Maroun 150g Build Thread

[maroun.c]

ORA Green bird nest looking a bit lighter in colour still with great PE so hoing this is the stress ofthe move:

Superman Montipora
this one seems to be encrusting down on the plug instead of growing up however I feel some change on those bumps on it so hopefully it'll start to take up from there:

ORA blue Accro

Green Accro growing slowly

with flash to better see the crab in it

Frags on the rack are showing growth signs. next week they go down to the frag tank with 10K lighting hoping for faster growth.

 

[maroun.c]

last pic for today

Show stopper SPS rock in the tank.

some questions:

Should I take some of the picturd SPS to other places than that rock as they all mostly gets strong flow and strong lighting except for the ORA green birdneest which is in a rather medium flow area?

I very rarely see very little PE on that blue accro is that an indication of anything? do you think I should experiment with different position or jsut let it get used to where it is (high light directly under 22kGieseman 250 W MH and 14k and actinic T5? I previously had a larger blue accro that never showed any polyps ofr months than it all RTnd in 1-2 days?

 

[maroun.c]

Help needed in redesigning the sump:

As mentioned before I am having problems with my new skimmer as it did not fit in the skimmer partition of the sump and had to be placed in the return section where water volume varies which affects its function as well as cause it to overflow each time the return pump is stopped. Also it blows a ton of microbubblbes which are making their way to the tank.
so the plan is to redising the sump. At the same time as I will be moving in one year when our appt is finished I will have a separate fishroom in attick or basement which migh contain all the parts that don't need daily inspection such as Refugium, frag tank,... So I'm trying to avoid a 3rd remake of the sump after the move. I have 66x18 inch of in stand space. I'm considering leaving some space for ATO and two part or maybe Calcium reactor after the move. so sump will be max 44 inch long 18 inch wide. would you suggest having it a 2 part only sump: drain with skimmers and then return area where I could place a small tank to use as refugium or frag if needed or jus take it out in the futur if not needed to have a bigger return area? or is it better to have a 3 parts sump and then use the remaining part for duplicate refugium or frag tank? what minimum volume would I need for an efficient refugium for a 150 G tank anyway ?would it be wise to set the elctricals of the tank in a separate closet in the stand or is that risky?
thanks for any suggestion or recommendations you can come up with especially if you can post pics of your sump setups with/out ATO Rfuge frag two part or Ca ractors....
last questions what size ATO would you recommend for this tank?
Thanks

 

[michika]

In regards to your comment on your purple SPS. I have a few similar pieces that have very little polyp extension, regardless of flow location. You can certainly try moving yours around and see if there is an improvement, however sometimes, some SPS just don't have a lot of extension.

 

[melev]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=14917683#post14917683 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by maroun.c
Help needed in redesigning the sump:

As mentioned before I am having problems with my new skimmer as it did not fit in the skimmer partition of the sump and had to be placed in the return section where water volume varies which affects its function as well as cause it to overflow each time the return pump is stopped. Also it blows a ton of microbubblbes which are making their way to the tank.
so the plan is to redising the sump. At the same time as I will be moving in one year when our appt is finished I will have a separate fishroom in attick or basement which migh contain all the parts that don't need daily inspection such as Refugium, frag tank,... So I'm trying to avoid a 3rd remake of the sump after the move. I have 66x18 inch of in stand space. I'm considering leaving some space for ATO and two part or maybe Calcium reactor after the move. so sump will be max 44 inch long 18 inch wide. would you suggest having it a 2 part only sump: drain with skimmers and then return area where I could place a small tank to use as refugium or frag if needed or jus take it out in the futur if not needed to have a bigger return area? or is it better to have a 3 parts sump and then use the remaining part for duplicate refugium or frag tank? what minimum volume would I need for an efficient refugium for a 150 G tank anyway ?would it be wise to set the elctricals of the tank in a separate closet in the stand or is that risky?
thanks for any suggestion or recommendations you can come up with especially if you can post pics of your sump setups with/out ATO Rfuge frag two part or Ca ractors....
last questions what size ATO would you recommend for this tank?
Thanks

A sump that is 44 x 18 x 16 would be very nice. Skimmer section 15" wide, return 12" wide, refugium 15" wide (13" high).

The refugium should be 10% of the tank's volume, or 15gallons.

If you use an internal pump, you probably will want to use Eheim. A 1262 would be more than enough, if not too much pump.

For the ATO, it would be good if it could hold enough water to top off the tank for 3-4 days before needing a refill.

As I said before, don't worry about a frag tank. Enjoy your corals in your reef. If you want to have some place to quarantine new arrivals, it shouldn't be part of your system anyway.

The Calcium Reactor should fit in the return section in the middle.

 

[maroun.c]

Thanks for the info Marc.
Frag Tank would not be part of the system and only to store duplicates as my worst nightmare would be to loose all my corals for whatever reaon and have to start recolecting again.
plan is to keep frag tank very simple with only frags 1 -2 fish and Turbofloater multi SL slimmer that I have for filtration.
Coral Q tank will be even a smaller tank with Turbofloater 750 (old smaller skimmer that I also have)
Totally agree taht those should not be part of the system so guess I will have them out of the stand.
So guess I will go with your measurments
One last question about Q tank, as my skimmer needs to be in 7-8 inches of water only, would you make the skimmer sectin only 7-8 inches high (which will lower also the water level in the return section) or would you make it higher and put the skimmer on a stand and how high would I make it.
Thanks

 

[melev]

Either choice is fine. Just remember that more water that is in your sump, the less water it can hold during a power/pump failure.

I usually make the baffle 9" tall, so if you copy that, you'd want a 1.5" stand under your skimmer.

 

[maroun.c]

Thanks Marc.
guess I'll follow the 9-10 inch baffle height.
up to the drawing board to se what can be done with current sump or if i should build a new one.

 

[maroun.c]

Some small updates to keep this thread alive.

While waiting for the replacement motor of my OM Squirt to arrive Decided to go with Marc suggestion and solder the cut cable, as predicted ended up damaging the second cable (which was unaffected) few more trials and I succeded in fixing both, doesn't look nice or pro but works.

Added some hot glue to it to seal it against water splashes:

got it running on the tank and next morning (14 days wait in total) received the replacement part. I'll confess that I was to lazy to install the new one. and its still running so far. The bad part that the 40 usd motor ended up costing 28 usd more in shipping and 4 more in customes and taxes on customs which will rule out further Mail orders I guess.

 

[maroun.c]

was time to take my turbofloater for a cleaning so took some comparison pics with the Hurricone:
size difference (somehow looks much bigger in real life than in this pic)

performance difference
the turbofloater seems to be skimming less and less, don't really know if the Hurricone is shutting it down and if I should take it out however I'm just keeping it as back up when I'm on travel.

Hurricone is still a bit on the wet side however before the water level issue in the sump is solved theres nothign Ican do, do you think this is acceptable skimmate?

And Turbofloater after cleaning and a vinegar bath for 24 hours.

took out the shrimp that Marc mentioned was a camel back instead of peperrmint so with these better pic do we have a confirmed Camel shrimp ID?

 

[maroun.c]

And a new addition.
was opening a bit more in the LFS I'll still give it a week to get used to the new tank before worrying, Hiowever I'm worried about the rock that it's attached to as it seems that with some growth the clam will be jamemd in the rock and i will not open anymore? or will it detach itself? do you think I should brake the rock to give it more space?

and one from the side to show more how close it is to the rock:

 

[maroun.c]

Got this goniopora from a friend. had been fully closed for weeks as it was munched on by his powder blue (same as a alveopora and GSP) opened up the next morning but since then has lost the bottom 2 rows of polyps, have it under low medium light, medium flow any info on what I could try? I konw how hard they are and don't have much expectations to be honest.

 

[maroun.c]

Frag tank is now near fully setup. Still need to tidy up the cables and add one more actinic fluorecent on it. lighting is 150 W 10 K MH by Sun master, got this bulb from holland and was very surprised at how much whiter it is than 6500 K that I tried.
Couple of questions:
will 2 actinic and 1 14 K T8 fluorescents be enough supplementation on such a small tank to avoid corals browning up? should I add more blue? also as you can see in the pics due to limited space the halide is only 3-4 inches above water. do you think that with very close acclimation I can put corals 3-4 inches under water that is 6-7 inches directly below the 150 Halide?
reason for the frag tank is to have a duplicate of my corals in case something happens and also to house small frags or pieces I brakeup by mistake as I endup losing them in the tank or they endup being burnt by other corals when they fall... Plan is to have this tank run independant from my tnak when I can fit a skimmer to it in this tight place or outside so that any disease affecting my corals doesn't spread to it.

 

[maroun.c]

And to endup with some pics:

Recently added Favia begging for food after lights out:

Recently added Favia begging for food after lights out:

One of the frags I got from my trip to Ohio change for a very light colour to greenish and is encrusting nicely. Any idea what type of Acro this is:

My BTA clone which disappeared seems to have shrinked a lot and is in hole in this rock (found it while taking out a crab from a hole above it)wonder why it shrinked so mucha nd if it'll make it.

Carpet decided to open fully after being wrapped on the rocks for few weeks it's grown much more than I expected and can touch all those corals. hoping it''ll close a bit soon or else I'll have to decrease feedings even more and maybe relocate it.

actinics:

Pavona frags:
Supposably peacefull but as shows these can sting:

And finally a couple of FTS that I took before traveling. even after 3 weeks post the move and multiple coral repositioning I still hait the Fresh look of the tank as it lost this established tank look it had. Rockwork is a bit better (interms of being more able to position corals without them falling down) but still I'm not happy with the scaping. Do you think I should get more rock and fill up or at least lift the rt side a bit?

Tnaks seemed to be doing fine after the move except for one RBTA that has shrinked and loss some colour just like with the first move. I'm hoping I can save it. Also it's clone isn't looking fine, then I struggled a bit with parameters lately as after the move my slainity jumped a bit with excessive water additions with a miscalibrated refractometer. when I brought it down my readings went a bit down too which could have been due to the freshwater changes or tos ome growth I've seen on corals:

Salinity 1.025
Alk 9.3
Ca 330 brought up to 380 and still going up
Mg 1130 up to 1200 and still going up.
PH 8.1
Phosphate 0
Nitrates 25 and that's the most worrying thing now. I thought that the addition of the biger skimmer and decreased feedings will not allow nitrates to climb but they did. I'm guessing this is because my sand bed was disturbed/killed in the move. my macroalga in the refugium is picking up however nothing really impressive. do you think it's safe to wait a bit while DSB becomes active again or will I have to resort to vodka dosing?
I can get some Prodibio biodigest do you think that could help without vodka addition? I would relly like to avoid dosing vodka or any other thing that needs daily tank checks for side effects as I have a hectic 7 weeks full travel schedule being at home only 1-2 days a week
Tanks for any suggestions on this.

 

[melev]

That repair to the OM device wasn't so bad. Working with a soldering iron, you do have to be kind of quick, and practicing on scrap wiring is always good. (Like anything, right?)

Seeing one skimmer shut down another one isn't a big surprise. Your Octopus is running a bit on the wet side, so just watch salinity. Each time it is dumped out, you are replenishing with RO water. Salinity can drop over time, so you may need to add replacement saltwater once in a while (weekly, monthly... testing will help you determine when and if this is necessary).

Definitely a Camelback shrimp.

You can target feed that hidden BTA by squirting some mysis in the hole for now. That's what I would do.

Gonipora need to be fed, and fed regularly. Cyclop-eeze is one type of small particulate food that works. Oyster Eggs is another. It may be easier to feed it out of the tank where the livestock can't steal it or bother the coral when it tries to eat, but I've seen a gorgeous red gonipora that was huge (almost soccerball-size) that was in a system that was only fed flake food daily. I was really surprised. Red ones are easier to care for, in case you didn't know that. They seem to be more hardy.

A 50% water change will cut the nitrates in half, hopefully. Its up to you if you want to resolve that number with water changes or dosing vodka.

If you like the rockwork the way it is, leave it. If you want to raise up the right side and get a good deal on more LR, go for it.

The color over your prop-section is really all about personal preference. Some corals brown out just because of being moved, but as they get used to their new home, they color up again.

 

[SunnyX]

The tank and new additions look great! :thumbsup:

 

[maroun.c]

Thanks for the info Marc.

Thanks Sonny

 

[maroun.c]

guys need your help chosing a controller, would love to go with an Aquacontroller however it seems it still got a month to be out and then some more time before a 220 V version is released, still got to buy X10 controllers a control interface (PL7213 and a controle module(AM12U) for each item I need to turn on or off as the DC4 and 8 will not work with 220 V. still can't find those X10s on line so if anyone has a link to them or konws their price I would appreciate a link.
basically the cost of those and add to that customs and taxes (which will cost as much as the controller and additions) will rule out the Apex so I'll be lucky if the aquacontroller 3 will still be affordable. most likely I'll have to switch to another controller so any advice on which to go with will be appreciated. currently considering IKS and Profilux but open to suggestions.
Will need controller to:
- control lighting (3 separate MHs, T5s and moonlights) can run moonlights and T5s on timers if I'll alwaysneed to buy additional controlers however will need the controller to shut down the halides in case water temp is really high.
-Control heater and chiller
-Control Ca reactor
-controls fans depending on water temp (can be run on timer too)
-Send SMS or emails in case temp PH ORP... are way off
- Will need it to be very reliable especially with my travel schedule.
thanks for any help

 

[melev]

Have you had a chance to check out www.aquariumcontrollers.com yet? I've not been on that site in a while, but the idea was brilliant. It puts all of them side by side, and you can get some of the basics determined to rule out what you don't want.

 

[maroun.c]

Thanks for the link Marc. This site also offers themanuals of those controllers, downloaded some which I'll check on tomorrows flight to get a better feel of their programming and interface... So far it looks like Profilux will come as fully compatible with 220V including power bars and no need for any add on items that I have to find myself which is a great plus. Aquacontroler 3 will need some X10s which I can't find even on a link to their sellers (suck at searching things out) eventually the price of those X10s and how nice/easy the profilux will be will be the deciding factor.
Decisions Decisions.....