sahin
Ultimate Reefer
Things were going great in my tank and then I started to have issues with all the corals: the few LPS and Zoas I kept browned out and SPS started to STN. I believe the cause is the spraying of air freshener RIGHT over the tank by a relative (not done on purpose). At first I thought I got away with it, but over time corals started to show issues. I used GAC, carried out lots of water changes, double checked all parameters with 2-3 test kits etc etc...something was causing random STN on my corals.
Rather than lose all my corals and attempt to fight a losing battle, I thought I had to do something... after I mentioned my problems to a buddy, he arranged it with another buddy of ours and together Nav and Anwar helped me out enormously by taking all of my corals (over 40 SPS frags and colonies) and a few LPS corals into their tanks. Some of the affected corals still continued to STN and died in their tanks, but the majority are fine and recovering well. I havent been to their places since I dropped off the corals and have little idea which died and which survived.
Here is the old thread with photos when the tank looked its best:http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2348052&page=16
The photos in that post makes me feel very upset at how bad the tank had become...
Anyway, my buddy Nav took a look at my tank and said to me "what would look really good is getting rid of that big ugly weir in your tank...you will gain some display space too"...I thought...hmm...it would look good...but I would have to drill 12mm glass...never drilled a tank before...I immediately had thoughts of finding a flooded living room or something if I started to mess around with the overflow...But Nav convinced me all would be good, so I decided to rip out the overflow box/weir.
I also decided that I would get rid of all the rocks and restart with new rocks as I didnt want to chance having issues on restart. Due to the impending birth of our 3rd child, my buddy Nav and another buddy Kay went shopping for rocks and an overflow for me. They went out and bought me some lovely pieces of coral plates and branches and a brilliant overflow unit.
So over the past few weeks during the the tiny fleeting moments, I worked hard on my tank to transform it into a more pleasing display:
Tank emptied: You can just about make out the size of the internal Overflow/Weir box.
Rockwork: My buddy chose the perfect pieces. As I couldn't go out due to my wife being in the last few weeks of pregnancy Nav chose select pieces of rock and sent me images; I OK'd all the pieces he chose. I soaked the rocks in RO water and scrubbed daily and then swished the rocks well and finally replaced the RO water.
I drew out the perimeter of my tank and started to form a scape:
Tank Mods: By this time my son was born and things were quite busy, but I still managed to get things done here and there.
Weir box removed and weir holes covered up with a piece of glass I cut up from the pieces that were used to make the weir box:
Drilling over flow:
Drilling the holes at 1am for the OceanLife Overflow... Had to put newborn son to sleep as he kept waking up and crying the first few days...Took me around 1.5 hours to drill...drilling 27mm and 44mm holes in 12mm glass took a long time...I didnt want to risk things by going fast. So I took my time.
Leak Test: Tested over a couple of days and was happy with the result.
Painted the back of the tank:
I had blue backgrounds on my earlier tanks, so decided to go back to having a blue background. Went and found a spray paint called "Deep Ocean Blue" and painted the back of the tank:
Oceanlife 2.2 Overflow. Visit for a short video clip to see one working: http://vimeo.com/33737674
This overflow is solidly built. Manufacturer link: http://www.oceanlife.it/web/en/products-en-1/technical-equipment/overflow-system-v2-2
The Oceanlife overflow works better than my old weir; it is less noisy and surface skims quite well.
Tank back on stand with OceanLife Overflow installed:
Rocks are elevated to improve flow around the base of rocks.
Whilst I enjoyed the benefits of a barebottomed tank, the aesthetic part of it did bother me sometimes; especially when visitors commented about the lack of sand in the reef tank, so I decided to go sanded bottom this time; especially since I would like to keep a scoly or two, along with a limited select few other LPS corals.
Current parameters:
Alk: 9 dKH
Ca: 480ppm
Mg: 1350ppm
NO3: 20ppm
PO4: 0.14ppm
SG: 1.026
I have also decided to use 1 Tunze 6095 pump as well as 1 of MP10's rather than use 2 MP10's. The Tunze's IMO move water further than the MP10's which are great pumps as well, but even with 2 MP10's running at 80% constant, the flow wasnt great in some areas as the SPS had grown into larger colonies. I also wanted to be able to direct the flow a little.
Short video clip of tank currently as it is:
And the latest FTS etc:
I love the look of the tank. Love having the whole display and the Oceanlife Overflow works very well and is compact.
Tank is already cycled. Although I used dead rocks, I added 3 different types of bacteria and a small piece of liverock in the sump. The sump contains a bit more rock as well as 1 litre of Siporax for additional filtration.
Currently I have a single SPS frag, a Zoa frag and a Chalice frag I purchased from my LFS to test the system. So far so good. No STN etc and the Acro frag has nice polyp extension as well. I will pickup my SPS corals in about 3-4 weeks time.
Rather than lose all my corals and attempt to fight a losing battle, I thought I had to do something... after I mentioned my problems to a buddy, he arranged it with another buddy of ours and together Nav and Anwar helped me out enormously by taking all of my corals (over 40 SPS frags and colonies) and a few LPS corals into their tanks. Some of the affected corals still continued to STN and died in their tanks, but the majority are fine and recovering well. I havent been to their places since I dropped off the corals and have little idea which died and which survived.
Here is the old thread with photos when the tank looked its best:http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2348052&page=16
The photos in that post makes me feel very upset at how bad the tank had become...
Anyway, my buddy Nav took a look at my tank and said to me "what would look really good is getting rid of that big ugly weir in your tank...you will gain some display space too"...I thought...hmm...it would look good...but I would have to drill 12mm glass...never drilled a tank before...I immediately had thoughts of finding a flooded living room or something if I started to mess around with the overflow...But Nav convinced me all would be good, so I decided to rip out the overflow box/weir.
I also decided that I would get rid of all the rocks and restart with new rocks as I didnt want to chance having issues on restart. Due to the impending birth of our 3rd child, my buddy Nav and another buddy Kay went shopping for rocks and an overflow for me. They went out and bought me some lovely pieces of coral plates and branches and a brilliant overflow unit.
So over the past few weeks during the the tiny fleeting moments, I worked hard on my tank to transform it into a more pleasing display:
Tank emptied: You can just about make out the size of the internal Overflow/Weir box.
Rockwork: My buddy chose the perfect pieces. As I couldn't go out due to my wife being in the last few weeks of pregnancy Nav chose select pieces of rock and sent me images; I OK'd all the pieces he chose. I soaked the rocks in RO water and scrubbed daily and then swished the rocks well and finally replaced the RO water.
I drew out the perimeter of my tank and started to form a scape:
Tank Mods: By this time my son was born and things were quite busy, but I still managed to get things done here and there.
Weir box removed and weir holes covered up with a piece of glass I cut up from the pieces that were used to make the weir box:
Drilling over flow:
Drilling the holes at 1am for the OceanLife Overflow... Had to put newborn son to sleep as he kept waking up and crying the first few days...Took me around 1.5 hours to drill...drilling 27mm and 44mm holes in 12mm glass took a long time...I didnt want to risk things by going fast. So I took my time.
Leak Test: Tested over a couple of days and was happy with the result.
Painted the back of the tank:
I had blue backgrounds on my earlier tanks, so decided to go back to having a blue background. Went and found a spray paint called "Deep Ocean Blue" and painted the back of the tank:
Oceanlife 2.2 Overflow. Visit for a short video clip to see one working: http://vimeo.com/33737674
This overflow is solidly built. Manufacturer link: http://www.oceanlife.it/web/en/products-en-1/technical-equipment/overflow-system-v2-2
The Oceanlife overflow works better than my old weir; it is less noisy and surface skims quite well.
Tank back on stand with OceanLife Overflow installed:
Rocks are elevated to improve flow around the base of rocks.
Whilst I enjoyed the benefits of a barebottomed tank, the aesthetic part of it did bother me sometimes; especially when visitors commented about the lack of sand in the reef tank, so I decided to go sanded bottom this time; especially since I would like to keep a scoly or two, along with a limited select few other LPS corals.
Current parameters:
Alk: 9 dKH
Ca: 480ppm
Mg: 1350ppm
NO3: 20ppm
PO4: 0.14ppm
SG: 1.026
I have also decided to use 1 Tunze 6095 pump as well as 1 of MP10's rather than use 2 MP10's. The Tunze's IMO move water further than the MP10's which are great pumps as well, but even with 2 MP10's running at 80% constant, the flow wasnt great in some areas as the SPS had grown into larger colonies. I also wanted to be able to direct the flow a little.
Short video clip of tank currently as it is:
And the latest FTS etc:
I love the look of the tank. Love having the whole display and the Oceanlife Overflow works very well and is compact.
Tank is already cycled. Although I used dead rocks, I added 3 different types of bacteria and a small piece of liverock in the sump. The sump contains a bit more rock as well as 1 litre of Siporax for additional filtration.
Currently I have a single SPS frag, a Zoa frag and a Chalice frag I purchased from my LFS to test the system. So far so good. No STN etc and the Acro frag has nice polyp extension as well. I will pickup my SPS corals in about 3-4 weeks time.
