Saint's 110g Reef Build - Another Break Down

saintsreturn · Jan 27, 2019

Victoria M said:
Solid reasoning. I have been through it and hope I never have to face a DT with an outbreak again. Gah! It is horrid!

And it never gets any easier. This is my first in a pretty decently long amount history. Frustrating, but there are no guarantees in this hobby.

saintsreturn · Jan 28, 2019

Couple quick shots yesterday

saintsreturn · Jan 29, 2019

Now that the lights are back on, things are opening up and looking beautiful again

saintsreturn · Jan 29, 2019

You know what they say about rain right? We decided that after looking for two years, it was time to upgrade our 10y old TV. Beyond excited to have something that doesn't require squinting at. The next day our back fence fell from the storm we had. Two days later, after it's replaced, our side fence falls. Right in the mix of this? The outbreak in the tank lol. Always something, or lots of something.

First pic, new TV. Next pics are the fence as I supported it, it was ripped down. Building started. Stained. And then next section lol.

saintsreturn · Jan 30, 2019

Even with all the chaos in the house, someone always finds time to just relax and get comfortable

saintsreturn · Feb 7, 2019

After winning a $20 brand new MP10, i paid the difference to purchase an MP40WQD. All in for less than 140$ made this an easy decision. After a lot of consideration, i pulled and sold both of my existing MP10's and setup the new 40. I am on the fence about buying a second one after seeing how much flow the 40 does, even at 30% max.

That said, we lost a total of 5 fish over the last month or so to velvet and unknown variables. The remaining 5 fish are doing great with only two fish showing reduced signs of infection. So now we will continue to wait before replacing any of our lost fish and continuing to monitor the situation. Thankfully, all of the coral and inverts are doing great and the new rock is starting to cure in the system. No new photos worth posting at this point, but I am back to enjoying sitting in front of my system every day when i get home.

The only efforts at this time are cleaning the glass and adding water while we continue to work on our Reef Pi. I love having this little slice of home here with me in Texas and hope things continue to settle down in the system.

Happy Thursday everyone!

saintsreturn · Feb 8, 2019

The hits just keep on coming.

The largest personality in this tank has been our puffer fish, hands down. He was always a joy to watch and feed. I took off the screens a couple nights ago to replace the MP10's with the new MP40 and didnt put them back on. Puffy decided to go for a walk behind the fish tank and couldnt make it back it back into the system before realizing this was a bad idea.

I found him behind the tank... Wife has about given up on this tank at this point and I just stare into the abyss wondering why i didnt put mesh on the back as i have always done...???? Stupid oversight.

Victoria M · Feb 9, 2019

Oh man, I am so sorry for the heartache you guys are going through right now. Virtual hug for your wife!

saintsreturn · Feb 11, 2019

Victoria M said:
Oh man, I am so sorry for the heartache you guys are going through right now. Virtual hug for your wife!

Thank you. I will weather this as i have to much invested/started to back out. She will come around when things settle back down. I am thankful this happened in my life now, and not when i fist got into this hobby years ago. Honestly, for being someone who does not QT; I am also grateful i have never dealt with major things from the start.

saintsreturn · Feb 11, 2019

Corals are doing really good and some even showing off their colors for the first time.

I also ordered filters so I can stop playing with my lights and showing blue pics.

PanchoG · Feb 12, 2019

Hello my friend, good to know your corals are doing good. I am sorry for your puffer fish, I hope everything goes back on track.

saintsreturn · Feb 13, 2019

PanchoG said:
Hello my friend, good to know your corals are doing good. I am sorry for your puffer fish, I hope everything goes back on track.

Thanks bud. Things are getting better and i am about to go on vacation so hopefully i come home to a happier system

saintsreturn · Feb 19, 2019

Returned from a 5 day venture to find one of my glued corals knocked over.... wonder how that happened. Other than that, top off water and glass cleaning

Corals look great and the remaining 5 are still swimming strong

saintsreturn · Feb 20, 2019

Couple fun pictures upon my return.

saintsreturn · Feb 20, 2019

The leather is finally happy and things are looking good.

saintsreturn · Mar 4, 2019

From my puffer jumping out and dying, to my fairy wrasse jumping when I scared it... It was time I did something I should have done on the build.

saintsreturn · Mar 5, 2019

Had a good little laugh last night. My wife has hated my algae glass that i grew, mostly because this tank is to darn tall for me to care about things not negatively impacting my system. So after a couple weeks of telling her how much i love the look (obviously fabricated to avoid manual labor) we pulled off the canopy and i rigged up my algae scrapping machine.

I take a long section of tubing and zip tie it to a long handled scrapper. The end of the tubing is towards the edge of the blade. I feed the line back into the sump, or bucket, and run it through the little handle thing on a filter sock. This way i can siphon algae without losing water. Works like a charm, kinda.

After hours and hours of scraping, ok maybe 5 minutes... My wife looks up from her phone and lets out an audible "gasp." When i say, hey whats up? She lets me know that i have free floating algae everywhere now! I laugh and say, but hey look at all the crap i filtered out! Not good enough. So not the next 12 hours... ok maybe 10-15 minutes, go by as i move my siphon around the tank capturing much of the free floating debris. I then turn my power head back on and place a filter sock on it to catch even more.

Tank looks better, but not as pure as it did before... o well... pictures later, but for now, here is my garden on the back glass before i did all the work lol...

Love this type of stuff