241 Gal peninsula Mixed Reef Build

[saltienewb]

Nice build! I prefer this to the seamless wall cutout. Love that you can open the cabinets from the outside as well. Life(marriage) goals fo sho

 

[Oshanickreef]

Nice build! I prefer this to the seamless wall cutout. Love that you can open the cabinets from the outside as well. Life(marriage) goals fo sho

Thank you! It’s been a long time coming! And luckily I’m not married so no significant other telling me not to send it on this tank

 

[Oshanickreef]

It has been a few months since my last post because i have been working on this system NON-STOP. Upgraded my lighting, tweaked some stuff with the plumbing, adding shelving and other things that help with storage in the fish room, culturing phyto, adding tangs galore, etc!

I want to start by letting everyone in on a secret. Culturing phytoplankton is the best thing you can do for your reeftank. After transferring all the corals from my 90 gallon to my new tank 30 min away i had a cyano outbreak and that quickly turned into Dino’s. My nitrates bottomed out and phosphates were insanely high. Corals were okay except a few were suffocated by Dino’s. I did a ton of reading and started dosing brightwell silica aggressively and then a couple days later got some phyto from a buddy and i have cultured it in the past so i had all the stuff to start that up again. I have been dosing a gallon per day now for about a month. Every coral looks amazing, i have multiple species of baby snails (including trochus). Dino’s dissappeared in 4 days. Rocks are all covered with a bright green film that looks pretty. Very excited about the Phyto to say the least!!! The coral fluffiness alone is worth it.

As for all the other updates .. see pictures below.

 

[Oshanickreef]

I cleaned up all the wires. Doesn’t look the best but i am happy with it. I used 1 inch click clamps for my wire harness drilled to the stand. This allows me to add or remove things at my leisure. Click clamps are the bees knees!!!

 

[Oshanickreef]

view of the Fish room as you enter:

Removed the ATI Straton and Added in two more of the Aquatic Life XP48 lights. it is just so much easier to have the lights all be the same. and the tank doesnt look all out of balance now. I also used shims to tilt all of the lights towards the center of the tank.

view of the fish room and frag tank. all connected. i have a return pump for the display and a separate one for the frag.

this is my Automatic Frozen fish food feeder. i use a neptune DOS to run food forwards and then flush the lines in reverse. i now can go two weeks before i need to change it out and it gets kinda stinky but not too bad. the temp in the fridge is 30 degrees because i use saltwater in the cup to lower the freezing point.

here is my plumbing: proud of these pipes!

here is my display tank. i used the orange glasses to filter out the blue light for the photo.

 

[michealprater]

awesome setup! looks incredible!!!

 

[Gumbies R Us]

view of the Fish room as you enter:

Removed the ATI Straton and Added in two more of the Aquatic Life XP48 lights. it is just so much easier to have the lights all be the same. and the tank doesnt look all out of balance now. I also used shims to tilt all of the lights towards the center of the tank.

view of the fish room and frag tank. all connected. i have a return pump for the display and a separate one for the frag.

this is my Automatic Frozen fish food feeder. i use a neptune DOS to run food forwards and then flush the lines in reverse. i now can go two weeks before i need to change it out and it gets kinda stinky but not too bad. the temp in the fridge is 30 degrees because i use saltwater in the cup to lower the freezing point.

here is my plumbing: proud of these pipes!

here is my display tank. i used the orange glasses to filter out the blue light for the photo.

Awesome looking fish room!

 

[Oshanickreef]

awesome setup! looks incredible!!!

thank you so much! i really appreciate that!

 

[Oshanickreef]

Awesome looking fish room!

much appreciated!

 

[Janci]

Looking great. It is a dream to have a fish room like that.
Seems like you are all set.
I went through the thread and have a couple of questions.
The sump ended up under the display tank. It would be my dream to have it up from the ground and clear from the tank. What changed your mind?
The system now includes 2 displays, one frag tank and the sump. Right?

 

[Oshanickreef]

Looking great. It is a dream to have a fish room like that.
Seems like you are all set.
I went through the thread and have a couple of questions.
The sump ended up under the display tank. It would be my dream to have it up from the ground and clear from the tank. What changed your mind?
The system now includes 2 displays, one frag tank and the sump. Right?

So i have one 240 gallon display, a frag tank and the sump. I also have a 10 gallon cubey in some pics but that isn’t connected.

I wanted to maximize my space in the room so i decided to have the sump under the tank. The stand is 36 inch tall and 30 inch deep so i have plenty of room under the tank for maintenance. And now that it’s all said and done i think it helps with the ability to hide wires. My last tank i had the sump in a closet and the wire situation was just awful. This tank i didnt do a control board either like i did with the last tank. I have it all hidden under the tank. I really love how it turned out.

 

[michealprater]

How do you do your water changes? Back in the day I had a 240 setup with a fish room like this and I had my favorite setup. I had a pump from the sump plumbed directly to a drain, and a pump plumbed from the saltwater storage to the sump. I used a DJ light controller, which is basically a power strip with individual switches on each outlet. When I wanted to change the water, I would just flip one switch to draw water from sump, then flip the next switch to fill it back up. I really miss that old system... and the tank as well.

 

[Oshanickreef]

In the beginning i was wheeling brute trash cans around. But i got very lucky and found two 100 gallon water storage tanks at the local Missouri botanical gardens. Because they are a nonprofit they couldn’t sell them for a profit so they sold them for 50$ each. So i plumbed them together in a closed loop so now i have one for saltwater and the other for fresh/ato reservoir.

I am on a well so i also have a 60 gallon square plastic tub for my RO water. It sits in there with an air stone and degassed for 23 hours then pumps through my di stages into my reservoir using a kamoer dosing pump. It is fully automated using the apex so my rodi is always full and when i get down to 50 gallons of saltwater i refill it and add 1 bag of instant ocean and so far so good!

Since this was taken i build a frame over the plumbing which acts as a step for when i need to get on top of the containers or add salt.

 

[michealprater]

In the beginning i was wheeling brute trash cans around. But i got very lucky and found two 100 gallon water storage tanks at the local Missouri botanical gardens. Because they are a nonprofit they couldn’t sell them for a profit so they sold them for 50$ each. So i plumbed them together in a closed loop so now i have one for saltwater and the other for fresh/ato reservoir.

I am on a well so i also have a 60 gallon square plastic tub for my RO water. It sits in there with an air stone and degassed for 23 hours then pumps through my di stages into my reservoir using a kamoer dosing pump. It is fully automated using the apex so my rodi is always full and when i get down to 50 gallons of saltwater i refill it and add 1 bag of instant ocean and so far so good!

Since this was taken i build a frame over the plumbing which acts as a step for when i need to get on top of the containers or add salt.

What does degassing do? Is your water changes automated? I got lost a little there.

 

[michealprater]

I may have to try to make it to your bash just to see how this thing works... very impressive.

 

[Oshanickreef]

What does degassing do? Is your water changes automated? I got lost a little there.

Sorry… yes I do automatic water changes. 2 gallons per day. Using the Neptune DOS. It is quite the luxury to have a fully automated system.

 

[Oshanickreef]

I may have to try to make it to your bash just to see how this thing works... very impressive.

Definitely make it if you can! I will have a ton of food! The more the merrier! Plus it’s always fun trying to recruit new peeps into SLASH club!!

 

[michealprater]

Definitely make it if you can! I will have a ton of food! The more the merrier! Plus it’s always fun trying to recruit new peeps into SLASH club!!

I been “in” SLASH for years. Unfortunately I never attend much because my anxiety gets to me. I’ve been to various events over the last 15-20 years. Heck I used to have the Slash card from back in the day when there were annual dues.

 

[mjcoussens]

I been “in” SLASH for years. Unfortunately I never attend much because my anxiety gets to me. I’ve been to various events over the last 15-20 years. Heck I used to have the Slash card from back in the day when there were annual dues.

We can help you with your anxiety...Just sayin'

You know you're welcome over any time. I wfh about 90% of the time.

 

[Oshanickreef]

I been “in” SLASH for years. Unfortunately I never attend much because my anxiety gets to me. I’ve been to various events over the last 15-20 years. Heck I used to have the Slash card from back in the day when there were annual dues.

so youre an OG member! you should come and hang. no stress to be had. i was really nervous at my first slash event then some guy started asking me questions and that led to trading coral and a tank upgrade and now here i am 5 upgrades later and way in over my head