210 Patio, gets sunlight

[Plasticmask]

Now that I have your attention,
210 gallons, recently converted from fresh to SW. The tank is on a well-covered patio, faced against a Dining Room window for INDOOR VIEWING OF THE TANK from the Dining Room table.
The tank gets the west end of it bathed in direct sunlight for almost exactly 90 minutes every evening, ample shade provided between but Sun is still being allowed through. Never any daily change in water temperature, not in two years. Steady, steady. Effectively heated in Winter.
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This one is our third SW endeavor and we are indeed planning for one specific thing, fish. Wanting a fish tank, VERY small amount of coral (thinking Kenya trees will go MAD out there for example) just Nems and some specific fish.
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By specific, I'm seeding it with Copes for a Mandarin or a mated pair. Obviously my understanding is, that I've got a good year before I'll want to try that on an unsuspecting pair of Mandarins, since it's a huge tank and Copes are only so big, after all, and they've got to be well established LONG before the fish are moved in... so.
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Right NOW and for the next year or so, we are planning to place: Nems and crabs and about four (six?) Diamond Gobies. For swimming in the upper parts of the 210 tank, we were thinking about some Tangs since those are so sociable with people, don't mind a little sunlight, and three of them would grow kind of large in a 210, I'd think. Algae will not be an issue, we have two Sea Hares and my refugium system is going to be epic. Silly, but epic.
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Currently housing one purple tipped Condy and a four-inch Decorator Crab. Caulerpa has been planted, and is already beginning to grow. We've got a few Asterinas and those dinky brittle stars, lots of the refugium hitchhikers who are all (apparently) getting fat and happy and are waiting like us.
The base rocks arrive tomorrow!

 

[jgalen0025]

I really think you should take out the calurpa. In a small amount of time it will take over the tank and it will be all you see even if you trim it back. Once it takes a hold it is impossible to get out of the rocks because of the runners it puts out. It could possibly kill the anemone also.

The sunlight could be a bad thing for unwanted micro algae.

 

[Plasticmask]

What eats Caulerpa?

 

[Plasticmask]

Thinking of the Foxface, the one without the spot. For the Caulerpa.
In the meantime:
I added a string of pond lights to the floor of the tank, for fun. Blue and green, they come on when the Sun goes down. They shine upward from the sand and I sit and watch the Copes as they gather in the light, to do their ...thing.
Added a Decorator Crab and a smallish Condy, there's still too much open space for either one of them to feel comfortable; the Condy has moved twice already, and the Crab has settled on the one lone live rock at the West end of the tank to pick it for decorations.
The base rock (dry rock) is expected tomorrow. THEN we'll see how bored they are.

 

[Plasticmask]

Got the Sump today, and an overflow box.
The overflow box is too small, made for 75 gallons I think, but I'm going to use it anyway if I can until the bigger one arrives in the mail next week. If nothing else, I'll learn how to smoothly prime and start it, if I can't keep it working on the 210.
I had to watch two YouTube videos and sit and stare at the Sump until I was able to say that I understand it. I've decided to set it up as a Refugium, it's what I was wanting it for to begin with. Well, that and a place to put the heaters and pumps.
So it's all set up, ready to start as soon as I get the rocks in there and bring the water level up to the intake box. "The Crow and The Pitcher"
Those rocks arrive today!

 

[kegogut]

I would agree with getting rid of the culerpa. It really can over take a tank super fast and once it gets going the fish wont be able to keep up with the growth. Use Chaeto instead or other kinda of macro algae.

 

[Plasticmask]

So I got the sump set up as a refugium, sand and some rubble and Caulerpa and Chaeto.
The overflow box won't work, as I feared, it's just too small. I added another tube and it's STILL too slow. Not sure how to speed the thing up any faster!

 

[Plasticmask]

Rocks Came Today!!

They came in two boxes, there were fifteen pounds EXTRA ROCK enclosed which was a SUPER BONUS! I unpacked the boxes on the porch, filling a five gallon bucket probably eight times to get everything unpacked and through the house and out the back door.
The rocks are HUGE; I took great pleasure in placing the beautiful things.
I can't wait until they start turning purple and red.

 

[Plasticmask]

Have been playing with that overflow box.
As I'd said, it is extremely small but I want to play with it while I'm waiting for the big one.
Following instructions from a Friend, I've lowered the intake box as far as it will go, and added a siphon tube. The system now keeps up! It fills the sump, the return pumps are keeping up without emptying out my sump OR overflowing it.
Consider: This isn't a hard coral tank, there's no need for overpowering flow or anything remotely like that. Just a nice smooth circulation is all I've been looking for, for the Nems mostly.
It's working exactly like I want, and I was able to use the smaller model. I don't even NEED the bigger one. Interesting, no?

 

[Plasticmask]

This overflow box is far too high-maintenance.
Upon further research I've found that the problems with them are something that people CHOOSE to live with, that there aren't actually SOLUTIONS as much as there are METHODS of MAINTENANCE...
I shut it down today, and tossed it.
Going to have to go with the original plan, and put the refugium above the tank. At least this way I'll be able to 1)Sleep every night and 2)Leave the house for a day if I should ever need to, without worrying constantly about the overflow box.

 

[rustyjames]

Wish I had the space for a 210! Good idea getting rid of the siphon/u-tube style overflow, especially on a tank that large. How are you going to run the fuge above the tank? And what are you going to light the nems with?

 

[Plasticmask]

The Sun is our light source, the Fuge has been moved to an elevated position and tomorrow I'm DRILLING A HOLE and placing a bulkhead. It's going to just drain back into the tank, as though the fuge were the tank and the tank were the fuge.
The return pumps will be housed in a ten gallon tank with a mesh lid, in hopes that the suction will not be strong enough to murder any nems.

 

[Plasticmask]

Been researching the drill bits and methods of drilling that fuge.
I have the tools already, oddly enough, and I understand what they want me to do.
Yeah. I'm not trying that.
I've never done this before, and I'm not having my drill rip the whole panel off because I slip or push too hard or...
Nah, that would be a job I'd have to leave to my Betters, for SURE.
So I'm going to melt it.

 

[Plasticmask]

I didn’t have the chance today darn it. I had to work today.

Anyway, in response to the PMs: Yes I am going to melt it haha... I used my soldering gun for melting the holes for the water bottle and the little tank in my other setup!

It goes much slower, for one thing. So should I SLIP for a second, there’s a lot less chance of personal injury much less for total destruction of the project. PLUS I’ve plenty of experience using the soldering gun for melting plastics (I was after all, a teenage boy at one time).
So it should go fine, once I’m finally ready to get started.

I’ve chosen the bulkhead from the overflow box to save money having to buy another one and because I’m using that hose anyway so I may as well use the matching bulkheads. Once it’s installed and if in the Future I should want to PLUG that hole, it will just be a matter of buying the PART.

The fuge being what it is, the maximum water level has been pre-indicated with a sticker. And it’s right, too, I made note of it.
So I decided to draw the hole exactly so that the maximum water line bisects it perfectly. I’m no engineer, but it just seems to make sense.

 

[Plasticmask]

I have been working on this Hole in the Plastic Fuge for the last few evenings, when I get the time and the Energy (no personal problems, just because my Energy is a Factor in all of this, at any given time, maybe more so than someone else).
The Hole continues to take ponderous form. I have to stop to rest, because all of this work is done while standing up. Also because the GUN heats up considerably after ten minutes or so, of use...
...needing to be placed on a cool surface and left there for roughly an hour before one can feel safe touching it's metal parts to tighten it all back up and get back to using it as something for which it was definitely NOT designed.
-Pics will be forthcoming, once it's all finished and the pics are compiled into something friendlier, say, three or four pics.

 

[Plasticmask]

Okies, it's all hooked up. STILL leaks. Just a drip every few minutes, I let it drip back into the Fuge until I get the new bottle 'drilled'.
In the meantime, started another new tank on Saturday, a 36 gallon Aqueon bowfront. Pretty tank!

 

[Plasticmask]

Tomorrow, the Chaeto Search begins anew!!

 

[Sk8r]

Be aware that the foxface has poison in his top spine, about equivalent to a fiddleback spider bite, though I have seen one go worse. Wear gloves. If you have to move rock in there, due to foxface habit of disguising himself as rock, wear leather gloves under tough waterproof ones.

 

[tkeracer619]

Wait what? I was always told it was like a bee sting???

Edit... I shouldn't have looked at pictures...

 

[Plasticmask]

Be aware that the foxface has poison in his top spine, about equivalent to a fiddleback spider bite, though I have seen one go worse. Wear gloves. If you have to move rock in there, due to foxface habit of disguising himself as rock, wear leather gloves under tough waterproof ones.

Wow! Thank you!! Sure didn't know about THAT.
The foxfaces and the Tangs are going to be the last thing added pretty much... right now I'm just watching two Nems, a crab and a Slug in the 210, and watching NOTHING at all in the 36g.

Got a bunch of Chaeto today, distributed it evenly throughout my fuges. Patience is my BIGGEST problem.
Next fish will likely be Green Chromis, wanting six or eight or eleven of them because we want something small, cheap, and schooly.