Rebuilding the Shallow Reef Tank Pt.2

[Indiana Reefin]

Wow sick setup!! Really creative stand! I love it 

[teenyreef]

Oh man, this new setup makes my heart go pitter pat 

I love the exposed sump. Did you decide whether to plumb in the old tank for frags? I visited a local reefer who plumbed together a 150 display, 40g refugium, 30g frag tank, and a big sump. He just sets up a temporary tank to qt fish, and rarely needs it. His tanks are incredible. 

[tanacharison]

On 3/25/2018 at 1:33 PM, Indiana Reefin said:

Wow sick setup!! Really creative stand! I love it 

Thanks! Hows the 29 going? Are you still using AF reef salt?

13 hours ago, teenyreef said:

Oh man, this new setup makes my heart go pitter pat 

I love the exposed sump. Did you decide whether to plumb in the old tank for frags? I visited a local reefer who plumbed together a 150 display, 40g refugium, 30g frag tank, and a big sump. He just sets up a temporary tank to qt fish, and rarely needs it. His tanks are incredible. 

Thanks teeny! Never did it if after I realized how much the water level in the sump raised from my 2 1" drains and the 2ft 3/4" when turning everything off. I would have needed to commit to buying a bigger sump and I can't justify replacing the one I have right now. It's worked great for years, plus I would need new stickers Strike two was the location.. It would need to be left of my display and it would block access to my ATO and one side of the sump. The absolute best part of a open stand is how incredibly easy maintenance becomes and I can do visual checks every time I walk past. 

[Indiana Reefin]

11 hours ago, tanacharison said:

Thanks! Hows the 29 going? Are you still using AF reef salt?

Thanks teeny! Never did it if after I realized how much the water level in the sump raised from my 2 1" drains and the 2ft 3/4" when turning everything off. I would have needed to commit to buying a bigger sump and I can't justify replacing the one I have right now. It's worked great for years, plus I would need new stickers Strike two was the location.. It would need to be left of my display and it would block access to my ATO and one side of the sump. The absolute best part of a open stand is how incredibly easy maintenance becomes and I can do visual checks every time I walk past. 

Yep still using AF. It’s a great product. I have never had such consistent parameters. They are always spot on every batch I make. 

 

29 is doing pretty well. I am planning on a trip to Italy and Ireland so I am prepping my tank for 12 days on its own. I will have one of my co-workers feed them every day. 

This summer I am going to add a sump and buy a stand. Looking at adding sps as well. 

[DarkMagic]

Love the open stand! Do you run a split lighting cycle? If so, is the light spill at night an issue?

[tanacharison]

17 minutes ago, DarkMagic said:

Love the open stand! Do you run a split lighting cycle? If so, is the light spill at night an issue?

Thanks. Lighting cycle is split with lights completely out for a few hours before the display lights start ramping at 9AM. The nanobox beam is a powerful little light and spills a little but nothing that wakes the fish

 

[teenyreef]

I love that picture!

[DarkMagic]

12 hours ago, teenyreef said:

I love that picture!

Me too! There's something fun about seeing all the guts. Great job on the plumbing and keeping the wires well hidden. 

[tanacharison]

On 3/27/2018 at 8:43 PM, Indiana Reefin said:

Yep still using AF. It’s a great product. I have never had such consistent parameters. They are always spot on every batch I make. 

 

29 is doing pretty well. I am planning on a trip to Italy and Ireland so I am prepping my tank for 12 days on its own. I will have one of my co-workers feed them every day. 

This summer I am going to add a sump and buy a stand. Looking at adding sps as well.

Good luck on the trip! I'm doing 3 days next week and I'm a little scared but I would be going nuts over 12.

 

 

Finally started using acropower in the doser. I was manually doing this before but I figured why waste the extra dosing pump head. After switching from BRS 2-part to AF 1,2,3 my DKH is slowing dropping about .04 in 5 days. I'm only going to bump everything up by 1ml after testing every other day if I'm seeing a drop of more than .02. Going down is not nearly as bad as up! I'm more excited about all the amazing corals that I'm adding this month!

 

[tanacharison]

Well 10 days later and no losses Looks like I did everything right with getting the tank as clean as possible before the switch. I've been feeding really really heavy the past week and i'm really loving reef jerky from avast marine. Montis are exploding in growth and color and the hammer is starting to return to its glory after being smashed into the 20L. This AF dosing is not nearly as concentrated as I hoped.. I'm down to 8.5 dkh.

[tanacharison]

LFS might have had something hiding in QT the last 2 weeks for me I might be going to get it today....

[tanacharison]

Well I finally took some time to set up the Varios-6.... and now I have a headache.

 

So my quietpro 4 (1056gph) was not enough in my opinion.  I ran it the past 10 days no problem at 100%.  The Vario 6 (1720gph) is crazy powerful!  Before I ran it with my apex VDM I used the controller and on 3 I'm guessing around 35-40% power it was about where I had it dialed in on the skims at 100%. If I went to 4 it was kinda scary seeing the rush of water into the sump.  Apex time.. So at 45% it was really moving water nice and I have zero overflow noise!  What really drives me nuts is 45% of the Octo is about the same GPH as the Skims. So here is the new problem... If I use a VDM module and fallback it will turn on at 100% if my apex disconnected and it would exceed my overflow capacity. So I need a smaller pump   Could the Vario 4 that's rated for the exact same GPH as the skims I currently have really produce more flow? Maybe the skims GPH are slightly overrated? Why couldn't I just keep things simple?

[tanacharison]

Also my new addition is terrified of me and runs and hides when i'm near the tank. I can catch her from across the room hanging out with the other fish and she ate a bunch of algae. So i'm feeling good after the first 24 hours. The last time I kept a tang was 5 years ago... I might be way too excited even if it's a smaller one #Ctenochaetus truncatus. I hope she warms up quickly so I can get a good photo.

[tanacharison]

I dropped 2.4 DKH in 2 days.. Something is not right.

[teenyreef]

1 hour ago, tanacharison said:

I dropped 2.4 DKH in 2 days.. Something is not right.

Every time that happens to me I realize I forgot to refill the dosing containers 

 

But seriously, is the doser still working correctly? Nothing clogged up?

[tanacharison]

10 hours ago, teenyreef said:

Every time that happens to me I realize I forgot to refill the dosing containers 

 

But seriously, is the doser still working correctly? Nothing clogged up?

The end of my line is slightly curled up and it looks like it’s all hitting the side of my sump and running down. With how caked up the side wall is I’m assuming only half of the dosage is making it into the sump. It’s going to take forever to bring it back up slowly. 

[teenyreef]

Yeah, that might do it. You also might be getting a growth spurt in your corals as well. Which is a good thing  

[tanacharison]

Well I increased .4 DKH in 3 days. I'm just going to continue to test and try to level it off between 7.5-8.  It's crazy because on march 25th I tested at 9.5dkh.  Also corrected my salinity back to 1.026 with a 10g water change.  The  growth with all my established corals is good, just not the new frags as expected. I'm hoping everything settles now and I can add more corals

[tanacharison]

My @Legendary Corals spring sale box arrived! I'm really excited about the selection I got this time... a few I've had on my wish list for a while. You can see my irresponsible reefing purchase below my frag rack.

 

Left to right. Fascination Favia, LC Shockfire Psammacora, Gold Nugget Psammacora, JF Freak Hair Pavona, CC Darth Maul Favia, LC Ferrari Enzo Favia, LC Supercharger Favia, LC Alien Blood Cyphastrea, Lemony Lime Leptastrea

 

I've wanted the first two favias for a long time... I picked up a second supercharger for my new tank

 

JF Freak Hair looks ridiculous

[Legendary Corals]

Amazing photos! Makes me really happy to see our corals in their new home. I see that the CC Darth Maul has a small nick on it, hopefully it recovers back.

[Elizabeth94]

Such a nice set up! Went back a couple pages or so- I love seeing the "building" stages of new tanks.

 

That Pavona! That Lemony Lime is very nice too. The reef bug is biting me hard again after a couple years off XD  

[tanacharison]

On 4/17/2018 at 10:21 PM, Elizabeth94 said:

Such a nice set up! Went back a couple pages or so- I love seeing the "building" stages of new tanks.

 

That Pavona! That Lemony Lime is very nice too. The reef bug is biting me hard again after a couple years off XD  

Now is the best time!! Soooo many nice and colorful corals available. Any with all the new foods and nutrient management options people are doing amazing things.

On 4/17/2018 at 9:58 PM, Legendary Corals said:

Amazing photos! Makes me really happy to see our corals in their new home. I see that the CC Darth Maul has a small nick on it, hopefully it recovers back.

Thanks! The favias seem to be really hardy so i'm not worried, plus if i'm not mistaken i'm only a few away from owning all the LC specific favias.   I like that you have the logo on the box now... keep up the good work!

[TotesMaGoat]

just got a fascination favia too, love it! I was never a huge favia person but theyre starting to really grow on me. Sweet setup!

[tanacharison]

 

January 6th...

 

 

That's a good 2 inches of growth south from the zoa grow over in January!

 

[Christopher Marks]

Impressive monti growth @tanacharison! Those zoanthids in the middle are holding on tight!