Finally have a large tank... 280g Deltec Custom Reef Tank

still haven't seen that crab and the shrimp trick didn't take. oh well.

so a couple pictures.

What do you think this is? Mini Urchin? Its tiny and was on the glass.
DSC_0002-2.jpg


And some growth pictures on those two frags.
DSC_0006-2.jpg

DSC_0007-1.jpg


BTW I hooked up the chiller today. Works very well but we'll see how it holds up over the next week.
 
yeah I took it for granted to, what a pain in the ***. Luckily I've found a good, consistent, and most importantly fast source now.

I have a new favorite game, I call it 'Old pump new pump'
Hammerhead Gold replacing a Deltec 8070
DSC_0001-6.jpg

DSC_0002-1.jpg


Old Calcium reactor reborn as a sulfur nitrate reactor
DSC_0004-3.jpg


Water Change tank and extra volume
DSC_0006-3.jpg

Drain (not finished plumbing yet)
DSC_0007-2.jpg

RO and Airline feed
DSC_0008-2.jpg


Manifold for water change and chiller (currently in circulation setting)
DSC_0010-4.jpg
 
Last edited:
Looking great thirschmann - can I ask you if your bluegrilled angel give u any problems with your SPS/ LPS??

Thinking of getting one for my upcoming tank.... :rolleyes:
 
Neither of my angels has been any trouble at all. But I only added the Majestic because I got him with that tank and the previous owner assured me that he never nipped at his corals, usually they have a pretty bad reputation.

I've been following the progress of your tank, things are looking really go. I'm looking forward to your next update :D
 
Thanks thirschmann - might pick up 1 this weekend and place in my current tank to see if I get lucky...and if not, then he is staying in my current tank as my current tank will be converted into a FWLR tank...
 
sounds like a plan. I really like him and he has been solid so far. Hasn't picked at corals and leaves his tank mates alone for the most part. Great coloration as well.
 
hammerhead plumbed up and rocking out of one 1" wavy sea plus. The flow is a little restricted so I guess its pushing between 3500 and 4000gph which is over the units rating but it's working perfectly. I'm very happy with the flow right now BTW, bumped it up to a new level. I might take out the tunzes now.

Have it plumbed up with a airline intake so for 1 minute every 3 hours it will inject air into the pump. In a test run it works great... thanks again Weatherson for another great idea.
 
Thats pretty good for that little pump. I take it there not that cheap. I want to ad some more flow to my tank but dont want to drain to drill it. I might just get a couple tunzes. I was thinking of getting another pump for a manifold never though about the deltec pumps, huumm..

Tank is looking nice....Let me know if you ever need someone to take some of that sum of that equipment in WP..ahahahahahhha
 
The deltec HLP pumps are pretty good and they make one that's about the same size that pushes 1866 with 7.8 meters of head pressure. The deltec ran in the tank for 5 years before crapping out now because of a wet controller but the other one is running well. It has a interval setting and is nice and quite.

Tank still has some dismal looking corals but most are bouncing back very nicely already. Interesting in 4x 60" Solaris H4? :D
 
Whew... big balling lights..Sure I iwllo test them out for you til you get back...I can makes sure they work .hahahahah LOL..
 
my friend 60" H4 fixture has overheating problems due to the fans burning. so hopefully this is not a flaw for all H4. i setup this tank 5 months ago and all 3 fans on ballast went out about the 3rd month. good choice on the sequence as they are very reliable and great customer service too.
 
Thanks Joe, appreciate it.
1) Think I have 2x 12k Reeflux bulbs right now and I also have a 6ft 54w T5 with a unknown bulb, about to replace it with a Deltec Pure Actinic. I also have a 6ft Deltec 2x 80w t5 fixture on order but the first one I got didn't work at all so I had to send it back. So I'm waiting for that right now.
2) I run the Halides for 8 hours a day and the t5's for 11.


Thanks Bart, its definitely worth it to invest in a decent camera. I used to be into photography and got back into it when I got a tank, I quickly upgrade from a point and shot to a nikon d80 which I have been very happy with.

Encrusting depends on the coral and conditions. Color change goes the same way for the most part. Right now everything is having issues but when things are good it can be a couple of days before you see a base go down. Apparently corals encrust faster to super glue and epoxy then rock, but I haven't had enough experience to say that for sure. I have a tiny blue milli that has been in for about 3 months now and its hardly encrusted at all, but I was told its extremely slow growing as well... weird for a milli.


I'll post some update pictures soon
 
Hammerhead and wavy sea review
-Awesome!
-My bare bottom has never been so bare.
-I have been siphoning out crap from one corner every day as the extra water movement is finally dislodging a lot of the crap in the rock and rock work and now places it nicely into a little pile in the corner.
-Corals are making a come back fairly quickly.

Air intake review
-ORP finally jumped up a little (I know its not a exact parameter but I'm happy with an increase from how low its been since the RO dump). Its been at a worrying 190 and now its up at a slightly less worrying 270. My previous tank register around the mid 200's the entire time it ran and everything flourished, might try re-calibrating the probe.
-Doesn't seem to bother the fish at all
-Saw a few corals with damage shedding some "slime" during the process which was taking up into the water column quickly
-And best of all one of my tunzes shoots air bubble rings every few seconds during the process which is AWESOME!

I'll shoot a video of my water movement once I find a camera that can do so. Stupid fancy D80 can't take videos obviously.
 
magnesium is back up at 1350 after dosing for 4 days using some magnesium crystals in RO/DI dosed 500mL a day over 12 hours. I'll cut back but keep on dosing this way for a few more days to keep it in check.

Calcium is at 350 so I needed to bump up the reactor output even though alkalinity is higher up at 9.

Started a water change 2 days ago and letting it aerate for another day before opening back up. I can't believe I never set this kind of water change container up before as its significantly easier then everything I've tried. Very happy with it indeed.

Sulfur Nitrate reactor is back down to 0 at a 2DPS rate and I've bumped that up to about 4DPS now. I run the output through a tiny reactor I bought a long time ago that hold's about a .5L of media. Added some coral skeleton, left over magnesium chips, and some ARM media to it to bring up the pH.



Corals are looking much happier and are making a solid comeback all around. Fish are happy as ever.
 
Thanks Bart.

I feed my reactors off of 2 separate tees that come of my refugium and fluidized reactor feeds. The tees reduced the eheim 16mm pipe down to whatever airline size is. Works pretty well.

Just to make it as controllable as possible I have been thinking of hooking it up to my dosing pump though. Haven't tried that yet and even though its not as constant you could have it going every 2 seconds or so which should be about the same. Not sure about that yet as I haven't tried it yet.
 
Nitrate reactor was stepped up again today. Tank nitrates are down to 2-5 which I'm very happy about. They are down from 75ppm a few weeks ago.

Did my water change without a problem at all. My redox always drops significantly regardless of how long I aerate the change water but it pops up in a few days. It drops almost 100 points though which I'm not happy about.

Also hookup up my CA reactor to my dosing pump today. I think I did the calculations right. Here it goes, about 14 drops per 1mL out of my reactor. At just about 100DPM that should put me at about 10,280mL per day. As the aquatronica dosing only can do 1000mL programs at a time I've programed it to dose 1000mL over 10 time increments during the day which should get me close to my goal. Let me know if I screwed up!

It is working pretty well BTW. With the way I have it set now it doses every 3 seconds and give me a constant drip rate of about 1.5DPS. It is a very constant drip which is nice as I had some issues with that before off of a T. Can't say how well I think it works get but the drip rate is very consistent so far.
 
Back
Top