Kodski's 80gal office lagoon

[Kodski]

Originally I was going to glue a bunch of 1" chunks of rock all over the flat spots to elevate the frags, but I decided that I might as well just do that when I glue the frags to the rock anyways. This way it looks a little less.. rough until the coral goes in.

 

[Projects with Sam]

Are you going to drill 12mm holes for frag plugs into the rock's topside? Looks awesome btw!

 

[Kodski]

Are you going to drill 12mm holes for frag plugs into the rock's topside? Looks awesome btw!

Thanks Sam!

I actually plan on using little chunks of rock glued to the bottom of the plug to elevate the frags. This will help to get the flow to wrap around the corals a bit more. For the frag plug I usually just use a bone cutter and snip the stem off the plug.

The idea behind this is based off the same reason a golf ball has dimples. The texture of the rock will cause the water to form a boundary layer which has dramatically less flow. Elevating the frag up will help to get the coral away from that boundary layer.

 

[Kodski]

I’ve been working on getting everything buttoned up a little at a time. Yesterday I started filling the sump with water and today we have a running system!

Unfortunately we have a few issues. A couple bulkheads refuse to quit leaking. Not sure why. I only hand tightened everything at first and I made sure to clean all seals and seal surfaces with denatured alcohol before I installed them.

Even more catastrophic, one of the two sumps formed a crack from the bulkhead today. I’m incredibly bummed out by this. Not sure what to do at this point. I think I might just silicone a piece of glass on the outside over the crack and cross my fingers. Since it’s a sump it’s only ever half full, so Im not as nervous to repair it versus if it was full all the time. I have the end marked with a sharpie, I’ll continue to monitor it.

 

[Projects with Sam]

I’ve been working on getting everything buttoned up a little at a time. Yesterday I started filling the sump with water and today we have a running system!

Unfortunately we have a few issues. A couple bulkheads refuse to quit leaking. Not sure why. I only hand tightened everything at first and I made sure to clean all seals and seal surfaces with denatured alcohol before I installed them.

Even more catastrophic, one of the two sumps formed a crack from the bulkhead today. I’m incredibly bummed out by this. Not sure what to do at this point. I think I might just silicone a piece of glass on the outside over the crack and cross my fingers. Since it’s a sump it’s only ever half full, so Im not as nervous to repair it versus if it was full all the time. I have the end marked with a sharpie, I’ll continue to monitor it.

Omg sorry to hear about the sump!
I agree on your course of action.

 

[Kodski]

Siliconed a piece of 1/4” glass over the crack in the sump. So far no leaking. I’m going to try to hold out until petco’s 50% off sale which might be a while since they just had one unfortunately.


On the bright side…

I got my lights figured out and installed!

Not without issue though. You’ll notice the further of the two kessils isn’t on. Unfortunately it worked for a few hours and then started flickering. Seems like maybe a failing power supply. I’ll try to confirm tomorrow.


Temperature continued to rise throughout the night and morning but hit a wall about noon today. Seems like with my 300w, 250w, and 150w heaters about 72* is as warm as it will get.

Love the T5 and kessils though. Perfect shimmer and coloring.

 

[Kodski]

Was trying to think of a way to test the kessil when I thought, duh! just plug in the other power supply from the working one. Sadly it lights for a minute and then off. Looks like a dead kessil. Bummer. I bought them used quite a long time ago and I plugged them in to test when I first got them but only for a minute and they have sat since. So who knows when one decided to call it quits. I may try sending it to FixReef for repair. They have a couple of youtube videos on kessils. Seems like they might be able to repair it.

 

[Kodski]

Been a busy weekend.

Friday I came home to both sumps cracked well past the point of repair. Saturday I spent most of the night trying to figure out what to do. Unfortunately my budget right now means working with what's on hand. I decided to make a rather risky move. Since I tore this tank down the fish and live rock have been in a 100 gallon rubbermaid stock tank. with a 50 gallon rubbermaid sump. I decided that I would use the 50 gallon rubbermaid sump for this tank, but that would mean immediately transferring all fish over to this system. So I got to work. A few hours later and the fish were in the new system. I transferred as much rock over to the new system as I could to potentially avoid disaster. A three pieces with some large zoa colonies went into the display along with a small rock a BTA attached itself to. The rest went into a trickle tower. I used this setup in the past and it holds a lot of live rock and rubble. Something like a 5 gallon bucket worth. So I filled that up with well established rock from the rubbermaid system. All water that drains from the display drains into the trick filter where it passed through filter floss before hitting the drip plate and onto the live rock. It could have ended up rather poor if my plan didn't work, but I'm happy to report that everyone is doing well today and eating well.

I spent today playing clean up and still have more to go. There are a lot of little bits that need buttoning up, but I'll make a list and tackle one little project at a time through the week. Sadly, no pictures as things are still a bit of a mess. Hopefully tomorrow I can take some.

 

[Projects with Sam]

Been a busy weekend.

Friday I came home to both sumps cracked well past the point of repair. Saturday I spent most of the night trying to figure out what to do. Unfortunately my budget right now means working with what's on hand. I decided to make a rather risky move. Since I tore this tank down the fish and live rock have been in a 100 gallon rubbermaid stock tank. with a 50 gallon rubbermaid sump. I decided that I would use the 50 gallon rubbermaid sump for this tank, but that would mean immediately transferring all fish over to this system. So I got to work. A few hours later and the fish were in the new system. I transferred as much rock over to the new system as I could to potentially avoid disaster. A three pieces with some large zoa colonies went into the display along with a small rock a BTA attached itself to. The rest went into a trickle tower. I used this setup in the past and it holds a lot of live rock and rubble. Something like a 5 gallon bucket worth. So I filled that up with well established rock from the rubbermaid system. All water that drains from the display drains into the trick filter where it passed through filter floss before hitting the drip plate and onto the live rock. It could have ended up rather poor if my plan didn't work, but I'm happy to report that everyone is doing well today and eating well.

I spent today playing clean up and still have more to go. There are a lot of little bits that need buttoning up, but I'll make a list and tackle one little project at a time through the week. Sadly, no pictures as things are still a bit of a mess. Hopefully tomorrow I can take some.

Sorry to hear about your sumps! when I started the hobby, I saw a King of DIY that said to leave a lot of room for the baffles in glass sumps because there is way more movement in these things then we really know.
Hope you've made some progress on your list!

 

[Kodski]

Spent some time down in the sump room today. I got the secondary pump finished plumbed. Before it was just cobbled together to get water to the skimmer. Now it’s properly secured and I went ahead and added a small manifold to it while I was at it. The secondary pump was also supposed to supply the 20 gallon tall refugium so I got that set and plumbed together as well. I need some sand before I can fill it though. Here’s how everything sits now.

Sump room to-do list:

- re-plumb the drain for the 75 gallon frag tank to get it operational
- install Wi-fi power strips and clean up wiring
- find a place for my titanium heating coil to nicely sit submerged
- plumb in titanium heating coil into house hot water system
- add one brace under refugium
- decide what to use for an ATO container and set up ATO

 

[Kodski]

I just realized I never uploaded a picture of the tank with the animals in it. Here is a current full tank shot and some of its inhabitants. The tank is in full ugly mode right now. I’m just patiently riding it out. Mostly just a tuft algea, nothing too horrendous yet. The tang gang works hard everyday but it’s still a brown/green.

In an attempt to make sure I don’t let the ugly stage get out of hand, I picked up a small clean-up crew Friday. I got 10 cereth snails, 5 bumble bee snails, and 2 Halloween hermits. There were a lot of vermentide snails on the few pieces of rock with the zoa colonies. I glued and removed as many as I could but the bumble bee snails are to ensure they don’t come back. I still have a few aptasia that made it through the first round of glueing as well. I’m tempted to add a copper band to the tank as they are one of my favorite fish. But we will see. Along with the snails I picked up a tuxedo urchin. This is my first urchin but I’ve always found them super fascinating to watch. He’s still settling in so no major progress on the algea yet. I’m hoping between the tangs and urchin I can go away from a snail cleanup crew. I’d love to keep a hawk fish.

 

[Kodski]

Here are some coral shots.

The clowns main nem

The clowns secondary nem that refuses to move and insists to stretch itself every day. Also, these two nems are the same nem that split. Note the color difference they developed in different tanks.

My three large zoa colonies. I threw these rocks into the fish holding tub with the fish and each rock only had a few zoas each. I never did a water change or dosed anything while they were in that tub. Shows just how resilient and unstoppable zoas are.

Branching gps is typically open. I noticed it was half closed and decided to take a picture of its growth pattern. Very interesting

Mini maxi carpet nem hiding.

 

[Kodski]

to-do list for the display:

- clean up wires under tank and actually use the controller board
- play with powerheads and placement. I’m getting a large oil slick on one side of the tank
- transfer corals and fish from 40 gallon tank
- make a par map and adjust lighting
- change out outlet under tank

 

[Kodski]

Came home today to find my urchin had shed all of its spines and died. Not sure what would have caused that. Maybe I will just stick to snails..

I stopped by the LFS today and rented the par meter as I will be transferring all the coral from my 40 gallon over to this tank. I had no clue what par was going to be. Since the 40 gallon tank is all LPS this tank will now have to be a mixed tank. Due to what I have for existing LPS I was hoping for more 80-100 par areas but I ended up with more 150-160 areas. In the end, I think I'll just end up keeping torches and hammers in 150-200 par instead of 50-150 par. I do plan on keeping SPS in the areas of higher par, even if the numbers are a tad low for SPS. I can always acclimate the tank to a higher par down the road but this gives me a good starting point.

 

[Kodski]

Progress one small step at a time.

Started transferring corals from my 40 gal over to this tank. Got about 85% transferred over. Gotta finish up tomorrow and then I’ll take some pictures.

Tonight I spent a little while rinsing sand and getting the refugium filled and going. Gotta get a timer situated for the light before I put some cheato in there with the rock.

 

[Kodski]

Got the last of the corals and fish transfer from my 40 gallon yesterday. I need to take some pictures in blues to get some nice color pop. But this will have to do for now.

 

[Gumbies R Us]

Got the last of the corals and fish transfer from my 40 gallon yesterday. I need to take some pictures in blues to get some nice color pop. But this will have to do for now.

Glad to see everything transferred smoothly!

 

[Kodski]

Starting to see some aptasia pop up. Tried gluing a few but they decided that wasn’t going to stop them. Since they have multiplied and killed one frag of zoas. I decided enough of that. I went to the LFS looking for an Aptasia Eating File fish, but they happened to have a copperband butterfly.

Copperbands are one of my favorite fish in the sea and I’ve always wanted one but I’ve always been too cautious to try one. I’ve done plenty of homework on them but never pulled the trigger.

So I did a bit of asking as anyone should do with a copperband.
I knew they have had this butterfly for a while now so I asked and they said going on 4 months. It’s been eating and I asked to see it eat. It was in a tank with several tangs and it ate heartily and was right up top with the tangs. They fed mysis shrimp today but said they typically feed their house blend frozen food and he seemed to like that even better. I picked up both to make sure I’m feeding something similar. It’s a bit smaller than the smallest tang, so I’m hoping I get by with little to no bullying. I have an acclimation container all set to go if need be though. Fingers crossed all goes well

 

[Kodski]

Well the copperband is in, lights are off with room lights bleeding into the tank. Seems like he found a corner and his tank mates are curious and fin flashing but no aggression as of yet. To try to take away as much attention away from the copperband as possible I fed a mixture of the LFS house blend and mysis. The copperband came right over and started eating! I’m taking that as a promising sign.

 

[Kodski]

Well I didn’t see the copper band eat yesterday despite feeding 3 times. He definitely showed interest and took food but would spit it out. So I’m still hopeful, I think I’m going to make a feeder as he swims with the tangs during feeding time but they seem to be a bit too fast for him. Aside from that I was watching him pick at the rocks so very promising.

I was playing with an XHO actinic bar I have laying around for a bit last night, I think I’m going to be removing the Kessil in exchange for the XHO. The color pop just seems to be so much better across the tank.

My two lobos

Some very hungry acans.

echinata

A couple of my hammers

Some zoas

FTS