IM 30L Pro Frag & Quarantine Tank

[TotesMaGoat]

Looks good

[Coolbreeze]

On 1/19/2020 at 9:04 PM, TotesMaGoat said:

Looks good

Thanks @TotesMaGoat

 

[Coolbreeze]

 

I have not had much time to work on the stand, but I was able to get the bottom shelf cut and fitted. The wood came from Menards and is 5/4 Pine board cut to fit. I used a standard circular saw with a 80 tooth blade. I will be painting all the inside boards in gray with orange trim to match Neptune colors. I just placed the IM 5 gallon ATO tank in to review space requirements.

[Coolbreeze]

 

Just a quick update on the stand progress. The top has been cut from 5/4 Pine board from Menards and cut square with a 1/2" overhang on the front, sides and a 2" overhang on the back. I also cut a square hole to route cables and hoses from the tank to inside the cabinet. I am currently waiting on the router bit (Sunday arrival) to route the edges. The top will be painted black to match the stand and the underside will be painted grey. Then two coats of clear will be applied to protect the paint from water damage.

 

The inside bottom shelf has been painted gray now and is waiting to dry for the final two coats of clear.

[Coolbreeze]

Just a quick update on the stand. The top has been painted and attached to the rest of the stand. Still mounting some hardware and as soon I get it completed I will upload a picture.

[TatorTaco]

Any progress on mounting the hardware? 

[Coolbreeze]

On 1/28/2020 at 5:07 PM, TatorTaco said:

Any progress on mounting the hardware? 

Hi @TatorTaco thanks for asking on an update. Currently I do not have pictures updated yet as the weather has been causing a delay in drying time. But I can tell you that I have 5 coats of paint on the top and the shelf (Sanded between each coat) with one coat of clear. As soon as I get the last coat on I will take a picture of the stand with the stand assembled with the top and shelf in place as well as I  mounted them to the aluminum. 

 

I have been playing around on where to place all the hardware in the stand, but it is hard as the stand is not as big as I wanted (Space limitation) and the size of all the gear. One thing that I just ordered was some new low profile electric plugs to help. I should have some pictures later this week.

[Coolbreeze]

 

 

Here is the latest photos of my stand. I have several coats of marine paint with light sanding between coats. It also has several coats of clear to help protect from salt water. The second photo is showing the skin color that I will be applying around the stand with black edges to give it some contrast. I soon as I get the new shorter power cords I will see if all the equipment will fit in their space and will upload a photo of it.

[Coolbreeze]

Well I received a phone call today that I will be delayed for the electrical work and new carpet for 6 weeks. 😂 First part of the stand is complete and waiting for the electrical and carpet to be completed. In the mean time I can work on electrical placement in the stand and also the AWC and ATO configurations.

 

I am also woking on another build at the same time as my home office has been completely remodeled so you may want to follow that as well. I will be using it for all new arrivals and then transfer them to this build after I find out if the have no known issues. 😀

[Coolbreeze]

 

So I am not really in love with my current rock work so I have been playing around with some different looks. I have an idea on a few more looks.

[Coolbreeze]

 

 

I think this is going to be my final rock work. I will be testing fitting all the items under the tank tomorrow.

[mitten_reef]

21 minutes ago, Coolbreeze said:

 

 

I think this is going to be my final rock work. I will be testing fitting all the items under the tank tomorrow.

Looks good. I like the low-lying rocks idea for this tank. 

[TatorTaco]

I'm digging the rockscape.  

[Coolbreeze]

 

I have now added the three IM 5 gal hydrofill reservoir tanks. One for ATO and the other two for automated water changes. The forth container will be used for Tropic Marin all-for-reef. On a side note I moved my Radions G3 over to my new Encore build and will be replacing with Radions G5 when I get a little closer to needing them. I did sell my 3rd Radion G3 with my old tank as I did not want to mix G3 with G4.

[mitten_reef]

52 minutes ago, Coolbreeze said:

 

I have now added the three IM 5 gal hydrofill reservoir tanks. One for ATO and the other two for automated water changes. The forth container will be used for Tropic Marin all-for-reef. On a side note I moved my Radions G3 over to my new Encore build and will be replacing with Radions G5 when I get a little closer to needing them. I did sell my 3rd Radion G3 with my old tank as I did not want to mix G3 with G4.

A whole new concept with the AWC.  Very cool layout. 

[Coolbreeze]

Well I just got pushed out for my new wiring 8 weeks do to the covid-19. I really want to have all electrical on its own GFI breaker. 

[Coolbreeze]

I have added water and moved all livestock from my IM 20 concept over. I will be updating pictures soon.

[debbeach13]

Following and expecting great things .LOL Seriously hope it goes well. Such a sweet set up.

[Coolbreeze]

I have New arrivals today, tomorrow and Thursday. As soon as I get them in and arranged I will take new pics. Rockscape has been completed and looks better than what I had before I added water. The new arrivals today was Zoa's and the next two days are SPS, all of them are some really nice popping colors. My plans for this build is 90% SPS.

[Coolbreeze]

I have not received my shipment today as it seems to be delayed by FedEX so in the mean time here is a new tank update. Zoa's are not taken as they are just starting to open up, so I will get them on the next update.

 

 

 

[Coolbreeze]

New addition, seems to be doing well. He has not found all the little cracks in the aquascape so will see how well he does. Maybe I will get him his buddy when they come in stock. You can also start to see zoa's starting to open up. I hear that it takes about a week for them to fully open.

 

[Coolbreeze]

Well it has been a month or so since my last update. Currently I am fighting algae issues and now I can see that I am winning the battle. Currently I am dosing Vibrant once a week for the past three weeks and now all the green algae on the rocks are gone and just some hair algae is left, I will continue for next 4 weeks and then go into maintenance mode.

 

Next week will be my third dose of Prodibio BioKit Nano and I will have 30 days left for dosing. Since this kit was bought for another tank that was closed down, I decided to use it on here and so far, not really impressed with it. I will stop after it is completed and may convert over to Zeovit.

 

So far, all corals are doing okay, but not great. I have lost one Zoas to be me making a rock scape adjustment and the rock hit that particular Zoas.

 

I have come to realize that behind this tank is my home office and I have another build going on in there so I will be converting a closet behind this tank into an aquarium closet. It will contain stuff for both units. Will update when I have a plan completed.
 

[Coolbreeze]

So, I wanted to get to the bottom of my algae problem as I have never had this type of issue before. I did a 15% water change and cleaned up all the rocks and glass and what I noticed was that when I started to make water from my RODI system my TDS meter was at 7.0 to start. I reviewed my RODI system and everything was fine. After letting my RODI run a few minutes it dropped down to 0. So, I guess that I will need to make some adjustments here on its design. Apparently, it looks as if these small tanks have issues with small amounts of High TDS. This would explain the issues as lager tanks have a vast amount of water being made and change so this 2 to 3 minutes of starting the unit would not affect it.

 

So, I was on BRS site today and will place an order for a RO T-Union push connect and a few RO Ball valve push connects. Once installed I can turn off the RO water going into the reserve tank and on to my drainage pipe until I see TDS at 0 at which time make the switch back to the reserve tank.

 

I will also being looking into buying a few larger storage containers as the one I have is only 10 gallons and I need to make water twice a week so this would be nuts doing it and more wasted water then needed.

 

Another issue that I found was that my choice of fish food was not the best choice. I guess it makes no difference in a larger volume tank but in these smaller tanks some of the fillers in them is really bad. So, I have ordered Reef Nutrition TDO-B1 Chroma boost for my small clowns and goby and will supplement with KZ Amino Acid concentrate for fish. Between the two these will give me the cleanish food and should eliminate my issues. I have also purchased some frozen as well to give them some different food as well.

Until next time please be safe and happy reefing.
 

[Tired]

It looks like you started with mostly if not all dry rock, which is likely not helping your algae issue. Your pest algaes are left to run rampant, with minimal to no competition. Snails, patience, and making sure your nutrients are up so your non-pest algae can grow will fix it. Time for extra biodiversity to get going will be a big help, too. 

[DreC80]

1 hour ago, Coolbreeze said:

So, I wanted to get to the bottom of my algae problem as I have never had this type of issue before. I did a 15% water change and cleaned up all the rocks and glass and what I noticed was that when I started to make water from my RODI system my TDS meter was at 7.0 to start. I reviewed my RODI system and everything was fine. After letting my RODI run a few minutes it dropped down to 0. So, I guess that I will need to make some adjustments here on its design. Apparently, it looks as if these small tanks have issues with small amounts of High TDS. This would explain the issues as lager tanks have a vast amount of water being made and change so this 2 to 3 minutes of starting the unit would not affect it.

 

So, I was on BRS site today and will place an order for a RO T-Union push connect and a few RO Ball valve push connects. Once installed I can turn off the RO water going into the reserve tank and on to my drainage pipe until I see TDS at 0 at which time make the switch back to the reserve tank.

 

I will also being looking into buying a few larger storage containers as the one I have is only 10 gallons and I need to make water twice a week so this would be nuts doing it and more wasted water then needed.

 

Another issue that I found was that my choice of fish food was not the best choice. I guess it makes no difference in a larger volume tank but in these smaller tanks some of the fillers in them is really bad. So, I have ordered Reef Nutrition TDO-B1 Chroma boost for my small clowns and goby and will supplement with KZ Amino Acid concentrate for fish. Between the two these will give me the cleanish food and should eliminate my issues. I have also purchased some frozen as well to give them some different food as well.

Until next time please be safe and happy reefing.
 

Pretty standard for the RO/DI unit to have a higher TDS upon start up...called TDS creep I believe.  Your DI filters should be eliminating any TDS though and you should be getting a zero reading.  Mine starts at 50 TDS coming out of the RO membrane but lowers to 2 or 3 within a minute.  Either way, the DI resin gets it to zero.

 

If you are reading 7 TDS out of the DI filters than the resin needs replacement.  I have my TDS meter set to read water coming out of RO membrane and water coming out of DI cartridges.  Not sure how yours is set up.