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Swift's 65 Gallon


NanaBanana

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I have been in the hobby for over 20 years now. Every tank I have had in the past has been some version of an All-In-One or a simple sump-less set up. I was inspired by the all-in-one tanks that were very popular on nano-reef about ten years ago. Since then I've had various Biocubes, Nanocubes, and DIY all-in-ones. I worked for short while at a Local Fish Store and kept various aquariums and reef tanks that I periodically broke down as I moved from rental house to rental house. 
My most recent tank was a 29 biocube filled to the brim with LPS and Softies. I started it in September of 2015. My wife and I moved the tank from a rental house to our first home together in January of 2017. Almost two years later I moved all of the corals out of the 3 year old 29 and into my new (used) 65 gallon rimless. The tank was a smoking deal at $240 with stand, sump, return pump, and a great skimmer all included (along with some miscellaneous parts). It has a couple superficial scratches but a few scratches never bothered me much. 

I made the move on November 30th... Here are some photos of my old 29, the move, and the new tank. 
I hoping to keep a better journal than I have with past tanks. 
Let me know what you think!

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Display: 65 Gallon Rimless, 36” x 20” x 21”

Lighting: (3) AI Prime HD
Sump: 24" Precision Marine with 18" Current USA Orbit

Heater: Ehiem 200 watt
Circulation: Mag 9.5  Jebao DCP-4000 Return, (2) Jebao OW-25 on Pulse Mode, RW-4 on ELSE Mode, Maxi-Jet 1200 in Refugium 
Skimmer: Bubble Magus 5 

Filtration: 4" Filter 200 Micron Sock 

Filter Media: Carbon and GFO in Two Little Fishes Reactor as needed
Top Off: JBJ ATO
Dosing: Two BRS 1.1ml per minute dosing pumps, DIY Two Part (Randy Holmes-Farley)
Power Management: American DJ AC Power Center

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This weekend I finally fixed the rat's nest in my stand. Luckily a 5 gallon jug fits perfectly between my sump and the stand wall. I installed my Power Center and my wife printed off labels so I can easily identify each switch. 

Here is the rat's nest:

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Yesterday (12/17/18) I did my first water change on the new reef tank. It was nice to have so much room in the tank for reaquascaping. I am still adjusting the water change process (I'll probably need a longer hose!). 

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A few thoughts for my journal...

I would like to know how long it takes for me to fill (or nearly fill) my skimmer cup and empty (or nearly empty) my ATO reservoir. 

Hopefully these numbers will allow me to be away from my tank for days (if not weeks) at a time. I don’t travel for extended periods very often but my wife and I try to go on an adventure or two each year. 

The ideal evaporation rate would be less than .5 gallons a day. The reservoir is a standard 5 gallon jug that holds around 5.25 gallons. I attached the Auto Top Off on Saturday 12-15-18. 

I think the evaporation rate will be closer to .75 gallons per day (emptying the reservoir every 7 days). 

The ideal rate for the skimmer to fill would be similar (around two weeks). I cleaned the cup on Sunday night 12-16-18. 

I think the cup will likely fill at a similar rate to the reservoir emptying (needing to be cleaned every 7-10 days). 

 

I’ll use these early measures as a baseline for the tank in the future. I imagine these Rates will increase over time as I add more fish and evaporation speeds up in the summer in Texas (when the fans and AC kick on). 

 

Hopefully I’ll have an answer in about a week or so! 

 

Here’s a photo of my controllers after adding some stick on Velcro tape to the stand. Great stuff!

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I purchased a sock holder and some 4" 200 micron socks off of amazon and I've installed them temporarily. I've been running my sump in an unorthodox way (with the return pump in the center chamber) in order to use the largest chamber for a refugium. The sock holder doesn't mount properly in the smallest chamber and I plan on moving the return pump to the smallest chamber and have the overflow flow into the middle chamber. 
As I said on an earlier post, I did my first water change on Monday (15 gallons) and the tank is responding well. During the change I moved a few frags (a mushroom and some zoas) to my sump. These soft corals both let go of their rocks naturally to float away and propagate. Usually there would have been a high mortality rate for these corals as they would often float into the darkness and wither away. I'm happy to have somewhere to hold frags until they attach to rock. 

 

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Next on my list is to set up the BRS 1.1 ml dosers so I can stop hand dosing two part. Here is a picture of the tank from last night!
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Thanks for looking!

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I lost the fuzzy mushroom frag that I added to the sump. The pump I have adding circulation in the refugium didn't have an intake screen so I did a little DIY with some PVC, super glue, and an old sponge. 

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CAT TAX!

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This is one week of skimmate... 12/16/18 - 12/23/18

I could smell a strong smell from the sump and decided to clean the skimmer. I think the smell may have come from the fuzzy mushroom that got shredded by the power head in the sump. 

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Well, I finally got around to setting up my dosing units. My wife cleared a spot in a nearby IKEA cabinet and all of the dosing equipment fits neatly inside and disappears when you shut the door. I would like to thank my wife (NanaBanana) who has always supported my passion for reefing. She is who inspired the current configuration of this tank. I think this tank has a very clean look, especially compared to tanks I have had in the past. I once referred to a past reef tank as my "Fraken-tank" you can imagine a hodgepodge of DIY and hang on the back equipment all done on a low budget and with function trumping form. Nana inspired me to make a sleeker looking tank and I couldn't be happier with the results.

Here are some photos of the dosing setup. I set the pumps up on 12-23-18. 

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I drilled a hole for the cords in the back of the IKEA unit. I also attached the mounts for the dosing pumps. IMG_3326.thumb.JPG.258d1622ea514d03b20d9cff3f6a8699.JPG

Next I attached the pumps to some smart outlets and connected the outlets to my phone after downloading the appropriate app. IMG_3330.thumb.PNG.137065ef54e6303c2b3bf542c39babd0.PNGIMG_3333.thumb.PNG.eec0f741dc9886b44d76e84c09f4f942.PNG
I labeled the two outlets digitally and then set a schedule to dose periodically throughout the day. I set the alkalinity and calcium to dose about 1 hour apart from each other and in 3 minute increments (3.3ml) spaced more or less evenly throughout the day. IMG_3331.thumb.JPG.98dfb1dbc0ba968df6401f3e6d699cde.JPG

Everything tucked into the cabinet 

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My cord management could still use some work. But the rat nest is finally gone. (I love the power center switches but the smart outlets are  an amazing choice for dosing for those of you without a controller on your tank) 

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Cat Tax!!!

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These kinds of posts will never be the most exciting. It will be dedicated to some of the pests in my reef. I have been dealing with Nepthea frags, bubble algae, and most painfully, bryopsis. I can usually remove the Nepthea arms by hand, the bubble algae is only a problem when it grows over corals, but the bryopsis is a serious foe. I treated this tank (when it was a biocube 28) with Fluconazole twice. The first time worked perfectly and it seemed like a miracle cure. After about 8 months of not changing my nutrient input/export bryopsis was back. I tried another dose of Flucon and this time it upset all of my softies and I panicked and did several large water changes to get the flucon out of the system. I think I didn't mix the fluconazole properly and I added it too quickly (some of the powdered flucon landed directly on the soft corals that were irritated. Here are some photos documenting my  battle with these pests. Only manual removal and changing of the filter sock. All maintenance was performed on 1/1/19. IMG_3426.thumb.JPG.835371079fb8341ae41a330b4c5d909e.JPG

 

Bucket and H202 ready to kill some bryopsis and pull some nepthea!

 

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Bryopsis covering my Rasta Zoas 

 

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Nepthea after pulling some bryopsis off of the rastas 

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These candy cane/ trumpet coralites look healthy and happy but on closer inspection they have bryopsis and half a dozen arms of Nepthea growing on the underside. These didn't seem to upset the colony... yet. Forceps work great for pulling pests from the interior of a coral colony!

 

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Here we see the Rasta frag after spending about 5 minutes in a 50% H2O2 50% tankwater dip. 

 

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A small Bam Bam Zoa frag that got the same 5 minute dip in 50/50 hydrogen peroxide. 

We will see the how effective the dip was in 24-48 hours. 

 

I'm hoping that manual removal, regular sock changes, skimming and light feeding will help me fight the bryopsis without medicating the tank again. This was the main reason for moving to a sump with this tank. Now I have a chaeto refugium growing and I am being more intentional about nutrient export. 

 

Thanks for looking!

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Alkalinity has been steady at 8.5 dKH since I installed the smart outlet doser setup. Currently dosing 18ml each of Alk and Calcium (DIY 2-Part) 
Here are some photos of what the H202 to my two Zoa frags after their 5 minute 50/50 dips. 

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Polyps are still irritated but the bryopsis melted away over 24 hours. The tank is a little over 1 month old and everything is settling in. 

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I got my Jebao DCP-4000 controllable DC return pump in the mail yesterday (1/6/19) and I am already in love.  My previous pump was way over-sized and I had to use a ball valve to adjust the flow down. Most annoyingly it was the loudest thing in the tank by far. My wife didn't appreciate the noise and I found myself adjusting the pump regularly to avoid noises from vibration. With the new Jebao DCP-4000 I am able to do the same job with virtually no noise. To add a cherry on top, the pump is extremely efficient. The Mag 9.5 ran at 98 watts (wow) and this pump has a maximum wattage of 32w. I am running the pump at its lowest level, 9 watts (according to the controller). I also tested the pump up to 80% before I started to get a  gurgling sound from a flushing through the return. I tested the "pause" feature and love that I don't need to remember to turn the tank back on when doing quick maintenance or feeding. Here's a pic of the pump and my kitty Leela!

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Looking good!  I have the same skimmer and almost the same return pump (Jebao DCT-8000).  No complaints about the return pump except when it shut down out of nowhere.  Luckily I was doing some work on the tank at the time.  I ended up taking it apart and cleaning the magnet part of it.  Running smooth again.  This was after 10 months.  So I'd recommend to do a cleaning if you plan on being away for a while.

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37 minutes ago, reefrook said:

Looking good!  I have the same skimmer and almost the same return pump (Jebao DCT-8000).  No complaints about the return pump except when it shut down out of nowhere.  Luckily I was doing some work on the tank at the time.  I ended up taking it apart and cleaning the magnet part of it.  Running smooth again.  This was after 10 months.  So I'd recommend to do a cleaning if you plan on being away for a while.

What size tank do you have reefrook? 
I am terrible at cleaning equipment but it's a great idea to do it that maintenance right before leaving town for a few days. 

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13 minutes ago, NanaBanana said:

What size tank do you have reefrook? 
I am terrible at cleaning equipment but it's a great idea to do it that maintenance right before leaving town for a few days. 

I have a 22 gallon long...lol.  Right that is my only source of flow which is why I went with more power than needed.  I have it running at 50%.

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Ran the gamut of tests and took a picture of the results. 

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I didn't fill out the phosphates because I couldn't decide if they read 0ppm or .25ppm. One downside of the API tests is that they don't have a very high resolution and you have to make some judgement calls when differentiating colors. All that being said I like can easily tell if something is way out of whack. (all seemed right on track here). 

I purchased two my first two SPS frags on Saturday and mounted them this evening (1/13/19) I used my credit to purchase a Green Nepthea Coral (1/10/19) and a Red Lobo (1/12/19) that looks like it may color up in my tank. 

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Green Nepthea upset after being added to the tank

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Purple pocillopora (looks a little blue in person)
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Forest Fire Digitata (very red polyps) 

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Love this Lobo!

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