My new 600 gallon reef

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Thanks for the reply jnarowe

I belive that Big Daddy is trying to prolong the life of the DSB by draining off some of the toxicity in it. I agree that eventually, you will have to replace some of the DSB, but the prospect of prolonging that is alluring.

This is my first attempt back in this hobby, in many years.
The RC Community has been great in answering my questions no matter how foolish they may be, I am very appreciative of that. I would like to have a sand bed, however there is much controversy on the depth of it, & the mm. size of the sand you use. Too Little" Too Much" Just Right, Sounds like porage at the 3 bears house :lol:

So, ldrhawke may have a good concept here, time will tell. I just belive that he may have exceeded the limits of a closed system by trying to reintroduce the waste water, back in to it as stated in the thread ( somewhere in the middle of it ) & as Big D. stated also. IMO, just removing it and replacing it with some fresh SW couldn't hurt :confused:

So now the controversy of the "To Plenum Or Not to plenum"
has reared it's head :lol:

Trying to keep it simple & with a future.

All opinions are welcomed :D

Steve (@^ 926

:smokin:
 
Chuck,

How are the achilies tang and the white cheek tang? I don't remember seeing them when I was at your place a week or 2 ago

later
Lunchbucket
 
you can try a de-nitrate reactor.People have had good results with them.They do work and will help lower trates.Since dsb does exaust at least the nitrate reactor will help keep things in check.You can always go remote dsb and use a reactor to suppliment it.When the dsb needs changing you still have the reactor running to pick up the slack
 
A couple of photos from either end of the tank.

Left end;

leftend.jpg


Right end;

Rightend.jpg
 
Refering to the post by jnarowe, I do have a deep bed in parts of my 8'x2' tank, but as he mentioned it does need tending. Every couple months I tank a 5000gal/hr power head and blow one quarter up and into the water, not necesailly into the water column, but off the bottom of the tank. Although it whipes out the anareobic bacteria-it is only for a quarter of the tank at a time, then it rebuilds. Beside I have reeped the benefit of a 55 gallon fuge and healthy sump-both of which have mutiple inverts and algae growing. Seems to work out very well in the tanks for many years, never a bad instance of hydrogen sulfide releasing...luckily. That is truely the over all concern is the gas it can pocket and produce-and KILL EVRYTHING iin minutes, not hours days or weeks, like poor water quality can. Just my thoughts. Love the tank over all though, your tang population is all juvies and sub adults...gonna be dicey when they all grows up!! You may need to set up a sewage treatment plant of a grand scale once they all grow.
 
SultanOfSushi: I am interested in what you are doing as I have heard of reefers blowing off their rocks as well, but I am quite concerned with the cloud that follows. Have you found a way to do it without clouding the water?
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=9970958#post9970958 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by jnarowe
SultanOfSushi: I am interested in what you are doing as I have heard of reefers blowing off their rocks as well, but I am quite concerned with the cloud that follows. Have you found a way to do it without clouding the water?
Click to expand...
Need to know here too: how do you avoid the "white out"?
 
Well honestly the key is not only large volume but huge discharge in terms of the diameter I force the water out in. e.g. 5000gal/hr pump with 1" discharge instead of 3/8 or 1/2". Doing this you get alot of volume with less turbidity caused. I attach a 1-2' hose with adapter to a Rio pump and plug it in then sweep slowly and steadily. It is not the fastest way to get this done. but the volume of water moved is enough to dislodge the 3-6" of sand in a few mins. It usually takes about 30 mins to do a quarter of my 250 gallon. Not to say that it is a perfectly dust free application, but those of you with many coral would benefit from following it up with a smaller high powered power head in the 250-300 gal/hr range and sweep over the rock and corals. This helps to move any settled sand as well as get into the nooks and crannies of the rock, to assist with other dead spots. Although I believe you need to have "dead spots" in the sand- they need not be perminant (spelling??) lol aka for forever. In the 600 you may be best to use a pvc piece and attach it to a big pump in your sump and then guide it along and back and forth very close to the bottom. The advantage I have is being very tall and being able to reach the bottom of the big tank to sweep more than push the sand. Let me know how things go. I just gave the rock cleaning a bit more thought and it might be possible to follow the blowing line with a strong suction that could vaccuum the water while your blowing it away from the rocks...not sure how that would work, but sounded kinda cool to me in my head. It does take both practice as well as a lil fine tuning to get it so you dont dust everything. GOOD Luck to you both.
 
Well honestly the key is not only large volume but huge discharge in terms of the diameter I force the water out in. e.g. 5000gal/hr pump with 1" discharge instead of 3/8 or 1/2". Doing this you get alot of volume with less turbidity caused. I attach a 1-2' hose with adapter to a Rio pump and plug it in then sweep slowly and steadily. It is not the fastest way to get this done. but the volume of water moved is enough to dislodge the 3-6" of sand in a few mins. It usually takes about 30 mins to do a quarter of my 250 gallon. Not to say that it is a perfectly dust free application, but those of you with many coral would benefit from following it up with a smaller high powered power head in the 250-300 gal/hr range and sweep over the rock and corals. This helps to move any settled sand as well as get into the nooks and crannies of the rock, to assist with other dead spots. Although I believe you need to have "dead spots" in the sand- they need not be perminant (spelling??) lol aka for forever. In the 600 you may be best to use a pvc piece and attach it to a big pump in your sump and then guide it along and back and forth very close to the bottom. The advantage I have is being very tall and being able to reach the bottom of the big tank to sweep more than push the sand. Let me know how things go. I just gave the rock cleaning a bit more thought and it might be possible to follow the blowing line with a strong suction that could vaccuum the water while your blowing it away from the rocks...not sure how that would work, but sounded kinda cool to me in my head. It does take both practice as well as a lil fine tuning to get it so you dont dust everything. GOOD Luck to you both.
 
Wow, I looked through every page speechless. I like the tang/surgeonfish type of fish a LOT and I can only dream of having a tank like that.

How are the nitrates/nitrites/ammonia in there? 600 gallons even looks a bit small for that fish load :lol:
 
 
Thanks for the description SultanOfSushi. I am still having a lot of trouble trying to vacuum my tank and need to build my bottom maintainance skill level! :)
 
Two additional boxes of frags arrived this morning. I have my work cut out for me this afternoon. Thought that I would post this picture incase I end up with fingers glued together after mounting the frags. Picture doesn't't do justice to the colors. Hope to be able to take a picture once they all have been mounted.

newfrags.jpg
 
Hey how much did you pay for all those frags? I am looking to do frags only in my reef. Much rather recycle then pull from the reef if I can. Thanks.
 
Where did you get those frags? How is the aggresion? I noticed from the web cams that all of your tank are stocked with a lot of fish and a lot of tangs at that. My 125 6 foot long tank only has 2 tangs and they don't get along too well, a yellow and powder brown.

By the way, what program did you use to create that web page? I tried making a web page, but it is so beginner looking. Used Dreamweaver. I'm not good at making webs anyway, new to it.
 
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Hey t5Nitro, hionestly in the years I have worked with all fish not even just saltwater, it is a luck of the draw on what fish get along. Yellow tangs are notorious for being brusiers, have you treid adding more rock work to allow for easy quick access, sometimes the sparceness of a tank can stress them, as it ingauges the fight or flight response. Also, temp can effect atitude, suprise as that sounds, higher temp higher metabolic rate. Another possibilty is enough greens to chew on, not to say they are starved or anything-but I have seen them get very anowed (spelling), if not enough greens are there. This may be more info then you wanted...sorry got typing LOL.
 
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