700 gallon tank, or how i spent my daughters inheritance

[digitalchrisg]

Wow, I wish I had your weather, that sounds great. I have to admit you scare me now, because I am thinking that it may be possible. I will first have to figure out how to get that past the wife though. Great, Job I am catching up on the old split thread.

 

[mrfish55]

Wow did that ever take me forever to read thru, sorry to hear about all the troubles you have encountered, I understand the pain and frustration when you invest that kind of time and money and things don't pan out as anticipated, when I did my 750 build I tried the minimalist approach and so far have had success, I would love to have a skylight above mine like you have done but the location in the house does not permit. All the best with the re-build, will be watching things progress, good luck.

 

[Reefski's]

thank you, i can't imagine how long it would take to read from the beginning.

what kind of corals did you keep and what do you mean by minimalist approach? what did you not have?

i might put a couple new corals in the tank this weekend, corals from my friend karm40 which he has to thin out they are growing so well in his tank.

it has been many months since any new corals have been added.

Carl

 

[mrfish55]

thank you, i can't imagine how long it would take to read from the beginning.

About 8 hours over the last two days, didn't skip to the end and had to know how it turned out so was up at 4am this morning finishing the journey.

what kind of corals did you keep and what do you mean by minimalist approach? what did you not have?

800lbs live rock (500 in display and 300 in 200gal sump), 6' tall air driven skimmer and weekly 10% water changes. no additives, no fancy controllers, no remote sandbeds or refugiums etc. I will post up a build thread in the next couple weeks when I have some more days off, don't know what happened to these days off :hmm4: currently there are only a couple anemones as there is a couple fish that have taken a liking to any corals that enter the system, there are a couple small pieces of montipora and some pocillipora that are tucked out of the way and doing well, albeit small as they keep getting nipped back.

i might put a couple new corals in the tank this weekend, corals from my friend karm40 which he has to thin out they are growing so well in his tank.

it has been many months since any new corals have been added.

Carl

Hope all goes well with the new additions, you deserve some luck.
Cheers, Dave

 

[Reefski's]

re reading from the start awesome setup

thank you,

wow, really, REreading? that is a lot of reading.

the Maroon clowns must be happy. they are spawning and i saw them in the act today. they have been spawning for months. before was in the bubble coral and i never saw the eggs.

now several times in the anemones since i put the anemones in their tank.

 

[Reefski's]

spawning videos

 

[Reefski's]

the eggs are not orange any more.

amazing how fast the split tail healed, only a little over a week. not quite straight though.

 

[Reefski's]

the new sand bed has a bunch of spaghetti worms and fan worms that i collected from the detritus piles in the old tank.

also a few aptasia that have come down from the overflow. i won't be able to stop that from happening until i break down the tank. here is why.

Carl

 

[dahenley]

Do you really want to kill all that in your overflow box?
if so, couldnt you just pull your Durso pipe out, let it drain, then put a plug in the drain bulkheads. then fill it up with some water and some calcium chloride. this way it will kill them and add calcium to your water.

some people say to use vinegar, but that a lot of vinegar. and i know that calcium will melt them!!! i have yet to have one come back after a needle and some Calcium.

just a option.
and if it doesnt kill all of them, it will put a dent in them. and you can always pull your drain hose and let it drain in a separate bucket if you wanted to try a different method. (one that you didnt want going in the water of the tank)

 

[Reefski's]

i do want to kill all the aiptasia in the overflow but not until i break the tank down. i know a guy that is coming to get some to feed his berghia and i have my 20 gallon aiptasia/berghia tank also that i will put them in.

they would be nutrient export if i was actually harvesting them but i don't want to break them up into smaller pieces taking some out.

i have needles and cacl and i will try it on some in one of the other tanks.

that is a good idea for when i break down the tank though. it will be empty for days to weeks.

a few days ago when i tested water parameters they were

mg 1350
ca 450
po4 0.09
pH 8.2
temp 81
nitrate 2-3 yea! the lowest it has been.

 

[dahenley]

that is very cool!!

are the pictures of sand in the sump room? just trying to get a feel for where it is.
if so, can you tell a difference in your main tank, or just in your parameters?
also, what is your plan for the main display? did you have a date for when the big sand switch would be, or just playing it by ear?

i was looking in another thread by "slef" i think is his name. he has a 500gal tank in his house as well, and he just had old tank syndrome with his DSB, and on an episode of LA Fish Guys on You tube, they started to remove his sand by using a brute trash can, and a 1 or 1.5 in vinyl hose. they just siphoned starting from one corner and working their way across. the did it 35gal at a time. and would just consider it a water change. then 1-2 weeks later, they would siphon 1 more brute full of sand/water. this method might work for you. that way you dont have to do it all at once. and once you get 1/2 of your tank done, you can start adding new sand back in. that is unless you want to change up some plumbing, move rocks, ect......

just another option.

 

[Reefski's]

3-4 more weeks to wait for the sand in the garage sumps to mature a bit more.

the pix are the garage sump/tank.

i can't really tell much difference in the DT but the hammer coral and bubble seem very expanded and happy lately as do the anemones.

i have been to Scott's slief's house and seen his tank in person and watched some of the LA fish guy videos.

that seems like a good method but i want to patch the holes from the closed loops, polish the tank and remove the concrete blocks that are under the sand.

so no part at a time. all at once or not at all.

or i could just keep going like it is for a few months until i decide if i am moving or not. and if i move would the new owners want a big aquarium. not likely

 

[Reefski's]

Today is my lucky day.
i might have burnt my house down today because of my own stupidity/neglect. interestingly enough i was at Reefapalooza all day taking in a great trade show, some lectures, frags and hanging out with other reef geeks. i didn't buy any corals, only some coral dip. i haven't put any new corals in my tank in about 18 months i think.

this morning when i came downstairs i smelled a faint burnt plastic/electrical circuit board smell. i couldn't quite isolate it but my nose said it was in the closet by the tank. every thing looked fine in the closet. no water spills, nothing out of place. i was rushing to get ready as a few friends were picking me up. so i thought whatever it is i will figure it out when i get home. MISTAKE. the friends came in for a minute to see the tank and i didn't think to mention it. i had already started to ignore the faint odor. they didn't notice it at all or at least comment on it. they were focused on the tank.

when i came home after the show i smelled it as soon as i hit the door but i HADN'T seen the bathroom in a few hours so i went there first. while in there my wife called out to me that the lights had just gone off. they were not set to go off for a couple more hours. uh oh!

it was easy to find where it was coming from then with the lights going off. i unplugged the timer and when i unscrewed the cover to the timer box this is what i saw.

i think the wire had come loose. it was certainly not connected after the fire in the box. the Timer that John built. i don't know enough about electricity to understand just exactly what happened and why the short did not trip the gfi or circuit breaker. i just unplugged the faulty one and replaced it with a backup, (built by an electrician), let the lights cool a bit and turned it on.

one good thing is if it had blown the circuit only the lights were on that breaker.

 

[Reefski's]

i am breaking down my 700 gallon tank saturday. i am emptying the tank so that i can replace the sand, remove the hydroid rocks, buff out the tank, and catch some unwanted fish.

i plan to fry the hydroids with a torch prior to placing the rock in the holding system.

all i can offer is lunch, pizza or Tito's. and future frags one day when the tank is thriving again.

Starting at 8am.

PM if willing.

moving stuff from tank to here.

 

[sltloser]

Willing to ship me in from fargo ND? i'm a hard worker and i only need a mattress and food haha....hope the move goes well!

 

[Nathan.Titulaer]

I am no electrician either but I was a mechanic for a while and did some jobs with my stepfather who is and I would say the reason that box fried is your load wire from the timer is a lot smaller than the load wire from the breaker. If it was feeding the wire with more voltage than it could handle it would of heated up the smaller wire and cooked the coating. If only a little extra over time which is what may of happened.

I would check all your other connections after you break down the tank to make sure they are not like this. As for the breaker it may not of tripped because the Load never grounded against the box causing it to trip the breaker. Or if you have a GFCI outlet and your main box is already a GFCI box the two will fight each other and do weird things.
I am guessing the first because in the pic I could not see a contact point with the load wire and the box.

I am in the middle of a move but will help you set the tank back up when the time comes. Just shot me a PM.

 

[dahenley]

if i weren't in TEXAS!! i would deff swing by.....
If i were within 5hours driving distance, i would beee there!

Good luck, and dont forget the pictures for us long distances...... that way we can be right there with you during this sweet re-adventure!

 

[Reefski's]

thanks everyone. i wish i could fly you all in.

the resetup will take more time than the tear down i suspect. so that is a really generous offer to drive from SD.

i may be able to set up my web cam if i have time. it is configured in house network but i have to figure out how to open a port on the router for the outside world. i did it before when building the house but that was three years ago now and i can't remember last week.

Carl

 

[bullitr]

Good luck Carl!

 

[Reefski's]

here are a couple of pix and video just before the breakdown.

tomorrow is the big day.

two videos




check out the Hydrogen Sulfide in the sandbed. we will get all the livestock out before disturbing the sand bed.
there is definitely denitrification occuring though. look at all the bubbles and way down in the bed too!

i am trying to get the web cam up and running. i think i have it. i will post the link in the morning.

Carl