Brian's 120 Mixed Reef, 120 Aggressive

[Brian Ward]

Exactly what I had in mind, actually. I have a 4-light VHO that was for my original setup idea that isn't being used right now. I'll probably trade it out for what you have in the canopy. I also have a sump that is better suited to FOWLR as opposed to the reef I was trying to use it on, so I think I'm going to trade that around as well. I'm excited about this tank though! This hobby is certainly addicting ....

 

That probably is a tad heavy on the fish load.

 

One other suggestion, since the tank will be a fowlr order a new harness for the VHO ballast. It currently has a 2 cap harness but the ballast will run up to 4 VHO bulbs. Take the MH moguls off of the reflector and replace with 4 vho. Just my suggestion.

 

4 lamp harness:

http://www.hellolights.com/index.asp?PageA...&ProdID=361

[flowerseller]

We have an ACIII and use 3 DC8's, each on a different GFI circut.

We also have either a pump or a PH for each tank (3) on the different DC8 circuts incase a circut trips we still have circulation.

Our display is the most protected and the anemone farm would be considered the least as it only has a return pump. For some reason, anemones and PH often don't do well together .

 

The build sounds neat, enjoy your electric bill, as much as we enjoy ours.

[Brian Ward]

Thanks for the comments. That is basically what I had in mind for my ACIII - but I can only afford the 1 DC8 at the moment. I have to see how everything connects to the AquaSurf - as well as the power situation - I may be able to run the 6101s on their own power outside the DC8. Still waiting on that and the tunze pumps to arrive - but I'm not in need of them yet. I still have a long way to go.

 

I know the electric bill will be wonderful ...

 

Well I acquired the 120 from BeltwayBandit over the weekend and got that moved into the house. I used Otey shower pan liner both inside the stand and under the stand to protect against spills, leaks, and miscellaneous moisture (there was already some obvious water damage to the stand just from moisture over time). In the process of trying to set the tank up, I determined one of the bulkheads was leaking :( This is probably from where we had to pull it off to retrieve a snail stuck in the drain - the setup is a few years old, and there was a lot of silicone around the bulkhead seals. So after some wrestling and the purchase of a couple pipe wrenches (the bulkhead nuts were completely stripped, and the threads were pretty messed up as well) I was able to get the bulkheads off.

 

I decided to replace the drain bulkheads as well as all the piping in the overflow with the MegaFlow kits I have for my other 120. I'm not sure if it really makes a difference, but the dursos and the dual output jets for the return seemed like it was worth the upgrade. Unfortunately, the drain bulkhead that wasn't leaking was the hardest of all to get off. So I finally got all the bulkheads off, used a razor to scrape the glass to be sure it was nice and clean, used new O rings and bulkhead nuts on the returns, and used the complete bulkhead set up for the drains. I tested the seals and no leaks! I left the water in the overflows last night and all day today for test purposes - I'd rather have 5 gal of water leak out now than much more than that later.

 

The sump I purchased a while back is much better suited to a FO tank instead of a reef (bioballs, no fuge space, lack of baffles, but I didn't know any better at the time), and I think the skimmer was probably a little undersized for SPS (EuroReef RS180). So I'm using both of these on this tank instead of the reef tank downstairs I've been working on. The sump that I got with the tank from Craig is nice and will work great on the reef.

 

I added a fair amount of the sand Craig was nice enough to include, and hopefully I'll be acquiring some rock before too much longer.

 

I should be adding saltwater over the next couple days (I need to acquire a large container for RO water instead of the 6.5 gal containers I have so I can leave the RO system running)

 

Just need to clean up the canopy, and I'll be changing the retrofit/DIY VHO/MH setup he was using for the VHO retro kit I have since I don't need the MH on this tank, but can probably use it somewhere else. Hopefully I'll be cycling by the weekend, and fish at the end of the month with any luck (though Halloween is more realistic).

 

Pictures will follow - I know I've been promising for a while, but I really will try to do that tonight.

 

~Brian

[tygger]

 

 

Well I acquired the 120 from BeltwayBandit over the weekend and got that moved into the house. I used Otey shower pan liner both inside the stand and under the stand to protect against spills, leaks, and miscellaneous moisture (there was already some obvious water damage to the stand just from moisture over time). In the process of trying to set the tank up, I determined one of the bulkheads was leaking :( This is probably from where we had to pull it off to retrieve a snail stuck in the drain - the setup is a few years old, and there was a lot of silicone around the bulkhead seals. So after some wrestling and the purchase of a couple pipe wrenches (the bulkhead nuts were completely stripped, and the threads were pretty messed up as well) I was able to get the bulkheads off.

 

 

 

Looking good so far.

 

Got any pics of the Oatey shower pan liner installed?

[Brian Ward]

OK, this post is pic heavy. Here is where I'm at with the basement reef tank:

 

Pics of the frame for my reef tank before epoxy coating:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Pics of the frame after epoxy back in the basement:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sub-Panel:

 

RO System:

 

Equipment:

 

Edited September 20, 2007 by Brian Ward

[Brian Ward]

And now the aggressive tank setup:

 

The Otey panliner:

 

Tank:

 

Pan liner under the stand:

 

Pan liner in the stand:

 

Pics of the sump area:

 

[tygger]

Any plans for the liner under the tank or are you gonna leave it exposed?

[Brian Ward]

I'm assuming you mean the one on the floor - I'm going to trim it to the size of the stand so it's barely noticeable, just haven't gotten to it yet. I didn't want to take any chances of moisure ruining the wood floors, so I thought it wouldn't be a bad idea to have another layer of protection.

[Brian Ward]

Completed the plumbing last night. Just working on adding water now. I do have a question though - I found that both the drain and return were dripping when I leak-tested. The drip was not through the bulkhead, it was inside the pipe. I figured it wouldn't be a big deal since water would be moving through there anyway. Is this a bad assumption?

 

Tunze 6101 pumps for the reef are supposed to arrive Friday - so I can break them in circulating water in the aggressive tank while it cycles Hopefully I'll have the tank filled by then - 120 is a lot of gallons carrying them up from the basement 5 at a time.

 

~Brian

[Brian Ward]

Finished adding water yesterday morning. Everything is running great, no leaks. I added some dead base rock I picked up over the weekend, and I'm filtering. Everything was running for about 20 hours when I left for work this morning and the water was still VERY cloudy. I can see about 4" into the tank, but no deeper. I'm not seeing the sand being stirred up, but I would have expected the water to be at least clearing by now. The skimmer pulled a little bit of stuff out, but after about 8 hrs of running, the bubble column had moved much lower in the neck than it was initially (and nowhere near the collection cup now). Anyone have any ideas? Do I just need to be more patient, or is something wrong?

[Brian Ward]

So I discovered the problem was the sand being in suspension in the tank and not having filter media small enough to trap it - so it would go straight through the sump for the return pump to pump it back into the water. I managed to rig a filter on the return piping and as of this morning, everything was quite clear - including the water in the sump. I'm going to try and get some live rock this weekend to begin my cycle. I had the weirdest dream about getting fish for this tank last night! I must be getting anxious. Hopefully I can add some fish by the end of October.

[Brian Ward]

Another picture update. I now have a Queen Angel and a Picasso Trigger in the 120 FOWLR. Next additions should be the Achilles and Powder Blue Tangs. The other tank build is moving slowly but I should make some progress the week of Thanksgiving.

 

Queen Angel w/ Flash:

 

Picasso Trigger w/ Flash:

 

Misc others - no flash and a FTS:

 

 

 

 

 

 

[zotzer]

Brian,

That Queen Angel is one of my favorite fish. What a beauty!!!

Tracy

[keeperofthefish]

Looking great, Brian! I'm going to have to check out that angel in person. What a beauty!

[tygger]

Glad to see she has much more open space to swim! The pictures don't really do her justice... she shimmers in the light.

 

Have you seen her swim through the rock work?

[Brian Ward]

Glad to see she has much more open space to swim! The pictures don't really do her justice... she shimmers in the light.

 

Have you seen her swim through the rock work?

 

She constantly swims through the rockwork. There are so many open spaces, but she insists on swimming through every hole she can wedge through. One of the funniest was when she laid completely on her side to slip through a small gap between the sandbed and a rock.

[jason the filter freak]

it would have been a good plan to have that pan liner curl up on all the edges so as to trap any spilled water

[Brian Ward]

it would have been a good plan to have that pan liner curl up on all the edges so as to trap any spilled water

 

Inside the stand it does - I secured it all the way around. It holds a couple gallons of water with no problem - already tested that. I've got to trim the pan liner around the outside of the tank - that was for general water protection since there's no way I could get under the stand to clean anything up.

 

Looking great, Brian! I'm going to have to check out that angel in person. What a beauty!

 

Sam,

LMK when you want to stop by. How's your upgrade coming?

[Brian Ward]

Well the fish are sick :( It appears to be ich though I'm not completely sure. The queen angel appears to have a translucent white film over her, very faded colors, and the rabbitfish has small white spots with faded colors and seems to slip into his stress coloration fairly often.

At first, both were eating but as of Sunday night they were not, though they seemed to sorta pick at nori and PE Mysis last night. They definitely didn't eat like normal. Typically I can't put enough food in the tank to satisfy the queen angel. I'll try adding some fresh crushed garlic to their mysis tonight and see how that goes. I'm working the salinity down to 1.010, at 1.015 right now since I ran out of fresh water, but I should have about 60gal when I get home from work this afternoon. I'm also treating the tank with Kick-Ich. It's a "reef-safe" treatment but I have no inverts - just don't want to get copper in the rock and sand and don't want to kill my bacteria colonies if I can help it. If I don't notice much difference in a couple days, I think I'll move the fish over to my not yet setup 120 and treat with cupramine.

The trigger and 2 damsels aren't showing any signs of disease - all 3 are eating and behaving normally, but if I move the fish for treatment I'll make sure I treat them all.

Any chance someone has a couple of mega-flow kits they want to get rid of? I used my kits when I rebult the overflow plumbing in another 120 and I haven't had a chance to replace them. Wally's has them for $60/ea but that seemed like an awful high price.

 

Nano is still doing well, desparately need to do a water change and cleaning - red slime algae is creeping back up on me, as is the hair algae but it's probably due to a drop in the Ca and Alk.

 

I guess the SPS reef may have to wait a bit longer if I need the tank for QT - though I guess I can continue building around it. I need to drill the tank for the closed loop - I'm thinking 6 holes. 2 2" drains, 4 1" returns (sequence barracuda through an OM 4-Way). Any chance someone can help me out with this? I need help carrying the tank up into the back yard, drill the back, then carry back down and set on the stand. It's not a full flight of stairs, it's really not that horrible, a 120 glass tank is just more than I can handle on my own and the girlfriend isn't much help for this one. I don't mind buying the drill bits and we can even drill your tank at the same time.

Edited December 5, 2007 by Brian Ward

[Brian Ward]

Well I set up the extra tank as a hospital tank to begin treating with Cupramine. Unfortunately, no luck. The angel died shortly after being moved, the orange-spot rabbitfish had been acting very strangely - mostly swimming in a small circle near the top left corner of the tank. I moved him and he died shortly thereafter. Trigger began looking horrible - mucous membrane sloughing off, red marks all over his body - probably from all the rubbing on the rocks, and he had taken to locking himself under a rock and was barely breathing. I haven't been able to find him since early yesterday evening so I'm guessing he didn't make it either.

 

It's been a bad weekend for me :( I really loved that Angel.

 

The 2 damsels I put in the tank as test fish after I lost the first trigger are still happy and healthy - much happier now that the trigger and angel aren't chasing them around. I'm going to let this tank sit for the requisite 6 wks before trying again. Since the other tank is set up as a hospital, I'll probably try to pick up a few fish and treat them with hypo and copper prior to introduction.

I'll work on this tank build around the tank and just hold off on drilling until I'm done using it for QT.

 

This brings up my next question - I have the hospital tank at 1.011sg (14ppt) 0.5mg/L Cu, Ammonia and Nitrate both test 0. Tunze 6101 for circulation, I need to set up a HOB filter for mechanical filtration, but how do I get any kind of biological filtration? I can't introduce live rock since the rock will become contaminated, and I think the Cu will kill the beneficial bacteria anyway. How do you balance your chemicals in the QT tanks without the standard filtration mechanisms?

[zotzer]

Oh Brian,

I am so sorry. That Queen was beautiful. Sounds like you had a rough weekend indeed. Hang in there!

Tracy

[gastone]

Brian, why are you going to treat with both CU and hypo? For ich one or the other would probably suffice. If you do go the hypo route, lower your SG to 1.009, 1.011 is a bit high. You'll also want to treat the damsels as well as there is a good chance that they are also carrying the pathogen/parasite/what-have-you, even if they aren't showing signs of whatever caused the demise of your other fish. It would be a shame to treat new fish for 6 weeks(ish), get them happy and healthy, and then introduce them to the tank with the lowly disease ridden demon spawn.

 

As for biological filtration, take a couple of sponge filters and toss them into your sump. They will seed with bacteria in short order. Then transfer that over to the quarantine tank. I just leave them in the sump so I have them whenever I need them.

 

GL.

 

Garrett.

Edited December 10, 2007 by gastone

[Brian Ward]

Brian, why are you going to treat with both CU and hypo? For ich one or the other would probably suffice. If you do go the hypo route, lower your SG to 1.009, 1.011 is a bit high. You'll also want to treat the damsels as well as there is a good chance that they are also carrying the pathogen/parasite/what-have-you, even if they aren't showing signs of whatever caused the demise of your other fish. It would be a shame to treat new fish for 6 weeks(ish), get them happy and healthy, and then introduce them to the tank with the lowly disease ridden demon spawn.

 

As for biological filtration, take a couple of sponge filters and toss them into your sump. They will seed with bacteria in short order. Then transfer that over to the quarantine tank. I just leave them in the sump so I have them whenever I need them.

 

GL.

 

Garrett.

 

I first went to hypo in the display tank - no inverts, so no problem with that. The fish continued to deteriorate and from what I read, hypo works to kill the parasite during certain life stages, but is not necessarily effective for all stages. From Advanced Aquarist:

Treatment should continue for a minimum of three weeks after a therapeutic salinity level has been reached. Unlike most other forms of treatment for cryptocaryonosis, hyposalinity does not target the "free-swimming" or theront stage. Hyposalinity therapy works by interrupting the life cycle at the tomont stage. Tomonts are destroyed by hyposaline conditions, thus preventing re-infection.

Regarding the salt concentration for hypo therapy:

Maintaining the salinity at 16ppt or less has proven to be a highly effective treatment for cryptocaryonosis (Bartelme, 2001a, b). However, this may change with if low salinity variants of Cryptocaryon irritans become common or widespread. The salinity (not to be confused with specific gravity) must be maintained consistently at 16ppt or less for the entire duration of treatment. I suggest 14ppt to allow for any fluctuations in the salinity during therapy while providing some margin for error.

This is where I found 14ppt as the correct dosing.

I consider Cu a harsher treatment that yields results (I liken it to Chemo for cancer patients, but this analogy may not be correct). I maintained a hypo situation in the hospital tank since the fish were already in hypo and I didn't want to cause additional stress by increasing the salinity. Marine fish expend a large amount of energy maintaining osmotic balance so keeping them in hypo frees up more energy for them to fight the infection. However, it is possible that I over-treated the water with Cupramine. While the dosing was fully within specification (<.5ppm, tested with Salifert Cu test kit) the effects may have been exaggerated due to the hyposaline environment - I believe this is true when administering antibiotics.

[gastone]

Didn't read your entire post so I wasn't aware that the display was in hypo as well. Hopefully that will take care of the damsels, though I still believe that a SG of 1.009 is better suited.

 

I'm sketched by the use of CU. I understand its effectiveness... just too many drawbacks IMO.

 

Again, sorry for your loss.

 

G.

[davelin315]

Hey Brian, I'm sorry to hear about your disaster in your tank. I would look into other conditions as well, other than simply going with the assumption that it's ich. I have never (knock on wood) had to deal with marine velvet, but I seem to recall that the description is somewhat similar to what you are describing. Maybe it's brooklynella? Same thing, though, no experiences with it (knock on wood). I don't suppose you still have the dead angel? It might be worthwhile to scrape it and take a look at it under a microscope to see what you can find.

 

I'll be back at school on Thursday and I have a 1000x microscope that we can use to take a look at the tissue samplings if you have any. I don't know what I'm looking for, but I'm sure we can figure it out.