Steve G

Hi, I've been following this topic with some interest as I had a pair of banggais spawn in my tank. In fact, I was not trying to do this, but one day I came home from a trip and found two fry in my overflow. My overflow is large, about 15 gallons, with complicated plumbing that made it really difficult to get them out, so I left them there for a couple of months, feeding them directly. Over the first two months, they were growing, but only one survived. Then one day he made it down to my sump, where he's been living for the past month or so in the first chamber. It would be easy for me to net him out, but I don't want to put him in the display and I don't feel like setting up a separate tank. I could, and probably should, but haven't gotten around to it. I was thinking maybe I'd sell him to someone who wants a single banggai. I fear that introducing him back to the tank might be a death sentence as all my fish are pretty well established and territorial. Only one of its parents is still alive. Any suggestions?

Thanks for this thread. I came back from vacation and found two fry in my overflow so I guess I am an accidental banggai breeder! I hope they live. My over flow is pretty big, like 15 gallons.

Tagging along. I had 6 banggais in a 240. Within a couple months they formed 3 pairs, but then only one pair survived, likely having bullied the other two pairs to death. The surviving pair have spawned a couple of times, with one showing the big mouth and not eating from the water column, but I was never around to see release of eggs. I'm curious if there is a time of day or condition under which they will release the fry. I would love to try to rear the fry but not sure I have the skill/patience.

Hi WAMAS, What do you all do when you're out of town? I'm going away with my family for 5 days and decided to call my LFS, where a guy said he'd come. We haven't discussed the terms yet so I'm curious what the going rate is for this kind of service when it's offered commercially (not just a friend/club member volunteer). He started talking about water changes and stuff but I just want someone to check on stuff, make sure no alarms are going off, open and close the valve on my skimmer cup drain (takes 10 seconds to drain), make sure ATO hasn't failed, etc. Basically it's for my peace of mind, not actual work. My automation solution has been just web-connected timers (3 Amazon power strips) and dosers, no Apex or anything. I might have him feed some frozen food, since my autofeeder (Plank from Avast Marine) is set up to feed dry and freeze-dried only and my tank likes a little more variety. I'm curious what other folks do. BTW my system is a 240gallon with mostly SPS, been up for 8 months.

Anyone else have specific experiences or suggestions to share? Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

What is a good solution for times when I need to go on a trip. Are there services that will visit the tank and do maintenance and deal with emergencies? Who is good and how do they price their services? I live in DC near the border w/MD (Takoma/Silver Spring).

Love the cabinet project. Was thinking of getting something from Ikea for mine too. Is the material ok for being near water? Any concerns that moisture will seep into the particle board through any cracks or exposed parts from the drilled holes and make it expand? Also, I love that you're in DC. I lived in the U Street neighborhood for 18 years and it was tough to make a reef hobby fit in a row house. Also, it was hard to find fellow WAMAS members who lived inside the beltway. I spent way too much time driving out to the boonies just to get frags or a scoop of sand or whatever. When my son started wanting his bathroom back and my wife didn't like the flood damage to the floors, we moved Now I have a dedicated fish room and everyone is happy. I'm enjoying the frags you sold me and hope to do some more exchanging in the future!

Just added some livestock. I got 5 female lyretail anthias from Reef eScape. I am very impressed with that shop! It's a bit far from me but worth the drive. I also received a shipment of a peppermint shrimp and several different kinds of snails from Reef Cleaners, my first installment of the cleanup crew. Just in time as the diatoms are starting to show up on the sand and rock.

Thanks so much! I'm pleased with the tank build. I had an issue but Derek took care of it. Very good folks to deal with.

I imagine this would be for sick fish emergencies where you can't get to an LFS or order in time, so not routine use. Also, you would want it somewhere you can drive out any time, not wait for shipping, like the PAR meter. One option would be to set up a google sheet where... Each column is a type of medication, organized into groups based on what they treat. Each row would be a WAMAS member who puts a marker (X) indicating that they have that medication and are willing to share. The color of the marker can be region, like MD outside beltway, VA outside beltway, and inside the beltway. If you are a reefer in need (sick fish), you consult the sheet and PM the club member closest to you who indicated they have what you need. Anybody who ever benefits from the emergency med kit board could be expected to stock up and be a donor, add themselves to the list, for at least some type of medication. I imagine this would make sense for the rarer meds. For example, I don't want to keep formalin in my house but somebody without kids at home may be able to. SOmeone else may have wrangled a chloroquine Rx. etc.

Hi, I am stocking my QT medicine cabinet since I've been starting up a large reef tank. Keeping the full complement of medications on hand can be quite expensive, and they expire if they sit around too long. Do any of you borrow medications from or share with other club members when you find a disease? I could run out to the LFS every time, but often you don't need a whole bottle, or you need something like chloroquine which needs an Rx from a vet. I have cupramine and am planning to buy a few others, like a coral dip for routine use. Suggestions on what to stock and whether it's feasible to think about the club as a resource?

What's up, WAMAS! After being in the club since about 2006 with some breaks here and there, many drives *way out to Virginia* for WAMAS meetings, and some awesome scuba diving trips with WAMAS members, I'm ready to post a thread dedicated to my third, and hopefully final for a long time, reef tank. The first two (38 gallon, then 75 gallon) were practice, where I got to make a lot of mistakes, cause many messes and floods, put my wife through a lot of H-E-double hockey sticks, and learn a lot about the hobby. This one is my dream tank. I'll still make mistakes, but hopefully less frequent or catastrophic. This one got going during the pandemic but hopefully in the future I'll be able to host tank tours again. The tank: Miracles of Canada custom tank, 72 x 30 x 25 high, 3/4" Starphire low-iron glass Set up peninsula style, with coast to coast internal overflow on the left side, 3x1.5" drains in bean animal setup, 2 x 1" returns Viewable on 2 sides from display side, viewable through back glass from fish room (see below) Sump is a used acrylic 100gal reef ready tank I bought from @epleeds and took out the overflows, plugged the holes, and added baffles Main equipment (so far) Return pumps: dual Mag12s Lighting: 61" Hybrid 4xT5 + 3 Kessil A360WE Flow: Tunze 6255 wavemaker mounted on the overflow wall Skimmer: Reef Octopus 250EXT Royale Heaters: 2 x 300 watt Eheim Jagers on an Inkbird wifi Controllers: Kasa power bar, connected to Amazon for voice control Tunze osmolator ATO inside a 4 gallon reservoir connected to airwaterice RO/DI with a float valve and extra manual shutoff Kalk stirrer (currently offline) Phosban reactor (currently offline) Fish room QT: 30gal with HOB filter and Seio 1200 with 100 watt heater Second QT/Hospital: 20gal tank, currently empty, waiting in case of need Water mixing station: 2 x 55g drums sitting on a home depot wire shelving rated for 1000 lbs/shelf, plumbed to Blueline pump & quick disconnect for 15' flexible hose Another Kasa smart power bar to control QT and mixing station equipment 5' floor drain leading to a 2" collection pipe plumbed to whole house drain, with a cleanout Laundry sink with RO/DI Artemia hatchery Freezer for fish food and fridge for my cold beverages Amazon echo dot for tank voice control and music, podcasts Electrical panel in the room -- convenient, but I need to get a very good dehumidifier Blackout rollerblind shade to provide black background to tank when it's being viewed from family room Inside the tank (as of December 2020) ~4-5" sand bed of oolitic sand with thin layer of coarser sand/gravel mix in key spots for weighing it down ~150 lbs of live rock 6 tank-raised Banggai cardinalfish (from Tropical lagoon, still in quarantine but about to move as soon a I put a cover on the DT) 5 lyretail anthias (ordered from Reef eScape, not here yet)

Welcome back to the hobby. I took about 7 years off before my last tank and one I've just set up. So much changes in that time. The club is here to help. Good luck.

Just a followup to say that I ended up just buying a whole replacement valve on Amazon for like $9. Turns out you need not only the nut but there are two parts to the washer (I forget the names of each) for the whole thing to work without leaks.

Just revisiting this thread to share what I ended up doing and say that I love my solution, in case anyone else has a similar issue. I bought a custom vinyl blackout shade from Select Blinds and hung it from the ceiling behind the tank. It is awesome! I just went online, gave them my dimenions, selected the simplest options (non-fancy rollershade) and paid $95. A couple weeks later it's delivered to my door. I get a clean black background whenever I want, but I can roll it up and work on (or admire) the tank from the business side any time I want. Here it is from the fish room with the shade up: Shade down: Here it is from the display side, with the shade up (in person the fish room looks very visible through the back glass, and not pretty) And finally, shade down, clean background: I think I like this look better than a back wall or coralline algae (or GSP mat!) It will require keeping the glass scraped, but that's what magnets are for. Thanks, everyone for your creative suggestions, and happy reefing! Steve

It’s hard to see in the pic (or in person) because they hid it really well it there are three movable panels. Front top and right top are on hinges. Lower right (sump access panel) is attached with magnets and pops out. they put in a 5’ floor drain, upgraded the fish room lighting and electrical to three gfci circuits. before all that they moved the supports for a retaining wall and added 6 concrete footers that were called for by the structural engineer (2 whole house supports and 4 corners of the stand). Our basement slab was just a few inches thick. In one spot it was half an inch thick. You could break it with a screwdriver.

I have a build thread on reef2reef with lots of pics. https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/240g-blair-reef-project.727274/ one cool thing was how they moved the tank into my basement. They removed a window and banister and built a ramp so the 400lb. tank never had to be rotated or even raised. This was their first tank move and I was terrified but it was beautiful.

Just to report back, I found a contractor, Midas Construction, which was amazing. The owner, Milos, is the best contractor I've ever worked with (and I've worked with many over the last 20 years in DC). Very professional, cleans up, does everything by the book (code, permits), and excellent communication and punctuality. Happy to share his contact info.

I have a float valve from a DIY ATO I made many years ago. Just tried to pull it out of storage and use, but it's missing the small plastic nut to hold it in place from the outside of the reservoir wall. Anyone know where you can get one of those? I have one on another float valve I'm using on my mixing station (see pic) for reference.

Welcome back to the hobby! I took a similar break between my last tank and my current one I'm building now. Here is what I have observed to be the main fads and trends that changed over that time: - Metal halide lighting was common. LEDs were new, expensive, and limited in availability. Now the balanced has shifted toward nearly all LED or LED/T5 combos - Bare bottoms are more popular now especially for SPS tanks, while deep sand beds in the display tank are out of favor. I'm still old school about this, preferring DSB - Aquascaping used to be about stacking rock, now "negative space aquascaping" is all the rage. I'm not convinced, except for small tanks. Also, dry sterile rock instead of live to start out, so you avoid pests. Not for me. I've been curing 200 lbs of rock that I got out of a WAMAS member's tank 9 months ago. - Sumps have evolved a lot in the last 7 years. In my day we bought a glass tank and put in some baffles. Now it's all acrylic with filter sock holders - Roller mats are being used by some for mechanical filtration. In my day we never did any mechanical filtration. Too much maintenance. These roller mats look like toilet paper dispensers to me. even in the sump I hate the look. And who wants to clean out filter socks every few days. Yuck. Cleaning the skimmer cup is bad enough. - Additives continue to explode in variety. - Expensive grow lights on refugiums. Back in the day we got a light from home depot for $20. Now people are putting Kessils on their fuges with bright pink/magenta glow that will drive you crazy. I caved and bought a used one myself. We'll see how amazing it is. - Fishless cycling with bottled bacteria seems to be the trend. Old days you found a cheap hardy fish and threw it in there as an ammonia source, doing water changes to keep it alive, or maybe just dumped flakes in every day. And you got some live rock and sand from another reefer to seed the system. Good luck with your new tank!

Photos to go with previous update. The part I am most excited about is the floor drain. THe one in the pic is too small. We're going with a 5' long drain with an easily accessible cleanout. Also, we found some load-bearing beams that we now have to bypass. This will take more time and money that we thought. Spending all that money that would have gone toward a vacation this year (and maybe next year's too)

Some other major developments: The tank arrived. The stand is done. The construction on the fish room has started. Walls opened up, trench for the floor drain is dug.

Here's the update, now that I've plumbed and tested the water mixing station. Since I took this picture I've added a quick disconnect fitting and a 10' hose.

Updates coming. First, let's check in on that sump after I cleaned it up, removed the corner overflows, plugged the holes, and added baffles. I am not very experienced with acrylic welding or cutting acrylic, so I did a poor job and had to add silicone and it's a bit of a mess. Over time I'll probably get leakage around the sides or bottom of the baffles but I'm not sure it's worth completely re-doing.

I am giving this old thread a bump because I need to move a 6' glass tank into my house. It's in the garage on a pallet and needs to go down a flight of stairs and turn a couple of corners. I was hoping to find a professional mover with insurance. Wondering if the OP (@SPReefer) had any experience to share or if others had experience with Capital Aquarium. Anyone else have experience with professional (tank) movers?