maturity of the 180 and feel comfortable moving my larger coral colonies.

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