Zachtos’ unique 240G reef w/ 375G sump/fuge-growout/RDSB/aggro tank

[zachtos]

WOO HOO!

WOO HOO!

I AM SO HAPPY!!! :rollface: My return pump has been repaired and put back into service! IT IS DEAD SILENT!!! I love it, now I can only hear a gentle trickle upstairs. The massive bubbling has been reduced by approximately 50% but micro bubbles still persist... It helped atleast. Plus I'm getting more flow now, I'd say 30% more approximately. I had to open every single valve completely to avoid an overflow in the basement! It has to be over 2000gph now. I'm also considering making two more maxijet mods. One across the bottom of the tank in the reeftank and maybe one in the sump to keep it mixed better? It seems to get stagnant in the 150G rubbermaid sump. And the flow in the 75G fish only tank could be better. We'll see how it does now that the valve is pushing over 500gph into it.

I'll cut the nori down, the fish seem to devour a full sheet within an hour though as it is. The frozen stuff is hard to pin down on what is really needed, everything seems to eat it. I still see no pods in the display, no worms either. I do see them in the refugium though when i shake the chaeto/calupera. There is just a depressingly low amount of pods/critters at the moment.

*Do I need to beef up my cleaning crew? I think i have around 60 or less various snails in the 240G so far. I'm sure atleast 5-8 have died or not moved in weeks now. Pretty sure I accidentlally killed 3 fighting conches by acclimating them in copper sulfate water that the LFS came in... whoops.

-Planning a water change of 100G now that I have my RO/DI putting in 0 TDS water... half of it will be about 2-5TDS though, but much less then the 200TDS that made it into the system recently!

-Still need to find a way to stop the micro bubbles, I'll re-evaluate how bad they are now tonight, and I still haven't solved the no hatch brine issue. but I still am Happy

 

[NYCREEF69]

keep up the nice work

 

[zachtos]

My generator kicked on for 5 hours during a power outage the other day. No casualties or gasping fish at all. The temperature in the tank actually dropped to 76F while it was 79F in the house. I do notice a few annoyances after an outage, the skimmer wont kick back on properly and has to cycle back off again.

20-30 frags will be added in the next week or two. My achilles will be available in 2-3 weeks as well. Sailfin will come shortly as well. Expect lots of new fun things by the end of August!

100G waterchange done recently. The small algae bloom in the tank is dying down. The water is still slightly hazy, unsure why still. All corals are doing well except for 3 of the 20some frags. I took readings on the center Island, it gets 50-75% less light then the rest of the tank, so it'll only ever be good for lowerlight frags, which was the intentions, but I can not find room in the tank for a maxima now.

I also am sad at my pathetic moonlight after seeing someone else's this weekend... I must upgrade yet again... T5 actinic sounds good to me, maybe I'll swap the blues to UV cold cathodes instead in the hood?

Still dealing w/ microbubbles. The Ca reactor seems to be keeping the tank at a steady 11dkh, I like it on the higher end for more calcium, but I may push down to 10dkh later. I have a hard time keeping the Ca reactor nozzle from getting blocked. I've lost a lot of time to the tank recently because I've been dating a nice new sweet girl... again.

 

[TandN]

Zack are you using carbon ? I noticed that when I changed over to hdryo carbon from 2 lil fish my water column gotten ALOT clearer FWIW

 

[zachtos]

i hate angels

i hate angels

I bought 20 some frags this last week, 10 of which of are zoanthids. They were spectacular selections from a friend in midland, mi. Now only 3/10 zoanthids remain because the angel fish that I'm fish sitting has eaten them all....

I am losing patience with this fish and WANT IT OUT NOW... I am running out of ideas. Nets are just impossible. I made a 2 liter bottle fish trap and no one seemed interested. I even tried fishing hooks w/ shrimp w/ no success. I don't want to resort to draining the display, but for time/convenience, it may be my only option short of spearing the damn thing!

 

[melev]

You could make one of these:
http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=1173690

 

[zachtos]

GOTCHA YA BASTARD!

Thanks to melev for inspiring me to create a quick easy DIY trap door live trap. I left this in the tank overnight w/ food in it to gain the fish's trust. Then tonight I baited it with some seaweed and waited on the couch while watching tv for maybe an hour. The only fish that entered the device was the foxface, a clown, all the chromis and last but not least, the zoanthid devouring angelfish of ryans!!! He is now in the 75G tank waiting for him to come get him in a month.

Casualties so far:
-8/10 zoanthids eaten in under a week!
-5/10 SPS that I bought seem to be dying from rapid tissue loss. I suspect that sticking the frags directly into plumbers marine epoxy is the culprit. To be safe, next time I will try supergluing them to a ball of epoxy, then supergluing the other side of the epoxy in the tank. I've heard that is much safer, especially considering the only ones in the tank that seem to be not extending polyps are the ones mounted w/ epoxy!!!

-I'll take photos later this week when I have motivation again... time to rest.

*alk holding steady between 10-11dkh

 

[jgs107]

tanks lookin good.at least you got the mean monster out of there.its nice too see how fish react in other peoples tanks before you buy them.good for me bad for others.

 

[mcliffy2]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=10456318#post10456318 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by zachtos

GOTCHA YA BASTARD!

Thanks to melev for inspiring me to create a quick easy DIY trap door live trap. I left this in the tank overnight w/ food in it to gain the fish's trust. Then tonight I baited it with some seaweed and waited on the couch while watching tv for maybe an hour. The only fish that entered the device was the foxface, a clown, all the chromis and last but not least, the zoanthid devouring angelfish of ryans!!! He is now in the 75G tank waiting for him to come get him in a month.

Casualties so far:
-8/10 zoanthids eaten in under a week!
-5/10 SPS that I bought seem to be dying from rapid tissue loss. I suspect that sticking the frags directly into plumbers marine epoxy is the culprit. To be safe, next time I will try supergluing them to a ball of epoxy, then supergluing the other side of the epoxy in the tank. I've heard that is much safer, especially considering the only ones in the tank that seem to be not extending polyps are the ones mounted w/ epoxy!!!

-I'll take photos later this week when I have motivation again... time to rest.

*alk holding steady between 10-11dkh

Tank is lookin good.

For attaching SPS why not skip the epoxy altogether and just use super glue? The epoxy heats up over 100 degrees and can do serious damage...I try to avoid it whenever possible.

 

[zachtos]

Photo updates: I added about 20 new frags since my last photos. I lost 8 of them to the angelfish and 3-5 of them are 'ify'. I now know to mount with superglue onto the epoxy, then superglue the epoxy. All of the frags that I mounted with epoxy, I removed and reglued that way. Now the polyps are out on them all, but I suspect that the damage may be irreversable on some. WELL, atleast I learned something.

*** Sailfin coming in the next 2 weeks!!!***
*** Achilles is on order, also next 2 weeks! ***

-(I am hoping for the best with the achilles, I plan to add one more maxijet for flow to the display for him)

-also planned, 6 blue chromis, 2 bangaii cardinals, larger snail cleanup crew, another neon goby or shrimp?, 1 maxima (maybe), maybe 20 or so more frags, (mostly zoas, a ricordia or two, and 3-6 SPS)... and a BTA is planned for the center Island, I plan to make a nice crevice for it and put a bottle over it until it attaches.

 

[melev]

Is there any way I can convince you to hold off for a month or so? You're getting a serious algae bloom that is dusting the sand and covering your rockwork. I'd try to get that resolved first so that when you add more livestock it'll be safe from getting overrun with that stuff.

Plus once you add more livestock, you'll be feeding more. The tank needs more time to balance out the biological filtration so it can handle the bioload you have planned.

 

[zachtos]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=10497022#post10497022 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by melev
Is there any way I can convince you to hold off for a month or so? You're getting a serious algae bloom that is dusting the sand and covering your rockwork. I'd try to get that resolved first so that when you add more livestock it'll be safe from getting overrun with that stuff.

Plus once you add more livestock, you'll be feeding more. The tank needs more time to balance out the biological filtration so it can handle the bioload you have planned.

Yeah, It'll probably be a few weeks atleast. The algae bloom is actually on it's way out. It was quite a bit worse a few weeks ago and has been slowly clearing up. I cut the feedings down like you suggested and knocked my lighting down to only 8 hours. It's also getting close to another WC. I haven't had any nitrates yet, but I know algae uses them up obviously.

The cleaning crew needs a major bump by the way, I have less then 60 snails overall in there I think at the moment, maybe only 24 are astreas even. I didn't add too many cuz I didn't want them to starve in the beginning.

I can hold off on everything but the achilles and the sailfin because I'm already locked in on those orders though. I will also be getting rid of the kole tang (if able to be trapped) and the angel shortly here when Ryan comes back in two weeks, so I'll be cutting/adding bio load.

*The big problem is that Ryan will be taking out approximately 100lbs of my 450lbs of live rock when he comes back. I was probably not going to let him take more then 25lbs a week just to let my tank bounce back a bit.

 

[TandN]

zach you can go on ebay and get like 200 nass snails for $20 i used them for years in my reef tanks

 

[melev]

As far as I know, the nassarius snails sold on ebay are the wrong kind. They are either carnivorous or they live in cooler waters. I can't remember the details, but if you pursue that course, do some research on that particular snail. The seller will probably list the latin name in the ad, assuming that is the correct name in the first place.

I bought some with another club member and it wasn't a good experience for me.

 

[zachtos]

I prefer a variety of snails myself. Astreas, nassarius, cerith, nerite, fighting conch, margarita snails (i think they don't like reef temps though, but I have some), and turbos are good but annoying. I would have do 50% overall astrea popluation or so, but it is annoying how they flip over and die, seems like there must be a better way... I may order more online again in fact this week unless my LFS can beat reeftopia.com again.

 

[mcliffy2]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=10496331#post10496331 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by zachtos

Photo updates: I added about 20 new frags since my last photos. I lost 8 of them to the angelfish and 3-5 of them are 'ify'. I now know to mount with superglue onto the epoxy, then superglue the epoxy. All of the frags that I mounted with epoxy, I removed and reglued that way. Now the polyps are out on them all, but I suspect that the damage may be irreversable on some. WELL, atleast I learned something.

*** Sailfin coming in the next 2 weeks!!!***
*** Achilles is on order, also next 2 weeks! ***

-(I am hoping for the best with the achilles, I plan to add one more maxijet for flow to the display for him)

-also planned, 6 blue chromis, 2 bangaii cardinals, larger snail cleanup crew, another neon goby or shrimp?, 1 maxima (maybe), maybe 20 or so more frags, (mostly zoas, a ricordia or two, and 3-6 SPS)... and a BTA is planned for the center Island, I plan to make a nice crevice for it and put a bottle over it until it attaches.

I was actually suggesting just not using any epoxy at all, only super glue. This works well for most sps frags with less risk to the corals, and results in quicker growth at the base.

 

[TandN]

the one guy I have always gotten from I never had a problem with them kept my DSB super clean

 

[zachtos]

OK, I've added 12 new frags. All frags in the system are extending polyps and seem to be growing. Some show little growth, some show a lot of growth. The orange motipora cap is growing insanely fast and I can see I'll be fragging that frequently. I now have aproximately 50 frags in the system.

Dkh: stays around 9-10, this is still hard to maintain steadily, but it changes very slowly so it's not bad, maybe might creep up or down 1 point per week. It's hard to adjust the drip rate w/ the crappy t valve on the effluent line.

-no signs of ick since I bought my hippo tang, no fish deaths or stress signs.

*Next additions: BTA in the next 2 weeks from a friend
*-Sailfin tang 8-10" from a friend labor day weekend
*-achilles tang, hopefully this week, along with 2 bangaii cardinals, 4-12 Blue chromis, maybe some other small fishes and a larger cleanup crew
*running out of room for SPS, maybe 10 more and i'll really have trouble cramming more in w/o encroaching on growth room
*still debating on a maxima clam, no real good high light place to put him.

 

[zachtos]

Tank Stock to date:
30ish blue, blue/green chromis
3 female lyretail, 1 male
1 bangaii cardinal
1 yellow, purple, hippo, kole, sailfin
1 foxface rabbitfish
1 copperband butterfly
2 ocellaris clown
1 neon cleaner goby
150+ snails/cleaning crew consisting of astrea, trochus, nassarius, cerith, margarita, fighting conch, 2 serpent seastars, 2 brisstle seastars

Deaths to date:
-a few chromis
-1 blue linkia
-1 bangaii cardinal
-1 neon goby
-25ish snails

Corals Collection to date:
SPS frags: 31
montipora frags: 6
LPS: 1 frogspawn
Zoas: 18 various colonies
Anemone: 1 white/blue sebae (clowns have not tried hosting yet)
Green star polyps on rear wall encrusting in 6 locations
1 small blue ricordia

Lost corals:
-7-8 zoas eaten by ryan's korin angel
-3 green bird's nest
*everything else seems to be doing fine

Paramaters
as of 9/9/07:
nitrate/nitrite/ammonia: 0ppm
kh:10.5 and holding steady w/ calc reactor
calc: 475ppm
mg: 1350ppm
salinity:1.025
temp: 78-81F throughout day
ph: unchecked

Solved Problems
-replaced two broken T5 bulbs
-replaced seized motor in seaswirl return

Current Issues
-skimmer is leaking badly, likely needs a gasket replaced on the genx4100 pump
-1 dead fan of 6 on hood
-still can't get brine to culture, haven't tried lately
-clowns not hosting anemone
-crappy moonlighting, want an upgrade

Current Plans:
-possibly convert my 75G tank to a refugium instead of a aggro tank
-add more lyretail, maybe 5 more, instead of a achilles tang (could not track one down and I keep getting negative feedback about that fish, so I think I can live without him)
-upgrade moonlighting somehow
-add a few more frags here and there, more low light frags desired

 

[zachtos]