72 Oceanic Reef Ready Bow Front Evolution...

[Obsessed Reefer]

Edited August 9, 2006 by Obsessed Reefer

[Micro-Reefs Aquariums]

WOW,

 

I'm impressed with the banner, I really am. I'm not that computer literate to make such a cool looking banner and I'm happy that you did one for me.

 

I think you picked some really nice pics showing the evolution; thanks...

 

Jesse keep those questions comming I'll make to personally answer yours each time I see them...

 

Mike G

 

P.S

I don't have a heater in my 72 gallon because I have so many pumps that are submerged and I fight to keep my tank cool. Only one time did I see my tank drop pretty low, and it was when I left the doors and windows opened all night long on a really cold night...

 

Other than that this tank really stays hot literally hot... If I could re-plumb the system, I would purchase outside pumps instead of in sump. I just ran out of space and had to go with pumps in the sump.

 

Also regarding any supplements for my massive amounts of purple coraline, I only dose Kent Marines Iodine once a week; remember that I have a full dedicated calcium reactor that drips on a daily basis.

 

I also do weekly water changes to keep up the other trace elements that the corals take up.

Edited August 9, 2006 by mikeguerrero

[Obsessed Reefer]

Thanks. I tried to get some nice pics for it. I think I did good.

[Obsessed Reefer]

Hey Mike,

 

4 days and technically your tank is one year old.

[Bigmiksears]

Dont think ive ever read a thread that has been 19pages long - but i just have. It's kinda frustrating to sit here and read about marine tanks when your sat with a freshwater tank and limited funds. Like Obsessed reefer Im 16 and have limited funds to be able to set up a marine tank - would so love to do so though. Plans are on the way to start a 12gal nano in my room which i would love! Really well done on your tank - you love to keep adding bits to it - wnating the best for your critters and i think thats great.

 

Really well done mate - and its a shame to read that your nano has been dropped - maybe when things settle back down again - you could start it up agen?

 

Cheers, Mike

[Obsessed Reefer]

O man. Mike not being on in weeks means its the big move. Good Luck.

[Micro-Reefs Aquariums]

O man. Mike not being on in weeks means its the big move. Good Luck.

Thanks,

 

It's been about one month since I've posted about my 72 gallon bowfront, the move is complete and I'm finally in my new home.

 

I have lots to share during this move; the do's and dont's. Because I didn't have a destination to move my live stock; I lost all my fish except for three. My blue tang, the male clown and my orchid dottyback are the sole survivors.

 

I lost all my SPS corals and my blue crocea clam.

 

Thanks to my brother flying up from Anaheim this past weekend, I was able to put back together my reef to it's full capacity; filtration, live rock and gadgets.

 

I made sure to give myself plenty of room this time around; as I made many mistakes in crowding all my items the first time around.

 

Things that I changed/added are:

 

1. Two Reefkeeper #2 instead of just the one.

2. Six Maxijet powerheads instead of 5 connected to the RK2 for maximize performance.

3. Four one watt moon lights instead of three.

4. 10 additional pounds of live sand.

5. 12 additional pounds of live rock

6. All new Oceanic salt water.

 

I have all new photos of where my corals and fish stayed during the month hold and pics of when I started to reset up everything.

 

I did decide to downsize my 6 gallon Tru Vu; I sold my 150 watt HQI to my brother as he wants to set up a 20 gallon reef.

 

I kept all the other parts to my six gallon and decided not to sell it off. I will instead set it up with two 18 watt fixtures that I have lying around.

 

This nano will have a unique pair of fish or shrimp combo, I don't know yet; I just know that in the future I would want to set up a nano; so might as well keep the parts I have.

 

I'll post pics tommorrow...

 

MG

Edited September 16, 2006 by mikeguerrero

[Obsessed Reefer]

Man. That's good, and it sucks that you lost 17 fish. Do you know what you are gonna plan on stocking it with now?

 

 

 

NEED SOME PICS... lol

[Micro-Reefs Aquariums]

Yes I do know what I wish to place inside this tank. I do want tangs, as I loved their personality and how they kept my reef spotless of the greens.

 

I do want to get very small babies, the smallest I can find and let them grow.

 

I believe I will only purchase one or two SPS corals as they are vey sensistive and costly; they can die easy.

 

This new reef will have lots of SPS corals as they are super hardy and can withstand lots.

 

The reason I lost all my fish was simple; when I placed them in two large containers, I forgot to set them up with air.

 

I had to rush back to my condo to take apart he tank as I only had one night to do such a task.

 

My mind was focused on the disembling of my tank and when I went back to my home my wife's cousin said, "hey they look dead".

 

They were all dead or dying. I quickly set up the 6 gallon tru vu that I have and then the damn thing wouldn't start the pump was jammed.

 

That took up an additional 20 minutes of time. By then I only saved:

 

1. Two black ocelleris clowns.

2. Algae blenny

3. Three Chromis

4. one orcid dottyback

5. one blue tang

6. one red blood shrimp

7. one pepermint shrimp

8. one pistol shrimp

9. 4 red hermit crabs

10. various blue hermit crabs and some snails.

11. one sand sifting star

 

All my mushrooms survived including my yumas and florida rics. My blasto also survived along with the torch corlas and the frog spawn. My coco worm is still very much alive.

 

At this point I set up a refuge bucket in the garage from Target. It was very large and was able to hold all my corals, live rock, and fish.

 

I set up my metal halide, I went and purchased an extra HOT magnum filter and 200 watt heater. I even gave set up two moonlights for them to see in the night.

 

This setup was buying me plenty of time but on the second week it started to leak from the bottom. I was so upset when I saw this leak, thank god it was in the garage. I can only imagine how it would have looked at my old place on white carpet.

 

Anyway, I had all these moving buckets that were rather large and stronger plastic than the one that leaked. I created two separate buckets and divided the two.

 

In one bucket went all my fish and live rock and the second one went live rock and nothing else. Each had their own filter and temp gauge.

 

I didn't place anything on the top since it was quite a jump if any fish decided to go that route. It was a mistake; my brothers large healthy black ocelleris clown jumped to her death.

 

On the second week just before my brother helped me set up my reef tank, Johnny my algae blenny leaped to his fate.

 

On this night I transferred all my corals and fish regardless of cycling or how far I was in.

 

Thank god all my stuff is premium rock and the live sand was already cycled.

 

The skimmer was on and so was the phosphate remover reactor. Everything went in except the three chromis.

 

I'm taking them back to the petshop and giving them away for free; anyone local want three free chromis drop by.

 

My only concern has been waiting for all parameters to become stable. I've noticed that I run a PH of 7.6 at night and about 7.8 during the day.

 

My sump reads 7.7 in the morning and 8.0 during the day. This tells me that my tank is still cycling and my rocks are going through nitirification.

 

I first thought I had to re calibrate the probes which I had just done. So I pulled them back out both of them; I now have two one on each reef keeper.

 

When I checked them they read the same for a sample of water and then it hit me that one probe is right next to my rocks which was picking up ACIDIC elements from nitrification.

 

Regarding my sump being a refuge, I completely scratched this idea from this new setup not because I don't believe in it but because my sump WAS NEVER DESIGNED TO HOST ONE.

 

In the past I got macro to grow all over my pumps and it got them super dirty.

 

I now have a super clean sump and easy for routine maintenance on the pumps.

 

I learned that having three large MAG pumps submerged in my sump generate tons of heat, in fact that's one of the reasons my electricity bill was so high, my chiller ran every hour for about 20 minutes.

 

I made room in the sump to lift all three pumps out of the water and place them on a platform and have an elbow going down to the water to feed it.

 

This way the pump will not transfer it's energy to the water, I just need to see if the enclosed sump, since I have glass lids will heat the air and cause the heat once again, defeating the whole purpose of raising them above water.

 

This is an idea if anyone wants to jump in and give me some advice please do so.

 

Well, that's all for now....

 

MG

[Micro-Reefs Aquariums]

So far I've been really happy with my tank on the second go around. I have four moonlights instead of the three, I get better coverage of the tank at night, it looks spectacular.

 

Having the use of two Reefkeepers is incredible, I get to use 6 different powerheads on six different wave cycles.

 

The sands have parted on my tank like never before it looks so natural and well words just cannot explain it, you'd have to see it to enjoy the look.

 

My tank without the use of Ozone has reached 315 mv and is crystal clear. I have gotten it to 420 mv with ozone in the past.

 

My LPS corals are regenerating and it appears they are looking more healthy by the day.

 

I even got the chance to upgrade my Reefkeeper 2 to the latestest version software wise. It comes shipped with version 2.0 and I flashed 2.1 yesterday.

 

It was fun purchasing the correct USB to serial cable and then linking it to my wife's laptop and dowloading 2.1.

 

Now my reefkeeper has more option than before and I'm impressed on smooth the operation went; I even did it on the second reefkeeper.

 

Kudos' go to Digital Aquatics on how quickly the upgrades can be done.

 

MG

[Obsessed Reefer]

Dude. I love your updates but WE NEED PICTURES!!!! ARGGGG

[henry22]

Agreed, Pics please

[Fishfreak218]

i also agree we need pics..

[Micro-Reefs Aquariums]

Rise from your grave...

 

The 72 gallon bowfront is ressurected... I took all these fotos to please my loyal fans and critics...

 

Enjoy... Special thanks goes out to my brother who flew in from Orange County to help me setup this sleeping beast...

 

Thanks bro....

 

MG

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Obsessed Reefer]

BEAUTIFUL!! I'll write more later. A little thing called school

[Obsessed Reefer]

Ok. School over.

 

Looks nice. Like how you did the rock this time better than before.. Just to much sand. lol. One thing is I dont see any fish. How many made it? 5?

[fewskillz]

Looking good. Looks like your re-setup went okay. Nice looking place you have there.

[nyumpa]

looks good

 

most pros advise putting in the rock first then backfilling with sand or lifting the rock off the sand with pvc. the reason is to create better flow around the rocks

and not creating dead spot by having rock sitting on it.

jusy my 2 cents

[MJD]

looks better than most of the tanks I have seen that have been set up for 6 months!!

 

Nice job.

 

MJD

[Micro-Reefs Aquariums]

Thanks for the comments, suggestions and concerns; I read them all. This weekend I will be firing up the calcium reactor.

 

I wanted the PH to stabalize as the nitrification process kept my levels low.

 

Introducing C02 into my system would've just hindered the cycling a little more.

 

It appears that the PH has stablized and is reading where I want it to be; my rocks have been without the direct drip of calcium for some time.

 

It's time to get these rocks deep purple again...

 

MG

[Micro-Reefs Aquariums]

After getting my Calcium reactor up and running, I've noticed that my powerhead were getting covered in hair algae.

 

It was a couple of spots here and there and then within the week it was completely covered and looked awful.

 

The odd thing about it was it was only growing on the powerheads and not on my live rock; I feel it's because my live rock are cycled and keep the bad algae at bay.

 

My first reaction was okay am I overfeeding, and have too much nutrients? I knew that was not the case since I was only feeding two fish out of the 20 I use to have.

 

I even had connected the phosphate reactor with new rowaphos as the tank launched on day one.

 

So off to the LFS I went and came back with:

 

1. One powder blue tang (medium size)

2. One yellow tang (really small size)

3. One sailfin black blenny (small size)

4. One lettuce nudibrach (small size)

5. 10 margarita snails (small size)

6. One kole tang (medium size)

 

The next morning I wake up and the powerheads are bald; I was in shock and very pleased with the results.

 

As the lights kick in I notice that all the tangs are nipping all over the reef clearing out more bad algae and ocassionally go to the powerhead and pull on the small strings of hair left.

 

Sad part is I believe the lettuce nudi will die as there is no way the tank will keep up the ugly hair algae.

 

I was really concerned that nothing would eat the hair algae and I was totally wrong, all those that were listed went to town on the stuff.

 

I did watch and wait at my LFS to see who was eating algae prior to purchasing; keep your eyes on the tangs that do this and bring them home, if they do it at the store they will do it at your home reef.

 

MG

[Izzue]

 

Izzue

[Micro-Reefs Aquariums]

Izzue,

 

You're are too funny, you made me smile with that little pac man bowing...

 

Thanks,

 

MG

[Cesar]

 

Your tank is amazing. I can't get tired of saying that. What a beauty that is.

[Izzue]

you made me smile with that little pac man bowing...

 

Whats that old saying...a animatied picture is worth a thousand words.

 

Now that yall have moved and tank is settling in again...I still expect to see it or

maybe a future tank of yours on RC.

Izzue

Edited October 2, 2006 by Izzue