Wholotta wawa - 180G Reef - Taste the Rainbow

[MikeTR]

Have analyzed my temperature swings for 4 days now. Damn do these halides put out a serious amount of heat. Tank will rise 2 degrees (77.5-79.5) in about 75 minutes. It takes about 2.2 hours to cool it back down from 79.5 to 77.5. If I shut the lights off, tank drops 2 deg in 45 mins. I have no idea what the normal runtime on a chiller should be and no clue if the short duration of the swing is going to be a problem. I'm actually somewhat disappointed in the performance of the chiller, it's a 1/3hp tradewinds chiller rated for up to 300g. From what I'm seeing, no f'n way could it keep up with twice as much water volume.

[MikeTR]

So I sent an email to tradewinds. They say I have a really high heat load and the chiller is working just fine. Was in the process of making water and just took the time to calibrate my refractometer. As I was drying it off with my shirt, the plastic piece broke off!! Jeebus, I just got done soldering wires back to the connector for my automatic level controller so I could make water.

[urbaneks]

Things are progressing nicely here. I like your rescape much better than the first. One suggestion would be to get few larger rocks and ditch a lot of small rocks. A scape with lots of small rocks ends up always looking like a pile no matter how hard you try. I've studied several photographs of scapes that I love and it always comes down to a very few number of larger rocks.

[MikeTR]

I agree, that pile on the left is mostly a stack of ones I didn't want to use and I still haven't gotten around to fixing it but I do have some plans for it though. Tank is seriously going through a case of the uglies at the moment. I get the parts to my refractometer tomorrow (hopefully) so I can correct my salinity and get a CUC in there. For the time being I bought a used hydrometer at the LFS for a few bucks and calibrated it there so I could get a ballpark idea. I know it's about 1.023ish at the moment which was good enough to get some fish moved over. Needed to hurry up and get some livestock in there to keep feeding bacteria.

 

[Alkamist]

wow really nice tank man!! the scape is really sick, what are the plans coral wise?

[MikeTR]

I have 2 30 breeders stocked full of coral waiting in the wings.. I just can't get any camera to take decent pics because of the lighting. Going to be heavier on the SPS. Some euphyllias provided I can find some lower flow spots, probably towards the back. Chalice, nicer zoas, huge ricordea garden, favia's, bubble coral, duncans, montis.. Not so much on the softies, more SPS and LPS.

 

Everyone should have one of these in their kitchen:

[Alkamist]

note to self, frag tank in kitchen lol

[Reefmaster1996]

note to self, frag tank in kitchen lol

Wow bumblebee aka Marty, is very distinguishable with that scar on his left side of his mouth, looks really happy, and is a great specimen. It doesn't seem like he grew much but looks great. It's interesting how much a fish can remember, he seem to like your ocelaris clownfish pair a lot like he did mine. Glad he made it to a good home,

Reef master

[MikeTR]

I think that'll eventually change once I get some more fish in there, but for right now, all 4 fish seem to hang around together. They'll occasionally wander off on their own, but end up going back to the others. I'm really surprised to see the gramma utilizing the whole tank and not just hanging out under some rock claiming some territory.

[metrokat]

Note to self to have a humongous frag tank. No nanos on that one.

[MikeTR]

It was supposed to go in the back bedroom, but the stand couldn't make the turn It's actually a noisy gurgling beast of a setup meant for an LFS, which is where I bought it from. I'm on the hunt for a 40 breeder to setup as a quarantine in the back bedroom closet.

[MikeTR]

First attempt at getting the skimmer running was a failure. I think the issue is probably with my return pipe being too high. I tuned the flow to the min water level and as soon as I kicked on the bubble blaster it overflows my collection cup in a heartbeat, even with the gate valve fully open and a trickle to the feed. This thing is a beast. Suggestions welcome.

 

[MikeTR]

Built a temporary stand for the skimmer. The added height on the outflow was definitely causing the problem. Testing was shortlived though as I noticed water pooling in the bottom of the stand. PVC liner saves the day.. again. After I got it unhooked I noticed I had knocked out the o-ring on the feed connection. Cleaned up the mess, hooked everything back up, and it's skimming like a beast. So now to build a more permanent stand, but for now..here's some pictures of the behind the scenes.

 

 

 

[metrokat]

Skimmer is working like a champ! any soup yet? Also did you order a CUC from reefcleaners? I think your tank needs a John Maloney snail bomb.

[MikeTR]

Definitely some du jour this morning. About an inch worth. Tank is getting a little cloudy actually and it's concerning. I need to hurry up and decide on a reactor for carbon. I did in fact get the 180g quick crew from Maloney. Ships today! It's in dire need.

[ny300z]

180g quick crew from John? hope you got a pool for the extras there will be 100s

 

great looking tank so farm man, good luck. unreal frag tank too

[MikeTR]

There's a lot for them to eat right now that's for sure. Soon to be adding a heck of a bioload as well. Someone in our local club is getting out of the hobby for now and I'm picking up most of his fish. Get to skip the whole quarantine/disease step, hopefully this will minimize the aggression as well as they've all been housed together for quite some time. His tank is one of the best looking tanks in the club.

 

4" purple tang

2 yellow tangs

coris wrasse

two spot candy hog

yellow belly hippo

female bellus angel

[metrokat]

180g quick crew from John? hope you got a pool for the extras there will be 100s

 

4" purple tang

2 yellow tangs

coris wrasse

two spot candy hog

yellow belly hippo

female bellus angel

That is a nice set of fish! And all are buddies already which is awesome. Beats not having to QT.

 

Why are you getting cloudy water, it can't be due to no carbon, have you tested parameters? Ammonia, nitrate, nitrite?

[MikeTR]

I know.. I was only going to get the hippo at first. I quickly pm'd him back and asked for the rest. Peaceful tank mates sometimes aren't easy to come by. As for the cloudy water, I think it's a bacterial bloom. NH3, NO2, NO3 are at 0. Phosphate is .08 which is fueling my algae bloom. Bloom doesn't look as bad in the morning, so maybe while it's dying off it's fueling the bacteria. 50 gallon water change is in order. Controversial as to whether or not it will make the bacteria bloom worse. If it does, I have someone willing to let me borrow their UV sterilizer to clear it up. Probably a good thing I got this skimmer hooked up to help with the o2 levels.

[MikeTR]

Lights off for the past 2 days has really put a dent in the algae problem in the tank. Today will be the final day without lights. I'll be reducing the lighting to a 4 hour cycle for the next week and gradually bump it back up. Hopefully this'll keep it at a minimum until it dies out. I left the fuge light on and now have this brown slimy bubbly algae growing on top of the chaeto at the surface. On another note, the sailfin tang is probably the fattest I've ever seen him. He's so full from the all you can eat buffet.

 

Only had enough salt left for a 30g exchange so it'll have to do for now. Won't know until later what effect the water change has on the bacteria bloom. Picking up the rest of the fish tonight so I'll be fairly busy with that.

[MikeTR]

Bacteria bloom seems to be gone. Makes me feel a lot better about putting the fish in.

[MikeTR]

Home with fish.. and a few extras along with it. I'll be up for several more hours acclimating the fish to 1.025. Currently the water is 1.018. He also threw in some serpent stars which I assume are reef safe as they've been in there for quite a while. They are huge though.

[MikeTR]

This thing makes me nervous.

[MikeTR]

Soooo glad to be done with the acclimation. In addition to the other fish, also got a super fat mandarin and sand sifting goby. The existing sailfin was already picking on one of the larger tangs. I have a feeling once he gets the beat down he'll realize he's not top dog in the tank any longer.

[chachew]

This thing makes me nervous.