The Ultimate Eight Foot Softie Reef

[InsaneClownFish]

Leathers I have 3 leathers. The Fiji Yellow Leather is a showpiece in my tank. Once again, another coral that doesn't seem to have grown much, but when it is fully expanded is the size of a dinner plate. I've had this since right after the tank cycled. Along with the chalice, they were purchased from a fellow reefer who wanted more room for his SPS sticks. The Toadstool is larger that when I first got it, but not significantly. It's another softie that surprisingly likes heavy flow. The last leather I have is a pinkish green Sinularia. It's a bit small and almost shriveled a bit. Once again, it's not very fond of the big halide, and I think it wants to be under deeper water. The spectrum of the XMs does not do this coral justice.

Nepthea, GSP, Xenia, Anthelia I have a neon green Nepthea that has grown slightly, but gets no love from the lights. Everyone keeps telling me to nuke my GSP while I have a chance. I'm well aware of the attributes of GSP. The fact is it doesn't really grow in my tank. Xenia, while being a slow grower, it has completely covered the small rock it's on. There was a small carnation coral on the xenia rock that is completely gone due to being buried by the grey damsel. :rolleye1: The Anthelia is one of my favorite softies. Not only does it host my clowns, but as it is isolated on its own rock which creates quite a visual display of dancing stalks. While not the fastest grower, it has quadrupled in size over the course of approximately 6 months. Growth seems to have slowed recently though, and I wonder if it has anything to do with some of the brush algae starting to grow there.

I do suspect that many of these softies want more of a nutrient sink.

Kenya Tree- Loves my tank. I have babies all over. Since I'm the Ultimate Eight Foot Softie Reef, I let them go where they like. I even have them spotting the sand bed. They provide a very natural look. There's something to be said for letting nature be random, and not actually "scaping" things. I believe Kenya Tree is one of the most underrated corals. These little trees give my tank that very zen look, and they can be quite interesting in color, reaction, and form. Definitely a plus to my underwater gardenscape!

 

[InsaneClownFish]

Clams - The large Crocea I have is doing great. At one point it rocked off its spot and I replaced it. It reattached almost immediately. The Squamosa/Maxima hybrid I've had for 7 or 8 months just died. I had moved it up onto the rockwork, but it seemed to be annoyed by the Anthelia. Once I moved it back down to the sandbed it refused to open for two days. The other morning it was covered with every critter in the tank.

I'm really puzzled as to why it went downhill so quickly.

I also lost two small gold Maxima clams. I had to move them because the damsels were actually knocking them over. Once again, moving livestock has not helped me. They were fine on the sandbed for quite some time, but once I moved them high on the rocks they started jumping. They were never happy after this.

 

[InsaneClownFish]

Inverts - I have a large Brittle Star that's been doing very well. It's a fascinating creature to watch at night. There are also mini brittles and asterinas all over the tank. I have blue hermits and a scarlet hermit I've actually had for years.

Snails always seem like disposable, recyclable entities. I have some large Cerinths and some Trochus. The Trochus spawned and I had tons of babies, but I've been noticing fewer and fewer. The Astreas always die off on me. The 250 small Cerinths I added awhile back did well for awhile, but eventually their numbers waned. I've seen some Stomatellas in the fuge, and I have a couple of large Tongan Nassarius.

There are large pods in the fuge and I noticed what looked like some very large Amphipods in the sump when I was cleaning it out. There are baby bristle and fire worms in the fuge along with some fairly large bristles I've caught coming out at night. I've also had lots of clear flatworms in the fuge(the harmless variety).

Refugium - The show fuge looks so, so. Some of the macro melted away, and the red sponge has completely died off. This is due to a few things. I don't run lights on it as frequently as I should. I've also had some periodic, short power outages. On top of this, my system runs pretty nutrient lean, so macros have little to feed off of.

Both seahorses died. Neither ended up eating too well. I've decided these are one animal that might be left best to mother nature.

I've added a cute Saddle Back Clown.

 

[InsaneClownFish]

Odd Stuff - There's plenty of purple brush algae on the right, high flow side of my tank. Some people don't like it. I however think it's attractive and forms a very nice and natural nutrient absorber. I've noticed a couple sessile tunicates, a cowrie, vermatid snails, and some very interesting white/yellow sponge that grows on rockwork underneath the yellow leather.

Pests - Thankfully, I haven't encountered many of the pests that plague other systems. There have been a couple. I've removed 3 small pieces of Valonia over the last 4 months. I think one came with one of the SPS. Yup, that's 3 in the whole 8 ft. tank. I've had two Aiptasia over the last 4 months or so. Yup, 2. The original one hitchhiked in on a piece of LR and I've used my syringe method a few times on it, but it always seems to bounce back. I just found another one on the same rock after months of the first spotting. This one I immediately covered with putty and put some Zoanthids over it. The other one I injected with alk, then calcium, and finally magnesium.

There's a fuzzy brown algae that grows in the lowest flow section of the tank. I've physically stripped it from some of the Zoanthid plugs, and adding a powerhead to that end of the tank has helped tremendously.

Brown algae has been a slight problem. I was getting a speckling of diatoms on the surface of the water, and adding flow helped little. I figured it was running the new bulbs too long. Cutting back on the lights really was the trick. I have yet to decide whether I need a curtain over the back door window. Periodically, the algae looks more pronounced on the rockwork or sandbed, but it comes and goes. Also, the closet sump would sometimes show a slick.

The plus of having a system that things don't grow too quickly in is that pests also don't take off too quickly.

A couple of the things I did to combat the brown algae were to add a filter sock with activated carbon and a couple of small reactors. The reactors I had running Elos carbon and Phosban respectively. The Elos carbon is excellent, but to be honest, I think they make little difference since the main contributer to the algae seems to be the lights. Nitrates and Phosphates remained zero.

I'll never run a filter sock again, and I've long since removed it. I had to cut the drain in order to accommodate the sock, so now without it I have a waterfall into the sump. Not only would the sock get filthy, but I had put a more predatory crab found into the sump and it pulled off the sock letting some of the carbon float around the sump....just a bad idea all around. :rolleye1:

 

[InsaneClownFish]

I'd just like to note that even though I've lost a few animals, for the most part the tank has been incredibly stable. Since I haven't updated in awhile, and since the summer has been complete down time for me, I wanted to also cover things I have noticed across the life of the tank in order to highlight some changes I'll be making.

One thing I take pride in is accurately portraying the highs and lows of my reef journey.

The tank really does look fantastic. I complain about the slow growth, but my father in law saw the tank recently and said, "Wow, you added alot of stuff!" I told him that I hadn't really added much of anything this summer. His response, "Well then things have really grown." I looked over some of the older pictures and I do see it.

So onto some problems I've had. A couple months ago, my second hand Mag 9.5 started getting louder and finally tripped the GFCI. I took it apart, cleaned it and tested it on two other GFCIs with the same result. The refugium tank was offline while I waited on the new pump to arrive. After installing the new pump I had a mini flood upstairs and water started pooring into the basement.
:mad2:

I initially surmised that the old pump might have had significant head loss, and the new pump was pushing water way too quickly upstairs. After adding the foam diffuser and firing it back up there was no more overflow. However, I think the lines might have gotten clogged from sitting.

It's been fine since then, but the other night I stuck my hands in the fuge tank and water went everywhere and kept overflowing after I removed them. I shut the pump and upon resetting it there was a bit of a flush, the tank filled, and everything is back to normal. I'm completely at a loss for this. I had been doing some heavy cleaning of both the sumps and tank overflows, so once again I can only surmise the line was temporarily clogged.

 

[InsaneClownFish]

Finding a nice balance of flow between the two sumps again, after one had been shut down, was tedious at best.

I just performed some end of summer water changes.
I also emptied my full skimmer. It's taking a couple of months to fill the cup. Yup, it's not the most efficient thing out there. One thing I noticed is that the skimmer body really needed to be cleaned out(I've only been cleaning the neck). This is impossible with my current setup as the skimmer cannot be removed from the sump because it will not clear the stand. In fact, just emptying the cup has been a challenge.

Another thing I noticed was the amount of detritus collecting in the sump and the bottom of the closet sump. I have to admit I'm normally lazy about siphoning out detritus, but with my current setup it's nearly impossible.

I repeated a process of kicking up detritus(something I've done before and isn't a huge deal with a softie system) and changing water in 20 gallon increments. I did this three times and changed out an additional 60 gallons.

I'm trying out Red Sea Coral Pro this time around. I was previously using I/O or Reef Crystals, or a mix of the two. The Red Sea Coral Pro was the same price as the RC so I decided to give it a whirl.

My SG was reading quite high before the water changes- 1.028. I usually keep the reef at 1.025- 1.026. The ATO has been continually in use with R/O water, so I have no idea what could be causing this. I've had high alk in the past, but alk has been fine. Maybe it has something to do with the Kalkwasser residue in the ATO tank. I had been dosing Kalkwasser occasionally.

It's a good thing I got the SG back to 1.025 and did the water changes that needed to be done, because early Wednesday this allowed me to move right into the changes and improvements I had been toying with for the system.

 

[InsaneClownFish]

Phase 2 of the Ultimate Eight Foot Softie Reef has begun!

Phase 2 is a reflection of things I should have done the first time around, changes I've seen, and learned, should be made, and getting back to my original vision for this Reef.

Here are my goals in Phase 2:

1. Redesigning my sump system so that is more maintenance friendly.
2. Redesigning my light system to give more controllability, supplementation, enhanced colors, and to better reflect my original intention of having an economical and efficient layout.
3. Reduce my overall power usage with an overall more efficient layout.

To meet goal one I ordered a Rubbermaid 100g Stock Tank from the local hardware store. This will replace both sumps. Including trips to various hardware stores, I worked from 9am to 8pm Wednesday on the new layout. I'm going to offer a step by step instruction guide for replacing a sump on an already existing system.

Special thanks to melevsreef.com for help with plumbing nuances. It's a great, informative site for the novice and expert reefer alike! :thumbsup:

 

[InsaneClownFish]

Step 1: Have a plan. Access the needs of your particular reef and how long of a down time the tank can function with. Make sure you plan a day when you have enough time to work on the plumbing. Try to have all the parts, materials, and tools you think you will need handy.

Step 2: Place your system on life support. Unplug all of the sump equipment and allow the overflow to drain. Place enough heaters and pumps into the display and plug them into a single and easily accessible GFCI.

Step 3: Empty all of the equipment out of the sump and drain it completely. This is accomplished by syphoning out the water.

Step 4: Drain all overflows by syphoning them dry. Disconnect the drain and return lines. In the case of my closet sump, I removed the lines and dropped them in a 5 gallon bucket to catch any extra water that might siphon down from the lines.

Step 5: Carefully remove the old sump. In my case, what a pain it was to get out from underneath the stand without breaking it. I thought it was hard going in!

From this:
(old pic)

To this:

And from this:
(old pic)

To this:
(old pic)

 

[InsaneClownFish]

Step 6: Remove any obstacles. In my case I used a drill with a hole fitting and cut through the sheetrock underneath the stand. This left me with a clear line into the closet. Since the 1.5" pipe wouldn't fit through I had to clear some sheetrock from the other side(basically the corner of the closet and the kid's playroom. From there I noticed a stud was impeding the pipes and needed to be shaved down. I drilled into this stud and removed about a 5x1.5" section. Keep in mind this stud is flanked by a steel beam and a reinforced stud.

Step 7: Take measurements and cut your pipe accordingly. For this project I used 3/4" and 1.5" schedule 40 pvc. Make sure you have all the positions correct for your 45s and 90s. Measure carefully because since you're building to an existing system, you'll most likely be going piece by piece.

Step 8. Cut your lengths using a hacksaw.

Step 9. Sand the ends to get them as even as possible and to remove any debri.

Step 10. Rinse all pieces and connections in RO water.

Step 11. Put everything together in place to make sure it fits BEFORE you cement them in. Once the cement bonds you will most likely have to cut everything out if there's an error.

Step 12. Prime the pipe(Oatley's Purple), add cement(Oatley's Gold PVC Cement), and add cement on the inside of your fitting. Slide the fitting onto the pipe, twist one quarter turn, and hold for 30 seconds.

Step 13. Use a level and make sure your drain and return lines are on a downward angle. There was an optical illusion going on and it looked as if my drain was pointed down. A level straightened me out and I realized it was actually slightly the opposite( no pun intended). I had to drill more of the stud out and chisel it somewhat. I got a little too close to the pipe with the drill bit and actually dug into the pvc, fortunately, it was still intact. If for some reason you run into a similar issue be careful! Pushing the pipe down 1/2" produced the proper downward angle.

Here's the drain and return. Apologies for the poor pics as these were completely on the fly as I was working:

Here's the entrance into the closet. I added ball valves to both the drain and return:

 

[InsaneClownFish]

The sump should be in later today, so I'll post more pics once everything is up and running.

Now onto the lighting. I've been talking with the good people over at Aquatic Life about my needs and ideas. They're developing an 8 ft HO T5 Fixture for me. I told you all I had something up my sleeve.

The fixture will have LED supplements and 10 48w T5s. I've really come to admire their fixtures. They're fan cooled, use one power cord, and the integrated controller does it all.

In the meantime, I've purchased a 6 ft version of the fixture they are making me. This fixture is slightly different as it uses 4 bulbs in each bank:

http://aquaticlife.com/t5ho/index.html

 

[InsaneClownFish]

The new light fixture will help with my 3rd goal of reducing energy costs and running more efficient equipment.

I'm going from almost 1100 watts of lights to 314 watts. This will allow me to run the lights longer and have supplements for dusk dawn, and leds for moon effects is priceless.

I've also ordered a new MSX mini s cone skimmer:
http://www.marinesolutionsinc.com/c...Cones/c22_71/p271/MSX-MiniS/product_info.html

Runs on about 20 watts - exceptionally efficient.

I've also ordered a Hydor Magnum 7 to replace the two Korallia 4s that leak current. Korallia contacted me and told me both will be returned to Korallia for replacements.

I'm eliminating 4 pumps, downsizing 2 pumps, eliminating 4 gfcis, many outlets, 1100 watts of light, and 4 ballasts.

Before all the changes: 1374 watts of continual usage with the lights on(no heaters).

After all the changes: 458 watts of continual usage with the lights on(no heaters)!!!
:eek1: :rollface: :strooper:

 

[Doolin]

AWSOME! Great writeup! Your new light sounds like it gonna rock.

Looking forward to all the updates!

I can't remember, had you ever considered a vortech to put a wave on the tank? Wave + Rimless = Awesome.

 

[InsaneClownFish]

Thanks Doolin, it's been alot of work! Vortechs are nice, but a bit pricey for my taste. The other issue is that they will not work with 1" Acrylic. Also, they tend to de-sediment a shallow tank.

I'm not sure if anyone remembers, but I initially contacted Tunze about using one of their waveboxes. Make a long story short, they just don't work well in shallow tanks.

Lots of work today.
The sump came in and of course, it wouldn't fit in my car. I hooked it to the trunk with bungy cords and prayed driving home! :worried:

One Eheim feeds the main tank, the larger feeds the upstairs fuge:

Where's the sump?!?

Getting sparse under the stand. The ATO is now in the closet, and all of this electrical is going bye bye.

Here you can see the new lines:

 

[InsaneClownFish]

Here's the playroom side:

I did a water test by filling the overflow. Of course there was a subtle leak. I tracked it down to the bushing I used to connect the new plumbing to the tank drain bulkhead. I probably should have used a coupler. I opened up the ball valve, drained the line, dried the pipe, and then ran out to Walmart to grab some silicone.

I siliconed the heck out of the bushing so it should be fine. Even though the return one didn't leak, I siliconed that one just in case.

I've started getting ready for the new lights. The first panel is down:

Man my basement is trashed! :mixed:

 

[Doolin]

Insane: Ah yes, I forgot your tank was 1" I mentioned it because, A: I'd like one on my tank and B: I saw the video of Calvin's tank (the 12' shallow tank) and it looked sweet .

Anyway, Any new pictures of the macro tank upstairs?

 

[InsaneClownFish]

I'll post some pics of the Macro tank as soon as I have everything rearranged. It's really not much to look at right now.

So I did another water test and once again it leaked. Once again, silicone like crazy. Unfortunately, I couldn't get it up and running last night because of this.

I waited 8 hours and tried again, and once again, a very subtle leak. I had missed around the lip of the 90 degree that didn't quite seal properly. I may have to cut it out in the future. I fired it up and no leak or dampness after the silicone.

So we have a heartbeat:

The 5 gallon AGA ATO has been replaced with a 5 gallon bucket.

The ATO fits nicely on the return line. I did an overflow test to make sure the sump can handle the extra water. Even though I'm running it with only 45 gallons, the hole I used for the pipe thorough is probably 14-15 inches from the bottom.

The main system GFCI and shutoff for both tanks now feeds through the wall and plugs in underneath the stand. There are no longer any GFCIs in the kids' playroom.

The main GFCI is now hung neatly at eye level:

The shutoff for the system is now here as both return pumps are now tied to one GFCI.
I feel confident that I can now tell my wife, "If there are any problems, flip this switch."

I was a bit concerned that the tank was on life support for so long, but nothing is any worse for the wear. Even my sole Acropora Colony looks happy.

 

[wondermidget]

awsome thread. amazing tank.

 

[ChloroPhil]

That's fantastic, thanks for sharing all of your work with us.


Have you considered adding Gorgonians to your tank? If not, why? I'm in the beginning stages of planning an LPS, softy, and Gorg tank and would like your thoughts.


Thank you,
Phil

 

[InsaneClownFish]

wondermidget - Thank you so much. I love your av btw.

ChloroPhil - You know I shy away from Gorgonians for a variety of reasons. First and foremost, I've never had much luck with them. I think they're touchier than people realize, and can be very sensitive to light and flow.

The bottom line is I don't know enough about their care. Certain varieties can sting as well.
Moreover, it's aesthetic for me in this tank. They really don't "fit" the look I want. The place they might look nice is the most high flow section of the tank- not a great idea.

I used pvc pipe to build a pyramid for my heaters. This helps keep the heaters organized. I still needed to use some suction cups to keep them off the bottom.

I added a shop light to the sump closet so I can see what I'm doing.

I made a gaggle of homemade fish traps out of water and soda bottles tonight. I caught 5 fish- including 4 of the damsels I wanted to get out... Three more to go.

I caught 3 in this bottle. My Blue Sided Fairy Wrasse and Convict Damsel were in the bottle; when I reached into pull it out a little Blue Devil dove in.

Sufficed to say, the water bottle method is fantastic.

 

[Doolin]

Glad to hear you're traps are working!

Remind me why you run 9 heaters again?

Using the "if one fails it won't kill the tank" principle?