320 gallon display with equipment shed

[cilyjr]

Plus! I like that I'm filling in the spectrum a bit. I know that LED's tend to be very peaky in their light output, and I like that having a second light source can help fill that out.

I agree. I run 2blue+ a purple+ and a actinic
3 hours daily.

 

[cilyjr]

I have a ton of aptasia right now. I can't really reach most of them. The local stores have been out of peppermint shrimp and they have always been my primary method of control.

I got talked into an aptasia eating file fish and he must be defective as he's eaten 0 aptasia!

Finally got some in so I grabbed 10. Hopefully I'll see a reduction in a couple weeks.

 

[cilyjr]

2 of them had this.
Thread 'Peppermint shrimp oddity' https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/peppermint-shrimp-oddity.996811/

 

[this is me]

Good to see you living the dream out in the west coast Chris.

 

[cilyjr]

Good to see you living the dream out in the west coast Chris.

Hey Nick,
How are you?
You're not gonna believe this, but I'm trying to start a reef club out here too...
How's your big tank going? You were just getting going when I was leaving.

 

[this is me]

Hey Nick,
How are you?
You're not gonna believe this, but I'm trying to start a reef club out here too...
How's your big tank going? You were just getting going when I was leaving.

I’m doing good. If it has been over 5 years, I’ve moved and have replaced the 360Gallons with a 345gallons. I’m 2 years going into 3 on the 345gallons.
How you find reefing in the west coast in terms of resources and community?

 

[cilyjr]

I’m doing good. If it has been over 5 years, I’ve moved and have replaced the 360Gallons with a 345gallons. I’m 2 years going into 3 on the 345gallons.
How you find reefing in the west coast in terms of resources and community?

My area is a bit rural, so there are basically 2 stores. However it's a 2.5 to 3 hour drive to LA so there is more there.

 

[cilyjr]

I'm tired of pushing the sand back into the front corners every 3 days. I've printed these.
It's a flow deflector
This is not my design (design credit markstubb). I may modify after I use it for a bit. We will see.

 

[cilyjr]

I'm going to reef a palozza LA this weekend!

 

[cilyjr]

I went back to Mobius from the mxm. The control I was hoping for just isn't there yet.
The mxm programming is not as smooth as Mobius.
My opinion is save the 100 bucks for a new coral or something.

I will keep it disconnected because they say they will update it and maybe they will get the clunkiness out.

 

[cilyjr]

Let's see if I can post a video..
I could not. It is now a YouTube link.

 

[cilyjr]

 

[cilyjr]

 

[cilyjr]

My previous tank had a faux rock cover on the overflow. I've decided to add one to this tank.
It was made of spray foam and marine epoxy. It worked and looked great! The downside was it floated so it needed to be secured. I have a lot of Stone fix reef cement leftover from the build. I think this time I will use a piece of egg crate like rebar and just pour the stone fix over it. My Hope is it will be sturdy enough to be able to remove but this time it will sink and just kind of stay in place by leaning up against the overflow.
Here is a picture of the overflow cover from my old tank circa 2018

 

[cilyjr]

Still working on the cover. It will be 3 pieces that I will attach once in place.
I broke up a rock, then gave it an acid bath as it has been sitting out for a while.

I layed out my eggcrate reinforcement then placed the larger rocks on it.

Then I dabbed in the cement. I needed a lot. I had some stonefix and some emarco left over but that still wasn't enough so I grabbed a tub of hydrologic cement from HD. All said and done I probably used about 25lbs of cement, I will soak each panel for a week or 2.

Here they are drying.

After this the next challenge is attaching them.

 

[cilyjr]

I finally got these in. I'm pretty happy with it overall and it wasn't too difficult. It's fairly easy to see the seams but that will change over time with Coral and Coralline algae.

Before I put them in the tank I did soak them for about a week changing the water every couple of days. Since I used a standard hydraulic cement for a good portion of it I figured it was better to be safe. I did see a small alkalinity rise from about 8.5 to 9.2 over the period of about 24 hours. PH went up a slight amount from a diurnal high point of 8.25 to 8.31.

This seems I see up with standard two-part epoxy. I've been using the aqua sticks because I can get them at a deal. Those of course made the skimmer go insane because I had to use three of them but other than that there were no serious injuries. Just a couple accidental frags from the teal staghorn and the bubble gum digitada. I kind of feel bad for that piece because it seems like every time it's going good I bump it and set it back about 3 months.

 

[cilyjr]

Going to the West Coast coral show down in Anaheim tomorrow. Hope there's good stuff.

 

[cilyjr]

It's been a few months since posting.
I put the kalkwasser dosing on the Trident "guard rails” and that's been working out nicely.
The system was well designed.
I set it to
9 dkh
.30 +/- range
35% limit

Meaning if the Trident tests alk and gets a reading of 9.2 it will dose 35% less until the next test. Or if it got 8.8 it would dose 35% more ect.

I haven't had any issues since setting it up and it's been about 3 months.

 

[cilyjr]

Here is a recent FTS. The overflow cover on the stage right side started to come loose, there is a temp fix in this shot that is pretty easy to see.

I pulled it off today and redid the side. I believe that a snail got between the actual overflow and the faux rock cover. It will take some months before the seam blends in but it's on securly again.

 

[cilyjr]

I have been finding my shed is getting crowded with equipment. Things were getting placed on the floor. I had my kalkwasser reactor on a small stand that had a container for the apex Trident waste.
I also wanted to add my "chaetomorpha reactor" that I had made on my old tank back east. In reality, it's just a 5 gallon bucket plumbed into the tank. I found the Chaetomorpha grows a better in the bucket.

All of these made me want to an update the space. So I went through the stuff in the little cupboard and got rid of the junk I could do without. Then took the whole thing out, I built a shelf and moved the calcium reactor.
It looks cleaner so I'm happy
Old

Post clean up

Here's the bucket