The 'Imaginaquarium' build (Reefer 350)

[TheLost]

Ok... the last post of the morning (i can say that because its almost noon where i'm at)

My goal is to follow the 'BRS/WWC System' they are currently doing on YouTube. So I'm looking at a 4-month cycle.

Short term things to do...

Order my rocks.
Order a new return pump. Any thoughts on the 'old' Vectra S1? I'm cheap and they are discounted now.
... get the tank cycling ASAP.

My birthday is in August... That would be a good time for some fish

Long term goals...

Decide on lights.
Work on the reactors, dosers, ATO.
Change my mind again on the lights.
Build a frag system in the fish room.
Go back to my original light idea.
Actually get the nerve to tell my wife the utility room is now the fish room.

 

[TheLost]

I don't blame you for wanting a new tank, but those are just chips in the outside of the glass and would not effect the ability of the tank to hold water IMO. I, however, wouldn't want those chips on the front pane of a display tank either, so I'd replace too.

I have the old tank sitting in my garage. I'm not sure I would be comfortable selling it. Should I just fill it with water and see if it holds? What would a chipped tank like that sell for? Our neighboorhood cleanup is in a few weeks, if I don't do something with it soon the wife will just want me to throw it in the dumpsters.

 

[xilni]

I have the old tank sitting in my garage. I'm not sure I would be comfortable selling it. Should I just fill it with water and see if it holds? What would a chipped tank like that sell for? Our neighboorhood cleanup is in a few weeks, if I don't do something with it soon the wife will just want me to throw it in the dumpsters.

Out of sight QT tank? I would if I had the space.

 

[Philipgonzales3]

So what are you going to do if your neighbor comes back for his tank? lol.

Going to give him the one? If so what did he look like so I can go disguised as him to pick up "my" tank that you were babysitting haha.

 

[TheLost]

So what are you going to do if your neighbor comes back for his tank? lol.

Going to give him the one? If so what did he look like so I can go disguised as him to pick up "my" tank that you were babysitting haha.

Ha! I wish he (you) would come and get it! His clownfish kill almost every other fish I put in that tank.

The 130D will be returned to stock setup and sold.... unless I find another sucker-er-neighbor to pawn it off on

 

[Philipgonzales3]

Ha! I wish he (you) would come and get it! His clownfish kill almost every other fish I put in that tank.

The 130D will be returned to stock setup and sold.... unless I find another sucker-er-neighbor to pawn it off on

Lol good idea!

 

[TheLost]

Made a little more progress...

I had filled up the weir Thursday to make sure the pipes didn't leak. I had replaced all the gaskets and gave everything a good clean... Everything seems nice a dry from the bottom.

Saturday morning I moved the sump into the backyard and filled it with vinegar and water.

Later that afternoon i built a 1:1 scale Reefer 350 tank out of cardboard. (Ignore the messy room, the aquarium took the place of a cabinet and i'm still in the process of re-homing some if its items)

A quick trip to the LFS and i now have 80lb Reefsaver dry rock and 20lb Caribsea Branch.

I've spent most of sunday stacking rocks and tearing them down... Its a process...

.. This was ugly and quickly torn down

 

[TheLost]

Not much progress this past week...

I received my order of ABS I'm using as the bottom of the aquarium (going bare bottom w/ABS floor). I cut it down to size and used silicone to keep the detritus out.

Fits like a glove...

I didn't have much luck using JB Waterweld+CA to hold my rocks together. My order of Nyos reef cement shows up today, hopefully, that works better.

The rockwork should get placed inside the tank this weekend.

 

[TheLost]

Rocks are in...

I originally didn't have that bridge in the middle, but one of my kids thought it looked cool so I'll leave it there for now.

While connecting everything in the sump I found a small crack in the threads of the return pipe that attaches to the tank. It probably would be fine, but I've ordered a new pipe just to be safe.

The new return pipe and my Osmolator 3155 should show up Wednesday. I need to crank up the RODI system and start making water if I want this thing filled up by the weekend.

I'm following the BRS/WWC setup guide on this tank so I'll have a nice long wait once it starts cycling.

This weeks checklist:
Pick up some Brightwell Xport BIO Bricks
Finish plumbing the sump (waiting on the return pipe)
Power cable organization
Order the lights

Projects in the works (requires a garage-spring-clean to get to the CNC machine ):
Build an acrylic rack for the Carbon & CFO reactors
Build a canopy for the lights.

 

[lieberca]

@TheLost I admire your diligence. And am excited to see this come together!

 

[TheLost]

Just a quick update...

I had some issues with my cities water quality (I made a thread about it here) but I was able to get the tank filled and I'm currently 4 weeks into my tanks cycle.

The past few weeks I've been slowly working on my water station. I made the mistake of selling one of my 65g storage tanks to a friend and I'm still waiting on the email from Norwesco saying its replacement is ready for pick up.

I also chickened out and switched the lights I was going to use. My original plan was to pick up an Illuminagic Blaxe X-120, but after reading/watching some of the reviews I changed my mind. I'm sure the Blaze is a great light, but the lack of support and the hit-and-miss nature of schedule/setup made me go with something more common. I'll now be using 3 XR15w Gen4's w/defusers. I already have one XR15 on my current tank and my coral growth has been great... so it was an easy decision.

Lights are hung (minus the missing light i'll pull from my existing tank)

Water Station / AWC setup on hold waiting for the 2nd tank to show up...

 

[TheLost]

Past due for an update...

I added two fish to the tank a little over a week ago. A Yellow Tang and a Two Spot (Blue Eyed Bristletooth) Tang. The seemed to have buddied-up and always swim together. It's weird, but they never seem to be apart.

I'm still on the hunt for some Anthias.. hopefully, I'll find a few I like next weekends.

I fired up my Radion xr15's and I'm on day 2 my light acclimation process (ramping up to 50% intensity over the next 4 weeks).

 

[BestMomEver]

Love it!

 

[dantimdad]

If you don't want the curve 7 I will take it off your hands. I love mine and would like to have another for a future tank.

 

[TheLost]

Haven't updated this thread for a while...

Equipment update...
Apex is up and running.
Added the WXM module to control the xr15w.
Setup a Neptune DOS in the basement that does my AWC (1.5g a day)

Next steps are to swap out the Osmolator 3155 with the new Neptune ATK v2 and have it pull RO from the basement. I'll also be putting a FMM module in the basement to add sensors for the AWC system and my RODI container. I also need to pickup the Apex auto feeder in the next week or so.

High School and College football season start soon so I want everything as automated as possible while we do some traveling with both my boy's teams.

I'm super happy with the WXM module for the Radion's... I tried the Reeflink for a day and didn't like it, the WXM gives me the control i want and everything is in one app.

The Bad News...
I killed almost all my fish. I rushed the fish into the tank and didn't QT. One fish came in with velvet or flukes (the jury is still out on what it was) and it spread to everything. Within a day my kole tang and anthias had died. I was able to pull out my Yellow Tang and Trigger and get them into QT but the Yellow tang died a few days later. I was able to nurse the Trigger back to health and he's been handed off to a neighbor.

I'm 5 weeks into my Fallow period... I'm debating going 6 weeks for Velvet or the full 76 days for Ick. Right now I'm leaning towards the full 76 day fallow period.

Now that i have my QT setup in the fish room (basement utility closet) I will be picking up a few fish in the next week for their 4 week QT... Lesson learned.

The Good News...
My corals are growing like crazy. My Seriatopora and Pocillopora have noticeable growth. My Last Dragon and Red Dragon acro's are filling out, and my frogskin acro has gone from stick to tree.

I bought this tank as a b-day present to myself... and my b-day is in about a week. I've ordered some (more than my wife knows) corals and scheduled their delivery on my B-day so I have something to open

The journey continues...

 

[TheLost]

I realized I haven't updated my build thread in a while..

• We are getting close to the one year mark on this project.
• We just passed the 6 months mark when i first added corals.
• I started (slowly) restocking my fish about 5 months ago after going fallow

This picture is from January... so its ~2 months old...

After killing all my fish back in July due to poor (non-existent) QT precautions I have very slowly added fish back into the tank.

My fish:

• Purple Tang
• Fox Face
• Flame Hawkfish
• 2x lyretail anthias (currently in QT)

I started adding some of the $$ corals I've wanted into the tank. SPS growth so far has exceeded my expectations. The LPS coral in the tank is just there to add some motion

One year Equipment update:

• Curve 7 skimmer - Still working great.
• 4x Jebao Powerheads (OW-25's) - Keep saying I'll upgrade, but they are working better than expected.
• Jebao DCP-5000 return pump - Hate it. I will replace soon.
• Apex EL
• Apex ATK v2
• Apex DOS used for automatic water changes.
• Apex AFS
• Apex WXM (to control my lights)
• 3x xr15w gen4
• Jebao DP-4 dosing pump

I followed (mostly) the BRS/WWC Hybrid Method on this tank and I am EXTREMELY happy with how things are going.

The Apex DOS does a 1.5-gallon water change per day. I replenish my saltwater supply in the basement every 2 weeks. I 'vacuum' the detritus from the (bare) bottom of the tank about once a month.

The ATK v2 pulls my ATO directly from my RODI storage in the basement. I burned through a few of the new PMUP v2 pumps when they first came out, but Neptune was quick to send me out replacements and the latest has been going strong for a few months.

I had a small bubble algae outbreak around December, but after dosing Vibrant it vanished in about 4 weeks. After seeing how CLEAN my glass stayed after using Vibrant I now dose a small amount every 2 weeks (by hand).

My el-cheapo DP-4 doses BRS calc & alk from 1gallon containers stored in the cabinet. I also have it dosing a small amount of AcroPower each day.

I wouldn't call my tank HANDS OFF, but maintenance is down to just a few minutes each week. I'll put some Nori on a clip maybe once a day. On the weekends I'll clean the skimmer and replace the socks but that's about it.

Upgrades I want to do:
The return pump is getting replaced. I just can't decide what I want to get.
I want to upgrade to a Roller Filter, but then I think about the work effort...

... there you go (as if anybody reads this ). I can't wait to see what it looks like this time next year.

I'll post an updated picture soon (again, that picture is 2 months old). I need to 'UP' my photo-taking now that things are growing faster. I noticed my 'last dragon' coral has grown inches since the picture above.

 

[Super Fly]

Nice Tank! just read your awesome post re. DIY lightweight canopy, which I'm planning to make for my tank as well. Would you have any pix of your canopy?

 

[TheLost]

I never took any pictures...

Its currently in my basement storage due to a small (intentional?) mishap when my dog jumped on it. I would 100% recommend building a canopy with foam and wood veneer... It looked great and was super lightweight. But foam is foam and can't support the weight of an 80lb English Bulldog ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I'll pull it out and take some pictures. It might be the 'push' i need to repair it.

 

[TheLost]

Also.. I haven't updated this thread in a long time..

CRASH!

Working from home has been hard on my tank. I don't know what I did, or what changed but my corals started dying off about 3 weeks ago.

My parameters haven't changed:
Ca - 440 (checked with Hanna and Red Sea)
Mg - 1470 (Red Sea)
Ak - 8.2 (Hanna and Salifert)
No3 - 2ppm (Red Sea.. have a nyos kit showing up this week)
Po4 - 0.05ppm (Hanna and Salifert)
Ph 8.0
Salinity 1.026 (Hanna Salinity and Apex)
Temp 77.8 (Apex and Hanna Salinity)

• I did a large 40% water change and increased my daily AWC amount.
• I put Brightwell Purit in my reactor to filter out any metals that may have worked its way into my tank.
• I've got an ICP test sent out I'm waiting on the results
• Checked for any stray voltage
• Check my parameters daily
• Added more flow (RedSea reefwave 45)
• Checked my RO/DI water
• Replaced everything in my RO/DI system
• Switched salts (grasping at straws)

Things are slowly going back to normal (corals perking up again).. but I don't know what caused the issue. Hopefully, something shows up in the ICP test.

 

[Super Fly]

oh, sorry to hear that about the tank. Hope it recovers... if it was me, I'd wait for the ICP test results prior to making too many changes in hopes of isolating/pinpointing to the cause of crash to avoid it in the future.