65 Gallon Tear Down and Rebuild

[davehead86]

I started with a 20 gallon tank almost three years ago. It was a fun little tank but I soon got the bug and needed a bigger tank! So after several months of planning and buying I setup my 65 gallon DT and 40B in basement sump system.

Fast forward and there are def some things I would change about how the system was initially setup, continues to operate, and the maintenance of the system. Add in the birth of our second child (and the tank neglect to go with that child) and a GHA infestation of EPIC proportions and you will arrive at the current state of my tank ... torn down and being worked on.

I spent the weekend setting up a 30 gallon holding tank for my surviving corals, inverts, and fishies. Everyone made it out of the old tank and into the holding tank with MINIMAL problems. I was very excited about that part. There was a question about the RBTA and if it survived the transfer after its foot received some shock, but everything seems to be in order now.


So thats where we are at now. This is going to be a summary of the things I am changing in the tank and then eventually a log of everything that has been done on the new setup. Im actually excited about my tank again and cant wait to get going in a positive direction again with the tank. I cant wait to hear peoples feedback either!


First three pictures are the current livestock in the holding tank (blues came on sorry for the poor pics).

Holding tank shots again ....

This is the old sump area (See the clutter and disorganization!)

More of the old sump area ...

The display tank as it currently sits ...

 

[NY_Caveman]

Nice upgrade! Glad you RBTA is recovering.

 

[davehead86]

Nice upgrade! Glad you RBTA is recovering.

Thanks. I was worried about it. Ive had that since the 20 gallon and a yellow watchman goby since then too!

 

[ThunderGoose]

I was admiring your basement, wishing mine was that clean and then I read the captions.... trust me your basement isn't bad at all!

I currently have outbreaks of multiple types of algae that I'm trying to defeat without breaking things down. Sometimes I think a total redo would be easier. good luck

 

[davehead86]

I was admiring your basement, wishing mine was that clean and then I read the captions.... trust me your basement isn't bad at all!

I currently have outbreaks of multiple types of algae that I'm trying to defeat without breaking things down. Sometimes I think a total redo would be easier. good luck

My problem is that my wires and Reefkeeper are accumulating salt creep, the actual basement itself is clean yes. lol We have to keep the floor clean because we do get some water occasionally.


Honestly you should try some NOPOX or something along those lines first, Ive heard people have success with Flucanzole too. The Fluc didnt work for me and there are some many other issues to fix the restart was just best.

 

[davehead86]

First feeding in the holding tank. Everyone went bananas and ate it all up. Snails came out to join in the fun and I e only observed slight aggression by the clownfish staking his territory.

All corals have some kind of PE except for my GSP. But that’s no big deal.

I’ll begin water testing tomorrow. I added ammonia lock to the tank yesterday and added a bag of carbon today to help with any oder and any corals that aren’t happy.

Then comes the deep clean of the main tank with the holding tank stable I can comfortably shift my focus without having to worry about two things at once.

 

[davehead86]

Happy Fourth!

Water testing is complete. The water tested roughly where I expected. The alk seems high considering the calcium and magnesium numbers. Anyone have any thoughts on the chemistry aspect?

Also the ammonia need to be mitigated. I’ll be doing a water change before I leave for a trip this weekend.

Also I seem to have crap floating at the top of the tank. Does anyone have any suggestions for getting rid of that?

 

[NY_Caveman]

Happy Fourth!

Water testing is complete. The water tested roughly where I expected. The alk seems high considering the calcium and magnesium numbers. Anyone have any thoughts on the chemistry aspect?

Also the ammonia need to be mitigated. I’ll be doing a water change before I leave for a trip this weekend.

Also I seem to have crap floating at the top of the tank. Does anyone have any suggestions for getting rid of that?

Crap floating on top, things I have tried successfully:

• Use a fine fish net
• Use a filter sock
• Oily? Lay paper towels on the surface and they draw it right up. May take a couple of rounds.

 

[davehead86]

Alright. So I left for a concert weekend in Noblesville Indiana to see Dave Matthews Band. It was awesome!!

I came back home and everyone was fine. Everything looked good and the nem looked like he was going to walk about and find a nice home in the tank. This is Monday.

Today I come home and look at the tank and feed the tank and notice one of my sps is totally bleached out.

I literally have no idea what happened. It could have been the nem. It could be poor water quality with the startup (other sps are fine tho) it was in a shady spot and could not have been getting enough light. I dunno. In response I took out the carbon baggie (covered in algae scraps and funk anyway) and did a 5 gallon water change.

My tang still does not like when I go downstairs. He freaks and sits in a corner where I can’t be seen.

Next week begins the tear down of the sump and emptying of the main tank upstairs (super busy work week this week).

 

[davehead86]

All but one sps are showing massive RTN. My LPS are fine and my Nem is happy too.

Probabaly just the shock of moving systems combined with over all poor water quality of the original tank and the corals being moved to a new cleaner tank.

I am not discouraged as I thought this would likely happen and non of the SPS frags are worth that much money. They can all be repurchased and re populate the tank when it starts again.

And I am now wiser and know my tank system better and will focus on LPS with a few SPS at the top like stylophora and birds nets and montipora. The Acropora did not do well in my tank at all ever. Even when it was running properly.

 

[davehead86]

Weve been suffering a rare summer cold in our house. Kids and wife and myself are all sick and tired UGH! Finally moving away from that and picking up the speed on tasks for the tank.

Ive cleaned all the equipment out of the sump. It all looks brand new. Vinegar baths are amazing!

Now that the sump is cleared out Im trying to figure out how to rework it without taking out more panels than I need to. Basically I want a HUGE FUGE to grow Macro-algae so that I can control nutrients and contain algae to the sump (at least try to anyway). My current dilemma is trying to figure out if there is actually a downside to having my skimmer in with my return pump and reactor pump. At this point I frankly cant see one. Maybe some one on here can enlighten me if my thinking is wrong but ... if the FUGE is first it takes up the nutrients in the water column, then comes the skimmer to rid anything else out of the water column. And the reactor runs just carbon to start out for water cleaning, odor control, and taking out any chemicals warfare between corals.

IS THAT A PROBLEM? You can see my layout plans written on the sump in the first picture here. **The sump gets flipped on the new layout, the pipe into the sump is old and will not still be there.

Its official I have lost ALL SPS corals. The nem still looks fine, the fish are happy, my inverts are still alive (great first indicator of major problems if they die off), and most of my ZOAS are open, my LPS are open too. Another water change comes this week.

 

[davehead86]

Oh and, discoveries while cleaning.

1) My aquatop heater had condensation inside of it. Bought a new heater as a primary (use the EHIEM's as backups).
2) Cleaning my Hydor Korillia i could not stop having black grains coming out of the magnet compartment. Looks like having that powerhead under the dosing tubes was a bad idea and the magnet was deteriorating and leaking into the tank. Im not sure if this had any detrimental affects on my tank.
3) I was overdosing the tank towards the end / dosing incorrectly. A bunch of the rocks towards the back wall of the sump under the dosing tubes had massive build up of precipitate. I also am unaware if this is detrimental to the tank.

Anyone with more experience than me (with reef chemistry too) have any insight on #2 and #3?

 

[davehead86]

I have gotten the sump totally cleaned out now.
This is a huge step for this project. I am now able to build the new table for the sump to sit on which allows me to start re-plumbing the main tank. Things are getting closer. The plan for this weekend is to hopefully get the temporary home built for the RODI unit to start making water soon and to also get the new table built and painted. (supplies are already purchased)

I want to get the equipment that was cleaned at least placed into the sump so that I can see if my plans work. I took out the pane of glass that needed to go 100% to rework my sump. Hopefully the other two panes dont need to get moved.

 

[davehead86]

Got the cleaned equipment mocked up in the “return” section. Everything fits perfectly fine. The only problem is that my DIY screen for the M1 intake is now too big. I’ll be purchasing the Ecotech screen and that will significantly shorten the intake. I believe at that point I’ll be able to rotate the M1 90 degrees so that it’s not anywhere near the output of the skimmer.

 

[davehead86]

Well the upstairs tank has been totally drained now. Ive started cleaning it out and there seems to be a LOT of calcium build up inside the overflow grate. Im not sure what would have caused this or if its even a problem. Next step will be to take apart the durso stand pipes so that i can move the tank off the stand and make adjustments to the stand. Hopefully when I go back and try to leak test that portion of the tank I dont run into problems / have to reorder durso pipes from Marineland.

 

[davehead86]

Im also curious ...

Does anyone know an effective way to increase the flow in my durso without doing the Bean / Herbie mods? I cant do a bean, and a Herbie would require ANOTHER hole in the floor plus 6 feet of PVC visible to make a new return pipe.

I currently get roughly 10x turnover in my tank per hour but it just doesnt ever seem like enough and if I boost my return pump any higher I start to gets flushing noises and fluctuations in the durso section.

 

[davehead86]

Im also curious ...

Does anyone know an effective way to increase the flow in my durso without doing the Bean / Herbie mods? I cant do a bean, and a Herbie would require ANOTHER hole in the floor plus 6 feet of PVC visible to make a new return pipe.

I currently get roughly 10x turnover in my tank per hour but it just doesn't ever seem like enough and if I boost my return pump any higher I start to gets flushing noises and fluctuations in the durso section.

Still looking for advice on this topic!!!!

 

[dantimdad]

Couple of things. Maybe it's obvious but I hope you really, really rinsed the sump well after using glass cleaner. Sorry if that's an insult. It wasn't meant to be.

Second, I would consider running a herbie if I were you just to be safe and to increase flow if necessary because it runs at a complete siphon. I couldn't sleep at night with just one drain.

Anyway, sorry to hear about the SPS. I'm betting the shock of the move coupled with the magnet deteriorating were the culprits.

 

[davehead86]

Well there has been some movement but money has run out so this will be much longer than originally anticipated ...

First, I have the rocks FINALLY done soaking in bleach and then in water and Prime and finally some RODI with Prime. Now they will sit for weeks to dry out even more while they wait for the main tank to get done.

I built an 8foot by 4 foot table for the new sump area. Obviously this is WAYYYY bigger than I currently need but this will allow me to have a shelving unit on the table to hold dosers etc. It also allows me to expand in the future to hold my FRAG tank.

In addition to building the table, I needed to clean my workbench up to finally find all of the supplies I have and clean off some space to get some work done.

Here is a crude drawing of where I am going to put the tank and the shelving unit. It allows me to move the table AWAY from the air ducts so that I dont keep hitting my head, but it also keeps the tank in an area where I do not have to replumb everything.

There are a few more things Im doing this weekend. Cant wait to see how much I am able to get done!

 

[davehead86]

Couple of things. Maybe it's obvious but I hope you really, really rinsed the sump well after using glass cleaner. Sorry if that's an insult. It wasn't meant to be.

Second, I would consider running a herbie if I were you just to be safe and to increase flow if necessary because it runs at a complete siphon. I couldn't sleep at night with just one drain.

Anyway, sorry to hear about the SPS. I'm betting the shock of the move coupled with the magnet deteriorating were the culprits.

Yes the sump will get scrubbed down with Vinegar right before it gets wet again.
Yeah Im with you and think the stress is what killed the SPS. Unfortunate but not the worst thing. I didnt have any fish deaths, thats the most important.

IM worried about trying to get a Herbie upstairs. That requires ANOTHER hole in the floor and the tank doesnt have a place to have to add the return line so I would have to hang it over the side of the tank and IM not sure how it would hold onto the side of the tank.