ChrisQ's Humble Reef

ChrisQ0904 · May 28, 2016

How does everyone feel about these options?

#1

#2

Tahoe61 · May 28, 2016

Love the stand.

I like the scape better without the Tongan Branch coral.

mmw64 · May 28, 2016

ChrisQ0904 said:
Was able to get some things done with the stand these past couple days. It's pretty much built and just needs sanding and paint and a few minor touches here and there.

I had and hard time trying to incorporate euro hinges and I really wanted them because they allow for Anand clean flush look. Unfortunately I could not use them or at least I couldn't find one that works so I ended up using a different hinge but it's still fully concealed.

The tank is also nearly done and got some pictures from him today. Euro brace was done a little different because he cut them at a 45 degree. The brace sits right above the overflow but it still has enough space for the front cover to be removed.

Once I stain the stand I plan to get some rock work done.

Nice work. I'm impressed!

ChrisQ0904 · Jun 2, 2016

No major updates, just stained and sealed the stand. Been pretty busy looking for a new house but I did have my offer accepted yesterday!! Hopefully everything goes well and I can close on this one and then things will move a little faster.

ChrisQ0904 · Jun 2, 2016

Been going crazy trying to decide if I want to go bare bottom on this tank need some opinions. Don't think I'm going to have any animals that require a sand bed, but I have never done a bare bottom tank so not sure if I'll like it.

ChrisQ0904 · Jun 6, 2016

I finally decided on a return pump. Got the rodc varioS, honestly to just be able to connect to apex because apex allows me to nerd out a little and I've always had good experiences with reef octopus with some of their other products. Should have it by Monday the latest.

ChrisQ0904 · Jun 10, 2016

Got 2 packages in the mail today.

First was the Reef Octopus VarioS pump. Pretty excited to see how this little pump will preform!

And second package is some tropic eden sand. Must say that this stuff looks pretty clean compared to some others.

One bag came broken which I wasn't too happy about but not much was spilled.

ChrisQ0904 · Jun 13, 2016

Ok I got water in the tank did the leak test and so far there seems to be no leaks with it running for close to an hour. It makes a little noise but still fine tuning the bean animal setup.

I filled it with the hose from outside because things are progressing with the house situation so I don't want to setup the tank when I could be very well moving it soon. Just trying to dot all the i's and cross all the t's.

I added a section in the plumbing to make a manifold for 2 reactors (carbon and gfo) but apparently I wasn't thinking when I ordered the pump and by looking at the flow now I'm not sure I'll have enough power. So for now I just have the manifold section capped off.

ChrisQ0904 · Jul 3, 2016

Hey everyone! Things seem to be moving along well with the house and I'm scheduled to close on the 15th but we will see how true that is. Anyway, I'm thinking of making a fish/"office" room out of one of the spare bedrooms. I'm contemplating painting the room blue.... having the wall behind the tank an actual blue and all the other walls a much lighter blue (like a gray-blue) and having a white line around the middle that goes all the way across.

What are your thoughts on this?

ChrisQ0904 · Jul 16, 2016

Finally the news I've been waiting for! Just about everything as been processed and I should be closing by the 22nd the latest but the bank told me they are going to push for the closing to be on Wednesday. I never thought this day would come, I'm getting pretty excited and can't wait for the move to happen and get the tank up and running!

najer · Jul 16, 2016

Great news and great skills, I will be following.

mmw64 · Jul 16, 2016

ChrisQ0904 said:
How does everyone feel about these options?

#1

#2

I like it better without tonga branch also.

Salty1962 · Jul 16, 2016

#2. Tank has really come a long way. Wish I had the cabinetry skills you have. Look forward to seeing with some livestock.

ChrisQ0904 · Jul 30, 2016

Well I'm somewhat settled into the new house, got caught up with moving and small things to do around the house. While I do not have everything moved over yet, I did manage to bring the new tank over. I filled the tank with 80g of water but I think it could use a gallon or two to get the sump to the level I want. Added salt this morning and wanted to give it 24hrs to mix before I tested the salinity. Tomorrow I will add ammonia and some bacteria if my salinity is good followed by some time and patience. Im glad that the tank is finally up and running. Now to try and take on the headache of the electrical. I believe I will be able to run everything into the closet that the tank sits next to, I just hope the cables are long enough to reach. I will tackle that project in the upcoming weeks after the summer semester is over and I have more free time on the weekend.

ChrisQ0904 · Aug 15, 2016

I purchased a used deep blue 30g cube for a temp/frag/QT/hospital/what ever you wanna call it tank. I transferred all the stuff I had in the 40b last night and switched to LEDs for that tank (still have T5 for the main).

The main tank has cleared up since the last post and did a fishless cycle which seems to be completed by now. Every time I add ammonia it's gone within a few hours. I was going to set up my apex finally since I was able to transfer the old tank but had some company last night and didn't have the time to. Hopefully tonight I'll be able to set it all up or at least most of it.

QT tank

Display tank

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ChrisQ0904 · Oct 28, 2016

I've always wanted to run a zeo tank but didn't want to have to stay on top of my tank that much and add an extra reactor. Then came the aquaforest line, I've been doing quite a bit of reading about their products and have become extremely interested in trying it out. I followed a few builds on the forums that seem to be having some great success so long story short I decided to give it a try when I walked into a LFS and saw that they had the entire line. I'm only starting with a few of their products as a "starter" pack and will see how the tank does with just the minimum. I'll observe how the tank reacts and decide if I continue to add more and more of their line or if it doesn't work for my tank I'll stop.

ChrisQ0904 · Oct 31, 2016

I did some water testing today to see if there were any changes in my parameters since starting Pro Bio S and NP Pro. First I noticed that my nitrates have drastically dropped from 5ppm and they are currently 0ppm (using salifert) I personally do not like having my nitrates at 0 although I highly doubt I am truly at 0. My phosphates seemed to have increased from .03 to .05 but I am also due to replace my GFO which I will do today, I will be using the Aquaforest Phosphate Minus which is their GFO. Doing these tests today I realized that I Never really tested for the big 3 since starting this tank just because I have a small amount of frags in the display. My current parameters are:

ALK - 7.4 (Hanna)
CA - 310 (Red Sea)
MG - 1136 (Red Sea)
P04 - .05 (Hanna)
N03 - 0 (Salifert)
SG - 1.024
PH - 7.94 (Apex)

At first my CA and MG reading had me worried and I performed multiple tests to confirm and they seem to yield different results. I then noticed I made a "beginner" mistake and was using old test kits. So for now I do not plan to do anything drastic in regards to CA and MG since the corals seem to be happy. I will be ordering new test kits soon but I want to look up different brands before I place my order just to see if theres anything new or something others prefer to use for CA and MG.

All that being said, I plan on dosing AF Vitality and AF Build which are vitamins and a coral growth booster. AF recommends to do 1 drop per 27g every other day while lights are off, so today I will add 3 drops of each when I return from class around 10pm and will simply follow their recommendation for the moment. I keep meaning to feed the corals with the AF food but that is not something that really concerns me at the moment.

On a side note, I am getting really tired at how often I need to change my filter floss with this tank. I feel like it is getting dirty within a few days of replacement and have been getting lazy with changing and just leaving it for when I do a WC. I think I may just take it out completely and run no floss or socks. I understand that my sump will get dirty a lot faster but I think I would rather just vacuum the sump every couple of months. Just something for me to think about, not necessarily something I am going to do right away (I still have a huge roll of floss).

Daniel@R2R · Nov 1, 2016

Looking great!

ChrisQ0904 · Nov 15, 2016

This is an update to show how corals look before I start dosing component 1,2,3. I have been steadily dosing np pro, pro bio s, ABEV, and occasionally the coral food. I had to change one of the hoses on a dosing pump so now they are finally online. Currently using AF GFO and waiting for the carbon to come in. Some of the corals I don't know the name of, so I apologize if some are labeled wrong or as unknown.

On a side note, I am not a great photographer and new to the macro lens so yes I know the whole coral is not in focus, I am trying to improve my photography skills but this is not easy.

WWC Grafted Cap

Unknown Tort

Unknown 1

Unknown 2

Unknown 3

Sunset Millie

Spainbow

Red Dragon

Pinky The Bear