My 500 + gallon system. Last 13 years to now. Build, Aquascaping & more. Lots of pics

[Marc]

There is little to no sand under the rock work as I have my recirc pump returning under the rocks and blowing the sand and debris out. around the entire overflow box. As far as what I will replace it with.. I had no sand on the bottom a few years back and I really liked that from and maintenance perspective. If I do put sand back in, it will be a medium fine sand and just enough to cover the bottom. Less than an inch and probably closer to a half an inch deep.

Good choice Scott, thats what I ended up doing. I aswell just covered the entire bottom with only 1/2" of special grade reef sand. I have never liked deep sand beds and have never experienced any benefits from one either. I like to keep it simple. I also removed my refugium and have received even better results! It seemed that my Chaeto would refuse to grow in my fuge and my deep sand bed in there just collected and trapped debris. The last refugium I had, the deep sand bed turned into concrete and I had to break it apart to throw it out. No more refugiums or deep sand beds for me.

Marc

 

[Marc]

Scott,

How is the ick situation coming along? Any updates? Have you been able to see if your ick situation is fully resolved yet? I just bought a Unicorn Tang like the one you have in your 500 gallon system and it seems that I may have seen a couple ick spots on it even after quaranting for 6 weeks! The Unicorn was fine and showed no visible signs of ick until he went into the display tank four days ago. Did your Unicorn make it out ok? Im a little worried now and puzzeled as well.

Marc

 

[slief]

Scott,

How is the ick situation coming along? Any updates? Have you been able to see if your ick situation is fully resolved yet? I just bought a Unicorn Tang like the one you have in your 500 gallon system and it seems that I may have seen a couple ick spots on it even after quaranting for 6 weeks! The Unicorn was fine and showed no visible signs of ick until he went into the display tank four days ago. Did your Unicorn make it out ok? Im a little worried now and puzzeled as well.

Marc

Marc,
Ich is all gone and has been for over a month now. My fish population has been steadily increasing again. All fish have been QT'd before going into the display. I lost 2 of my 3 vlamingis as a result of ich and the fast salinity reduction. I ended up loosing about 70% of my fish but those that made it are strong and healthy now and I wont have the lasting issues of copper treatment. I still feel I chose the best alternative and while it would have been great to be able to catch and QT the fish before their demise, thats a bit difficult to do with several hundred pounds of live rock aquascape thats glued together in a large tank. It could have been worse in the end and I am very pleased with the tanks direction now and the fact that all the recent efforts and upgrades are working like a charm.

I have been a bit lazy as of late. I hooked my home made skimmer wash down to a hose bib connection I had in my closet. Its controlled by a normally closed solenoid through my Apex. I turn it on and off via my computer right now but I think I will be adding a garage door opener switch under the tank like I used for my salt water mixing pump. It will give me an option of running the wash down from the push of a button for a set period of time like 15 seconds. Having the hose pressure is really nice as I get a great amount of water pressure in the wash down hose. I will probably add a few more holes to the line so I get more water flow into the skimmer collection cup.

There has been another new episode that was uploaded to youtube. Still a bit behind but the one following this one will be mostly up to date short of the new inhabitants.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pd67mjzewnc

 

[Marc]

Marc,
Ich is all gone and has been for over a month now. My fish population has been steadily increasing again. All fish have been QT'd before going into the display. I lost 2 of my 3 vlamingis as a result of ich and the fast salinity reduction. I ended up loosing about 70% of my fish but those that made it are strong and healthy now and I wont have the lasting issues of copper treatment. I still feel I chose the best alternative and while it would have been great to be able to catch and QT the fish before their demise, thats a bit difficult to do with several hundred pounds of live rock aquascape thats glued together in a large tank. It could have been worse in the end and I am very pleased with the tanks direction now and the fact that all the recent efforts and upgrades are working like a charm.

I have been a bit lazy as of late. I hooked my home made skimmer wash down to a hose bib connection I had in my closet. Its controlled by a normally closed solenoid through my Apex. I turn it on and off via my computer right now but I think I will be adding a garage door opener switch under the tank like I used for my salt water mixing pump. It will give me an option of running the wash down from the push of a button for a set period of time like 15 seconds. Having the hose pressure is really nice as I get a great amount of water pressure in the wash down hose. I will probably add a few more holes to the line so I get more water flow into the skimmer collection cup.

There has been another new episode that was uploaded to youtube. Still a bit behind but the one following this one will be mostly up to date short of the new inhabitants.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pd67mjzewnc

So what medication did you end up using to rid the system of ick? Did you still use the kick ick? What did you do to finally rid the pest? I know it would have been a huge waste of time to collect all the fish and treat them in the quarantine tank while the ick is still living or "dormant" in the main display tank. Even if you did treat them all and succeeded and put them back in the main display they might have caught it again. You never know but I have seen that exact same scenario happen. You did everything right and your fish did look pretty bad. I just got a Unicorn vlamingi tang that is about 7 inches long but it's strange that some specks he has is no where as large as regular ick is. They are very small and only two or three on him at a time. The LFS I bought him from do quarantine before I bought him so maybe it's just a stressful week for him to get over. Not sure, he eats like a pig and I am keeping him full of a variety of Ocean Nutrition foods with Selcon and other vitamins. I did some research on Cuprimine. It's a copper substitute that is not suppose to bond to liverock and other surfaces but I still don't trust it much with my priceless fiji and Florida liverock.

Marc

 

[dahenley]

on the new episode, when you were showing the sump and filter sicks, it looked like you only have 2 filter socks going. what happend to the other bubble box and 2 socks? are they not needed? do the 2 handle just fine?

that is all.

i love watching on here at your build, and then watching the videos.

 

[slief]

So what medication did you end up using to rid the system of ick? Did you still use the kick ick? What did you do to finally rid the pest? I know it would have been a huge waste of time to collect all the fish and treat them in the quarantine tank while the ick is still living or "dormant" in the main display tank. Even if you did treat them all and succeeded and put them back in the main display they might have caught it again. You never know but I have seen that exact same scenario happen. You did everything right and your fish did look pretty bad. I just got a Unicorn vlamingi tang that is about 7 inches long but it's strange that some specks he has is no where as large as regular ick is. They are very small and only two or three on him at a time. The LFS I bought him from do quarantine before I bought him so maybe it's just a stressful week for him to get over. Not sure, he eats like a pig and I am keeping him full of a variety of Ocean Nutrition foods with Selcon and other vitamins. I did some research on Cuprimine. It's a copper substitute that is not suppose to bond to liverock and other surfaces but I still don't trust it much with my priceless fiji and Florida liverock.

Marc

I gave up on the Kick Ich and switch to Medic. I am not sure how much it helped though as I was trying a number of different things. I raised my temps to 82*, lowered my salinity to .021, fed a wide range of food with lots of garlic etc. Time was also probably a factor in the ich going away.

on the new episode, when you were showing the sump and filter sicks, it looked like you only have 2 filter socks going. what happend to the other bubble box and 2 socks? are they not needed? do the 2 handle just fine?

that is all.

i love watching on here at your build, and then watching the videos.

All four socks should have been in there at the time. I think it might just be the camera angle. The four socks seem to be ideal. They last up to 2 weeks between changes but I have been swapping them every 10 to 12 days or so.

 

[Marc]

I am glad to hear your refugium is produicing results. Mine never did so I went the sulfur denitrator route which seems to be working very well. For phosphate control I am using rowaphos but it gets expensive after a while.

Marc

 

[dahenley]

you are correct!
i noticed the bubble trap before it goes to the refugium and was thinking it was one of the sock holders.

What is in the future of the tank. (i am asking because the videos are about a month behind the actual forum)


you mentioned a holder of some sort for the float switches, but if you go the magnetic rout, wont the magnets interfere with the mag based float switches?
thanks

 

[slief]

you are correct!
i noticed the bubble trap before it goes to the refugium and was thinking it was one of the sock holders.

What is in the future of the tank. (i am asking because the videos are about a month behind the actual forum)


you mentioned a holder of some sort for the float switches, but if you go the magnetic rout, wont the magnets interfere with the mag based float switches?
thanks

Not sure what the future holds. There is a new video being edited and should be up this week. I did change my float mount to a magnet cleaner. It worked out fine and doesn't interfere with the float switches. I had the same concerns as well but after some searching here, I found that my concerns were baseless based on what others reported.

I still need to finish up the ozone reactor. I guess I have been a bit lazy of late. We did remove some of the crushed coral but still have much more to go.

So far, I have added 5 pajama cardinals, a few bangai's, one flame angel, one ridge back cow fish, four oscillaris clowns, some more psuedo cromis, a couple lawn mower gobys and a couple other fish. I also added some xenia and nice yellow flower pot. I never had any luck with flower pots but this one seems to be thriving.

That said, the tank is looking much better now and once again, I am very happy with it. Best of all is that its much easier to maintain now that the top offs and water changes are automated.

 

[Marc]

Flowerpots thrive in nutrient rich enviroments so if you have lots of fish, the flowerpot should do well. But they also take to time to inflate and often deflate in an instant when they are stressed. I had two of them and can't get them to thrive more than a month. They are difficult to take care of and are very sensitive. There pretty but will never buy one again.

Marc

 

[slief]

I guess recent pics were a bit overdue. I decided to take the camera out. Still have not perfected the camera but the pics could be worse.

Here are a few of the new pot. I have a real nice chaotic current there so it waves and stands up and is constantly but gently moving. When its retracted, the rock is the size of a silver dollar. but only about 3/4" tall. It opens to much larger than a softball. Time will tell but my success with these in the past was never good. This one seems to be doing better than any others that I have had.

 

[slief]

My monster anemone.

My other Anemone

Mr. Cow... These ridge back or whatever you call them seem much smarter than the longs horns I have had in the past.

 

[Marc]

Looks very similar to my tank! I have the same coral and alot of mushrooms and xenia. The sand bed change out should really stand out with some new sand. Are you going with the Special Grade reef sand or something with a smaller grain?

Marc

 

[Antonais1391]

hey what all did ya get in the last LA fishguys episode ??

 

[Dante_JoseCuerv]

Sad day man, sorry to hear you lost the vlamingiis. Though... my heart goes out to the little cowfish you lost :-(. This new guy is pretty cute though

 

[slief]

Looks very similar to my tank! I have the same coral and alot of mushrooms and xenia. The sand bed change out should really stand out with some new sand. Are you going with the Special Grade reef sand or something with a smaller grain?

Marc

I am on the fence as to whether I am going to go with a thin layer of fine grain sand or bare bottom or patches of fine grain with bare bottom.

hey what all did ya get in the last LA fishguys episode ??

My face on youtube. :crazy1:

Sad day man, sorry to hear you lost the vlamingiis. Though... my heart goes out to the little cowfish you lost :-(. This new guy is pretty cute though

Me too. I am glad one of the Vlamingis made it though. The cow got caught in one of the filter strainers if I remember correctly. Its a common fate with them.

Here are some pics.

 

[slief]

 

[Dante_JoseCuerv]

Me too. I am glad one of the Vlamingis made it though. The cow got caught in one of the filter strainers if I remember correctly. Its a common fate with them.

I've never heard of them having that problem. Usually I hear that they stop eating around 1 year into captivity and then waste away. Either way, that vlamingii is amazing. Still doesn't look full-grown though

 

[Marc]

As long as you feed three times a day, no exceptions, that fish will grow quick to it's adult size in a year!

Marc

 

[j-dizzle]

awesome build! its neat to see all the progress over the year and all the recent upgrades!!! sorry for your loss.