Mike's 300 Double-D

Amazing pics mike:)
Corals look really happy and i love their colors!
Thanks for sharing;)
Happy to see this tank is going strong for sooo long time!Great job!
 
Wow, it's hard to believe it's been over 3 weeks since our last update...

On November 1st, we hosted our annual Reef Party and Food Drive for our local food bank which included a Reef Raffle where tickets were exchanged for canned and prepackaged food items.

Some of the items included in the raffle were:
25g Marineland Reef Ready Cube
Tunze 6055 Controllable Nanostream Pump
ASM GC-3 Protein Skimmer (rated for 300g)
60lbs of Pukani Dry Rock
AquaBox Acclimation Box
I'mAReefer T-shirts
AquaCraft 50g bags of BioSea Salt mix
LiveAquaria $50 Gift Certificate
Premium Aquatics $25 Gift Certificates
Tiki Corals $50 Gift Certificate
Chester Aquaria $75 Gift Certificate
Hanna Instruments Alkalinity and Phosphate Checkers
Premium Aquatics Refractometers










On Nov 7th, we packed up the truck and headed over to the Central Virginia Food Bank (CVFB):







The food drive was an incredible success with the final weigh in at 1,325 pounds of food and an additional $200 donation which will provide an additional 1,000 meals to local families in need. Special thanks goes out to Angel and Kim (angelsbeamer), Bobby (falconerr), and Dave for their generous cash donations. We could not have pulled this off without the generous support from the following local and online vendors:

I'mAReefer, Premium Aquatics, Bulk Reef Supply, AquaCraft, Archetype, Tiki Corals, Gr8 Polyps, Chester Aquaria, Mid Atlantic Marine Aquarium Society (MAMAS), AquaBox, and LiveAquaria.

The Richmond Reef Club has a LOT to be proud of!
 
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Congratulations on the success of the food drive. And as always a beautiful FTS of your tank.

I will be in your neck of the woods this week as I will be with family in Alexandria and Upper Marlboro. If your not to stuffed from Thanksgiving and black Friday shopping, I would love to see your tank if time provides.
 
About the fts no words mike just......:inlove::inlove::inlove::inlove::inlove:
Loved the fish pics too...except the chromis(not your fault,i just hate them:p:p:p:p)
How beautiful can that butterfy can be??:uhoh2:
 
Wow, I've almost read through the entire thread, what a journey! I had to take a break from reading to post this... Your tank and pictures are spectacular! Great work. I'd be interested in more information about the technology when you get a chance. Are you doing anything special with your apex?
 
About the fts no words mike just......:inlove::inlove::inlove::inlove::inlove:
Loved the fish pics too...except the chromis(not your fault,i just hate them:p:p:p:
How beautiful can that butterfy can be??:uhoh2:

Hah! Thanks Mike. No love for the chromis, eh? They kill each other off, yes, but they're beautiful to look at, active in the water column, and really affordable! The Tink's is a very handsome boy. The more we watch him grow, the better we like him.

Wow, I've almost read through the entire thread, what a journey! I had to take a break from reading to post this... Your tank and pictures are spectacular! Great work. I'd be interested in more information about the technology when you get a chance. Are you doing anything special with your apex?

Thanks for the kind words. You've got patience to read through all this, which is a virtue for this hobby. You'll need it. As far as the Apex goes, we are not doing anything all that sophisticated. We built a DIY breakout box, and are controlling various processes based on sump water levels. We have a DIY setup for the auto top-off, and we're controlling that as well as the RO/DI unit.

Awesome job man

Thank you David. Appreciate you checking in! :)

Any chance of a video update?
Bjorn

Hi Bjorn. Funny you should mention - we just recently cut a new one.

Best viewed in HD.
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hi Mike,

thank your for posting the video.
I enjoyed watching it so much. :thumbsup:
Could need a dose of it each week :wavehand:

Bjorn
 
I would love to hear more on your experience with the scrubber. Why did you decide on the floating versus the hang on? Are you seeing measurable results with your PO4 and NO3?
 
Great Video!

Thank you for not re-using the music from the last video!

"Out on the coral Reef.....the fishies are a-dancing"

That song stuck in my head worse than "shake ...shake....shake it off, shake it off!!"

Thank you for the updates, beautiful work
 
Awesome video!

hi Mike, thank your for posting the video. I enjoyed watching it so much. :thumbsup: Could need a dose of it each week :wavehand: Bjorn

Great video, thanks for creating it so we all can enjoy.

Great Video! Thank you for not re-using the music from the last video! "Out on the coral Reef.....the fishies are a-dancing"
That song stuck in my head worse than "shake ...shake....shake it off, shake it off!!" Thank you for the updates, beautiful work

Thanks everyone for the feedback. We love making the videos and are glad you enjoy them. We just got another waterproof camera box and will be using it for the next video. And yes, Terry has already picked out a new song to go with the upcoming production :)

I would love to hear more on your experience with the scrubber. Why did you decide on the floating versus the hang on? Are you seeing measurable results with your PO4 and NO3?

The decision regarding the floating scrubber was based on logistics. The hang-on unit wouldn't really fit on our sumps and the floating model works great in our 150g vat. In terms of effectiveness, I think we've commented on this previously. Tracking PO4 levels (or any ion in the system) is a complex task to be sure. There are just so many things that contribute to the rise and fall of PO4, it would be really tough to say "yeah, since we started using ____, the PO4 levels have improved." So our evidence is very much circumstantial. The algae is growing very well in the scrubber; algae requires nutrients to grow; thus the scrubber is helping in removing nutrients. If we can find some scientific papers on how much nutrient by weight our algae consumes in order to grow to a net weight of x grams, we could start to quantify the export amounts.

That said, we are seeing pretty stable levels of PO4 (about 0.04 with our Hanna low range photometer). We don't see hair algae in the frag tank anymore like we were seeing previously, and that's a very good thing! In a heavily-stocked system like ours (where we feed liberally), we need a strategy to keep the nutrient levels down - and that means two big skimmers, algae scrubber, GFO, regular sand bed maintenance, and some light carbon dosing. It's a war and we're loaded for bear! :D
 
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Happy New Year! It's been a while since our last update. Thought we would share some pics and a short video taken with Terry's new camera...









And Terry's first try at 1080p video using the new camera:
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:D
 
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