AlanM

I agree that getting this far is pretty amazing.

It has some quirks, but I don't know if that's because I've been out of the Apex world for 8 years or because it's really quirky. It's an A3 Apex Pro. I assumed it would have the latest version of the OS to support all of the hardware that is in the box like the liquid level sensor, but I was wrong, lol. I struggled with calibrating that level sensor for a while. The automatic calibration never worked. Manual worked on the third try. It uses one of the voltage input ports on the integrated FMM module that is included now in the A3 Apex. I feel like they need a "So you got an Apex, what should you do first to set it up" type of document. Should I calibrate the new temp, pH, and ORP probes or did they come pre-calibrated and I should leave them alone? No idea. I'll ask on the neptune forums. I definitely did need to calibrate the liquid level sensor. It works well now. I had hoped to use it for an ATO sensor, but I don't think it's sensitive enough for that. It has a long lag before updating the value and it's only accurate to about .25 inches, which is at the outer edge of what I'm comfortable with for ATO.

It's really nice. I'm probably going to hang stuff inside it, so since I won't use the doors on the other side I'll put some 1x6 across or something for a screwing surface. On that note, lets go with stuff to install arriving: Have to learn Apex again after a long interlude with ReefAngel/Arduino.

The tank and stand are in my house. It ended up being a heck of a deal. I didn't expect the sump to be so nice, and the stand is really pretty. I'm flipping the sump around the other direction from how it was so that the plumbing can go straight down and the return will go across the stand. I ordered some fittings to plumb it that way and am reusing some of the bits that came with it. Once I get it plumbed I'll post a sump picture. The stand is open on the right, which is the side that previously faced the wall. I'll make a panel for that side and maybe put controllers and things on it.

This is so cool. I think it would be great to have your experiences both raising larvae and culturing pods and phyto for one of the WAMAS meeting talks.

Those are good links. I also think buying from a good fish store that handles the QT is the best. The risk of fish loss is all on them in that case, but be ok with paying more for the fish because they have much higher costs holding them so long and losing some of them. It evens out, though, because you'd essentially be paying more for them and spending way more trouble at home anyway.

Lots of things besides formalin and methylene blue, but I don't think many folks will have advice for you if you say you can't quarantine. Quarantine is the answer. Dips are for corals, not really fish aside for a couple of situations. With three buckets and three airstones and heaters you can do the tank transfer method of quarantine and be done with it relatively quickly. It's not foolproof but is pretty good.

Can you elevate the 29 gal a bit? That would let you drill the end and put in a bulkhead that would drain back in to the sump. It would be a nice cryptic refugium for all kinds of stuff eventually.

I do still have the pico, but it is sad. Like 5 zoas left in it and a few snails. No chance for sump in the basement on this one. It will be in our addition with just a really unpleasant crawlspace below it. I'll miss the basement sump for sure, so I will end up spending money to get it really quiet. Since it will be so close to our dining room my wife is concerned about fishy smells and gross stuff happening in there. The stakes are high on this one!

So many decisions to make when starting a new one. Gotta decide on sand vs bare. I might get live Florida rock to start it. I've always wanted to do that instead of starting with dry.

I'm getting back into the game. Starting a build thread here for Isaac's 22 long (https://wamas.org/forums/topic/83271-living-room-nano-peninsula/ ) that is coming to my house soon. It will be a very long journey to get it to look as good as it did when he ran it. It will go here, where the tape on the floor is, so viewable from all sides instead of peninsula: The spot is kind of in the doorway between our family room and dining room. The overflow will be on the right, so I guess it's still technically viewable from three sides. The stand goes directly up to the top of the back of the couch. I'm excited to run my DIY LEDs again. I always had fun tinkering with them. I'm also excited to bring in the amazing stand that Ben A made for Isaac.

Hey, yeah, I do have it. Just a few snails and zoas. I'm considering an 18" cube or Isaac's 20g peninsula, but haven't pulled the trigger on anything. I want something small and around 20-30g total volume.

wow, no one can accuse you of not having enough pods.

Here's my Julian library. I got him to sign some of them when he came to give a talk a few years ago.

when I was first thinking about getting started I visited Congressional Aquarium in Rockville. They had a saltwater section, but are mostly freshwater. The guys working there advised me to just use tap water to make up seawater and for top-off because it already has minerals in it so why should I spend money to remove them and just put it back with dosing and salt mix. /shudder

Sure, plenty of people start the cycle going with dirty old rock in a brute trashcan of saltwater with a powerhead and a heater in it. Feel free to run the lights or not. The bacteria won't care, but it might help you get used to how it all works. It'll probably be cloudy for a while. You probably didn't want to rinse the live sand because it was live, maybe? It'll have some dust in it. The rock might also be dusty if you started with dead rock. It will all settle out eventually. Even the really fine stuff will get slimy and clumpy from bacteria film eventually and will stick together or hang out in the corners where the powerhead doesn't hit or the tiny parts of the rock. The tank will keep cycling for months (years really) as various things grow and die off in it. It's way more than just nitrogen processing bacteria that make a reef tank mature, although the ammonia test coming up good is an important start. So the point is to not go whole ham right from the beginning.

Feel free to pick up where you left off. It won't hurt anything to just have the wavemaker running instead of also the return pump into the sump. Point it higher if you don't want it to stir up the sand, but you're going to have to run it anyway and now is a perfect time to get it running where it won't mess with the sand. I'd wait a while for fish, though. Get it all working. Add some bacteria if you want. Do some ghost feeding with pretty much anything you have on hand. Take your time to do the cycle and wait for the uglies on the rock to come and go. It's better to learn how a new system works without fish than learning it when you're trying to keep your new pets alive.

I was just browsing info about large aquariums and found this one: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AquaDom I know where I'm staying if I ever get to Berlin.

Nice. I'm looking forward to hearing more about these tanks. I'm especially interested in the seahorse one. It's an unusual one for the club.

That should get quieter too with time, but you could always make the durso one higher in order to make the overflow not fall so far. The distance your valve is open determines how much flow you get, the height of the durso determines the water level in the overflow box. Also, if you terminated the drain pipe slightly under the water line, even 1/4" or so, in the sump that would make it quieter too. You can just slide on a coupler with no glue to the pipes facing down to get it to exactly the right length and either adjust the coupler up and down or cut a little off it. Friction will hold it on basically forever and you don't have to worry about it leaking.

The durso trickle should quiet down as it slimes up over the next couple of weeks.

I really like those pedestals and places for fish to swim around. It's going to look great.

yeah, Google search tells me it's a species identified by Charlie Veron and grows like a plating montipora. I don't know how old the photo is if it was collected in 2020. Seems like it would look way different now.

Not sure if this will work, but here's my coral. Not the most photogenic on, heh. I think they need some more blue lights on it. Alan Munter Podabacia Sinai.pdf

Instead of those two Durso's with skinny emergency pipes I'd do two "Herbie" style drain boxes. The skinny one in that scheme is the main drain which you run as a full siphon that ends underwater say halfway down the overflow box. You put a gate valve on it just before it enters the sump and use that valve to tune how fast the water leaves. Even if the skinny one is only 3/4" you'd be surprised how much water will go through it when it's in a siphon mode, and it's quiet because there is no air. The wider one is an "open channel" which is kind of your Durso, but it gets very little water through it during routine operations. It gets set to the normal height of water in the overflow box and you want water to just barely trickle down the side of it. So little that it's silent (once it slimes up). It's safe because if the skinny one ever clogs the wider one will absolutely handle the water flow because it's bigger and has no valve. Once the level rises it will convert to a siphon as well and will flush the box.