FarmerTy's 215-gallon SPS Tank

[Bronc]

Yes, inquiring minds want to know!!

 

[FarmerTy]

Hey guys, sorry, been neglecting my posting duties. New baby, new house, and being swamped at work doesn't help! Let me do a quick summary here real fast.

 

[FarmerTy]

It finally happened... the old tank is officially retired as we moved houses March of 2017.

My wife and I ended up picking this nice 2-story house in preparation for our first child, little Parker Niels Ta, who joined us March 13th.

Two weeks later and very much sleep-deprived, we moved into the new house.

 

[FarmerTy]

Everything came over except the old tank as I wanted to be able to focus exclusively on its move.

But before that could even happen, I needed to prep our current house for its arrival. Fortunately, I started a 6 year campaign of leaving fish stuff all around my tank at the old house. Giant 100-gal tubs of coral treatment and fish QT... plumbed in frag tanks... The FarmerTy Triple Dipper setup... You name it... I did it. This was all intentional of course... [emoji6] ... As it led me to be able to convince my wife to let me have a small fish room at the new house by promising her to never have to see all that junk ever again. [emoji41]

The new house had half the garage converted to a play room so I was able to use half of that as my fish room... Roughly 11' x 7' as long as I will eventually convert the other half of that room back for her to park her car in.

This gave me a nice in-wall setup with the tank facing the dining area and front room.

Where the tank will be installed in-wall with the tank itself in the garage and it being viewable from the dining area.

Down to the work! First off, got a beautiful stand commissioned by John and Nick of Ndestructible Welding who built me this custom stand with a pull-out walkboard... The wood for the walkboard will be added later once I get a chance.

Then I added sealed plywood and cut holes for plumbing. Topped it off with a closed foam mat for the tank to sit on and adjustable stainless steel feet. Of course... Had to have it powder coated red so it can distract you from the mess of wires and ugly sump. [emoji4]

 

[FarmerTy]

What next? How about we punch that hole in the wall? Knowing nothing of framing, I reached out to a good reef buddy who used to build houses when he was younger with the family. He volunteered a Saturday morning, a week before his own move, to help a totally clueless and sleep-deprived guy out. Another buddy also came over to assist and we sent the wife upstairs and started cutting up my beautiful new house.

Viola... In-wall tank. He basically did everything while my buddy and I watched. I may have taken a nap or two. [emoji42]

The goal was to have a setup similar to this:

 

[FarmerTy]

I went about and did as much of pre-plumbing as I could in anticipation of hooking up the old sump to the new setup.

I got the Shadow Overflow plumbed and plumbed my closed loop for my UV sterilizer.

I also added Tropic Eden Reefflakes as substrate with the help of this little monkey... My little nephew.

I also had been cycling some sand in a brute trash can and threw some bacteria in a bottle in it to spur it along.

 

[FarmerTy]

Now, most everybody knows I don't do water changes but I did make the exception with the new tank to vacuum the sandbed. [emoji41]

 

[FarmerTy]

The big move day came and 9 fellow reefers came over under the promise of pizza, beer, and not having to move a tank... They gave up their Saturday mornings to help me move everything over. I wish I had more pictures to show you guys but I was a little busy coordinating and elbow deep in saltwater to snap much.

Here's after the damage was done.

Here's where the fish decided to hole up for a bit while I figured out how to put their home back together.

This is how it looked 12 hrs later... I can at least say that the plumbing was finalized, the sump hooked up and running, my Apex connected to the internet, and my calcium reactor hooked back up for supplementation purposes. Don't judge otherwise... It was a long day and I'm running off of vapors these days of sleep and not even steam anymore. [emoji25]

I transported the corals and rock without water and just wet packing paper and wrapped everything. Fish were bagged individually where possible and a small group were transported together in a large cooler.

The sump was taken out mostly intact and placed into the new setup and plumbed.

I'll throw up more pictures of the inhabitants soon as I start sorting through the mess of broken frags and aquascaping. There are corals stuffed into every possible nook and cranny in my tank, sump not excluded either. [emoji4]

 

[FarmerTy]

Here are pics after the water cleared up a bit and I fashioned a make-shift setup for the lights. Didn't get to do much else other than test the water.

Thankfully, alk only dropped 1 dKh before I got the CaRX back online 8 hrs later. Nutrient levels spiked a little bit but that's expected with the move.

Alk - 8.6 dKh
NO3 - 35 ppm
PO4 - 0.14 ppm

The phosphate level was my biggest concern and probably why some of my SPS were STN'ing even before the move. I hadn't changed my media for 2 months at that point with everything going on.

I hooked up my GFO reactor and hopefully that phosphate level will drop back down to the 0.03 ppm I usually keep it at.

I'll also add more biopellets as I like to keep my nitrates at 5-8 ppm. 35 ppm won't harm anything but I prefer the coloration at the lower level.

Casualties so far:

-lost a small green lokani colony... It fell deep into the sump and I didn't notice it.

-one purple anthia doesn't look good and the other looks terrible

-my ORA Hawkins colony really didn't appreciate not being transported without water. I think it might be a goner

The rest of the corals and fish look great! I'm pretty happy with the move if those are the only issues so far.

 

[FarmerTy]

I found this guy today back at the old house 5 days later. He was living in 1.5" of water with no circulation and temperature control. Nevermind I was the one who caught everything out of the tank... [emoji30]

 

[FarmerTy]

Here's a FTS. Everything is stable so I'm leaving it be to take care of everything else going on right now and hopefully will be able to return to it in a few weeks to aquascape and start working on cable management and adding the frag tank.

 

[FarmerTy]

Update...

Damage Report:

ORA Hawkins Echinata colony is confirmed toast... Though 3 little tiny nubs may have made it. I'll try to regrow a colony out of them if they survive.

Interestingly, my stags were the only other corals really affected during the move so far. The northern lights tips dried out with the no water move. The tips are dead on some branches but the colony itself is healthy and happy.

My teal stag had some STN in the middle of the branches the first day but it has ceased.

My FarmerTy Lotus Blossom took it the worst and 1/3 of the colony RTNed but it looks like it has ceased as well.

Other than that, all other 50+ corals show no signs of any stress from the move other than my polyp extension is not as pronounced as before the move but that would make sense with everything going on. Their colors are actually still pretty decent... I would have thought that I would have lost some color on the acros but most still look about the same.

All and all, I'm pretty happy if those are my only issues from moving a pretty established SPS-dominant tank and transporting them to the new house with no water and just wrapped in wet paper towels. [emoji106]

 

[bubbaque]

Congrats on the new house, baby and getting the tank set back up! Tank still looks pretty good considering what it just went through!

 

[Nick James]

Congrats on the move, I never would have thought to transport acros out of water! Where did you get the idea?

 

[FarmerTy]

Congrats on the new house, baby and getting the tank set back up! Tank still looks pretty good considering what it just went through!

Thank you! Yeah, for the journey they had, I'm pretty happy with their current condition.

Congrats on the move, I never would have thought to transport acros out of water! Where did you get the idea?

Thanks Nick! I stole the idea from mother nature. Acros are exposed to the air for periods of time during low tide in certain areas. I figured if they were fine then, they should be fine for a 15 minute drive. In reality, they were out of the water for around 2-3 hrs and besides the Hawkins echinata (duh, deepwater species) and a couple of tips on the stag colonies, they came out just fine.

 

[kevlow]

Congrats again on home and child. I am sorry for the casualties but that was incredible for three hours out of water. The build is awesome. I can't wait to see the tank, house and corals when it is all complete and settled.

 

[s2nhle]

Wow very beautiful. SPS and angels.

 

[xaflatoonx]

for the acros that STN/RTN'ed - will you cut the white part out?

 

[FarmerTy]

Congrats again on home and child. I am sorry for the casualties but that was incredible for three hours out of water. The build is awesome. I can't wait to see the tank, house and corals when it is all complete and settled.

Thank you and yes, I was impressed at how they held up with just wet paper on them.

It might be awhile before everything gets settled... I don't see work slowing down for another 2 months and well... The baby isn't going anywhere. [emoji12]

Wow very beautiful. SPS and angels.

Thank you. I have an obsession with both!

for the acros that STN/RTN'ed - will you cut the white part out?

For the badly RTNed colony, I cut off as much as I could to retain a colony look.

For the other two stags, I typically leave as the new growth will overgrow it.

 

[FarmerTy]

Popped up at Frank's Tanks in Dallas a couple weekends ago after we attended a wedding there.

Gotta say, much respect for a LFS to put such an effort into SPS! Here's his show tank.