A Capital Dream - 400g SPS build

[rockworm]

I completed the aquascape yesterday and moved all the coral into the 400g. There were a few rocks left in the 220 that I moved today so that the tank was void of all rock. Today I went fishing. I was not even going to attempt to get the fish, shrimp and snails with rock in the tank. This was going to be stressful for the livestock and me.

I have tried to move fish before and it is a challenge. The fewer obstructions, the better. I also knew that the 30" height of the tank left lots of room for the fish to escape the net that I was to use. I made the job easier by draining the water to a 12 inch height before I even attempted to catch the fish. It took about an hour and a half to remove all the fish, except the yellow coris wrasse. He buried himself in the sand and I did not see where he went. I further drained the tank to 3" of water. I put a few flakes and oyster eggs in the tank hoping to invoke a feeding response that would draw him out of the sand. Two hours later he was out swimming around. It only took a couple minutes to catch him and he joined the rest of the gang. I retrieved all living snails and even found a peppermint shrimp that I had not seen since we put it in the tank 5 months ago. I had put 3, but only one survive.

I have a harlequin shrimp that I use to control asterid starfish. I have had a few coral frags decimated by some of these. Today I was even scraping the tank walls for asterids, catching them with a net as they fell, to transfer them to the 400 so the harlequin won't starve. I have had him for 4 months. He has not eradicated them, but has certainly gained control over them.

Mission complete.

Here is what the tank looks like.

The next phase is to transfer over the remaining 2 MHs, the 6' Reefbrite XHO blue LED, and the Tunze powerheads. I have to make a few changes to the timings in the Profilux controller.

 

[rockworm]

I was thinking about the 220g this afternoon and, for a brief period, felt a little sad that I was shutting it down. We have had that tank for about 6 years and have been though a lot with it. It started with fish and softies, went to FOWLR that later had a velvet infestation because I did not QT a fish. I lost abut $1500 in fish in a matter of a few days. It was later reborn as a mixed reef with LPS and SPS. I was successful with the SPS and we made the decision to upsize to the 400 with an SPS focus. The old DT is nothing more than a material item, but there are memories and lessons there that I will always cherish, and use, to forward my SPS obsession. I intend to throw a few LPS in it, just to keep those SPS guys on their toes.

The 400 still needs to be skinned and there will be more adjustments as time shows areas for improvement. The room still has to be organized for the freezers, computers and entertainment centre, so lots is left to be done.

This thread is far from done, so keep checking in and thanks for reading.

 

[Usernam Invalid]

Great job on the scape I really like all the shelf rock

 

[rockworm]

Great job on the scape I really like all the shelf rock

Thank you very much. I will admit that I dislike aquascaping the most of any item in the build process. I always seem to be short of space to mount corals because I was built leaning walls that required gluing a frag or small colony to some unforgiving locaton.

Shelf rock has made all the difference in the world, this time. Once I decided what shelves were to be showcase, I built the structure to accomodate them. I am not very artistic but when I stood back, they looked good to me. I also considered the fact that the corals will grow and hide most of the aquascape down the road. I still have a dozen small shelves that I will use later to fill in some of the gaps (centre back of the tank).

 

[Rybren]

It's looking good Ward.

 

[reefmutt]

Looking great, Ward
Nice tapering steps. When it all grows in, it'll look very natural.
Glad to see no more leaks!

 

[Rybren]

Ward, where'd you pick up the genny? I need one for up at the cottage.

 

[rockworm]

Ward, where'd you pick up the genny? I need one for up at the cottage.

Canadian Tire. They are usually a little overpriced on most things, until they have a sale. Very good prices then. I lucked out last week when mine was on sale.

Lowes and Home Depot also have gennys.

 

[rockworm]

Looking great, Ward
Nice tapering steps. When it all grows in, it'll look very natural.
Glad to see no more leaks!

Thanks Matt. I am hoping it will look somewhat natural. The tank is holding up well and I have no leaks in the plumbing.

 

[Rybren]

Canadian Tire. They are usually a little overpriced on most things, until they have a sale. Very good prices then. I lucked out last week when mine was on sale.

Lowes and Home Depot also have gennys.

Thanks. I've looked at them all - even Costco sells them. It was the mention of a sale that caught my eye

 

[Ojos22]

What an amazing build. I am very impressed with your ingenuity and patience. Subscribed for sure!

Did you mention before that the 400g is piped with your 220g all in one system? Can you post any pics of that and what is going on behind the scenes in the sump room? Thank you so much for sharing!

 

[rockworm]

What an amazing build. I am very impressed with your ingenuity and patience. Subscribed for sure!

Did you mention before that the 400g is piped with your 220g all in one system? Can you post any pics of that and what is going on behind the scenes in the sump room? Thank you so much for sharing!

Thank you and welcome to the ride. :thumbsup:

The swamp (basement) has changed very little from Post 13 other than the wires have been cleaned up a little since the addition of the three 20 amp circuits.

The 220g is being torn down soon, but I utilized a common sump and a single strong return pump. One of the drains in the 400 was plumbed directly into the 220g drain with a tee and a ball valve. Now that all the livestock hjas been transferred, I will shut off the circulation for a few hours to physicallt cut and cap the old 220 drain.

I can connect any number of tanks to the sump. The water from all tanks drain into the 90g skimmer/refugium tank. The water in the sump moves to a Reeflo Hammerhead external pump which sends the water to the tanks from manifolds built in the return plumbing.

I plan to get more pictures of the behind the scenes fish room and plumbing, but I will wait until I fully disconnect the 220.

 

[rockworm]

I took a little time today for some basic tests. I had not done any in the last week and I am particularly interested in phosphate levels since I added the shelf rock. The phosphates have been running around .06 previously. Todays test gave me a .13 reading (Hanna Phosphorous ULR converted). This may be from the new rock or it may be that the Rowaphos has been fully exhausted. I cleaned out the reactor and put added fresh Rowaphos. I tested nitrates and they are around 10. In the past, they always read zero. I feed quite heavily so the coral colours were not impacted.

I will be keeping a closer eye on the nitrates and phosphates. I do have a couple corals that have faded. I believe this is a result of the additional light provided by the T5s. I have moved these corals lower in the tank to see if the fading stops.

The alk in the tank tested at 6.5. This is a little lower than I want so I am bringing it up using baking soda, then adjusting the calcium reactor. I would like it between 7 and 8 dkh. This should combine well with a NO3 target <5 and PO4 target of <=.05.

 

[rockworm]

Updates may continue to be a little slow. There is something about the olympic games that grabs my attention.

I am very proud of our Canadian contingent and I think I am wearing out my TV remote trying to watch all the events.

I tested the water today and the alk is at 6.9. I want to get it to 7.5 so will continue to add baking soda and fine tune the calcium reactor. The phosphates have dropped to .055 and nitrates are down to < than 5 so I am happy with those numbers at present. I have a diatom bloom in the tank, due to the new dry rock I suspect, and plan to closely monitor the NO3 and PO4.

Finally, and totally non-reef related, my wife (Susan) and I celebrated our 28 wedding anniversary. She has been my rock over the years and fully supports my reef passion. I only hope that others are as blessed as I am. [emoji106]

 

[Rybren]

Happy Anniversary Ward. I believe Susan told me that she wants some rare and exotic fish as an anniversary gift from you.

 

[rockworm]

Thanks Jerry. I think there will be an exotic fish someday. Not so sure about $rare$. ☺

 

[rockworm]

Updates may continue to be a little slow. There is something about the olympic games that grabs my attention.

I guess I am out of excuses for the lack of updates, now that the 2016 Summer Olympics has ended. First, I am very proud of our Canadian athletes. They represented Canada with honour and brought home more medals than was originally predicted.

I did a series of water tests today and this is the current standing:

Salinity 35 (1.026 sg)
Alk - 8.2 dKh
CA - 450
Mg - 1350
P04 - 0.07
N03 - < 1 (cannot detect colour in low range Salifert)
PH - 8.23

My Alk is a little higher than the 7.5 - 8.0 that I am targeting. I am still messing with the CA reactor and have become more aggressive in my adjustments. I was too conservative in increasing the effluent rate and CO2 bubble count in the past and always seemed to come up short of my target. I would add baking soda to bring up the Alk, wait a day and adjust the CARX. I believe I am now close to my target and should have it dialed in soon.

Ca and Mg are fine so I am not worried about them.

Phosphates are a bit of a problem. They were down to .05 a few days ago but are now rising. I only test once, sometimes twice a week and will change out the Rowaphos if it continues to climb. I may end up having to add nitrates in order to get that N03/P04 ratio. I am a little nervous about doing Nitrates and the impact on the Acros but I cannot get a measurable level of nitrates.

 

[percula99]

Phosphates are a bit of a problem. They were down to .05 a few days ago but are now rising.

I am wrestling with several issues of my own, phosphate being one of them. I am considering adding a refugium. Have you considered that?

 

[rockworm]

Over the past couple weeks, I finally managed to increase the flow in the tank. I was using two Maxspect Gyre 150's but have since added my Tunze powerheads. I moved the Gyres to the back wall and mounted them vertically. I had one on each end but they kept blowing the sand so that I had a 1.5' x 6" bare bottom in the middle front of the tank with an 8" sand dune on either side. of the bb.

I mounted the two Tunze 6101 (3170gph each) on the back wall and one Tunze 6055 (1450 gph each) on each end wall. These, along with teh Maxspect Gyre 150 (5000 gph ea) provide lots of water movement. :lol2: I will be connecting the Tunze to the Profilux controller and will be buying the new Gyre controller to convert the 150s to 250s. They should be here in Canada early September. This will provide more randomness in the flow pattern after all are connected.

 

[rockworm]

I am wrestling with several issues of my own, phosphate being one of them. I am considering adding a refugium. Have you considered that?

I do have a refugium and am growing caulerpa in there. I had chaeto with the caulerpa, but the latter out competed the former. I have not bothered to change it out and harvest every couple of weeks. I carbon dose with vinegar and have two Marinepure 8" x 8" x 4" plus 8 litres of Seachem matrix. This, I believe is eating up the nitrates, so the phosphates wont come down because of the too-low nitrates.

I am seriously considering moving to the Aquaforest products because I want to run an ULNS with their products. I have seen some very nice tanks that use AF products and would love to see the same results for my acros. I wont be doing this until sometime in September. We are going on vacation next week, so I wont make any major changes to the system until I get back.