Another Canadian Reef! 600 gallon Penninsula!
- Thread starter Cougarman
- Start date
muttley000
MTS Sufferer!
Your tank has come out great, looking forward to seeing it mature!
Thanks guys.
I'm going to let things sit for a while. Once I see some significant growth in the sps, I'll start stocking the tank more densely. I may get some more frags and try to grow them out in my frag tank.
The overflow is a black acrylic sheet with teeth siliconed to the tank glass. in the overflow chamber there are two standpipes made from a tube of pvc with a T adapter on top.
veloboy
New member
Cougar, do you have the exhaust fan in your canopy running 24/7 or is it attached to a humidistat? What are the rough dimensions of your sump room? I'm in the planning stages of setting up a larger tank/sump room but heat/humidity issues in Minnesota can cause all kinds of damage to homes during the winter months.
The exhaust fans in the canopy and basement are controlled by my profilux which has a humidistat attachment. The dehumidifier is its own entity and is set to run at above 40% humidity. The dehumidifier seems to run all day, the exhaust fans also run most of the day, but I do hear them turn off and on occasionally.
The sump room is an "L" shape. I'd say is 12 feet by 15 feet by 8 feet.
meshwheel
New member
I just found this thread! WOW! Great job Cougarman! Lots of work but very gratifying all the same!
It's simply amazes me how "Live Animals" in a static room just change things dramatically! You did a fantastic job!
I am sure as the tank matures it will stabilize even more and become very predictable. Once you get in sync with the tanks "uptake" of things it will get easier...
Congrats!
It's simply amazes me how "Live Animals" in a static room just change things dramatically! You did a fantastic job!
I am sure as the tank matures it will stabilize even more and become very predictable. Once you get in sync with the tanks "uptake" of things it will get easier...
Congrats!
wow i cant believe i missed this build:headwally: i have been checking in on your 600 plywood thread every so often. glad you posted this build.
your tank is awesome! i would love to see it sometime!!
is that the Blochii tang you got from me a couple of years ago?
nice to see he made the cut lol
your tank is awesome! i would love to see it sometime!!
is that the Blochii tang you got from me a couple of years ago?
nice to see he made the cut lol
Thanks. Yes it's the same fish. He's doing well. Has a nice turquoise colour to him. I'll post an update on the tank this weekend. It's been a couple months.
endlessblue
New member
Great job fellow Canadian, I'd love to check it out in person! Great job all around it looks perfect.
Andy
Andy
Amazing Project and what an awesome final product, lots of thought and process went into this build.
fantastic job on the tank, sump holding tanks everything when thought out, just makes us all very jealous as my wife would never agree to it.
Keep up the updates I will be following along.
Tony
fantastic job on the tank, sump holding tanks everything when thought out, just makes us all very jealous as my wife would never agree to it.
Keep up the updates I will be following along.
Tony
Hello everyone. Well it's been quite a while since I posted. There has been a lot of progress and also some drama with the tank.
The fish have been doing very well. Since my last post I've added an achilles tang and a mustard tang, as well as a bunch of little gobies and anthias. The achilles had a small bout of ich initially, but was eventually able to fight it off after a month or so. I had him eating flakes and pellets on day two and now readily accepts all forms of food. He's been in the tank about 2 months and I would consider him fully acclimated.
On the invertebrate side of the tank I've had a few issues. First, I set up my dosing pumps to dose the two part calcium and alkalinity supplements. I prefer this method because it requires less effort. I calculated out my dosing amount, but I forgot that the profilux doser defaults at three separate additions per day. So essentially I was dosing three times the necessary calcium and alkalinity. I noticed after about a week when the livestock started to show stress. The monti caps started to bleach over night and the sps lost colour and began a slow tissue necrosis. When I checked my calcium and hardness, my calcium was in the 700s and KH was around 18. It took quite a few water changes to bring the parameters back down. I now sit at 460 calcium and 10 KH. I was able to save a number of the sps by cutting off the areas of STN. They are currently on the rebound. This was pure stupidity on my part.
For the last month I've been dealing with low pH issues. Daytime pH was around 7.8 and night time dropped to 7.5. My 1st thought was it could be the calcium reactor, so I turn it off. After a week the pH was unchanged. I started thinking about the CO2 levels in my house. I purchased a CO2 meter and my levels are around 600 which is twice the normal outside levels, but still within normal limits for indoors in the winter. After a process of elimination I narrowed my focus to the biopellet reactors.
A few weeks ago I noticed my nitrates creeping up. The were getting close to 20ppm. I decided to combat it by increasing my biopellet use. I purchased two large biopellet reactors that could handle more flow and hold more pellets. They are made by Next Reef and don't contain any sponges to get clogged. I set up two XL reactors and filled each with 1L of biopellets. After about 3 weeks, the tanks nitrates and phosphates were undetectable.
In response to the low pH I tested the reactors effluent at only just slightly lower than the tank water. I decided to remove one reactor and see what happened. Daytime pH rose to about 8.0 and Night time to 7.8. I added Kalk to my top off water and am now able to maintain a nighttime pH of 8.05 and daytime of 8.25. I've been monitoring my nitrate and phosphate levels over the past week and they are still undetectable.
I was under the impression that you couldn't overdose biopellets, but apparently you can. It would seem to me bacteria would only be able to ferment the sugars if there was available nitrate and phosphate. Once those levels dropped below a certain point, bacterial fementation would cease. This is clearly not the case. I checked internet resources on the subject, but there is little to no info on this. All the manufacturers say is to direct the effluent to your skimmers.
I've been able to establish some stability again, and the livestock seem to be recovering. I still don't have all the colour that I had, but I'm confident it will gradually return over the next few weeks.
I've changed some of the aquascaping to provide more surface area to attach corals to. Unfortunately I was unable to take advantage of all the great boxing day deals we had at LFS due to the problems with my dosing. I have however taken advantage of other hobbyists breaking down there tanks. I've purchased a lot of home grown corals to cheat and give my tank a more mature look. Plus the corals area hardier in general which I needed with the recent instability of the tank.
Here are some current photos.
The fish have been doing very well. Since my last post I've added an achilles tang and a mustard tang, as well as a bunch of little gobies and anthias. The achilles had a small bout of ich initially, but was eventually able to fight it off after a month or so. I had him eating flakes and pellets on day two and now readily accepts all forms of food. He's been in the tank about 2 months and I would consider him fully acclimated.
On the invertebrate side of the tank I've had a few issues. First, I set up my dosing pumps to dose the two part calcium and alkalinity supplements. I prefer this method because it requires less effort. I calculated out my dosing amount, but I forgot that the profilux doser defaults at three separate additions per day. So essentially I was dosing three times the necessary calcium and alkalinity. I noticed after about a week when the livestock started to show stress. The monti caps started to bleach over night and the sps lost colour and began a slow tissue necrosis. When I checked my calcium and hardness, my calcium was in the 700s and KH was around 18. It took quite a few water changes to bring the parameters back down. I now sit at 460 calcium and 10 KH. I was able to save a number of the sps by cutting off the areas of STN. They are currently on the rebound. This was pure stupidity on my part.
For the last month I've been dealing with low pH issues. Daytime pH was around 7.8 and night time dropped to 7.5. My 1st thought was it could be the calcium reactor, so I turn it off. After a week the pH was unchanged. I started thinking about the CO2 levels in my house. I purchased a CO2 meter and my levels are around 600 which is twice the normal outside levels, but still within normal limits for indoors in the winter. After a process of elimination I narrowed my focus to the biopellet reactors.
A few weeks ago I noticed my nitrates creeping up. The were getting close to 20ppm. I decided to combat it by increasing my biopellet use. I purchased two large biopellet reactors that could handle more flow and hold more pellets. They are made by Next Reef and don't contain any sponges to get clogged. I set up two XL reactors and filled each with 1L of biopellets. After about 3 weeks, the tanks nitrates and phosphates were undetectable.
In response to the low pH I tested the reactors effluent at only just slightly lower than the tank water. I decided to remove one reactor and see what happened. Daytime pH rose to about 8.0 and Night time to 7.8. I added Kalk to my top off water and am now able to maintain a nighttime pH of 8.05 and daytime of 8.25. I've been monitoring my nitrate and phosphate levels over the past week and they are still undetectable.
I was under the impression that you couldn't overdose biopellets, but apparently you can. It would seem to me bacteria would only be able to ferment the sugars if there was available nitrate and phosphate. Once those levels dropped below a certain point, bacterial fementation would cease. This is clearly not the case. I checked internet resources on the subject, but there is little to no info on this. All the manufacturers say is to direct the effluent to your skimmers.
I've been able to establish some stability again, and the livestock seem to be recovering. I still don't have all the colour that I had, but I'm confident it will gradually return over the next few weeks.
I've changed some of the aquascaping to provide more surface area to attach corals to. Unfortunately I was unable to take advantage of all the great boxing day deals we had at LFS due to the problems with my dosing. I have however taken advantage of other hobbyists breaking down there tanks. I've purchased a lot of home grown corals to cheat and give my tank a more mature look. Plus the corals area hardier in general which I needed with the recent instability of the tank.
Here are some current photos.
Similar threads
