320 gallon display with equipment shed

[cilyjr]

A friend of mine had to break down his tank and I took his fish and a bunch of snails.

Added to the list are
A tomini
A scopas
A blue eye
2 percs
An oceleris
And 1 aptasia filefish.

It was all out war for about 45 minutes and now everyone is calm.

I figured such a large add would actually help with the aggression, and it seems to have worked.

This snail is the largest I've seen at about 3 inch diameter.

One of the clowns moved in

 

[Jimbo327]

That center overflow rock cover is turning out nicely with a little bit more algae growth.

If you have tiny snails or baby snails, those gyres are a pain in the butt. My trochus snails spawned, and I have tons of baby snails everywhere. I love having free snails, but I have to constantly take gyre apart and remove stuck snails. I would say I have to do that 2-3 times per week. It's okay since I have it at the top side of the tank, and I can just reach in there quickly to pop off both ends.

Not going to lie, the photo totally does not show your tank as 300 gallons. LOL. It has to be the deep dimensions!

Tank is looking awesome though.

 

[cilyjr]

Not going to lie, the photo totally does not show your tank as 300 gallons. LOL. It has to be the deep dimensions!

I know,
I've thought that too.
It's 68x36x30which is 317.9 us gallons.

I have to constantly take gyre apart and remove stuck snails. I would say I have to do that 2-3 times per week.

I haven't had any issues yet. I have to pull 1 of the vortech heads every week or so.

 

[cilyjr]

I'm going to re-acquiscape the left side this weekend. The giant bird's nest is getting too much shade and it's dyed back pretty far. It doesn't help that the torch stings it from time to time. I've also never been too happy with the side view of that tank where all the rocks perfectly line up.
I guess we'll see what happens this weekend.

 

[cilyjr]

On a side note cuz some of you have asked about the pond, we live about a mile from Pismo Beach so we get a lot of seabirds. I thought I had built the pond pretty heron proof because they don't like to take deep steps down into water and there are a lot of hiding place for the koi. They are smart birds though and one has figured it out and since February has taken five koi.

We now have a motion sprinkler. I pointed the ring camera for the backyard towards the pond and this weekend my wife and I built this.

 

[Jimbo327]

Maybe try putting a fake eagle nearby to scare off any other birds.

I would be interested if those lines work, it looks like the birds would like sitting on those lines like those electric lines.

 

[cilyjr]

Maybe try putting a fake eagle nearby to scare off any other birds.

I would be interested if those lines work, it looks like the birds would like sitting on those lines like those electric lines.

I'm fine with small birds sitting there they are not an issue. heron need space to land and a clear path for takeoff. I believe it is because of how they hunt, very slowly with most of their attention on potential prey which makes them vulnerable so they want an easy escape route.
This particular bird is huge, with at least a 6 foot wing span.

There is a heron decoy and a motion sprinkler as well.

 

[cilyjr]

I have 2 goals that I am going to put on the board.
1. Print and put diffusers on all 8 leds.
2. Raise pH

1. will be easy enough. I'm not sure if I will design the box from scratch or print one that is already been designed. I tend to enjoy doing it myself but why reinvent the wheel?

2. Two is a bit more of a challenge. My pH has a diurnal fluctuation of 7.95 to 8.1. I guess the first step is to confirm that. I have changed pH probes a few times and always calibrate it and it stays there but I want confirm. So, I guess I will start by buying a little handheld probe and confirm.

I'm not exactly sure how I am going to achieve this. My skimmer already pulls from the outside. All of my equipment is in a shed that sits outside of the main house. I do run a calcium reactor but I also run kalkwasser. Maybe I will post more in the chemistry forum

 

[cilyjr]

Goal 1 complete.

I found someone else's diffuser holder on thingiverse. This saved me several hours designing 1 from scratch.

AI Hydra 32HD diffuser by raymondC

Diffuser for AI Hydra 32HD, it might also works on 26HD but not sure. Get an OPTIX Prism Ceiling Light Panels and cut it into 184mm x 135mm

www.thingiverse.com

Too early to tell how much of a difference (if any) they will make.

 

[cilyjr]

I got the redo of the left side done. It took a good part of the day and about 1 hours in I decided I did not have enough rock, or rather the right pieces to do what I was hoping for. So in the middle of it I had drive to the store and get a couple of chunks of rock. One is now the base. The other one I broke with a chisel and made some new arches.

 

[cilyjr]

 

[Jimbo327]

Nice looking arch. Definitely looks more professional on the left side now.

Usually, my own rock scape is just a couple piles of rock. So I'm always impressed with other people making intricate rock scape.

 

[cilyjr]

Usually, my own rock scape is just a couple piles of rock. So I'm always impressed with other people making intricate rock scape.

Me too until this tank.

For me, smashing the first rock was a little unnerving. But you really do need small pieces to do it.

It's really not hard. The guy at the aquarium store here had a tip that has worked well. Take some poly fill! Batting and rub it till it forms kind of a knot. Put glue on one rock. Put that piece of batting there. Soak that in super glue and squish the other rock on it. Then you put little pieces of rubble and sand on the joint to conceal it.

 

[EliMelly]

It's done. I am quite happy with it. It will eventually cover in Coraline algae. The point of it is that I like to scrape the back but this tank is 3 ft from front to back and 3 ft from either side so it is difficult to scrape the overflow. What I would have ended up having was Coraline algae covering a plastic box while the backs were nice and clean.
Though the stone veneer cover looks very man-made when it covers in Coraline algae, it will look more intentional.

I ended up primarily using super glue and accelerator to build it. The silicone held it but a few times it would come loose.

Here are two photos with different lenses on the camera.

Very interesting putting that in

 

[cilyjr]

Very interesting putting that in

Sure is, I know a lot of people won't like it.

But now I don't have to try to scrape the overflow every few weeks.

It makes me think of snorkeling along the quay in wickford when I was a kid. There wasn't any coral but there were some really big trigger fish.

 

[EliMelly]

Sure is, I know a lot of people won't like it.

But now I don't have to try to scrape the overflow every few weeks.

It makes me think of snorkeling along the quay in wickford when I was a kid. There wasn't any coral but there were some really big trigger fish.

That’s awesome man I like how original it is!

 

[cilyjr]

That’s awesome man I like how original it is!

Thanks. I feel most people who have seen my tank in person since I put it in like it. A few people have asked me how I made it.

 

[EliMelly]

Thanks. I feel most people who have seen my tank in person since I put it in like it. A few people have asked me how I made it.

I personally like the fully natural look but I understand the appeal.

 

[cilyjr]

Maybe try putting a fake eagle nearby to scare off any other birds.

I would be interested if those lines work, it looks like the birds would like sitting on those lines like those electric lines.

The rope overhead did not solve the heron problem. We watched him take 1 more koi.

One of us had forgotten to turn the motion sprinkler back on. When we were getting up for work at about 6:30 as I opened up the window I saw the *******.

So now in addition to the overhead, the sprinkler, the decoy bird (which was kind of rusting so we spray painted it Chrome), we have added some fishing line around the edge of the pond.

This seems to be helping. The other thing is that when I caught him eating the last one I scared the heck out of him. Which I believe has made him a little more cautious about coming here.

 

[cilyjr]

Back to the tank. I was going to start adding ozone. The first step was to get an orp probe to see with the levels were before I started injecting something into the tank that could potentially be harmful.
I added a Neptune apex pm1 for the tank and an orp probe. Then I let it measure for a week cuz it takes a little bit of time to start getting good reading out of an ORP probe. And surprisingly found I was at about 420. Making ozone unnecessary.

I did decide to start adding vitamin c as some say it helps with coloration and growth on SPS coral. Been doing it for about a week though so I can't make any correlations, it does have a slight pH lowering effect and a massive orp lowering effect. The orp will drop to about 200 for an hour or so then climb back to about 440.

The interesting part about the pH is the upper and is lower but the lows are still at about 8:00. Meaning my pH is really only moving from 8 to 8.05 for diurnal swings. I'd like to be at 8.2 ish (see my thread in the reef chem subforum) but am not really that worried.