ReefRescue
New member
About a couple of months ago I drove up to Northridge in CA after responding to a craigslist add to get a tank. after a couple of interesting exchanges my girlfriend and I decided to make the drive. once we got there and I purchased the tank the owner that sold me tank asked me a couple of questions about his newly built setup and since it was dark I looked at it briefly to realize that someone had assembled a supposedly high end setup like a kinder-garden kid with his first lego set, accept the kid would probably be more creative due to his curiosity and interest.
So after a few minutes of looking He asked me what I think? the original question was "If You could look at my chiller and tell me why its not working?"
I had to bluntly reply that "he is probably not interested in what I have to say." considering I could see that he has spent thousands and now he has an absolutely dysfunctional system. After he insisted I told him that the people working on this tank are not qualified to even touch it and are not at all knowledgeable about setting up a reef after I showed him and explained a few things that where just simply crazy. His next response out of nowhere was if I would be able to fix the problem and get things functional, and knowing that I live about an hour away without traffic and the fact that I am absolutely stumped with work and short of time I told him that I can't but that I am willing to come and look at the system more carefully during the day so I can give him a better Idea. Once I went there during the day I realized how bad everything was from oceans motions being setup 15' away from the tank with flex barb lines 90 elbows and metal fasteners that leaked to a 1850 gallon return that went through a chiller that was not primed and just blasted in the middle of the tank from the overflow facing the front that started spilling and splashing water off the top when I primed it. So feeling bad and Also wanting the challenge of making things write for a guy that was getting charged a crazy amount of money for service on his previous tank to have a bunch of brown looking coral and hair algae I made Larry a deal, that I would agree to build his tank in one condition that he would have to become a more active hobbyist and start by getting to understand how a reef functions and what are the necessary things that are needed. so upon agreement and a handshake I knew that this is going to be a big project and so I started doing a lot of homework and also gave him the first step which was Randy's Reef Chemistry.
And so began the saga of the 225gal rebuild
So after a few minutes of looking He asked me what I think? the original question was "If You could look at my chiller and tell me why its not working?"
I had to bluntly reply that "he is probably not interested in what I have to say." considering I could see that he has spent thousands and now he has an absolutely dysfunctional system. After he insisted I told him that the people working on this tank are not qualified to even touch it and are not at all knowledgeable about setting up a reef after I showed him and explained a few things that where just simply crazy. His next response out of nowhere was if I would be able to fix the problem and get things functional, and knowing that I live about an hour away without traffic and the fact that I am absolutely stumped with work and short of time I told him that I can't but that I am willing to come and look at the system more carefully during the day so I can give him a better Idea. Once I went there during the day I realized how bad everything was from oceans motions being setup 15' away from the tank with flex barb lines 90 elbows and metal fasteners that leaked to a 1850 gallon return that went through a chiller that was not primed and just blasted in the middle of the tank from the overflow facing the front that started spilling and splashing water off the top when I primed it. So feeling bad and Also wanting the challenge of making things write for a guy that was getting charged a crazy amount of money for service on his previous tank to have a bunch of brown looking coral and hair algae I made Larry a deal, that I would agree to build his tank in one condition that he would have to become a more active hobbyist and start by getting to understand how a reef functions and what are the necessary things that are needed. so upon agreement and a handshake I knew that this is going to be a big project and so I started doing a lot of homework and also gave him the first step which was Randy's Reef Chemistry.
And so began the saga of the 225gal rebuild
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