Jerone's 155 gallon reef tank

[RedDeadReef]

looking pretty sweet! I need to build myself a screen too, found my solon fairy in the overflow the other day lol

[jbfloor]

It's been a while since I gave an update. I wish I could say that everything is going great, but as soon as I won the cyano battle (mostly thanks to the new skimmer) a new mess started. Green algae popped up and this messy white goop that has since started to turn brown. Nasty stuff. Unfortunately I have been traveling for business for several weeks straight, so I am unable to battle it properly. One more week and I am back home for four weeks or so.

Also, (posted on the Tunze sponsor forum as well)

I had an unfortunate water spill incident recently and fried/corroded the junction box of one of my Tunze 6095 pumps. The pump itself seems to be ok and the 7096 controller is still working fine.

The part is circled in the picture below.


I have looked around and cannot find this part in the spare parts section of the Tunze site or anywhere else. Anyone here know how to get this part or has the schematics to it (I can build one myself if someone can point me to the wiring diagram)

I'd hate to have to replace a $200+ pump for what must be a less than $10 part.

[scuzy]

You could contact Roger from tunze usa. He's great help.

[Jholt11]

What size pump did you use on your closed loop? Did you decide to alternate between the left and right sides? Also if you just let it run without alternating, was the flow stronger on the left side of your tank facing it? I am getting ready to set up my 150 again and really like your closed loop concept.

[jbfloor]

I am currently running an Eheim Compact+ 3000 on the closed loop. I have not measured the currents, but the closed loop system was not meant to provide strong currents, but to keep water moving in the corners of the tank. In a future system I'd probably go with a slightly stronger pump and wider PVC before the split though.

It is not alternating. I have not good access to the back of the tank, so I did not want to get too fancy with parts that can fail.

[jbfloor]

I just read an interesting article about mysterious white slime in reef tanks at: http://saltgeeks.com/forums/forum/ge...ite-reef-slime. This sounds very much like what my tank is currently going through.

My wife loves scented candles and air fresheners and will run them 24/7. With a relatively long cold spell (for California that is like 55 degrees) we left the windows closed in our house for a couple of weeks. I wonder if this lack of ventilation in combination with the chemicals that caused the white slime. I kind of hope so, because that would mean I can fix it. The white slime is nasty and tough to get rid of.

[jbfloor]

No real improvement on the mysterious white slime, but the female clown sure loves her new anemone! Took her less than a day to host it.

[scev]

I know it has been a long time since the last post, but I'm curious if you are still happy with how you did your "undrilled" closed loop? I am thinking about doing something similar in my tank.

[jbfloor]

Been a looong time since the last update. Well, the tank is still there. It took almost 18 months(!!!) to get rid of most of the white slime. There is still some left, but just small amounts and it does not seem to be growing much.

Between frustration with the slime and the water restrictions in CA, I let the tank sit with minimal maintenance for over a year in the hope that whatever got into the tank would finally be used up. That seems to have happened. About half the corals have survived and some even thrived.

Also, I switched to a newer, bigger refugium made by Trigger Systems that is one thousand times easier to maintain. I can actually reach my filter socks without having to disassemble both the skimmer and the input pipes.

I'll see if I can post some update pictures in the future, if things keep improving.

[jbfloor]

The old:


And the new:


Sump/Refugium is a Trigger Systems Tide36, about 50% more volume as the old one and, as you can see, I can easily reach the massive 7" filter socks.

I got rid of the sand in the refugium and am just running live rock in it. On the far right are two PhosBan reactors. One with GFO and one with Carbon.

LED lighting for refugium is on the way.

[jbfloor]

I started work on building my fish "room". Living in the Bay Area is great, but it does mean that space is limited and so the "room" is actually a closet. There's still enough room for five tanks, though I'll start with two.

[jbfloor]

Well, here's something interesting:



I had been concerned about this hermit for a while. He wasn't moving much and he seemed to have trouble molting. Then, finally, after about a week he managed to get close to the front of the tank. In the evening under blue lights he showed... or should I say, they showed.

It looks like two hermits are sharing the same shell. In the picture you can see two right claws and a mix of eyes and antennae. Both sets of claws, arms etc.. are moving separately. It is definitely not a molt.

I'm not sure what to do about this. The mangled legs show that the hermits have trouble molting and I'm sure they also have trouble eating. They both occupy the shell and cannot fight each other inside. The best thing I could think of is to put another empty shell right next to this one and hope one of them will make the leap.

Anyone ever seen this before?

[scuzy]

Originally Posted by jbfloor

The old:





And the new:





Sump/Refugium is a Trigger Systems Tide36, about 50% more volume as the old one and, as you can see, I can easily reach the massive 7" filter socks.



I got rid of the sand in the refugium and am just running live rock in it. On the far right are two PhosBan reactors. One with GFO and one with Carbon.



LED lighting for refugium is on the way.

Nice sump. I recently restarted my whole tank after losing battle with bryopsis. I remember when I started my 220 I copied your setup. Glad everything is looking great. I would suggest trying out those marine pure blocks in your sump it'll be lot better than just live rocks in the sump.

[jbfloor]

Upgraded the refugium pump from an Eheim Compact+ 3000 (793gph) to a Rio 32HF (1920gph). With head losses, tank still turns over at least 10x per hour.

Also:

The female clown got sick with something and died a couple of months ago. I'm hoping that the remaining (male) clown will accept this juvenile and become female.

I am also going to make one last attempt at keeping a Copperband. He is doing well so far, but won't be allowed out of QT until it shows aggressive eating.

[jbfloor]

Torch coral loves the increased flow:


New brain I picked up a couple of weeks ago:


Cleaner shrimp family:

[jbfloor]

Originally Posted by scuzy

Nice sump. I recently restarted my whole tank after losing battle with bryopsis. I remember when I started my 220 I copied your setup. Glad everything is looking great. I would suggest trying out those marine pure blocks in your sump it'll be lot better than just live rocks in the sump.

Thanks. Those blocks do look interesting, though my nitrates are testing 0.00, so I don't know if I need them.

[jbfloor]

[jbfloor]

The copperband picked at some of my "Rod's Original Blend" but would not eat much at all. I ordered some live brine shrimp from DrFosters and was happy to see it started chasing after it immediately. It still only eats small amounts and is still being finicky, but at least it's eating something.

[jbfloor]

The copperband has eaten at least 200 live brine shrimp in the last couple of days and is now viciously picking at the feeding pipette whenever I stick it in the QT tank.

I tricked her into eating frozen mysis, by combining the mysis with the live brine and having a frozen mysis stick out the pipette tail first so it looks like a worm.

So help me God, I'm going to make this Copperband survive.. even if it kills me.

[jbfloor]

Copperband was promoted to the display tank. She is now vigurously eating frozen mysis, so I am hopeful she will be fine now.




Not a great picture, but it shows how the larger clown that was already in the tank immediately adopted the new, smaller clown. No fights, nothing.. Best of friends within five minutes.

[jbfloor]

A little trick I use to allow the Copperband to eat in peace in the display tank:



Get a small pillbox, drill a couple of holes in the cap. Weight it down with a coral plug and put a cube of mysis inside. In my case the mysis cube barely fits, so I put it in while frozen and it slowly starts releasing. The Copperband is the only fish able to get inside the box through the holes.

[jbfloor]

This is a long overdue update on this tank.

Over the last two years I neglected this tank for a variety of reasons, one being that I experienced a rather meteoric rise at the company I was working for, which meant 10-12 hour workdays and lots of travel, and the other being a relentless issue with white gunk and algea. I have since left that company (as I became more and more convinced the my boss (the CEO) was a psychopath) and have gone back to a more normal work week.

I came very close to giving up on the tank and storing it in the garage for future use or selling it. Especially when my lights started failing, as I did not have the time or energy to fix them. The main issue with this tank location from the beginning has been access. There is not way to get to the back of the tank, so when the lights failed I would have to dismantle all the light wiring to be able to track down where the failure was (it turned out one of the connectors in the back had corroded through). So, for several months the only 1/4 of the lights were running.

Imagine my surprise when I finally took the lighting rig apart and made a quick test fix and I noticed that the tank had never been more colorful. Obviously any SPS had died, but the mushrooms loved it and even some LPS flourished. Better yet, all the white gunk had completely disappeared and algea was limited to tiny patches. Water tests showed that KH, CA and Mg were somewhat low, but Nitrates and Phosphates were close to undetectable.. In other words, the tank was still in good shape.

So, with the money earned from psycho-boss, I decided to treat myself to a present. I wanted a simple lighting system with a single wire for power and wireless control for the rest. I quickly settled on the Corona system from RapidLed as I have been a customer of RapidLed for years and their customer service is second to none. Also, they are almost half the price of the Radeons.

Just a reminder of what the previous lights looked like:


And the new lights. Note that the middle light is not working yet. The Corona works through the FishBit app and this unit is not able to register to the app. I have a ticket into RapidLed and FishBit to make sure this unit is registered to me.


I spent several hours racking my brain about how to mount these new lights. The Corona's come with a hanging kit only, which is not something I use. I came up with a kind of adapter plate from the Corona directly to my canopy which meant taking some strips of aluminum and drilling holes in the right locations. Then, as I was taking apart the old light rig, it struck me. I wanted to keep the rail system I made for the previous lights, so why not build a hanging scaffold to rest the Corona's on? So, that's what I ended up doing. It is very simple, very cheap and easy to adjust. If the screws end up rusting, I'll just replace them in less than five minutes.

Here's a close up:





The rail allows me to move the lights back and forth whenever needed and the lights are simply resting on the aluminum strips (which is actually strips of Carpet Trim).

On a side note.. The previous lighting rig can easily be repaired and used on another tank. All that is broken is a couple of wires have to be re-soldered and some of the LED's need to be glued back to the heat sink. I'm thinking about selling it or trading it for some frags.

[jbfloor]

As expected, the RapidLed response was fast and it got fixed this morning before 9 AM.

All lights are now up and running. Currently they are on the Fiji schedule with peak hour at 3:30. I've set the peak intensities as follows:

Moonlight: 25%
Blue: 60%
Violet: 80%
White: 45%
Red: 25%
Green: 25%



As you can see, the mushrooms are everywhere! If you are in the Bay Area and would like a frag, let me know and you can pick some up. If you have something to swap (like a piece of birdsnest for example), even better.

Will take better pictures when I get the good camera back.

[dkevink]

Awesome looking tank.

[scuzy]

Originally Posted by jbfloor

This is a long overdue update on this tank.



Over the last two years I neglected this tank for a variety of reasons, one being that I experienced a rather meteoric rise at the company I was working for, which meant 10-12 hour workdays and lots of travel, and the other being a relentless issue with white gunk and algea. I have since left that company (as I became more and more convinced the my boss (the CEO) was a psychopath) and have gone back to a more normal work week.



I came very close to giving up on the tank and storing it in the garage for future use or selling it. Especially when my lights started failing, as I did not have the time or energy to fix them. The main issue with this tank location from the beginning has been access. There is not way to get to the back of the tank, so when the lights failed I would have to dismantle all the light wiring to be able to track down where the failure was (it turned out one of the connectors in the back had corroded through). So, for several months the only 1/4 of the lights were running.



Imagine my surprise when I finally took the lighting rig apart and made a quick test fix and I noticed that the tank had never been more colorful. Obviously any SPS had died, but the mushrooms loved it and even some LPS flourished. Better yet, all the white gunk had completely disappeared and algea was limited to tiny patches. Water tests showed that KH, CA and Mg were somewhat low, but Nitrates and Phosphates were close to undetectable.. In other words, the tank was still in good shape.



So, with the money earned from psycho-boss, I decided to treat myself to a present. I wanted a simple lighting system with a single wire for power and wireless control for the rest. I quickly settled on the Corona system from RapidLed as I have been a customer of RapidLed for years and their customer service is second to none. Also, they are almost half the price of the Radeons.



Just a reminder of what the previous lights looked like:





And the new lights. Note that the middle light is not working yet. The Corona works through the FishBit app and this unit is not able to register to the app. I have a ticket into RapidLed and FishBit to make sure this unit is registered to me.





I spent several hours racking my brain about how to mount these new lights. The Corona's come with a hanging kit only, which is not something I use. I came up with a kind of adapter plate from the Corona directly to my canopy which meant taking some strips of aluminum and drilling holes in the right locations. Then, as I was taking apart the old light rig, it struck me. I wanted to keep the rail system I made for the previous lights, so why not build a hanging scaffold to rest the Corona's on? So, that's what I ended up doing. It is very simple, very cheap and easy to adjust. If the screws end up rusting, I'll just replace them in less than five minutes.



Here's a close up:











The rail allows me to move the lights back and forth whenever needed and the lights are simply resting on the aluminum strips (which is actually strips of Carpet Trim).



On a side note.. The previous lighting rig can easily be repaired and used on another tank. All that is broken is a couple of wires have to be re-soldered and some of the LED's need to be glued back to the heat sink. I'm thinking about selling it or trading it for some frags.

Shouldn't you secure the lights just one you don't want it falling into the tank?


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