iwishtofish
Active member
Those MP40s will be great. The sand project sounds like a big one! You going to siphon out little sections at a time?
RocketEngineer's 75g/125g Setup
- Thread starter RocketEngineer
- Start date
RocketEngineer
Space is big.
I like the ecotech powerheads because they are wireless. Yeah, you pay for that convenience, but what in this hobby is cheap. My long term plan is to upgrade to an Apex, and use that to change modes throughout the day. Until then, they are on reef crest mode, with the two MP40s on the ends and one MP10 on the back wall.
My plan is to siphon out the sand in the course of doing several water changes. I need to rig something up to make it easier to get behind the rocks but its going to take a while to get ride of all the old stuff. I did one 24g water change yesterday and hope to do one more before Thanksgiving. If I decide to get more sand by with the Black Friday deals, I will do the change out through December.
One strange thing that has occurred along with the high nitrates has been a neomeris annulata outbreak
I've had these in the tank before but this time around they have taken over the rock pile closest to the window. I figure it's a good indicator that my calcium and alk are where they should be but a bad one showing the nutrients are too high. I'm going to leave them alone for now and see if they survive the nutrient drop. If all else fails, I can pull them out and use that as another nutrient export method.
My plan is to siphon out the sand in the course of doing several water changes. I need to rig something up to make it easier to get behind the rocks but its going to take a while to get ride of all the old stuff. I did one 24g water change yesterday and hope to do one more before Thanksgiving. If I decide to get more sand by with the Black Friday deals, I will do the change out through December.
One strange thing that has occurred along with the high nitrates has been a neomeris annulata outbreak
I've had these in the tank before but this time around they have taken over the rock pile closest to the window. I figure it's a good indicator that my calcium and alk are where they should be but a bad one showing the nutrients are too high. I'm going to leave them alone for now and see if they survive the nutrient drop. If all else fails, I can pull them out and use that as another nutrient export method.
RocketEngineer
Space is big.
A few random pics before things happened.
Hammerhead:
Torch Corals:
Anemone:
Hammerhead:
Torch Corals:
Anemone:
iwishtofish
Active member
You'll get back there, soon enough. Happy thanksgiving, btw! 
RocketEngineer
Space is big.
Thanks! My mother did an amazing job once again. Hope the day went well for you also.
Now what do I want to order tomorrow.......
Now what do I want to order tomorrow.......
RocketEngineer
Space is big.
Note to self: External skimmer+cat=Overflowing skimmer.
Yup, came back from visiting the parents last night to find a drying puddle of water under the kitchen table. The tank is only a little bit down from where it should be but the skimmer cup is full and definitely lower than I left it.
Oh well.
In other news, four bags of sand and two new heaters on order.
Yup, came back from visiting the parents last night to find a drying puddle of water under the kitchen table. The tank is only a little bit down from where it should be but the skimmer cup is full and definitely lower than I left it.
Oh well.
In other news, four bags of sand and two new heaters on order.
RocketEngineer
Space is big.
After having the two boxes of sand sit in the middle of my living room for over a week, I took the opportunity yesterday to remove most of the old stuff and add the new sand. Since I was disrupting so much I decided to move the new rock into the system once the dust had (mostly) settled.
FTS:
Star Coral:
Definitely recovering from being shipped.
Cup Coral:
Unknown coral:
Overall, I like the results. I still need to blow the dust off the rock but I want things to settle a little more before I go stirring it up again. I do have one spot near the anemone that is being dug out into which I paced some of the remaining LR rubble. Hopefully as things start living in the sand it won't move around quite as much.
FTS:
Star Coral:
Definitely recovering from being shipped.
Cup Coral:
Unknown coral:
Overall, I like the results. I still need to blow the dust off the rock but I want things to settle a little more before I go stirring it up again. I do have one spot near the anemone that is being dug out into which I paced some of the remaining LR rubble. Hopefully as things start living in the sand it won't move around quite as much.
iwishtofish
Active member
Looks good! I'm eager to watch that star coral progress.
RocketEngineer
Space is big.
With the tank stabilized I decided to add a few corals.
This is the first one:
Since this and a couple others did ok, I added a few more this weekend:
Six acans and a favia.
And a gratuitous cat picture:
This is the first one:
Since this and a couple others did ok, I added a few more this weekend:
Six acans and a favia.
And a gratuitous cat picture:
iwishtofish
Active member
Very nice additions. Any fish on the horizon?
RocketEngineer
Space is big.
I haven't seen anything I like recently. If something shows up that catches my interest I probably will pick it up but for now I'm going slow.
RocketEngineer
Space is big.
Some how the curly Q anemone ended up in the fuge:
No idea how that happened but it seems to be doing fine. If its the one I saw in quarantine, it has really grown. It started about the size of a pencil eraser and now the mouth is about the size of a quarter.
No idea how that happened but it seems to be doing fine. If its the one I saw in quarantine, it has really grown. It started about the size of a pencil eraser and now the mouth is about the size of a quarter.
RocketEngineer
Space is big.
125g One Year Later
125g One Year Later
One year ago this weekend I set up the 125g. It has been a rough year. I began the tank with 52 corals. I have two of those left. Lost the yellow head jawfish but the clownfish and tomini tang are still around. Oh, and the anemone that the clownfish ignore is still in there.
So here is the tank now:
FTS:
Left:
Center:
Right:
125g One Year Later
One year ago this weekend I set up the 125g. It has been a rough year. I began the tank with 52 corals. I have two of those left. Lost the yellow head jawfish but the clownfish and tomini tang are still around. Oh, and the anemone that the clownfish ignore is still in there.
So here is the tank now:
FTS:
Left:
Center:
Right:
RocketEngineer
Space is big.
The survivors:
The anemone still around:
The hammer coral:
The torch coral:
Of the corals that came in with the LR the cup coral and star corals are doing good but the others didn't seem to make it so I placed those rocks in the sump. If something grows in there I can always transplant it back into the display.
You can see the cup coral to the right.
And this weekend I added another batch of new corals to see how things go.
SO, one year later. The plumbing changes that I made have panned out nicely. The new skimmer and the kalk reactor from Avast Marine have been everything I could have hoped. The DIY LEDs were a major flop. The T5/BuildMyLED combo I have now seems to be doing the job. The powerheads were upgraded to MP40s.
What does year two have in store? Well I'm planning to upgrade the return pump. If the overtime kicks in I may even do the Apex. Otherwise it's just going to be letting things roll. If I find any interesting fish I will consider adding to the three I have now. Quarantine setup needs a new light but that's an easy fix.
The anemone still around:
The hammer coral:
The torch coral:
Of the corals that came in with the LR the cup coral and star corals are doing good but the others didn't seem to make it so I placed those rocks in the sump. If something grows in there I can always transplant it back into the display.
You can see the cup coral to the right.
And this weekend I added another batch of new corals to see how things go.
SO, one year later. The plumbing changes that I made have panned out nicely. The new skimmer and the kalk reactor from Avast Marine have been everything I could have hoped. The DIY LEDs were a major flop. The T5/BuildMyLED combo I have now seems to be doing the job. The powerheads were upgraded to MP40s.
What does year two have in store? Well I'm planning to upgrade the return pump. If the overtime kicks in I may even do the Apex. Otherwise it's just going to be letting things roll. If I find any interesting fish I will consider adding to the three I have now. Quarantine setup needs a new light but that's an easy fix.
Last edited:
RocketEngineer
Space is big.
So what has happened since the 1 year mark? Honestly, nothing good.
Unchanged: The hair algae is still a major problem. I slowly lost all of the corals I had added with the exception of the torch and hammer but those aren't in good shape either. :headwally:
Changed: I added a RDSB in a bucket to the system back in April. So far I'm not sure that it has helped but I plan to leave it in the system as it isn't hurting anything either. I added a bunch of turbo snails, Nassarius snails, and hermit crabs to the display and have since noticed bare patches of LR where the snails have done their thing.
Major Change: Last night I changed out the MD7 return pump for a RLSS DC6000 and added a Tunze 6065 to the two MP40s and MP10 that were already in the system. The Tunze went into the back corner and is pushing water the length of the tank. Its amazing how much junk can get stirred up when you change the flow patterns in a tank.
Adding the DC6000 caused me a bunch of heartburn for a very unexpected reason. Installing it was a snap as the outlet for the US version is 1" NPT and my return manifold is all 1". Considering the difference in flow I was amazed to find that the MD7 and DC6000 are almost exactly the same size. All I had to do was get a 1" threaded union, install the o-ring half to the new pump, and replace one with the other at the union. :bounce3: That was the easy part. The problem came when I turned it on I couldn't seem to get my Bean Animal overflow siphon to start. To make matters worse, the siphon tube in the overflow box was stuck in place. :angryfire: It took a long wire tie loop and some "persuasion" to finally knock the fittings out of the bulkhead in the overflow box. Turning it over I found the culprit, a Turbo wedged into the elbow. :debi: With the "obstruction" removed and returned to the tank, I was finally able to balance the drains to the new return pump.
With the changes made last night, I'm now going to wait and let things settle out. With the increased flow I hope to see the two surviving corals opening up more and maybe the anemone will be a little happier. If the algae disappears I may rework the lights back to T5s and consider doing corals again. For the time being, not loosing ground would be an accomplishment.
Unchanged: The hair algae is still a major problem. I slowly lost all of the corals I had added with the exception of the torch and hammer but those aren't in good shape either. :headwally:
Changed: I added a RDSB in a bucket to the system back in April. So far I'm not sure that it has helped but I plan to leave it in the system as it isn't hurting anything either. I added a bunch of turbo snails, Nassarius snails, and hermit crabs to the display and have since noticed bare patches of LR where the snails have done their thing.
Major Change: Last night I changed out the MD7 return pump for a RLSS DC6000 and added a Tunze 6065 to the two MP40s and MP10 that were already in the system. The Tunze went into the back corner and is pushing water the length of the tank. Its amazing how much junk can get stirred up when you change the flow patterns in a tank.
Adding the DC6000 caused me a bunch of heartburn for a very unexpected reason. Installing it was a snap as the outlet for the US version is 1" NPT and my return manifold is all 1". Considering the difference in flow I was amazed to find that the MD7 and DC6000 are almost exactly the same size. All I had to do was get a 1" threaded union, install the o-ring half to the new pump, and replace one with the other at the union. :bounce3: That was the easy part. The problem came when I turned it on I couldn't seem to get my Bean Animal overflow siphon to start. To make matters worse, the siphon tube in the overflow box was stuck in place. :angryfire: It took a long wire tie loop and some "persuasion" to finally knock the fittings out of the bulkhead in the overflow box. Turning it over I found the culprit, a Turbo wedged into the elbow. :debi: With the "obstruction" removed and returned to the tank, I was finally able to balance the drains to the new return pump.
With the changes made last night, I'm now going to wait and let things settle out. With the increased flow I hope to see the two surviving corals opening up more and maybe the anemone will be a little happier. If the algae disappears I may rework the lights back to T5s and consider doing corals again. For the time being, not loosing ground would be an accomplishment.
RocketEngineer
Space is big.
To me an ATS is the same as manually removing algae from the tank and refugium. I have been manually removing algae for quite some time now and it hasn't seemed to make an improvement. A RDSB is different in that it doesn't use the nitrates and phosphates for growth but instead breaks the nitrates into nitrogen gas which gets it out of the tank entirely. I will admit that since the RDSB bucket has been in place the algae in the refugium has gotten going so I might be making progress. Harvesting the refugium will occur in the next few days and the GFO got replaced last night.
Not a bad idea I just don't think it will work for my setup.
RocketEngineer
Space is big.
June 2014 FTS:
Funny story: A while ago I put a frozen cube into the tank. Not to mention any names but these end stay a solid blob rather than melting into little bits for things to feed on so I don't feed them very often. Well this time around the starfish grabbed it. The four images that followed happened over about 10 minutes.
The starfish finally catches the cube:
and proceeds to drag it into a hole in the rock work:
but there is competition:
now the starfish has to share:
Even in a tank with few fish or corals, there are still things to see.
Funny story: A while ago I put a frozen cube into the tank. Not to mention any names but these end stay a solid blob rather than melting into little bits for things to feed on so I don't feed them very often. Well this time around the starfish grabbed it. The four images that followed happened over about 10 minutes.
The starfish finally catches the cube:
and proceeds to drag it into a hole in the rock work:
but there is competition:
now the starfish has to share:
Even in a tank with few fish or corals, there are still things to see.
iwishtofish
Active member
Those are neat pictures. Thing must have a belly ache by now!
EDIT: Btw, how are the nitrate levels lately?
EDIT: Btw, how are the nitrate levels lately?
