wangspeed

I use an AC Infinity controller with 2 of their fans at low speeds. The fans themselves are super quiet, but adding the grills on the outside cause noise. No easy way around this short of reducing the speed, which is what I do. The very top of the cabinet gets to about 95F, if I run insanely bright schedules. With par around 150 at the sandbed it’s about 85F. There is also a continuous inline fan running to exhaust air out of the canopy area to the outside of the house.

The hospital grade receptacles are GFCI only. So far so good. The one above the tank was a pain to replace, because I have a crowded shelf with a lip in front of it. In retrospect, ceiling hung receptacles would have been nice there, if that's even allowable by code.

Swapped to hospital grade GFCI

I do. My DT has Tripp Lite surge protectors on 2 circuits and the third has a UPS which also filters. In the basement though, I temporarily set up a bin with live rock in it. There’s no surge protector there. I have a pump and heater running, and the AFCI/GFCI combo receptacle tripped during the storm a few nights ago and stayed in flashing red state until I manually reset it.

I didn’t, but I inspected the runs and outlets before things were buttoned up. Two of them are completely dedicated to the tank, with no downstream load. Today during the storms, one of these same types of outlets in the basement triggered during a brownout and would not come back on without a manual reset. They’re Leviton AFCI/GFCI receptacles.

Reef eScape and Centreville Aquarium aren’t too far from you. Reef eScape is really nice, but Centreville carries Larry’s fish food items.

That’s it. My GFCI/AFCI outlets are coming out ASAP. They have tripped three times now. I’m lucky someone has been around. Three different outlets on 3 different circuits have tripped simultaneously, and independently for no good reason at all. I hate to do it, but I’m just going back to a normal outlet with a ground probe. Today it happened without my UV running at all. That’s the only ballast I have.

Well, lots has happened. One of those leopard wrasses gave the tank marine herpes, aka ich. I tried to figure something out to house all 4 wrasses, plus the rest of the fish, but ultimately decided to dose the DT with chloroquine phosphate. Definitely not ideal. We'll see how this goes... There were no inverts other than a very small number of snails and hermits. I left the hermits and removed the snails. I did lose the ornate wrasse [emoji20] He got some sort of nasty wound on his side, and it turned into a bacterial infection. I removed him and put him in a QT with metroplex and kanaplex, but he died. Quite a nasty wound. I'm kind of shocked he made it as long as he did. Sad that the leopards are down to 3, but at least he was my least favorite. I had an order filled from Live Aquaria for 8 resplendent anthias, and those are downstairs in my 20G fish QT. They look great, and they're eating like champs! I just started copper treatment today. I'm going to try to keep the copper level low, like 1.6ppm. I hope these guys make it. 7 of them really hang on tightly, and 1 is somewhat isolated.

You can either hook it up to the IO port, or strip to bare wires and use the Apex Break out Box (BoB). If you’re handy, you could rewire it to work with an FMM. Take your pick! In all instances, it just shows up as a normally closed switch. It goes open with pressure. Warren

If you’re bored and need something to put you to sleep, here’s a tank walk through. https://youtu.be/xEpcuChUUCE

For chelated copper, like Coppersafe and Copper Power, 1.5-2.5 is therapeutic. For ionic copper products, like Cupramine, it’s .50. I’ll probably shoot for 1.75 with Copper Power. Easier on the fish.

This thing is awesome! I didn’t do too shabby with a little extrapolation and the Seachem test kit. I thought I was around 1.8, but was actually at 1.94 using Copper Power. I’m also pleased to report that I got a sample of QT water from Reef eScape and they are in therapeutic range as well. I think I will graduate Bones and Chompers to the big tank this week! Warren

Dead as a door nail. Some pukani and some reef saver. I bleached the pukani for a week and then had it running in a bin for a few weeks. I poured about half a gallon of Fritz nitrifying bacteria in the bin (with ammonia) and another half gallon in the tank. Hoping to graduate the clownfish this week to the big tank. I just got a Hanna copper checker in the mail so I’ll see if I was in therapeutic range. It’s not that much to check out just yet. Will definitely have to have you check it out when it’s a little further along.

I’ll have to remember this if I decide to try a copperband again.

No idea where you are, but Centreville Aquariums also carries them on a regular basis.

It’s salty! You can see the overflow and return pipes through the glass overflow for now. It’ll get covered with coralline eventually. The overflow is noisy still. I have the Varios 8 on level 2 and it’s causing the water to crash into the overflow. I set the level quite high and it’s still noisy, in part due to the gyre literally pushing water into the overflow. I think it will quiet down when algae forms and makes a gentle slope. The sump is also noisy for now. It looks like a river going into the first sock and that makes a waterfall sound. The sock needs to clog up more. I also have a pair of filter sock silencers on the way.

Mostly recovered from my concussion. Thinking hard about something gives me a throbbing headache though. So does viewing text on anything bigger than my phone. I filled the tank! Then I filled the sump, and sadness ensued. This is where I found that thread sealed connections in PVC suck. I tried to do the right thing when I plumbed this and used Rectorseal 5. Then I tried Plastostik, and finally gave up and went back to what I have always used in the past for threaded connections. Aquarium safe silicone. I should have stuck with what I knew. So that’s curing now before I try again. 3 leaky miserable joints. Both threaded connections to my inline Aqua Logic heater, which I am having second thoughts about, thanks to the leaks, and one of the threaded connections going into the body of a 2” Neptune flow sensor. I about ripped the sensor out and bypassed it. It was tough to clean the threads for the silicone, so if it still leaks tomorrow, the flow sensor is coming out. I did get a brief reading of a measly 223 GPH, which seems impossible giving the huge amount of water getting pushed. Maybe the 2” sensor needs higher flow rates to be accurate. Warren

Pro-tip: don’t stand up quickly when you have a canopy with doors. I just got officially diagnosed with a concussion from standing up straight into one of the open doors yesterday. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

These little guys are in QT. Going through copper right now. I screwed up my parts order and got threaded reducers instead of slip so I couldn’t finish off the return line plumbing inside the overflow. It’s got to be dark colored because the overflow itself is smoked glass. I should have parts by Wednesday, and then I’ll fill the tank! Meanwhile our really nice new shower downstairs has pukani rock cooking away. It stinks even though I left them in strong bleached water outside. Thank goodness for the Panasonic bathroom fan. It’s on 24/7 til this resides. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

There's a an incredibly informative thread over at R2R documenting the fact that recent bottles of Coppersafe are extremely unpredictable. Please do not use it without testing copper levels. Out of this thread, there is another incredible revelation. The Hanna high level copper tester offers repeatable, consistent, and accurate results to test QT levels of copper, including chelated forms. As a result of the Hanna discovery, Hanna is seriously back ordered on this checker. I've had mine on order for a few weeks now, and I still haven't heard anything, other than it and the reagents are back ordered. The Hanna checker also reveals just how miserably inaccurate common color matching copper tests are. Fritz hasn't taken any responsibility for the Coppersafe issues, at least not publicly. That combined with the inconsistency in their RPM salt makes me want to discontinue supporting them, but that's just my 2 cents. I still have another box of RPM, but it's not a big deal since I won't have corals yet. https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/coppersafe-warning-along-with-research-on-hanna-instruments-high-range-copper-checker.368943/ Warren

If you look at first pic from the last post, you can see that it’s pretty open. No wood frame. Hopefully I don’t regret this decision! There’s an aluminum square stock siliconed to the tank and the face is screwed to that, and dimensional lumber at the ceiling. The sides are pocket screwed into the front face and aluminum L bar at the back. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

Thanks Paul! It’ll b a while still. Starting with dry rock. Lots of little things left still. Here’s some pics of the inside of the top and some of the details. Shelf for Apex energy bar, battery backup, power supplies and other randomness. You can see the fan at the far end. There’s another on the opposite side. I have them set to both blow inwards. GFCI outlets. I kind of regret not having the circuits split now. It’s the same circuit, but separate from underneath the tank. You can also see the duct for the exhaust fan. I used a radon fan in the attic for this. The power cord comes down so it can be controlled with the Apex. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

I used Mighty Men Moving to move my 220 gallon from my garage to my office. They managed with just 4 but there were no stairs. This thing is super heavy though! 535 lbs 1/2” glass eurobraced top and bottom. The thing that really got me with the move was minimum hours. It only took about 40 minutes, but there’s a minimum 2 hr charge. Worth it to me for the peace of mind on an insured move the day the tank arrived. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

Haha. It’s on the front. I didn’t want to nuke it til I was about to fill it with water. Side base cabinets and floating shelves still on the list and trimming out the facing above the tank. Hopefully by the time I get back from my trip next week it will be ready for water Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro