Fireman's 80 gallon restart.

[Whip]

Amazing build! I’ll be following along intently.

As we were discussing on another thread, I am really excited to see your starboard in action!

 

[Firemanreefkeeper]

Thanks to my friend Blake for custom wielding the brackets that are holding the lights up. I bought the 4 ft aquatic life t5 led hybrid and put 1 of my kessil ap700 in the middle. I'll add the other one when I break down the other tank. The only setback was one of the t5 bulbs didn't fire. I contacted BRS and they sent out another no questions asked. I have temp. Pumps and powerheads in the moving the water. I'll transfer my gyre stuff later on. I added a couple of volunteer hermit crabs that I sucked up while doing a water change on my other tank. If they survive, which they should be fine, I'll consider adding the 2 clowns at the end of the month. Now it's just a wait and see game for the time being.

 

[Firemanreefkeeper]

I said I wasn't going to do it but I did. I moved my clowns to my new tank. I was really busy today doing some much neglected maintenance on my 75 and they were swimming at the top begging for food. So I asked myself, I wonder how hard it would be to catch them? I got my net, tossed in a few pellets and went for it. 2 clowns in one scoop. But man are they had at me now. They haven't left that front powerhead all day long and every time I walk over to check on them they hide under it. They are really going to be heart broken when I get the new gyre pumps in and take those ugly powerheads out.
I went to my LFS and picked up some salt and the other fish in the pic too, an anthias. I know the guy very well as I've been in and out of his shop since I was 15, 20 years now, and he said he's been in the store for a couple of months but nobody seems to want him. Well.... he's got a home now. He eats good and tries to hang with the clowns but they are still upset from their move and are moody. I hope they get over it soon.

 

[Firemanreefkeeper]

My new gyre 300 series pumps came in the other day. I spent a couple of hours fiddling around with them before I was..... content with how they were working. To be honest I'm not super impressed with them but it's too late to send them back now. New tank uglies have begun so more snails and hermits are in order for Saturday.
My new issue is my ATO bucket is too small. 5 gallons only lasts about 2 and a half days. I'm going to have to get a 10 gallon one so I don't have to worry about it. My current 75 gallon tanks bucket lasts 4 days, 5 if I really push it. I guess the wider tank allows for more evaporation thus more water consumption.
The clowns are coming out now and eating again and the anthias is still eating like a pig so thats one good thing I have going.

 

[Waynerock]

My new gyre 300 series pumps came in the other day. I spent a couple of hours fiddling around with them before I was..... content with how they were working. To be honest I'm not super impressed with them but it's too late to send them back now. New tank uglies have begun so more snails and hermits are in order for Saturday.
My new issue is my ATO bucket is too small. 5 gallons only lasts about 2 and a half days. I'm going to have to get a 10 gallon one so I don't have to worry about it. My current 75 gallon tanks bucket lasts 4 days, 5 if I really push it. I guess the wider tank allows for more evaporation thus more water consumption.
The clowns are coming out now and eating again and the anthias is still eating like a pig so thats one good thing I have going.

While Just reading your thread and random as it is my brother just sent a pict of My niece. Looks like they are getting her ready to follow her fathers steps, thought you would approve

 

[Firemanreefkeeper]

While Just reading your thread and random as it is my brother just sent a pict of My niece. Looks like they are getting her ready to follow her fathers steps, thought you would

Love it. I'd post a few pics of my kids in my gear but I haven't been on old face book in 4 years and trying to log back in turned out to be a nightmare I don't have the patience for. I'll have to wait for my wife to figure that one out.

 

[Firemanreefkeeper]

I've got a lot of behind the scenes stuff going on with my tank but nothing really to show picture wise. I slowed the tank uglies by cutting the kessil light completely and only running the t5 for 3 hours a day. The tank does get some filtered late day sun so the fish aren't completely in the dark. I plan to increase the time little by little waiting on coraline algae to start showing up. (Yes I seeded the tank)
The water was cloudy for a number of days so I started testing. Nitrates were around 25 and phosphates were at 2ppb. I didn't want to take the GFO offline so I calculated and started dosing phosphates and no3po4x. A retest after a week showed 10 nitrates and 32ppb phosphates so I'm right where I want to be. And the water is clear so I must be doing something right.
I added my 10 trocus snails and 20 hermits I had in QT to the tank today. They quickly went to work cleaning the starboard bottom mostly, which needed it more than the rocks. I've got chaeto in QT right now that went through it's second round of Bayer poison today. I only saw 2 dead worms today once finished. One more week then another round of Bayer.
Last thing I'm working on is my screen top. I could not find a good solution with alternative materials so I have to make the top out of wood then cover it with the screen. I originally wanted a thick plexiglass frame that I could route out a channel to hold it in place on the rim of the tank. I wanted plexiglass or a clear material so I could see through it giving the tank a clean, unobstructed look, but after a number of internet searches I just couldn't find anything that would fit my needs or my skill level of carpentry. (I know my limits) I took measurements and made a few cuts with the wood but I ran out of daylight. I'll post pics when I get it done.
BTW..... clownfish are more social now and spend some of the time with Roo, the anthias. My daughter named him that because his long fin looks like a rooster's tail. I'm glad they are out of the corner.
Thanks for reading about my journey, more to come.

 

[Firemanreefkeeper]

It's been a long couple of weeks. I finally got around to completing the custom screen top. It's not perfect but it will keep future jumpers inside.
Cheato came out of QT last week and has been in place since then. I threw a few snails and hermits down there with it and have been seeding it with amphipods from my 75. I see them tending to the cheato when the light comes on.
The tank looks good today. For the past 2 to 3 weeks it was cloudy and ugly. You could barely see through it, that's how bad it was. My impatient buddy suggested a hundred different things to fix the problem that he swears would work but I ignored him and stayed the course. It will clear up in its own time. Last week it slowly got cleaner. Whatever was going on fixed itself. I've got good coraline growth on the rocks and spotty growth on the starboard. I'm going to wait another month to make sure things are settled before trying a green slimer acro as a tester.

 

[Breakin Newz]

Awesome love this tank! Curious how did you get the tank without the overflow? Do they sell them like that also?

 

[Firemanreefkeeper]

Awesome love this tank! Curious how did you get the tank without the overflow? Do they sell them like that also?

They do sell them without. I had to find the one that was nontempered and drill the tank that way. Unfortunately, the company was bought out by another and they don't sell this tank anymore. You might be able to track one down somehow but it will probably take some research. I chose this one as I had a smaller 34 gallon one with a corner overflow but I didn't like how much space it took up. I think mine looks clean with a small intrusion into the tank.

 

[Firemanreefkeeper]

The tank is coming along still. The cloudy water has not come back. I've been cleaning the rocks with a tooth brush about once a week since my tang refuses to be caught from my old tank. I guess I'm the tank tang. I also remembered that I bought a UV sterilizer and left it out in the garage. I installed that today so that should cut down on even more algae. It's onto the next project.

 

[count krunk]

You can glue some glass or acrylic tabs in the tank for the screen top to rest on.

This would negate the need for that wood.

 

[Firemanreefkeeper]

I did consider that but the wood is there to lift the screen so it's above the wires and pipes going over the back of the tank. I was going to make the wood part from thick acrylic and route it out but it was expensive and a little beyond my skill level. I made the wood as pretty as I could.

 

[OrionN]

Time for more pictures. Great build

 

[Firemanreefkeeper]

Time for more pictures. Great build

Thanks for checking out my build. I'm at the wait and see phase of the build at the moment. I plan on adding more fish next week, QT will be over, and I'll snap some photos then. All of my corals that I plan to take from my old tank to my new are in my 20 gallon frag tank being QT for pests (aiptasia, vertimid snails and astria starfish) and I keep finding them here and there. Plus, I don't think the tank is ready. I get some coraline algae to grow then it seems to slow then turn white. I've done a few tanks and I have that "feeling" that it isn't ready yet so I'm not going to rush it.
Other then the lack of coraline growth I think it's progressing well, I just have to remain patient.

 

[Firemanreefkeeper]

All my fish huddled in the corner begging for food. I added 2 more lyetral to give my original one, Roo, some company. He still spends his time hanging out with the clowns. I also added a Rudy head wrasse and am hoping that when I eventually add my labouts wrasse, Kirby, from my old 75 they get along. I'm leaving Kirby in the 75 until I shut it down.
I managed to capture the yellow tang, Sonny, from my 75 using a fish trap and a little convincing by taking out some rocks and forcing it to go into the trap. Of the 3 fish I still have in the old 75, Sonny was the only fish that didn't go into the trap to eat. The other 2 could care less about it being a strange plastic box in their tank as long as they could eat.
I removed my kessil ap700 from my 75 and added it to the 80 so I have 2 ap700s plus the T5 fixture going. I also took the remaining frags from the 75 and dropped them in my frag tank. The rest are going to the LFS to be traded for store credit. I plan to decommission the 75 around the 4th of July.

My setbacks so far. I still don't have much coraline algae growth on the rocks or the starboard. A few snails in the tank are covered in it. I can't figure out why it doesn't grow on anything but them.
I added both kessil lights to the tank but can't get them to talk to each other and play nice. One comes on before the other then shuts off after the other. My solution is to make the same light schedule twice, one for each light. That seems to have fixed the problem for now.
My nutrients are zero no matter how much I feed. I've been feeding 2 cubes of brine and a good portion of LRS and have no measurable nitrates or phosphates. I believe that is part of the reason I have no coraline growth. I've reduced the fuge light to 8 hours to see if that helps.
I was out of town last week and my wife did an excellent job taking care of 4 saltwater tanks, 2 freshwater tanks and a turtle tank. She hates, or says she hates, all of them. I say that because I caught her feeding the fish tonight with a smile or her face as she talked to them. It made me chuckle. Anyway, something happened, can't figure out what, but my ATO timed out. I don't know if something plugged the overflow for a minute and the ATO ran for too long then timed out or the power flashed and it didn't restart. All I know is it was not filling what my tank evaporated because it was never reset. Enough water evaporated that my pump ran dry and it shut down as it has a run dry feature on it. I don't know how long it took to do that either. Lucky it happened on the night that I returned home. There was still enough water in the display that the gyres were still covered and moving water. I had to slowly add fresh water back to the system as the salinity was around 39-40ish. It took several hours before I was done. The return restarted without a problem and things were back to normal. To my wife's defense she did call me and say the tank was louder than normal but I couldn't diagnose the problem over the phone. I didn't lose anything but it was not something fun to come home to.
The skimmer cup overflowed twice while I was gone too. That may have lead to the previously talk about event, not sure. I do know I had salt spray all over the inside of the cabinet and that was fun to clean up. I was highly annoyed with the situation so I hit BRS and looked for a solution. I found the auto aqua sensors and bought 1 to try out on the skimmer. So far I like it as it's prevented a third overflow. It also doubles as a delay start-up for when the power goes out so the pump has time to empty the sump back to normal.
My plans for now. Invest in a high/low level sensor so if for some reason the ATO times out again it will alarm and that problem can be solved quicker. I'm also going to test more and try to get parameters on target. I haven't been really concerned as there are no corals in the tank. It's been mostly, is the salinity good, are the fish fed, does the tank look ok, kind of testing. Not good, I know. I've got to get it dialed in as I've got less than a month and my old baby, my 75, gets shut down.

 

[Whip]

4 saltwater and 2 freshwater tanks? WOW! That’s a lot of water!

It sounds like your tank is teaching you all about it’s self. My new tank is doing the same to me right now!

PS - The color of your water in the photo is amazing. That blue background is a nice touch.

 

[Goodair]

Do you run your skimmer 24/7? If your looking to keep some nutrients in the tank, you can try putting it on a timer and have bio break down.

 

[Firemanreefkeeper]

It was a bitter sweet moment last Saturday. I shut down and decommissioned my 75 gallon tank, the one in the very first pic. It had been up and running for 1 year, 7 months, and 27 days. All the fish are transferred over to the new tank. I took the coral that I didn't want and traded it in at my LFS for store credit. That was my first tank so it was sad to see it go but it's led me to my new tank. It's been a great learning tool, mistakes were made but I have learned and will not make them again.
Shutting it down freed up some equipment. I now have 4 gyre pumps in the new tank so the flow can be crazy if I want it. I added the xf230s to the back wall facing forwards which creates a random flow that I think the SPS coral will appreciate once they go in.
I've been more diligent about testing now. I found my alk around 8.9 which isn't bad but my calcium was 550 which is high. I was using redsea coraline algae grow stuff and I think that was the cause of my high calcium number. I've stopped dosing that and have been using soda ash instead. I've gotten little spots of coraline algae growing here and there so I'm hopeful that soon corals can be added. I've got a green slimmer that I'm willing to try out in a couple more weeks.
Right now I'm still being patient and waiting it out.

 

[Firemanreefkeeper]

My coraline algae has been steadily increasing since the last post. It hasn't exploded by any stretch of the imagination but it hasn't died off like it has in the past. I see more and more popping up on the black surfaces like the overflow and the powerheads. I've been pretty dedicated to testing parameters and have noticed the alk drops .1 to .2 dkh a day so something is happening for sure.
I decided that my rigorous QT practices have played off and I haven't seen any frag plug aiptasia in several weeks, only a couple on the rocks at the bottom in my frag tank. No vertimid snails and no stupid astria starfish so I put 3 tester zoes, 2 in the pic, in the tank to see how it goes. The other pic is my tester green slimmer frag. That is not in the tank as my gut tells me it just not time yet, maybe next month. But that is the one I plan to use as I know it's a tough dude. I've fragged from that frag several times and it keeps on growing back like nothing has happened.