Hydrored's 300 Glass Cages Build

[sdreef]

All of my other fish will be moved over, they all already get along. Just the hog, mimic, and six line will be new additions so I figured I’d put them in first.

Trying to figure out to move everyone at once or do it slowly over the next few weeks

What are the fish in the other system right now?

Coral wise do you still have euphyllia and goniopora or is this going to be all acropora?

 

[Hydrored]

What are the fish in the other system right now?

Coral wise do you still have euphyllia and goniopora or is this going to be all acropora?

Pair of triggers
File fish
Purple tang
Yellow eye kole
Vlamingi (going to a new 1000 gallon home
Flasher wrasse of some sort
2 Springer damsels
2 pipe fish
3 chromis
Fox face
Tail spot blenny
Flame hawk
2 PJ’s
1 cardinal

I lost my blonde Naso that I bought from marine collectors after a week in observation.

3 Goni’s
1 Dragon Soul
1 Duncan
1 candy cane

these specific LPS have been with me for many years and moved all over the country. They are my OG coral’s so they stick with me no matter what lol

 

[m.kristoff]

I ran across this last night for plumbing 2 pumps for returns and thought it was such a simple but genius idea for redundancy, I am going to do the same thing on my tank and though you could benefit as wall. the guy put a gate valve between his 2 pumps on T. one goes down open the valve

 

[Hydrored]

I ran across this last night for plumbing 2 pumps for returns and thought it was such a simple but genius idea for redundancy, I am going to do the same thing on my tank and though you could benefit as wall. the guy put a gate valve between his 2 pumps on T. one goes down open the valve

Remember if you go that route you have to have a shut off below that also or water will goes go back out of the other pump that’s down.

For me if either pump went down one can handle the return flow and I also have spare pumps on hand.

That setup you posted works for balancing the flow equally but for redundancy sake you still need to add shut offs above the pumps.

 

[m.kristoff]

That setup you posted works for balancing the flow equally but for redundancy sake you still need to add shut offs above the pumps.

RIght! those valves were just above the pump. I am going to incorporate it with my 2 Cor20's

 

[sdreef]

All of my other fish will be moved over, they all already get along. Just the hog, mimic, and six line will be new additions so I figured I’d put them in first.

Trying to figure out to move everyone at once or do it slowly over the next few weeks

When I transferred systems, I had the benefit of more time, so I haven't been in this exact situation. You have the benefit of having established live rock which I didn't have. I would be inclined to go as gradual as practical given this is all happening over the next 2-3 weeks.

Here's my two cents. Some of those fish will be more difficult than it's worth to catch before the tear down. I would add the tangs and triggers at once & toward the end. If you can catch the fox face and any of the smaller fish I would lean toward transferring them earlier to help the system ramp up. I would consider transferring over the LPS prior to all the acros. It's a short time frame, and I think the established live rock is key.

Not sure if others have more experience with the instant tank transfer and can offer any insight or alternative strategy. This is exciting, looking forward to see how it all goes.

 

[ScottB]

A couple of potential ideas to consider for the transition.

a) Dosing up the new tank to match the old tank's nutrient levels.
b) Moving fish is stressful for everyone. Run UV to knock down a potential ich breakout.
c) Until the corals move over, shorten the light schedule so the fish can rest more. Nothing crazy, just an extra hour or two.

 

[Hydrored]

Well after 3 very long days all of the ocean live rock is transferred to the sump, other than a few more frags all coral is in. I did not transfer about 40 pounds of the fake rock

I decided just to do the whole tank transfer from my 210 including using all of the water, an interesting thing to note is I saw a fast reduction of phosphate and nitrates over 2 days.

So far everything is open and happy, tank is using alk and quickly using more daily. Here to hoping nothing crazy happens. Now time to clean the disaster I created with this tank transfer.

here is a quick photo from a few minutes ago, I’ll work the rest of the day weekend cleaning up wiring now that I can finish transferring apex equipment-

 

[Eagle_Steve]

Well after 3 very long days all of the ocean live rock is transferred to the sump, other than a few more frags all coral is in. I did not transfer about 40 pounds of the fake rock

I decided just to do the whole tank transfer from my 210 including using all of the water, an interesting thing to note is I saw a fast reduction of phosphate and nitrates over 2 days.

So far everything is open and happy, tank is using alk and quickly using more daily. Here to hoping nothing crazy happens. Now time to clean the disaster I created with this tank transfer.

here is a quick photo from a few minutes ago, I’ll work the rest of the day weekend cleaning up wiring now that I can finish transferring apex equipment-

Friggin sweet!!!!!!

Looks awesome and you did a wonderful job.

 

[Redfoxtang]

Amazing!! What a beast of a tank!

 

[ScottB]

I decided just to do the whole tank transfer from my 210 including using all of the water, an interesting thing to note is I saw a fast reduction of phosphate and nitrates over 2 days.

All that new, sterile surface needs a bacterial film to cover it. In nature, a "void" cannot be tolerated. For a bacteria colony to colonize, it needs to be fed!

I cannot say I know what the "best" food is, but I would throw everything at it for the transition. Inorganic nutrient like sodium nitrate and trisodium phosphate. Plus organic like fish food / fish poo. Even ammonium.

Keep measuring NO3 and PO4 in particular.

If those cool looking aquascape pieces have not had any phosphate saturation, your PO4 will trend toward zero depending on math I don't have the data for. Your sump rock has some and will release enough for the water phosphate levels to equal the rock saturation. Is it enough to compensate for the needs of all your corals plus the film bacteria population explosion?

This was my point way back about dosing up the new tank water.

 

[Hydrored]

All that new, sterile surface needs a bacterial film to cover it. In nature, a "void" cannot be tolerated. For a bacteria colony to colonize, it needs to be fed!

I cannot say I know what the "best" food is, but I would throw everything at it for the transition. Inorganic nutrient like sodium nitrate and trisodium phosphate. Plus organic like fish food / fish poo. Even ammonium.

Keep measuring NO3 and PO4 in particular.

If those cool looking aquascape pieces have not had any phosphate saturation, your PO4 will trend toward zero depending on math I don't have the data for. Your sump rock has some and will release enough for the water phosphate levels to equal the rock saturation. Is it enough to compensate for the needs of all your corals plus the film bacteria population explosion?

This was my point way back about dosing up the new tank water.

Almost all of the “new” rock was transferred to my 210 to soak for awhile after it cycled for a couple months. Only new rock is the bases as they stayed in the bin soaking. I dosed the tank up for both nitrates and phosphates and the tank is still chewing though them. I just tested again and it’s down to 3 for nitrates. That’s after it tested at 8 last night before bed

pretty crazy what bacteria can do.

UV is going to be turned on here shortly and will hopefully calm it down

I can tell SPS love to eat bacteria, the best polyp extension I’ve ever had

 

[m.kristoff]

UV is going to be turned on here shortly

What Brand of UV and how did you plumb it and planned flow rate?

 

[Hydrored]

What Brand of UV and how did you plumb it?

I have an 57 watt aqua UV that I keep around, I’m not a fan of running UV 24/7 so I did not hard plumb one in. For heavy lifting I drop a pump in the tank and run it if needed or can run off the manifold from the sump to the return chamber also.

I hard plumbed another uv on my 210 and only ever used it a few times so said screw it on my 300, the simpler the plumbing the better for me.

 

[ScottB]

Almost all of the “new” rock was transferred to my 210 to soak for awhile after it cycled for a couple months. Only new rock is the bases as they stayed in the bin soaking. I dosed the tank up for both nitrates and phosphates and the tank is still chewing though them. I just tested again and it’s down to 3 for nitrates. That’s after it tested at 8 last night before bed

pretty crazy what bacteria can do.

UV is going to be turned on here shortly and will hopefully calm it down

I can tell SPS love to eat bacteria, the best polyp extension I’ve ever had

Awesome. Glad you are on it with dosing. For these nutrient/bacteria/new tank transitions I sometimes feel I am screaming into the wind. I screwed it up 3 times in a row. But not the fourth. A resulting dinoflagellate setback is a real setback to the biome in the near and medium term. Overdoing nutrient is not nearly as disruptive.

 

[ScottB]

I have an 57 watt aqua UV that I keep around, I’m not a fan of running UV 24/7 so I did not hard plumb one in. For heavy lifting I drop a pump in the tank and run it if needed or can run off the manifold from the sump to the return chamber also.

I hard plumbed another uv on my 210 and only ever used it a few times so said screw it on my 300, the simpler the plumbing the better for me.

I don't run UV regularly either, but I do keep a couple of "slap-on" units at the ready for stuff that happens every few years. Something that stresses the fish or something that threatens dinos.

It is like keeping a fire extinguisher, although (thankfully?) sees a bit more use.

 

[Hydrored]

With the new floors going in and some other updates to the house she made me go furniture shopping for the living room.

I ended up buying myself a recliner for the “Tank Room“ as she calls it while she was off with a sales person. I’ve always wanted a recliner and she never would let me put one in the living room, so now she can’t say anything lol

I’ve never heard of the brand Ekornes-

Now I just need to find a desk, pick out a TV, move the whiskey, and I’m good to go with the room.

 

[Hydrored]

Spare wet sites and 3 jump tops showed up today, jumps are temporary until custom ones are made-

 

[RDtrack]

Nice build. I had a question did you ever get your overflow dialed in.

I have glasscages a tad smaller than you it's 72x30x30, so ~280 gallons. I have two reef savvy ghost over flows on it. Originally I plumbed it with drain lines and an emergency in each overflow box. The only issue was the flow in the tank made the two overflow boxes have a different amount of water at different times which lead to sucking. I had gate values on all the drain lines but still couldn't dial it in with the amount of flow in the main tank. So it was modified to basically run a herbi flow on each one. So just a suggestion if you have or are having the same issue.

I'm running three mp 60s, two on one side by my SPS rock work and one on the other side. I have two returns that are split into two with random flow generators on each one.

Great build though.

 

[RDtrack]

Spare wet sites and 3 jump tops showed up today, jumps are temporary until custom ones are made-

Who's making your custom lids. I might put a plug in for Top Lids. Had them do mine, turned out excellent.