New tank, sump location question

[jcw]

That Bellus is a "she"

You're right. I forgot.


Here's a shot of the 55 live rock tank.

And the qt/obseration tank and sump
My mortality in hastily set up qt's has been unacceptable. I'm hoping a properly set up tank will improve my record.

 

[jcw]

just brought the reservoir tank online.

in my rush, i forgot to warm the water and my biggest sps got really ****ed off spewing stringy white stuff (the zooxanthellae?). Fortunately, everything is back to normal tonight. So far no bleaching or other badness.

This should be a good test to see if the ich is prominent or not in the system. It was a pretty good stress test on the system


Everything to and from the reservoir tank is gravity fed, and I hope stable.

I really need to add some redundancies in the system before something fails.

I think this is a 55g barrel filled about 45-50 gallons. With 20 gallons in the sump and 25 in the refugium, the total is probably around 215g.

 

[jcw]

just wanted to share a story about some blue reef chromis I purchased.

I initially got 3 from LA and 2 arrived with fin rot. I lost one in observation (which they credited to me with no hassle whatsoever).

While in observation, one somehow managed to get through a screen filter on the end of the cannister filter suction side and get sucked into an eheim filter.

If you know this filter, you know that water enters the cannister and flows through a tube to the bottom where there's a 3-4 inch space. He was living in there for a couple days while I thought it was dead.

One day I looked through the dark green plastic and saw the fish. He was fine.



Well, I lost another chromis to I think the bacterial infection. So I purchased another 4 from LA.

One jumped out of the tank while feeding. I have a plexiglass cover, but there's a small opening in back where I feed. The chromis got spoked when the food went in and jump right behind the tank where I could not reach it. It's a 30 gallon with another 30 gallon sump and there was no way I could move the tank sump and stand.

I thought crap poor fish.

A couple days later, I find him in the refugium part of the sump, swimming up to the glass looking for food when I walked up.

The only way he could have made it into the sump is to jump out of the tank and hit an unfinished basement wall and bounce back into the sump. There's no way he could have fallen straight down into the sump. :eek1:

 

[jcw]

Everything has been going well with the main tank. Did some aquaspacing with some new rock.

Added 3 cardinal fish after 3 weeks of observation.

Here's a FTS.

right side

left side. hard to get a good shot but there's a pretty sizeable cave in the center of the rocks.

acro doing well

Coralline everywhere. i have to scrape it off the front glass every two weeks or I can't see the fish.
It seemed that after increasing the kalk dosing to a full gallon per day, things have been taking off. The bleached rock is repopulating with coralline as well.

Fish are doing well

Rescaped my fuge as well. Actually I'm going to change it into a small fowlr tank with maybe a dwarf angel. Maybe anenomes?

I removed the basket from the sump and instead made an eggcrate divider to increase the volume for chaeto since I'm no longer holding it in the refugium. I added about 5-10 pounds of live rock rubble into this area as well.

The 55g water tank has been really helpful. Aquascaping, cleaning, vacuuming. Whereas before they would really upset the tank for a while; now the tank takes it in better stride.



My last fish for the DT is a chocolate tang from DD. Here's in the 55g observation tank for now. I hope he makes it through quarantine and into the main tank. But I'm not rushing anything...

 

[jcw]

The power outage rushed the observation length for the new chocolate tang forward by 1 week.

I couldn't run all the equipment for two tanks and I was worried that the tang might run into problems.

Three and a half weeks in observation. No treatment. Pyroferus bought from DD.


He's been in the DT for a couple days now and looks VERY happy.

He's an attractive fish. Not stunning, but very nice. I particularly like the yellow fins and rim on the tail. and the half black-like body.

And he picks at the black thick turf-like algae on some of the substrate which is nice.

Pics to follow...

 

[jcw]

Not horrible for a tank set up in December.

I've only outright purchased three pieces of coral. A frogspawn from a LFS and a monti and psammacora from a local reefer.

The rest came on live rock that I bought. I even have a couple SPS that came with a SPS crab I bought. Crab died, small frag lived.

 

[jcw]

Cleaned the tank today.

And reduced the exposure on the camera to get some better FTS.

bryopsis, spnoges, aiptasia, HA, monti and frongspawn.

 

[jcw]

Finally found time to hook up a RO/DI unit I purchased several months ago (used). The old Honeywell RO unit had been running for 6 months and managed several QT's including a 55g and a 30 cube with a sump. I'm sure it was putting out some nasty water by now. There is a patch of hair algae in the DT and the bryosis is very happy.

Hopefully this will reverse things.

 

[jcw]

Another toy added. A tunze osmolator (silly sounding name for an auto top off).


Not bad. Not great either though.

It has a nice redundancy in case the low water sensor fails and doesn't shut off the pump, there is a back up overfill sensor.


Unfortunately I can't top off with kalk with this device. The pump can't sit in the kalk soln and even if it could, it would add it too fast.

If I continue to drip kalk, the top off will hardly be used.

I guess I can start dripping two part instead of kalk.

 

[jcw]

Calcium 400
Alk 6.5
Mag 1250

Adding 180cc of two little fishes part b
3L of tech M to address a little bryopsis problem
Over the next 3 days

 

[jcw]

Finished (almost) running the water lines to the fish closet.

First time using Pex tubing and push connectors. What amazingly simple stuff.

I ran about 65 ft above the basement ceiling from a cold water line to the closet, T'd off to a compression fitting to the line to the RO/DI unit.

I plan to eventually cram a small laundry sink on the wall above the bucket that will drain into the basement sump underneath.

I installed the Tunze ATO and placed the pump in the 7 gallon old salt bucket with kalk/RO water.

Perhaps a no-no, but I figure the pumps aren't too expensive, and I'll alternate two pumps soaking them in vinegar every 3-4 days to try to prevent build up.

I watched the volume of kalk added for each "dose" and it doesn't seem excessive for my system. Hopefully I won't kill any livestock, because this system seems to be working very well.

The line comes from the closet to the sump (clear vinyl tubing) and dumps into the skimmer section where the overflow from 3 lines meet. I think the flow through this section is high enough that the concentrated kalk won't cause too much problems.

I hope.

 

[jcw]

alk went up to 7.5 after 2 days and about 140cc of part B.

hadn't gotten to the fishstore to get the tech m yet.

Corals continue to do fairly well.

 

[jcw]

I've almost finished adding one 16 oz bottle of tech m.

A little of the bryopsis actually turned white and died, but the majority still looks healthy. I think I still have a couple bottles to go AT LEAST. I'll check mag levels after I finish this bottle. For the second bottle, I'm thinking of putting it directly on the bryopsis patch.

BTW, I paid almost twice the online price at a LFS. Not including tax.


I am kicking around the idea of getting some Omega 3 softgel caps (for people) instead of zoecon since no one seems to carry it anymore.

My bellus had the best growth (particularly his streamers) when I was supplementing both fish oil and vitamins. Anecdotal and nonscientific, yes.


ATO with the kalk is working OK. For some reason after a brief power outage, the ATO dumped what was left in the bucket into the tank. Maybe a gallon of kalk. Everything seemed to shrug it off ok. That was several days ago, and nothing looks the worse for wear.

 

[jcw]

alk to 7.3
mg only about 1280 after 1 bottle of tech-m
ca dropped to 390

 

[MGM_]

Been fun reading along.. Hope you keep up the posts.:bounce1:

 

[jcw]

Been fun reading along.. Hope you keep up the posts.:bounce1:

Thanks.

Sometimes I wonder why do people post these build threads. Why do I bother to post?

My first response is that it helps to discuss the process of setting up a tank and the natural progression. To look for help and maybe to provide helpful hints.


But ultimately I think we (I) do it because we are (i am) narcissists with low self esteem thriving for attention and validation.


So thank you for validating me. LOL. :wavehand:


BTW, cleaning out my hard drive last night around 1AM I found this clip of Russell Peters. Careful, NSFW.

Here's an online vid...
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x9wxss_russell-peters-red-white-brown-part_fun

<iframe frameborder="0" width="480" height="278" src="http://www.dailymotion.com/embed/video/x9wxss"></iframe><br /><a href="http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x9wxss_russell-peters-red-white-brown-part_fun" target="_blank">Russell Peters Red White & Brown part 1</a> <i>by <a href="http://www.dailymotion.com/love_e911" target="_blank">love_e911</a></i>

 

[jcw]

Everyone's doing well.
Chocolate tang is very well behaved.
Bellus is the grumpy one but nothing bad.

Finished bottle 2 of tech m. The main part of the bryopsis is just starting to turn white. No issues with other livestock.

The ATO is working fine other than a defective head unit (low level light not coming on) and a corroded power connector. I have been soaking the pump in vinegar every 2-3 days for about 1/2 day and putting back into the kalk bucket.

Hooked up the pump to the saltwater container and the RO/DI to some remote controlled switches you can get at the local hardware store. Makes it easier turing on and off these things without having to keep pulling the plug.

 

[jcw]

alk keeps dropping 6.9 coralline is starting to regrow like crazy on the front glass.
calc up to 430
magnesium after two bottles still ~1290.

I think I'm going to add some dissolved baking soda.

Time for the gallon bottle of tech-m.

 

[jcw]

Got a small radiant wrasse from BZ today. Along with a pink tricolor acro. Some aquacult Ogo algae.

Packaged well. As good as DD does. Sent priority overnight for free which is good.

Wrasse, although listed as medium and probably technically qualifies length wise, is smallish. Looked healthy. I love the colors. Dark reddish body and a light yellow/orange head.

The acro is BIG and very pretty. Also had two sps crabs in them. One dead in bag, the other very much alive.

They are going in two separate observation setups hopefully for 4 weeks.

I think that might be it for the main tank for a while fishwise.



In retrospect, I wouldn't have gotten the cardinalfish. They look cool in pics but they are kinda boring and the colors drab.

I probably wouldn't have gotten a plain flasher wrasse. Again, too drab color wise.

I would definitely get the lyretail anthias again. It has kept the best color out of all the anthias.

The chocolate tang and bellus I would also do again. The bigger the fish, the more bold they seem to be and the more "personality" they seem to have.

 

[jcw]

Radiant wrasse died in less than 2 days.

I knew I shouldn't have posted it before he finshed the majority of QT. But I was really excited about it.

I can't figure out why. I have essentially a separate fully cycled aquarium for observation with sump, skimmer, vortechs, everything. It's been running for 3 months, Fishless for the last 2 months. The water comes from the main DT and into the "QT" almost daily. (1 gallon almost every day)

Oh well. It was a beautiful fish and I will try again, but next time only from DD/LA.

Alk- 8.1
Ca- 390
Mag- 1340

I got sick of looking at the bryopsis and manually cleaned it out again. On of the monti's on that side is looking a little unhappy so I decided to stop the mag dosing for now.

I got a nice big digital thermometer that looks OK. Seems to works well. No more guessing at what the temp is with the stick on thermometers.


Still dealing with a single patch of HA in the DT. I think phosphates are the issue. I'll have to get a kit and test. Trimmed the chaeto. BTW, if anyone wants chaeto in the western burbs, I have PLENTY every week or two. It just gets thrown out the in backyard.

Just pursued the algaefix thread. That sounds interesting, too.