Ward's Island Reef

[fessoclown]

I figured I start a new build thread. We just bought a house on Ward's Island, Toronto. My wife was on the waiting list for 20 years and finally her number came up. Ward's Island is a 10 minute ferry ride from downtown Toronto, most of the houses there are old cottages from 1920-1950's. Toronto Island is now a city park but there remain about 300 houses. The land is leased from the city(99 year lease) but we own the house.
Our house is a 1937 - 800 sqf cottage. How big of a tank can we squeeze in there?

Equipement list:

Tank:
Miracles 80x20x20 Rimless 3/4" Starfire. Herbie Drain System.

Return Pump:
Ehiem 1262

Filtration:
DIY 40 Breeder Sump

Skimmer:
Avast Marine CS1 recirculating skimmer with Swabbie kit

Media Reactors:
GEO's Reef UMC 420 x 2

1 for GFO and I haven't decided weather or not I will run bio-pellets in the other or occasionally just carbon.

Calcium Reactor:
GEO's Reef CR 612 with Reef Fanatic regulator

Controller:
Reef Keeper Elite

ATO:
Avast Marine ATO

Flow in the DT:
1x Maxspect Gyre
1 x VorTech MP40wes


Heaters:
Blue Line titanium
1x 500 Watt
1x 250 Watt

Lights:
3 x Echotech Radion
2xG2 and 1xG1


There was one suitable wall for a long tank but it had a built in cabinet, we are doing a reno on the place so the cabinet is coming out anyway.

My buddy Anthony made short work of the Cabinet.

My friend Ben cheerfully scrapes up 3 generations of flooring to get down to the original Douglas fur subfloor.

And here will be the final resting place of the new tank.

The tank will be made custom by Miracles, 80x20x20 rimless starfire... aprox 135 Gallons.

(We have already removed the light sconces and baseboard heater)

One of the drawbacks and at the same time one of the most awesome thing about being on the island is that there are no cars allowed. You can get a permit to bring a moving truck or construction material over but for this I had Miracles drop off the tank at the ferry dock and it was up to me and a buddy to transport it over.

Waiting for the Ferry

On the Ferry

[/QUOTE]

here's a pic of the stand.

That is my waterline coming out of the wall. My RODI will be in the stand. It will be a manual operation, I am not plumbing it directly into the sump. I have 2 x16G Tall aquariums, one for mixing saltwater and the other for ATO. The ATO tank will double as the quarantine tank when needed and be replaced with a 5 Gallon bucket for those times. The idea is to have everything from making and mixing water and waterchanges to happen in the stand. I even have a drain line in the wall that goes through the floor under the house then out the side into the bush.

Here you can see the tank on the stand in the middle of chaos!

Customary kid in the tank photo before filling:

 

[fessoclown]

So after several plumbing setbacks the tank is wet, the sump and skimmer are online and the salinity and temp are stable. I have'nt checked other parameters.

This is not the final aquascape, the right side is pretty much done though.

 

[fessoclown]

last copy and paste post from my local forum- up to date!

last copy and paste post from my local forum- up to date!

The tank is doing great! I now have my flow all sorted out. I was leaning heavily on 1 MP40 and several MJ 1200+900s while waiting patiently for the Maxspect Gyre to be released. It caught my eye several months ago in a MACNA video and I knew it would be perfect for my a long peninsula tank.
I finally got it and installed it a couple of days ago and WOW!

I mounted it on the far end from the overflow I started at %50 in the default A-B Paddle combination.
With no other pumps running this thing is easily providing enough flow at %50 for the whole tank. Detritus is being kicked up from all over the place and is being suspended and is moving back towards the Gyre then it is being spit back towards the overflow meaning the flow is ricocheting off the far end (as advertised) and there is defiantly a Gyre effect in the tank.

There are 4 modes to run it in
1. Constant speed - this provides a sheet of water that creates turbulence across the surface of my whole 80 inches at %50.

2. Pulse. You can set it to pulse at intervals from .4s to 30 seconds. there are 20 pulse time options here.

3. Alternating Gyre mode. - This is where it gets interesting!
The pump can can switch directions, spinning opposite has less power than forward because of the paddle design but you can set it to compensate for example 50% forward and 100% reverse. You can set it to switch directions from 2 minutes to 12 hours with 10 intervals in between. I have set mine to 50% forward, 100% reverse switching every 15 minutes.

4. 1 button 10 minute feed mode

The controller is very easy to use and looks good. Apparently 3rd party controllability is in the works.

I turned off the MP40 at the opposite end of the tank when I first set up the Gyre. I don't think I'll need to turn it back on... But I will, I am going to keep it and run it on ReefCrest to provide random counter flow... or I may sell the MP40 and get a second Gyre... ya that's probably what I will eventually do but I will wait for the smaller 35 watt version.


The Gyre is very quite. Running at %50 constant the hum is less audible than the hum of a properly seated MP40 on constant (green) at %50. Sitting here typing I can't even hear the Gyre anymore under the hum of my Eheim 1262 return pump. I could hear it at first because I was trying...

Here's some photos:
FTS

New Hippo tang- My wife absolutely loves this fish

Forest Fire and Bird of Paradise colonies from my old tank...

New Flame Hawk- i lost my old one in the move- I absolutely love this fish

Clown and Anemone - notice the tentacles of the anemone are pointing away from the overflow. That means that the flow from the Gyre goes all the way across the top, hits the wall with the overflow and come round the bottom with enough strength to push the tentacles of the anemone which is situated in the 3rd quarter of the tank back towards the Gyre. The flow actually comes all the way around the 80 inches.

Zoa Tree from Fragcave

 

[FF184]

Wow! You definitely get an extra effort award.

Nice tank.

 

[usingthejohn]

Holy crap I love the scape!!

 

[Rybren]

Very nice. I grew up in TO and always dreamed of living on the island.

 

[Sugar Magnolia]

Very nicely done!!

 

[renato120]

Well done!

 

[Tradewinds]

Outstanding in every respect.

 

[d2mini]

Wow, this is crazy!
I have almost the same size tank but seeing the extra effort you have to go through just to get it to your house is nutty.

Great build so far and I like the scape.

Looking forward to seeing more of the house mods, too!

 

[fessoclown]

Thanks guys, I didn't actually feel like it was THAT much effort to get the tank over. That's just kind of par for the course for living on the Island. Everything is carted on, it's just part of the lifestyle there are no stores or cars. it's a trade off for living in a park. It's really a privilege to be able to live here and the hardships are part of what makes it so great.
Ward's Island is the Eastern part of Toronto Island which is located a 10 minute Ferry ride from downtown Toronto.

There are about 300 houses left on the island, the community fought really hard to keep their homes during the 1980's and succeeded in saving the community. Strict legislation was set up along with a Land Trust to ensure that the community remains economically diverse. The houses are not sold on the open market but to a "Purchasers List" and the houses are sold at their assessed value not market value. We bought the house and we have a 99 year lease for the land the house sits on. If we were to sell we have to sell it back to the Land Trust and then it would go to the purchasers list for sale. The list is chronologically ranked. When the list started there was a lottery to get on it. There is no way to sell your spot or buy your way up the list which keeps things fair. It took my wife being on the list for 20 years to buy this house. We live on the waterfront, on a beach in downtown Toronto which we would never ever be able to afford.... we are pretty lucky!
Here's the view from our from gate:

Here's the wiki for Toronto Island if your interested, it's pretty damn cool!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toronto_Islands

 

[fessoclown]

Wow, this is crazy!
I have almost the same size tank but seeing the extra effort you have to go through just to get it to your house is nutty.

Great build so far and I like the scape.

Looking forward to seeing more of the house mods, too!

I am familiar with your tank Denis, you accuse me of "extra effort"!!!

My task for today is to get my calcium reactor set up. I have never run a calcium reactor before. The goal today is to just get the water flowing through it. It's a little intimidating... 1 step at a time....

 

[fessoclown]

Well done!

Thanks renato120. What is that fish in your avatar? Some kind of Wrasse? It's gorgeous!

 

[fessoclown]

I got my Calcium Reactor all hooked up today. I am feeding it off my return manifold, I should have leak tested it before setting it up with media but I didn't and of course there was a leak. It was hard to tell where the leak was coming from it was either the uniseal or where the base meets the stand... I bought the reactor used, I should have known better and leaked tested before hooking it up. ! I unhooked it all, emptied the media dried it off and tracked down the leak... it was the uniseal. I cleaned it up and "borrowed" a uniseal from a brand new GEO UMC 420 that I have. I used some silicone lube and seated the new uniseal tested and I was good to go. So I am running the reactor without CO2 for now as is suggested. There is air trapped in the reactor so every now and then I tip it to let the air escape. Here is a shot of the reactor in place. I still need to spend some time cleaning up the wiring, I just had hip replacement surgery and it's hard for me to spend too much time down low at once... I am pretty knit-picky about cable management and it kinda kills me to share this picture....

Here's the other side of my stand. I have 2 16G tall tanks. I use one to mix saltwater for waterchanges and the other as my ATO reservoir.

I need to calibrate my PH probe... I only have a pack of 10 point here... I can't really calibrate without both the 10 and the 7 can I?
So everything else is ready to go in terms of getting the reactor online, the next few steps are the hard ones as I have never done it before. Hopefully I can get somebody local with CR experience to come over and help dial it in...

 

[fessoclown]

Ecsenius midas!

Ecsenius midas!

I love Blennies, one of my all time favourite fish. I've always wanted a Midas and In the past I have tried to hold out for one but have ended up taking other Blennies home only have a MIdas show up in the few months after... this is the first time I have been Blennless when one became available....

It looks pretty pink in these shots but my dusk lighting has a lot of purple, the Blenny is more of a cross between orange and yellow and pink in daylight. Pretty striking and beautiful colouring!

It's eyes are bright bright blue!

 

[fessoclown]

picked up a nice ORA Derasa Clam from Bigshow:

Got a bunch of other nice stuff... Here's a few more pictures:

 

[fessoclown]

Borbonius Anthias

Borbonius Anthias

One of the first SW fish that I ever saw after googling around with the idea in my head that maybe I would like to set up a reef tank (I knew absolutely NOTHING about the hobby including FW at the time) was the Borbonius Anthias and I immediately fell in love. I am a circus clown by trade (NOT a birthday party clown, not that there's anything wrong with that....:uzi It was pretty obvious what my attraction to this fish was.
Today I "joined the club" thanks to a buddy and my MUST HAVE fish list is now complete:
Redfin Waspfish
Midas Blenny
Flame Hawk
and now finally the Borb.
My only regret is what will I long for now....
I wish I could have a Dogfaced puffer, Longhorned Cowfish and a Clown Trigger... (see the pattern here)
Anybody got a suggestion for another funny little fish I can pine for?

Pictures of the Borg to follow....

 

[fessoclown]

Update time:

I had a plague rip through my tank around xmas time, Brook or velvet is my guess based on how fast everything died (8-10 fish in 5 days) I believe there was Ich in the tank too as a Tang was showing signs. I lost nearly everything except for a Flame Hawk and a Redfin Waspfish. They are still in my DT, I haven't been able to catch the bastards yet (I haven't really tried) I am borrowing a fishtrap so I can get them out and put them in QT so I can go fallow in the DT for 72 days just in case. I am going to implement a severe QT protocol from here on in.

I have a massive GHA problem right now as well which doesn't make any sense to me. I feed the 2 fish very little (about 1/2 a every 2 days and a few pellets) so I don't understand where the nutrients are coming from. I can only assume that my rocks are leaching P04 really bad.

I run 2 cups of GFO in a reactor, I have a great skimmer, I skim wet and keep up with %10 WC every week. I change the filter socks every 3-4 days.

Readings are undetectable:
P04 - 000 Hanna
No2 - 000 Salifert
Calcium - 490 (high I know)
Alk - 7
Mag - 1450

I manually remove at least a cup of algae a day. Eventually will the P04 deplete from the rocks? RIGHT? I am starting to get really annoyed and confused.

If I didn't absolutely love my rockwork/aquascape I would start over with "cooked" rock. I suposed I could "cook" the rock one piece at a time but that seems like a loooong process....

Here are some shots:

 

[fessoclown]

Oh ya I forgot to update on how I dealt with my terrible GHA problem. I do not recommend this path to anyone but it seems to have worked for me! The outbreak I was experiencing was out of control and despite the fact that I was adding no nutrients to the system, using GFO and have a good skimmer I couldn't get rid of it. I was at my wits end. I was ready to ditch all my rock and get new live rock.
What I did instead was use 3% hydrogen peroxide. I took each piece of rock out, dipped a toothbrush in hydrogen peroxide, applied a heavy layer of it to the algae and let it sit for 5 minutes. I then scrub rinsed each rock with a scrub brush in a bucket of waterchange water, swished it around and put back in the tank.
It worked... totally eradicated the algae. It has been 2 weeks and it has not come back.

I went from this:

TO THIS. THANKS H2O2!

 

[fessoclown]

So, when I installed my return line I put a manifold off to the left of the for various reactors before the water returns up to the DT. Off to the right of the T I just installed a union valve in case I wanted to expand one day.... that day has come.
Here is the sump as is, there is no fuge. Just a 40 Breeder with a filter sock trey, a large skimmer section and a return section.

Here is the T with the union valve for expansion:

I had a 29 Gallon tall tank laying around that I originally bought for a QT. This is my first time drilling a tank and let me say that the worst part about it is the anxiety leading up to the drill... What a piece of ****, it was so easy!

I didn't even have 1 mm to spare, in fact I had to raise my ATO reservoir on some plywood so it would clear the plastic trim of the 29G. I can't believe I managed to Tetris my calcium reactor and C02 tank but Bamm!!! I did it!!!

So you may have noticed that I drilled for the bulkhead pretty low in the tank. I did this so that I would have room to install an Algae Turf Scrubber. Rather than just filling the fuge with cheato I am going to give an ATS a try. I made it bigger than it needs to be and I am only lighting one side. It's just an extra tool in the box... If I don't like it I can always swap it out for a loc-line nozzle as it's on a union.

I think I may have to upgrade my Eheim 1262 as my return pump. I think I will be able to manage with the 1262 and just turn my siphon down but I have a feeling that will bring me down to about 3-4x turnaround which isnt too bad but it's a little slow... That's one of the great things about running a Herbie or BA, you can adjust the siphon rate to match the return volume!
Now I also have to figure out how I am going to light the ATS. I am going to go single sided for now and use what I have laying around which is a couple of Home depot clip on reflector lights (I am sure I have another one up in the attic) with CFL bulbs.