My 500 + gallon system. Last 13 years to now. Build, Aquascaping & more. Lots of pics

[slief]

This was taken Jan 6th. I had to move this coral because it has grown so much and was growing into the other birds nest.


March 5th



Taken 4/11) in it's new location. Not a great shot because I have to take the picture from an angle due to where it is.


5/11.


Taken Today.

[slief]

Jan 6th.
[/QUOTE]

March 5th


4/11. I accidentally fragged a bit off this one


Taken 5/11.


Same coral different angle.


Taken today.

[slief]

Garf Bonsai taken 4/17



Taken today. It was removed from the frag plug and glue to a rock in the tank. It's fully encrusted and spreading on the rock and is growing well.

[slief]

Some other random shots.

[slief]

Some fish shots.. My "Bulls" in my china cabinet..

[sfsuphysics]

Scott as always, a lovely display you have. I hope to see you (or at least that 20x20 booth at MACNA this year, while just about all the Royal Exclusiv stuff is out of my price range I can still drip a few drops of drool over the DreamBoxes and what not

[slief]

Originally Posted by sfsuphysics

Scott as always, a lovely display you have. I hope to see you (or at least that 20x20 booth at MACNA this year, while just about all the Royal Exclusiv stuff is out of my price range I can still drip a few drops of drool over the DreamBoxes and what not

Thank you very much! I will be at MACNA and our 10'x50' booth has been changed to a 20x20 which will make for a better layout! Looking forward to seeing you there and will be sure to bring plenty of rags to clean up the drool!

P.S.. We will have at least one Dreambox on display and for sale right off the show floor after the event.

[sfsuphysics]

Well I'm trying to shoe horn this trip between taking off early in the week and work on monday so unsure if I'll be there st thd end of the event... not that I could get a dreambox home with me, either in the car with wife kid and all his stuff or on an airplane ( still havent figured out how Im getting there)

[slief]

Originally Posted by sfsuphysics

Well I'm trying to shoe horn this trip between taking off early in the week and work on monday so unsure if I'll be there st thd end of the event... not that I could get a dreambox home with me, either in the car with wife kid and all his stuff or on an airplane ( still havent figured out how Im getting there)

I will be driving a van to the show so we could always ship it to you from the west coast.

[slief]

Here is a 5 minute video update. I need to do more growth shots. The corals have been growing very well!

[maroun.c]

Tank is looking great.
Love those growth shots.

[slief]

My corals have been growing extremely well. So well that I decided to add a small frag tank to my system. I had a custom rimless built to fit some space on the desk next to the display refugium. The tank is 36"x20"x12" and has a corner overflow. I am plumbing it into my main system and have most of the plumbing done. It should be ready to fill later this evening. I'm using a GHL Mitra 6200 to light it up. I have that mounted to the underside of the cabinet above the tank using an articulating mount much like the ones I use for my Kessils over my main display. I am also finishing up the frag racks for the tank. Those are simple ones made from black egg crate and black painted PVC legs.

More to follow later tonight if not tomorrow. I will also update with some growth shots.

[slief]

Frag tank is up and running. Now to finish up the frag racks.

[deaclauderdale]

Nice Scott. Why didn't you run the plumbing down and along the wall?

Reef keeping is life!

[slief]

Originally Posted by deaclauderdale

Nice Scott. Why didn't you run the plumbing down and along the wall?

Reef keeping is life!

I kind of did.. Since it was being plumbed into the existing drain from the display refugium, I had to align the PVC WYE (the 3 way drain connection between the fuge and frag tank) with the drain bulkhead union on the display refugium. Had I used flex PVC the entire length between the display refugium and the frag tank, I could have tied the drain to the wall but I ran short on flex PVC and already had it in my mind to use rigid most of the length. I figure I will place a plant in that corner or something. Then again, it is the "fish room" so I'm not terribly concerned about the line running a couple inches from the wall.

This the WYE that ties the frag tanks drain into the display refugiums drain. That union fitting connects to the double union ball valve on the display refugiums drain.


You can see where it connects under the display refugium in this picture.


This is looking behind the display refugium where the frag tanks drain will ultimately connect to the main drain going back to the return section of the big refugium below my main display.


The drain and feed line between the display refugium and the frag tank. It's not far from the wall at all. I may paint the line wall color which will help it disappear.


The connections below the new frag tank.

[sfsuphysics]

neat little setup there. Those fixtures at your combined booth at MACNA were very intriguing. It was nice running into you and talking to you there too. Also funny I ran into Jim Stime too and he thought I was someone who trolled his channel because my club's name (on my tshirt) was the same name as the troll.

[deaclauderdale]

Impressive. What's your total water volume now?

Reef keeping is life!

[slief]

Originally Posted by sfsuphysics

neat little setup there. Those fixtures at your combined booth at MACNA were very intriguing. It was nice running into you and talking to you there too. Also funny I ran into Jim Stime too and he thought I was someone who trolled his channel because my club's name (on my tshirt) was the same name as the troll.

Nice meeting you as well! I love these Mitra's. They are extremely powerful and offer tons of control. This will make a great light for the frag tank. Jim's a long time friend of mine. He's an interesting character!

Originally Posted by deaclauderdale

Impressive. What's your total water volume now?

Reef keeping is life!

The total system volute is around 680 gallons with frag tank.

I just moved my Profilux over to the frag system. It happened that I had a nice little shelf for the Profilux under one of the cabinets. The cubby used to be occupied by a power distribution controller for my computer. That is long gone and the Profilux fit the space perfectly. I mounted the Profilux touch display to the wall next to the frag tank. The Profilx controls the Mitra as well as my Tunze and serves as a second monitor to my system. A bit of redundancy to my Apex from a monitoring standpoint. I still need to mount the Profilux power bar in the cabinet but I will do that later. I also finished my frag racks.

[slief]

A couple shots of the fish room.

[Dropped]

Cool build, will you be posting a video of the latest addition?

I have a 30 Gallon cube sitting there unused and im very tempted to tie it in as a display fuge...

[chris_kitedude]

nice setup. a new episode for tecktalk is in due. :-)


Gesendet von iPhone mit Tapatalk

[slief]

Stopped by Vivid today and grabbed a few nice frags and a few snails For the frag tank. It's hard putting the frags in the frag tank when I could easily put them in the big tank.. I'll keep an eye on them in the frag tank for a little while and use them to judge my Mitra light settings. Also picked up a Mandarin Goby for the big tank. They had a nice Regal angel that I put on hold in their QT system so I can observe it there for the next week

[slief]

Around 10:30 this morning, I get a text from my Apex that there was a leak in my closet.. I immediately took off and headed home. Sure enough, I came home to a wet floor in the closet next to the tank. After inspection, I found that the gate valve that I added to my system to supply water to the new frag tank and a crack in it. I don't think I over tightened the threaded fitting going into but it's entirely possible that I did. That said, this was an old valve that I had sitting in my plumbing supply drawer so its also possible the crack was there before hand. Fortunately I had everything I needed to fix it. I shut the flow valve off as well as the drain valve to the frag tank and then swapped the valve out. A bit of PVC glue and some thread sealent and I was done. Like an idiot, I opened the flow valve and all was well.. Until.... I realized that the frag tank was overflowing. LOL.. Stupid me forgot to open the drain valve and it took nearly 5 gallons flowing out the back of the frag tank and down the holes in the desk for me to realize it. I quickly opened the drain valve and mopped up the mess then placed a fan nearby to dry everything out. Haste makes waste. No big deal. Fortunately my floors are all tiled so it was a simple mess to clean up and nothing was damaged in the process.

Since I was home early for the day I decided to mount up the 7" Fire Tablet that I've had for a while. It took the place of the Apex display that was flush mounted. I've been working on some surface and flush mounts for these Fire tablets for a while now and figured it was time to mount this thing up. I moved the Apex display to the shed and changed the pH probe display on it to reflect the calcium reactor in the shed.


Here is the cracked valve.. Fortunately it was a small crack and the leak was minimal. Also fortunate are the leak sensors placed strategically around the tank including in the closet. I need to add additional sensors below the new frag tank next.


The replacement valve wasn't a 1" one like the one I replaced. All I had was a 1/2" gate valve but since the feed line is 1/2", this worked just fine and saved me a trip to the store.


This is how the Apex display was mounted up until today before being moved to the shed..


The 7" Fire tablet mounted in the new surface mount where the Apex display used to be. I figured I would surface mount it rather than flush mount it for the moment. That will allow me to use the fire tablet daily to make sure I like it here before making permanent changes to my wall. The surface mount screwed right to the wall through the opening where the Apex display was flush mounted.


Key information shown on the display as well as quick access to my feed buttons.



Here is the Apex display mounted in the shed giving me a quick view of the calcium reactor pH when I'm in there.

[kegogut]

The kindle looks great. I like the idea of having the fusion display to work with instead of the apex display. Im using my laptop atm but would much rather have a tablet I can access in the fish room.

[slief]

Originally Posted by kegogut

The kindle looks great. I like the idea of having the fusion display to work with instead of the apex display. Im using my laptop atm but would much rather have a tablet I can access in the fish room.

They are only $50 on Amazon.
https://www.amazon.com/Amazon-Fire-7...ds=Fire+tablet