Bbwebb

Thanks, appreciate the compliment. Alas, I've moved and the tank is no more :( I had quite a bit of buildup in my SW mixing container. It never seemed to hurt anything though. Once a year or so I would empty out the entire mixing station and take the power washer to it to get it all cleaned up again.

Thanks! I'll check them out. Maybe I'll hit Fintastic if it's still around while I'm there next weekend. Might inspire me to act faster.

You're not lying. Lead time is crazy!!!

Thanks, appreacite it!

Thanks Frank. Bittersweet for me and my family for sure. Half the fun is setting up the tank for me, so time for a new adventure I guess.

It's with some sadness that I will be breaking my tank down sometime in the next 4-6 weeks. The company I work for was recently acquired and I was offered a promotion that requires my family to relocate. The new job is a great opportunity and the move to Charlotte, NC will be good for my family. Unfortunately it's not all good news since I'll need to tear down the tank that my family and I have enjoyed so much over the years. Since I'll be traveling a good amount for the first 12-24 months I've decided to hold off on setting up another tank.
 
 Keep an eye out on the For Sale forum in the coming weeks if your interested in any of my livestock or equipment. I will be giving away ALL of the livestock to good homes. We are especially concerned for out fish, some of which we've had for 6+ years. Bill

Quick update. All is back to normal now. I ended up losing one frag from my frag rack, but otherwise everything looks happy. I took about 5 days to get my alk normalized, and I'm still testing everyday to ensure that my numbers are solid. I'll go back to weekly testing once I have a week or so of unchanging levels.

I tested the water 4 times with two different test kits, so I believe it. I've added 30ml of b-ionic part 1 so far. I'll get another 30ml in tonight and check my levels again.

Partial panic mode here. I tested my Alk, Ca, and Mg this morning and my Alk had a huge drop since last Sunday. Last Sunday my Alk measured 7.7 which was low (I like to keep it around 8.5), but I wasn't too concerned. I made a few adjustments on my Ca Reactor and figured I would move it back to 8.5 over the next couple of weeks. I checked it today and it was down to 5.5! In hindsight I should have checked it every day since last Sunday, but too late for that. I did some investigation and I think some air was getting into the peristaltic pump line so my reactor was not moving nearly as much water as it should. I've fixed that and will start slowly dosing b-ionic Alk for the next several days. Should I be in full panic mode with a 5.5 level? Honestly everything looks happy and I have a fair amount of SPS. Calcium was a little low at 385ppm, but not crazy low. Magnesium was at a respectable 1250ppm. pH is a little off, it usually runs between 7.9 and 8.1 for night/day. Last night it was 7.82/8.03. Right now my plan is to test every day, try to move the Alk level up a little at a time, and not over-react. Thoughts? Should I be doing anything else? Thanks Bill

The masterflex pump is just used to move water from my sump, through the reactor, and then back up to the sump. I wanted to use a peristaltic pump so that I could accomplish this from the basement fish room. The masterflex is duty rated for continuous operation and allows me to adjust the flow rate very easily. Instead of constantly messing with the pH in my reactor I normally adjust the flow rate up or down to fine tune my alk and calcium levels. As far as noise, I would say it's not silent. There is a high pitched sound that comes from the pump while it's running. It would probably be bothersome if it was in my family room, but it's not a problem at all in the fish room. My fish room is in our finished basement and with the door shut to the room you can't hear it at all. One other note, the masterflex pumps are ridiculously expensive if purchased new. If you're interested in one just keep an eye on eBay. I picked this one up for about 15% of what a new one costs.

Yep, It's a Litermeter with an additional pump head attached. Running the RO lines 25-30' was the real challenge, everything else is pretty straight-forward. The first pump head is set to pull ~2 gallons of from my sump and it goes straight to a drain. The second pump head pushes 2 gallons of fresh saltwater from my mixing station into my sump. The litermeter divides the total amount of liquid you want to move by 150 (I think) and then moves that amount of water every 3 minutes or so. I do pay close attention to my salinity to ensure things don't get out of whack. I monitor conductivity with my Apex and have it alarm if it creeps up or down too much. I also check it manually with my refractometer once a week since I still don't trust conductivity to be an accurate measurement of salinity. I recently ran into an issue where salinity was starting to drop and it turned out that I had calcium buildup and also some of residue from the Instant Ocean salt stuck in my RO line and I was no longer putting as much salt water back into the tank as I was removing. So the ATO was making up the difference. Cleaning the line out was a pain, but now everything is back to normal.

Thanks YHSublime. Still learning new things about the hobby every day.

I don't know about the engineering genius part, but happy to help out.

If you have any means of doing this, I highly recommend it. It makes maintenance some much easier, and more consistent.

Thanks for all the compliments everyone! I plan on covering some of the upgrades and challenges that I've had over the past 3 years too.

So a Tank Build Thread. I've tried this in the past and ultimately I end up not keeping up with it. At least this time I'll be covering 3 years in this one post! I spent about a year in the planning stages with this build. I considered a dozen different tanks and sizes and ultimately decided to go with a custom 100G build from Reef Savvy. The tank is 48x24x20 with a 2” eurobrace. The eurobrace is used support a screen to keep my jumpers in the tank and also used to rest an auto feeder for their lunch time feeding. The tank is 1/2" glass with 3 sides low iron and the back blacked out. Reef Savvy packing is no joke! Now that the heavy lifting is done the fun can begin One of my primary goals with this build was to reduce the weekly maintenance and automate as much function as possible. Automating water changes was at the top of my list. I travel a fair amount and I’ve never experienced much satisfaction doing water changes. It always felt like a chore instead of a hobby. Keeping up with this on a larger tank was one of the largest concerns that delayed my move from my 30G. In preparation for this I ran 6 1/4” Polyethylene RO tubing lines from the tank location to the soon to be fish room in the basement. The 5 lines are currently being used for: - Pulling sump water to the drain for disposal - Pushing new salt water from the mixing station - Pulling fresh RO water from the mixing station for top-off - Pulling sump water to the Calcium Reactor - Pushing water from the Calcium Reactor to the sump - Currently one spare Here is a picture of where the tank is sitting. We put some ceramic tile in place to help keep the carpet from getting destroyed. That black circle towards the back is where the the Polyethylene RO tubing will goes down into the basement. Note the GFCI circuit. Safety First! I’m an engineer by profession and I enjoy the technical aspect of reef keeping just as much as I enjoy the husbandry aspect. I’ve spent a ton of time spec’ing out the equipment and figuring out how to make it all work together. My setup currently consists of the following equipment: Lighting: 2x Ecotech Radion Pro’s Return Pump: Wavelike DC6000 Circulation: 1 Ecotech MP40 (I have 2, but felt it was too much movement and ultimately removed one) Sump: Synergy Reef SS-34 Sump and 16” Synergy Reef overflow with a Bean Animal configuration. Protein Skimmer: BubbleKing Mini 180 with Avast Marine Swabbie and Davey Jones Skimmate Locker In Sump Reactor: TLF Phosban 150 running BRS Rox and GFO Controller: Neptune Systems Apex Calcium Reactor: Lifereef LCR1 with Masterflex peristaltic pump and AquariumPlants Carbon Doser CO2 regulator As I mentioned, automating as much of the day-to-day work was one of my primary objectives. The water change was probably the biggest challenge. I started out by building a water mix station in my basement. The mix station allows me to have 25g of both salt water and fresh RO water on hand at all times. The RO unit is controlled by 2 float switches and will turn on to filter more water whenever the storage tank gets below ~24 gallons. Once a week I use the mix station circulation pump to move water between the fresh water tank to the salt tank. Then I just add the appropriate amount of Instant Ocean and I’m done. This takes about 2-3 minutes and then I’m done for the week with water changes! Automating water changes is not without risk, so monitoring is key. I use my Apex controller to monitor conductivity and will alert me via SMS if the value gets too high or low. If the number takes a large enough jump (either up or down) the controller will stop the water changes and also stop the ATO. This allows me to evaluate the situation and make the appropriate corrections before turning everything back on again. I also have multiple water sensors in the fish room, in the tank stand, and on the floor under the tank. These are tied into my home automation system and I will get alerted via SMS for any leaks. RO lines coming into the sump Beyond water changes I have my afternoon feeding automated. All of the pumps shut down for 15 minutes, the automatic feeder feeds some flake food to the fish, and then everything comes back on. The protein skimmer comes on 5 minutes after the return pump to ensure the water level in the sump has returned to normal so that my skimmer doesn’t overflow. My skimmer has an Avast Marine Swabbie and a Davey Jones Skimmate locker. The swabbie cleans the skimmer neck twice a day, and all of the skimmate goes into the locker. The locker has a pressure switch that when activated my controller will shut down my protein skimmer and send me an SMS to let me know it needs emptied. No more waking up to find out my skimmer went nuts and splashed water all over the inside of my stand. I also automate all of the normal things such as my lights, vortech behavior, heater (with two temperature probes for redundancy), and management of the pH in my calcium reactor. Just as before, the Apex makes sure that everything is working as expected, informs me if something seems odd, and shuts things down if things are downright wrong. Regular manual maintenance: - I change out my Carbon and GFO every other week - Blow off the rocks every couple of weeks - Make-up new water once a week - Replace my filter socks once a week (or as needed) I also have a regular schedule for cleaning the sump, taking my skimmer completely apart and cleaning it, replacing the tubing on my masterflex and litermeters, calibrating my probes, etc. I try to do water tests every week, but It doesn’t always happen. At a minimum I check specific gravity, alkalinity, and calcium. Less frequently I check magnesium, phosphates, and nitrates. Tank inhabitants: Fish/inverts - - 2 Ocellaris Clownfish - Foxface rabbitfish - Red Velvet Fairy Wrasse - Hoeven’s Wrasse - Yellow Wrasse - Yellow watchman goby and pistol shrimp pair - huge Brittle Star Coral - I’m really bad about remembering the names - Large tabling yellow/green acropora - A couple birds nest variations - Green Star Polyps - Red Goniopora - Red Dragon Acropora - Large Pink Pocillopora - Various other Acros - Torch - Frogspawn - Mint Pavona - Large green Stylophora - Couple different Favias (one particularly huge) - 2 large Acan’s - Large branching Montiopora - Various Zoas and Palys (Just added some Bam Bam, Utter Chaos, and Strawberry Wine frags - Thanks Pizzaguy!) - Rainbow Miliopora frag just added - Tridacna maxima clam - Rose bubble-tip anemone - Various Mushrooms - Cocoa Worm I feed twice a day, once just flake food through the automatic feeder and then each evening I feed frozen foods including mysis, Larry's, and Cyclopeez. Here's my latest full tank shot And all of my current photos are here https://bkdwebb.smugmug.com/Aquariums/March-2015-Reef-Savvy-100-Photos I think that’s enough for now. If anyone has questions or suggestions, let me know. I’m always looking for ways to expand my knowledge. Bill

Thanks. We found out in our last tank (30g) that things grow quickly and that planning is important. I'm terrible with keeping up with fragging and now on two occasions with this tanks I've had SPS so large that they became completely unmanageable. The pocillopora on the right side was literally the size of a volleyball at one point. The frags were so big I couldn't find anyone to take them. I ultimately ended up giving most of the to the LFS.

Giving me homework! I'll make an attempt, but it seems daunting at this point

Appreciate the compliment Your tank is looking fantastic. So much color (and variety!)

I never did a tank build thread, but I took a few pictures of my tank last night. The tank is almost 3 years old at this point and filling in nicely. There are more pictures on my SmugMug site if you're interested (https://bkdwebb.smugmug.com/Aquariums/March-2015-Reef-Savvy-100-Photos) Thanks for looking! Bill

A guess would be several years. Probably came in on some rock rubble I moved from an old tank to my fuge.

lol, he even looks mean!

I'm swapping out my sump and I found this guy. Emerald Crab or something else? Think he would be okay in my DT? Thanks Bill

Wow menglish, that's a lot of plumbing!

Just wondering, for those that are running GFO and/or carbon in a reactor, are you running an external reactor like the BRS or one that sits in your sump. I currently run the BRS, but I'm trying to make more room in my cabinet. If you are running one in your sump, which one are you using? Also, how difficult do you find it to clean and refill? I tend to empty mine out about every 2-3 weeks and replace the media. I'm trying to keep it from turning into a larger (and messier) chore. Bill