320 gallons of Serenity, Sea Monsters & Sanctuary

[mvsjrs]

(12) The Reef Octopus 2000 XP-SRO-2000-INT was replaced with a Reef Octopus REGAL 250EXT External Recirculating Protein Skimmer with VarioS-6 DC Pump and VarioS-6 DC Pump volute pump. Even has a Neck Cleaner and a Neck Extension Ring. I build a PVC stand to elevate the new skimmer and placed it in the 90 gallon sump because I am paranoid of overflows.

I demo'ed the skimmer in a variety of locations.

This thing is a beast even handling my way over-the-top fish load.

Final location:

I located the pump controllers conviently to the left 2x4 post:

 

[mvsjrs]

(13) I salvaged a black polycarbonate overflow from a dead tank and flipped it upside down so the overflow slots were at the bottom. Voila"¦bubble tower for a 7" 200 micron polyester filter sock.

(14) I added a Theiling Automatic Roller Mat. Again, I build a PVC stand to elevate the roller mat and placed it in the 90 gallon sump because I am REALLY paranoid of overflows.

Trial location before moving into the sump.

In the sump:

The water flow is as follows:
(a) The display tank siphons into the settling tank.
(b) The settling tank overflows into the sump via a 200 micro sock and bubble tower.
(c) The skimmer pump is located adjacent to the bubble tower. So even though the skimmer is all the on the opposite side of the sump, the skimmer is always feed "dirty" water. The discharge of the skimmer is "backwards" to the center of the pump. This helps allow bubbles to rise in the 2 foot travel to the pumps' intake.
(d) The water is drawn into the pump manifold. The first pump feeds the chaeto refugium, the rockfugium, and the RollerMat. The second pump feeds back to the displa tank after passing through the chiller.
(e) The closed loop system is of course entirely separate.

 

[mvsjrs]

(15) I completed the quarantine tank rack for good fish handling. Each tank is independent with a heater, small powerhead, and sponge filter. The quarantine rack can be seen at the end of room.

 

[mvsjrs]

(16) Occpants of the display tank include the following:

https://youtu.be/tJ6s12gZEHU

Snowflake Eel (Indonesian)
Sumatran Magnificent Foxface
Marine Betta
Tibicen Angelfish (Coral Sea) - Medium
Fijian Lemon Peel Angelfish
Fijian Coral Beauty Angelfish
Fijian Bicolor Angelfish
Red Stripe Angelfish
Rusty Angelfish
Flame Angelfish (large)
Half Black Angelfish
Fireball Angelfish
Potter's Angelfish
(2) ORA® Captive-Bred Gold X Lightning Maroon Clownfish
(2) ORA® Black & White Ocellaris Clownfish, Captive-Bred (Pair)
(2) ORA® Captive-Bred Midnight Clownfish (Not Pair)
Fijian Two Spot Bristletooth Tang (blue eye)
Fijian Squaretail Bristletooth Tang (yellow eye, spotted)
Hawaii Kole Yellow Eye Tang (yellow eye, striped)
Engineer Goby
Hybrid Cleaner Goby, Captive-Bred ORA (pair)
ORA® Captive-Bred Yellowline Goby (Bonded Pair)
Gold Midas Blenny
Red Fin African Sailfin/Algae Blenny
Ember Blenny - incompatible with conspecifics
(2) Fijian Canary Blenny
(2) Captive-Bred Kamohara Blenny
Royal Gramma Basset
(2) ORA® Captive-Bred Splendid Dottyback
ORA® Captive-Bred Orchid Dottyback
ORA® Captive-Bred Springeri Dottyback
ORA® Captive-Bred Black Neon Dottyback
ORA® Captive-Bred Sunrise Dottyback
ORA® Captive-Bred Electric Indigo Dottyback
Maldivian Exquisite Firefish
Marshall Islands Helfrichi Firefish
(2) Azure Damselfish, Captive-Bred - Medium
(6) ORA® Captive-Bred Lemon Damselfish (Trio's)
Flame Cardinalfish
(2) Scissor Tail Dartfish

Aussie Torch Coral
Starburst Polyp Rock Indonesia
ORA® Red Goniopora Coral
Ultra Hammer Coral
Aussie Cespitularia Coral
Red Bubble Tip Anemone
Starburst Polyp Rock Indonesia
Rose Bulb Anemone (Indonesia) - Medium
Pacific Flower Mushroom Rock Ricordea Yuma Indonesia
Toadstool Mushroom Leather Coral Indonesia
Mushroom Rock Rhodactis Indonesia
Mushroom Rock Rhodactis Indonesia Combo
Mushroom Rock Actinodiscus Indonesia
Alveopora Coral Indonesia
Green People Eaters Colony Polyp Rock Zoanthus Indonesia IM
Starburst Polyp Rock Indonesia
Jasmine Polyp Rock Indonesia
Mushroom Rock Actinodiscus Indonesia
Aussie Sinularia Finger Leather Coral
Bubble Tip Anemone Green

Tongan Fighting Conch
Margarita Snail
Babylon Snai
Banded Trochus Snail
Super Tongan Nassarius Snail
Nassarius Snail
Cerith Snail
Astraea Turbo Snail
Mexican Turbo Snail
Fighting Conch (Tonga)
Dwarf Red Tip Hermit CraB
Scarlet Reef Hermit Crab
Dwarf Blue Leg Hermit Crab
Banded Coral Shrimp
Blue Tuxedo Urchin - Small
Brittle Sea Star, Banded
Serpent Sea Star , Fancy Tiger Striped
(2) Serpent Sea Star, Fancy Red

Fiji 194 lbs (in display tank)
Tonga 150lbs (in sump)
Pukani 150lbs (in sump)

 

[Dr. Jeffles]

Impressive list!

 

[mvsjrs]

(17) The denitrator section of the refugium (rockfugium) produces a ton of bacterial mulm which is a mess to remove even with the sneaky variable direction spray nozzle underneath.

It is hard to see clearly but there is a layer of mulm on top of all the rock. This is after using a Mag 5 pump with a jet nozzle to spray into the rock pile and blowing it out with the directional nozzle. This method is clearly no reef crest with detritus washed away into the abyss.

The pile of bacterial mulm behind this support can be easily blown away by the directional nozzle.

But I believe that only a fraction comes out of the system rather than resettling in the rocks. This is a step in the right direction rather than sitting in a display tank or refugium creating a future nitrate problem. Cleaning this better would certainly be closer to my original intent in the design. I just have to design a way to clean it better either continuously by changing my design or incrementally because it is easier on a weekly basis.

Meanwhile the ACE Roto-Mold 60 gal Induction Tank (settling tank) only settles out a small portion of crud in the 1 gallon waste water that I drain each day. So the idea occurred to me to…

 

[mvsjrs]

(18) I moved the denitrating live rock into the settling tank to drain the mulm that makes its way down each day. Then when it's water change time, I run the water from the 120 gallon reservior through the live rock as a rinse until it comes out clean. Refill with fresh S/W mix and I am ready to go.

This is 2 days after cleaning the live rock in the rockfugium and moving it to the induction tank.

The right bucket is the rinse water pulled out the drain from the inductor tank.
The center bucket is water from the main system (there is a bit of chaeto strands artificially "œdirtying" the color of the water slightly).
The left bucket is fresh saltwater.

The point is"¦the rock in the rockfugium is cleansed, but maybe not as well as I would like it, by just the process of a water change. I really need to rinse all that mulm off the rock to get maximum benefit"¦

 

[mvsjrs]

(19) The system loses about 2 gallons to evaporation daily which I still topoff manually. I include Mrs. Wages pickling lime saturate water with the T/O water. However, I am not comfortable yet with automatic topoff from my storage vat because a failure could dump 75 gallons of kalk laced T/O water scares the #@!! out of me.

And that, my friends, is my miserable failure of my original idea behind this build. Two tanks, a LPS with fish and a SPS without fish. Having been this far, I doubt I could have really achieved my original goal. The chemistry of the water just can't be changed fast enough to accommodate the nutrient needs of the two types of tanks. I definitely could have achieved a clean and a dirty tank but it would have been more akin to a display and refugium that an LPS and SPS optimized environment.

Given all the challenges of the last year, I couldn’t be happier!

 

[mvsjrs]

One area that I missed covering was changing the way the siphon line comes into the sump. My original design gathered the siphon lines and the refugium lines into one pipe going into the settling tank. However, I had an overflow because there was residual air in the siphon line when the pump was turned off and the refugium line created a type of water trap like a sink. The result was that the air in the siphon line could not be pushed out when starting the system.

Here was the old setup which could overflow:

Which ended with a type of periscope drain line that will not overflow:

__________________

"Physics is a b!tch. She's always right no matter how sure you were about your plumbing."

 

[tjm9331]

This sir, is an impressive build.

You have all those fish in a 92 corner? You obviously have enough water volume and filtration to deal with the bio-load but I'm curious how the angelfish get along and how all those fish stake their own territory?

Please don't take that the wrong way, I'm legitimately curious. I'm going to be starting my 125 build with in the next year. I would love to house a bunch of fish like that but all the research I've done is quite contrary to what you have pulled off. Forget the filtration, just from the sheer size of the 92 I would never have thought all those fish would fit.

btw I'm a huge fan of eels and love your zebra and snowflake, I'm hoping to put a chain link and snowflake in my 125.

 

[mvsjrs]

My philosophy has drawn on the experience of many freshwater cichlids keepers. You can really be in for trouble if you try to balance aggression for a few fish by dividing territories. The reality is we can never provide the kind of space needed for any two fish--one threatened fish can always swim 10 feet away in a second or two.

So where do cichlids come in? First, avoid conspecifics...same species, similar appearances. Lots of different, non-obvious targets of aggression. Then, when you can't hold it any longer...get three or four! Ultimately, all the conspecific aggression gets divided between multiple fish. No longer can that one big fish isolate and punish it's smaller conspecific rival because there is more than one. A & B will pick on C one day then B & C will pick on A another day and so forth. You just don't want A & B mating and always picking on C (better if, D, E, F, G...are all in there to share aggression).

Second, choose wisely. Bioload governs all. Five fish a foot each would bust the system. Typically, ammonia and nitrates are not the problem here. It's nitrates. There just is not enough volume of water or reasonably enough water changes to turn over the nitrates with several beasts in the tank. The vast majority of my fish are smaller species with only a few that will be big but not too big in the future. No groupers in my tank! The eels, foxface, bristle tooth tangs and marine beta will be the biggest. Also, I would cull some specimens over time that are less impressive but still desirable at my local pet store.

(An aside here, the zebra eel was an early impulse buy that would have broken this rule. He easily doubled in size in the tank and then one morning showed up dead. There were no signs of health issues. The zebra and the foxface would often comingle near the PVC cave entrance. I believe the foxface was startled and spiked the zebra accidentally. This is actually common in lionfish and snowflake eel tanks. The snowflakes get so excited eating that they can be inadvertently spiked by the lionfish. Whatever the cause, I am more disciplined now in all my purchases. The dangerous fish are the Gold X Lightning Maroon Clownfish and the snowflake eel; either of which could at full size go bonkers and kill everything else in the tank.)

Third, if the fish aren't healthy, a dying 1 foot fish will create a huge ammonia spike overnight so a massive reserve is necessary. To a certain extent, that cannot be avoided because the average quantity of bacteria is always in balance with the average amount of waste. However, bacteria multiply more rapidly in an established tank than they do when establishing the tank to begin with. One lonely bacteria can only metabolize and grow/reproduce so fast. An established tank of millions of bacteria can metabolize a spike much better. That reserve in my tank is provided by the unusually high (very) amount of live rock. (500 lbs of various types. When I nixed the 150 tank, I still kept the cycled rock in the remaining system.)

Fourth, get 'em while they are young. This is a twofold benefit: (1) young = small = less bioload that can gradually grow the bacteria available with the fish over time and (2) young = less aggressive while getting to know the hierarchy of the tank. None of my dwarf angels fight, although they do bicker... They have always been in the same confines with the same fish. When I lost one paired Midnight Clownfish (power outage overnight which failure mode I have addressed), I tried to substitute another young captive bred. He has never been accepted but has survived just fine on the periphery of tank.

Fifth, tough lookalikes go a long way as dither fish. The case here is the Lemon Peel Angelfish. Normally, completely intolerant of other dwarf angels, she aggressively chases the lemon damselfish which are indestructible. That sort of mixes the pot and fish will bicker when she is in a bad mood. But again, the aggression is diffused in numbers.

Sixth, food! Hungry animals are aggressive animals. Starving animals are killers. I have accepted that I need to feed well which makes nutrient reduction hard. Half of my 120 gal refugium is a solid turning mass of chaeto grown from a few strands. That tank is a teeming mass of copepods. These have to be some of the food supply for my smaller fish. My nitrates are always lower than the 5ppm (lowest color in my Hagen test kit) if there is any real coloration in the test. But, I wouldn't try this with a SPS tank!

Seventh, prayer. I could be heading for an inevitable crash in the future. The lack of a sand bed collecting detritus and the prompt removal of mulm from the settling tank mean there is little buildup of detritus. I do dose vodka in extremely small quantities because I tried that technique last year then stopped. I ended up with two liters of extra vodka (a very cheap brand) so I dose two cap fulls and am tracking nitrates. This probably feeds my skimmer a minute amount as well as the live rock but it is certainly too little to be a dependency in the system.

That's my philosophy and reasoning.

 

[mvsjrs]

 

[tjm9331]

320 gallons of Serenity, Sea Monsters & Sanctuary

320 gallons of Serenity, Sea Monsters & Sanctuary

Well, whatever you're doing it's obviously working and that magnificent foxface...I think I'm in love [emoji7]

I hope I can get my 125 to look like this one day.



thanks for the good read/explanation!

 

[mvsjrs]

Without being accused of shilling for anyone, BRS (BulkReefSupply) did a very nice job on a clownfish harem tank. Many of their finding are similar to cichlids and my tank approach.

https://www.bulkreefsupply.com/vide...-the-brs-clown-harem-tank-brstv-investigates/

 

[mvsjrs]

Here is the attraction of putting the live rock in the inductor tank. Water changes. By flushing the tank water through the inductor tank, the system is operating less like a conical settling tank and more like a funnel. Here are the first three buckets after flushing.

Then I did a second small rinse to get the last. This will not matter when I flush to the septic because then the inductor tank will drain to the bottom. In this example, I con only drain the inductor to the height of the water bucket.

Here they are all in comparison:

 

[mvsjrs]

The next day I filter the water bucket through a 75 micro film and collect the following detritus. Not that much of the dark water flowed right through the film but 75 is the smallest I have.

Yuck! But hooray for all the detritus that gets sucked out in a water change without any additional siphoning of the gravel.

 

[mvsjrs]

I decided that the pump noise was still too high after insulating around pipe connection. So"¦

I removed the TurboSea 1740P (display tank fed) and PanWorld 200PS. Then I moved the Dolphin Diamond Amp Master 6250-T3 to run the DT and refugium manifold in order replaced the other two pumps.

Before:

After:

 

[mvsjrs]

As you can see, I then used the space freed up from moving the pumps to install an electronics board and mounted all the electrical stuff...

 

[mvsjrs]

Critical difference between the previous picture and this next picture? Labels...!

 

[mvsjrs]

My Oceanic 32 HEX tank was not selling on Craigslist so I did the obvious, purchased a Tunze auto topoff and used the tank as an intermediate reservoir for Mrs Wages pickling lime.

I chose not to use the 75 gallon reservoir because of fearing a pump lock on failure with 75 gallons rather than 32 gallons. The math on the full 32 gallons worst case is as follows: