Hart's 120 3/4" starfire expansion!

[hart24601]

Tubbs Stellata Montipora, UC red dragon which doesn't glow under the light but I wanted to capture it anyway!

And maybe the my favoirte photo of a coral that I have ever taken, this Leishman's acro really turned out cool I think.

 

[hart24601]

Well we lost power for about 6 hours this weekend. No issues that I could tell, I did put some peroxide in every few hours though. It wasn't really long enough for me to consider starting up the generator, but since I have a mp40 still in there I figured I would pick up the battery backup. I wish the gyre had one, I would rather have spent the $$ on that since it moves more water and I have it near the surface, but the vortech will be better than nothing.

I am leaving for some vacation this week for almost 2 weeks. It will be interesting to see what happens to the tank while I am gone...

 

[hart24601]

So before I leave for a week and a half figured should take a FTS so when I come back and it's ruined I have a nice memory, HA!

EDIT: The photo uploaded much darker, I don't know how to fix that, original pic looks better and the tank better still in person! Guess I need to work on my photography skills.

I also took couple pics of purple haze monti, it has some feather dusters in it and is kinda neat.

 

[SeahorseKeeper]

Your tank looks great!!

 

[hart24601]

Back from vacation. Whew, thank goodness my friend is a reefer and could come over and look at things! Had a power outage, tripped the gfci so he was able to restore it. That was the only major issue. I have the skimmer on a defer apex code with return pump, but that doesn't work with powerloss so skimmer overflowed, but he caught it! Changed the code so that shouldn't happen again. I did buy the vortech battery pack before I left so that was a good purchase!

I checked before leaving, but I guess I didn't see the stupid pyramid snails on the clam... the teardrop bit the dust while gone due to those _____. My friend found tons of them on it, no idea where they were hiding, he cleaned them off but the clam was in bad shape by then. Everything else looks great and most had noticeable growth. ALK was 6.7dkh which isn't too bad for powerloss and not checking for two weeks.

I got the mp40 QD driver upgrade for the WWD pump I was using. I put new bearings in it early this year, but it was still really loud. Amazingly enough on this old pump that new black driver dramatically reduced the noise. I was shocked. They said it would, but I didn't think on that old pump it would make a difference.

Also picked up another mp40 QD, I am just flow crazy - and decided to give some of the zeovit supplements a try. I snagged some of the slow release elements they offer now along with a few other things like sponge power and coral vital. I want to color up a few things so I will see what happens.

One thing was really cool on my trip. We stopped in Chicago for a few days and I convinced the GF to let me hit up one store and crazy enough they had the devil clam that was featured on reefbuilders! I didn't have $3,000 burning in my pocket to buy it, but funny how I have been watching those and just happened to end up seeing one in person same day I was drooling over the gigas at the Shedd.

 

[gettaReef]

Sounds like a good trip. I'm jealous you got to see a devil clam in person.....I've been drooling over the pics reef builders posted too (but 3 grand! dang, I hope they find a hidden place where there are thousands to export). This Oct my family and I plan to visit Shedd for 3 days. I can't wait

 

[Acrononomus]

Just read the thread! Excellent choice in equitment and tank builder.... Your pics are great ! Tank seems packed ready for an upgrade soon! Nice work

 

[hart24601]

Sounds like a good trip. I'm jealous you got to see a devil clam in person.....I've been drooling over the pics reef builders posted too (but 3 grand! ****, I hope they find a hidden place where there are thousands to export). This Oct my family and I plan to visit Shedd for 3 days. I can't wait

Oh nice! Shedd is great, the livestock seemed in great shape overall. Not much reef, but that's ok - in some ways I like seeing freshwater more since that's what I grew up with.

Salt related I was watching them try to feed a stonefish that wouldn't eat, they were trying shrimp and a clear rod, but other fish kept snagging it and they had to try and use another rod to keep the other fish at bay. You could only see the rod and most people didn't even notice it, but I have had to train and spot feed/fight other fish like that and so I was watching and laughing until my girlfriend made me leave! I could have watched that for an hour.

Here is the devil clam and the gigas from the Shedd. Not good pics, especially the devil, looked cool in person.

 

[hart24601]

Just read the thread! Excellent choice in equitment and tank builder.... Your pics are great ! Tank seems packed ready for an upgrade soon! Nice work

Thanks!! I appreciate it!

 

[revhtree Verified Admin]

Awesome tank!

 

[hart24601]

Got the new mp40QD set up for a couple days now. Tricky to find the right combination of flow, and adjusting the gyre a bit too hard I broke a rotor! Good thing they send replacements. I hope they make some new design changes and have the new parts out soon:

http://reefbuilders.com/2015/06/01/maxspect-gyre-rotor-foam-guards/

After playing around a bit I found the happy spot for now. Actually running the new mp40 and gyre on each side make crazy flow around the acros, but eases up the gyre shear on some of the LPS that it was a bit harsh for, so win/win. The QD retrofit on the back glass is beating up the euphyllia a bit, but I used to have them in a lot of flow before moving them. Don't get quite the extension, but they grow silly fast anyway. The new mp40 is no match for the gyre, but that is the idea to keep the gyre circle flow, but give acros in the middle more love - looks good so far.

So now I am running gyre constant at 100%, mp40 QD reefcrest 100% and the QD mp40 conversion on reefcrest at 100% plus the return. I doubt everything is running at the manufactures rated speed, but the gyre is 5k gph, new mp40 is 4.5k and the WWD mp40 was 3k - I don't know how much more the new driver gives it, but it does look much faster - but that is 13,000 gph with the 500gph return pump (when the mp40s cycle up to 100% with RC mode). Over 100x turnover and I think I could use a bit more!

 

[hart24601]

New article on another devil clam!
http://reefbuilders.com/2015/06/09/good-scribbled-pattern-tiger-devil-clam/

This one look much healthier than the one I saw in Chicago. I hated to think it, but the one in Chi-town didn't look very good to me. The mantle on these guys goes to the edge and not over like a hippo clam, but you can see in the pick above parts of the mantle were not extending to the edge in the front of the clam. I have seen that on hippos and it's a bad sign. When you look at the reefbuilders link above you can see how much better that clam looks to be.

 

[gettaReef]

WOW.....

 

[hart24601]

There hasn't been much to fiddle with recently, things seem to be moving along pretty well. I did finally set up an auto waterchange system though. Through the wall the basement is unfinished with a floor drain that the furnace and RO system uses, so it's a perfect spot. I picked up the neptune DOS and a 44g brute with ESV salt mix. Everything seems to be working well for the AWC, it's pulling out 4L a day, so that 44g brute should last well over a month before refilling. I don't have a float valve in the brute yet, I really doubt I will forget to check it, but it's on my "think about" list. I just don't want to add a break out box on the apex for it. I do have a gripe with ESV salt. Clearly being an expensive brand people are going to use it for full strength seawater, or at least 1.025. I used the 50 gallon formula for the brute can with 40g in it and it mixed right at 35ppt. Seems kind of shady to me that their 200g mix really only makes 160g at 35ppt. $110 pretty spendy stuff for only making 160g, almost a buck 50 a gallon. I might just switch to another salt mix when this batch is gone. I don't know if spending $1.45 a day in salt is worth it for only a 120g tank.

 

[hart24601]

Oh yes, and I found the black shortspine urchin eating coral. I wondered why some of the montis had white spots, it wasn't STN as parts were still living. I figured it was just bad luck, but I accidentally fragged an acro the other day and so put the broken piece in a new spot. I sat and watched that urchin move over the frag and park on top for a few min. I pulled him off and the frag was pure white where he was sitting. So both the black shortspine have been moved to the LFS. Unlike the other urchins they also would knock off glued frags, so I am not too sad to see them go. The pincushion, longspine and tuxedos are still there and seem to be playing nice...

 

[hart24601]

There hasn't been much to fiddle with recently, things seem to be moving along pretty well. I did finally set up an auto waterchange system though. Through the wall the basement is unfinished with a floor drain that the furnace and RO system uses, so it's a perfect spot. I picked up the neptune DOS and a 44g brute with ESV salt mix. Everything seems to be working well for the AWC, it's pulling out 4L a day, so that 44g brute should last well over a month before refilling. I don't have a float valve in the brute yet, I really doubt I will forget to check it, but it's on my "think about" list. I just don't want to add a break out box on the apex for it. I do have a gripe with ESV salt. Clearly being an expensive brand people are going to use it for full strength seawater, or at least 1.025. I used the 50 gallon formula for the brute can with 40g in it and it mixed right at 35ppt. Seems kind of shady to me that their 200g mix really only makes 160g at 35ppt. $110 pretty spendy stuff for only making 160g, almost a buck 50 a gallon. I might just switch to another salt mix when this batch is gone. I don't know if spending $1.45 a day in salt is worth it for only a 120g tank.

Ha, I wrote the math wrong for the ESV cost. It's 70 cents/gallon with the 200g making 160g. Still over 3x the price of instant ocean.

 

[gettaReef]

Still too expensive per gallon imo. I had to get rid of my black spine as well but for eating LPS. Why are you against or hesitate to adding a break out box?

 

[hart24601]

A break out box is alright, it's just another thing to add in the equipment cabinet. It's not that I am against a break out box, I have been feeling overwhelmed with "stuff" for the tank recently, but at some point I will get over it and probably want one since I have added pretty much everything else, lol. It doesn't seem very likely I will let the brute run empty though - and even if I did I would notice the increased ATO use before anything really bad happened I think. Interesting you had a urchin eat coral too. Shortspine or longspine?

 

[gettaReef]

Longspine, after 3 years it outgrew my small 75gal so guess it needed to supplement some LPS into its diet. Unfortunately it destroyed a few nice pieces before I figured it out , and it also developed a taste for coraline algae. Went straight to the LFS (sea of Marvels - same place I got it years before) that day I figured it out. Say, do you mind posting a pic of your equipment cabinet? I'm in the process of taking all my equipment (all pumps, lights, apex, dosers, etc...) out of my sump area and installing it into a cabinet I got from ikea and am looking for ideas. Thanks!

 

[hart24601]

I don't think you want to use mine fo r ideas! It's just a little stand I picked up somewhere years ago and I am using it to keep the electrical bits away from the tank, give them a little protection that's better than under the tank stand. I did have it arranged nice with wire covers, but after having to undo it all so I could take my skimmer out for cleaning and replace gfo it was more of a pain, so now it's just a mess inside there. The bm doser is under the tank still and the other dosing pumps are on the back of the stand with the DOS being on the other side of the wall.