After all these years, Office nano build!

Tidal Gardens
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Ecoscape Reef Rock
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You all thought I gave up on this project, didn't you?

Nope! And I have some actual progress to show. The finish work is now done, and I'm starting to assemble things for good this time. I also created a space under the drawer where I can put excess cords. It became really obvious that this is needed because many of the Apex cords are 6 feet long, were they really only need to be about 2 inches.

Here is the setup:
IMG_6568 by Wiskey2727, on Flickr

IMG_6569 by Wiskey2727, on Flickr

The full hood opening:
IMG_6571 by Wiskey2727, on Flickr

And with the MH On:
IMG_6575 by Wiskey2727, on Flickr

Whiskey
 
I wish I had a picture, but I pulled water out of my 75G today to both do a water change, and fill this tank.

I ran into issues right away with the optical sensors and I had a fan fail. These fans were used for years in a different tank so i'm not shocked.

I plan to run the tank for a bit and shake out the bugs. Pics when it clears!

Whiskey
 
View ReefStash's latest YouTube video!
The tank has been running for a couple days now. The topoff seems to be working well, though I'm not sure I'm pleased with the pump location it does solve some problems. All the sensors are working great, same with the magnetic door sensors. The fans are operating well, and are keeping the tank at 78, so I'm really happy with that.

I have a couple bad pics for everyone. Sorry that they are cell phone shots, but I will get better ones later.

IMG_6696 by Wiskey2727, on Flickr

IMG_6698 by Wiskey2727, on Flickr

Yes, I did put a couple corals in there. I had some sand from my 6 year established 75, and some LR and frags so I figured they would be fine. They are doing well so far.

Whiskey
 
I have a rather sad update for everyone. Right after that last picture was taken, a last min move to the center of the country happened. I had to tear down this tank, and my 75G, sell everything living, and many things that were not alive couldn't fit in the truck. Now I'm going through a divorce. This nano tank did make the move with me and I need a distraction, so I'm getting this thread back on track.

There have been a couple of changes. With the MH the tank was hard to keep as cool as I wanted it, so that's been replaced by an AI Prime.
IMG_7397 by Wiskey2727, on Flickr

The flow sensor was too close to the water for my liking, and hard to service so I've moved that:
IMG_7394 by Wiskey2727, on Flickr

Topoff now uses the Avast Pressure sensor that was on my old system, backed up by dual optical sensors (high and low)
IMG_7437 by Wiskey2727, on Flickr

And I made the wires nice and neat under the drawer, the drawer pops out easily to grab any of these out that I need to:
IMG_7436 by Wiskey2727, on Flickr

Also,.. since my doser is not doing anything without the 75G I setup auto water changes. It's 50% per week right now. The in container is small right now just in case, but I will replace it with 5 gallons at one point.
IMG_7496 by Wiskey2727, on Flickr

Here is the tank as it sits now:
Front:

Right Side:
IMG_1014 by Wiskey2727, on Flickr

Left Side:
IMG_1015 by Wiskey2727, on Flickr

Whiskey
 
I can definitely relate to the fact that sometimes you need to escape or a distraction and a reef tank does that at least for me. This may be especially helpful in this interesting time we currently live in now. Looks like you are back on your way.
 
Deltec
reef-rc said:
I can definitely relate to the fact that sometimes you need to escape or a distraction and a reef tank does that at least for me. This may be especially helpful in this interesting time we currently live in now. Looks like you are back on your way.
Click to expand...

No doubt!

Whiskey
 
Deltec
MombasaLionfish said:
What are the top two?
Click to expand...
Blasto, and green pylop toadstool leather frag. The blasto is rather sentimental actually, I went on a trip to hang out with some fellow reefers out of state and came home with one just like it, that was around 2005 or so. The trip was lots of fun so I always try and have one like it in my tanks.

Whiskey
 
I have more pictures!!! And more stuff in the tank.

I'm thrilled to report that the auto water change is working great, even if it is a little loud. I've set it up to change 3/4 gallon per day, during the time between 12 midnight and 8AM.

I have fish now!!! It's a little tank, so I'm sticking with small fish that don't swim much:
IMG_1147 by Wiskey2727, on Flickr

IMG_1145 by Wiskey2727, on Flickr

And some new frags!
IMG_1132 by Wiskey2727, on Flickr

IMG_1135 by Wiskey2727, on Flickr

IMG_1142 by Wiskey2727, on Flickr

And one SPS,.. this guy is fairly low light for SPS but in this tank he fits right at the top because it's focused on lower light LPS:
IMG_1152 by Wiskey2727, on Flickr

Whiskey
 
The tank has been doing okay, but it's not quite on the tracks yet. I've been struggling with 3 things primarily.

1. The uglies,.. they didn't come forever so I thought I skipped it, NOPE! With this dry rock the algae stages are going way slower than I'm used to. I've never started a tank with dry rock, so maybe this is normal, but it's taking it's sweet time that's for sure.

2. Cloudy water. I don't know why, but this tank's water is always cloudy. For the longest time I thought it was a bacterial bloom and that it would go away, but it's not going away. Now I'm thinking phyto because I've been dosing things like live Phyto and Pods etc. I ordered some filter floss to see if it helps.

3. Light. This one was me over-reacting. I'm fairly new to LED only light so I read a bunch of research around their use. I ended up landing on the Coral Labs research about LPS and they recommend 75 PAR. I did this and some corals are okay, but others were not doing well at all. I think the reason is because although 75 PAR is fine for a flat prop rack with no shading it didn't work well for me with shading and a display tank. I also feel that some LPS like Acans and Trachies where they are focused more actually need much less light than ones like candy canes and torches.

I took my PAR meter to stores with LED lighting that had coral doing well, and found that they typically had corals like I keep in 150-250 PAR. I've changed my lighting so that my tank has about 250 at the top, and 120 at the sand. All corals are already doing better. My light is currently running at 100% on the blue channels and 15% on white. Total it reports that it's putting out about 35 watts, and it's about 9 inches off the tank.

That being said, here are a few pics of where I am now:

IMG_1560 by Wiskey2727, on Flickr

IMG_1561 by Wiskey2727, on Flickr

IMG_1571 by Wiskey2727, on Flickr

IMG_1585 by Wiskey2727, on Flickr

IMG_1588 by Wiskey2727, on Flickr

Thank you,
Whiskey
 
www.dinkinsaquaticgardens.com
It looks to be going relatively good.

For the cloudy water - besides good filter pads, have you tried activated carbon (2-7 days)? That may help clear up your water.
 
Very nice job so far!
 
reef-rc said:
It looks to be going relatively good.

For the cloudy water - besides good filter pads, have you tried activated carbon (2-7 days)? That may help clear up your water.
Click to expand...

Great suggestion! Yes actually, I was running carbon but I pulled it out to put in a very course filter pad that came with this setup. It didn't filter much, so I wanted to try the filter floss.

I still have a random assortment of fish stuff that made the move, I tried a 20W UV just hanging off the front with rubber hose and a little pump for a couple hours yesterday and it seemed to help a little but not much. Given the time it was running it should have cycled the entire tank multiple times.

Then I thought maybe skimming would help, I have one of the really old original bubble magnus little skimmers that clamp to the side of a sump for like a 30G tank, so I put that in the display and ran it for a couple hours. That helped allot actually, but skimming this tank regularly is not an option. I might drop it in once a month for a few hours as maintenance though.

The filter floss came today, I have it in there now. I'm curious to see how the tank looks tomorrow.

It's also possible that I just need to wait, but I'm so bad at that.

Whiskey
 
Tidal Gardens

IF YOU HAD TO TAKE A REEFING EXAM, WOULD YOU PASS?

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