Travis and Jessica's 400G Build

While we are at it lets take this one step further.


Here is our "quick and dirty" QT setup.



And a few photos of the 400g's future residents hanging out in QT. We also have a Dussumieri, Purple and Orange shoulder in QT, but we dont have any decent photos of those guys yet.







This was what the QT's turned into without the dividers.

 
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The QT's are sitting down in our bar area at the moment. In 3 weeks when these current fish are done with our QT procedure we will empty the QT's and move them out into the fishroom under the cabinets. Then all of our OG fish are coming out of the coral tanks and going through QT before they make it into the new system. We want the new system to be a good clean pest free environment where everyone can thrive and live happy. Not saying any of our old fish are diseased or anything like that, but no fish is getting in with out a ride through QT. That's the rules this time around and we are sticking to our guns on this one :boxing:


 
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Wow a group of beautiful fish!
 
Wow amazing build!

I agree! amazing build!

Great build!

Thanks guys, we really appreciate all of the kind words! :)

Wow a group of beautiful fish!

Thanks! Humblefish has been helping us out BIGTIME with all the QT proceedings. To be honest, I don't know if we could pull off this crazy QT rodeo of tangs without his knowledgeable advice. Hopefully we can get a photo of the Dussumieri up soon. From the looks of the way its already coloring up at only 4.5", its going to be a stunner.
 
I love the QT setup as well! btw you guys made it onto facebook on the R2R page! :clap2:
 
I was going to pick up an archiles and a purple tang the other weekend but I couldnt as my quarantine tanks are too full as it is lol! That QT setup looks awful familiar :)
 
I love the QT setup as well! btw you guys made it onto facebook on the R2R page! :clap2:

Thanks! We can't wait to get those fish out of QT and into the tank. Cool! :rockon:


I was going to pick up an archiles and a purple tang the other weekend but I couldnt as my quarantine tanks are too full as it is lol! That QT setup looks awful familiar :)

LOL, in the beginning it was hard to fight off the urge to pick up 1 more. Now that we are treating with cupramine there is no more adding fish until these current fish are out of QT or we will be back to day 1 of treatment, so that has kept the fish buying urges at bay. When will your current group of fish be going into the 500?

Looks familiar but I think your QT water is alot cleaner :lol:... The stand for the QT's has been working great. Really nice to have the one tank right on top of the other, nice small footprint.
 
Amazing build. Your carpentry skills are awesome and your attention to details is impeccable.

Thanks! You are way too kind, I like to think of my carpentry skills as beginner to intermediate at best :lol:. I am actually just finishing up reinforcing the stand for the sump because it was sagging about 3/16" in the center. It just wasn't up to the task of hold 200+ gallons, I should have added more support right from the start. I kind of threw that together to get everything going, but should have taken more time on it, always learning. Jessica is a major part of the attention to detail. When we started this build one of the very first things she said was "No hillbilly stuff, we are doing this one right", I still laugh about that thinking back. Nothing is getting past her. The Lord really blessed me with an amazing wife, you guys should see her list of must have wrasses :nod:

Very well executed setup. You've thought of everything. Following along. Can you detail your QT protocols?

Thanks! Truthfully with out this forum/reefing community I couldn't have come up with even half of the ideas you see here. There are some truly brilliant reefers out there, I try to harness their brilliance by using their ideas. Works out really well this way because I don't have to think so hard. :biggrin1:

For the QT protocols I used this thread https://www.reef2reef.com/forums/fish-disease-treatment-diagnosis/189815-how-quarantine.html . Humblefish is the man, he helped us out along the way and pointed us in the right direction anytime things got a little crazy. We had no idea what we were doing when it came to actually quarantining fish and treating them, we have always used the "drip n dump" method when adding fish. Here is what we have done in QT so far to date. Right off the bat we took a few days (more like a week or two because we got a little busy) to get the fish eating before we started any treatment. Once everybody was eating we started treatment with cupramine (copper) and over 3 days we worked the cupramine concentration up to 0.50ppm with the salifert copper test kit. Now we hold 0.50ppm for 28 days. In 12 days we will be done with the 28 days, at that time we will treat with prazipro. Once the fish are done with prazi they get to hit the display.

After around 4 days of copper the achilles started to eat like its never ate before. It has jumped out of the water on two different occasions for omega one veggie micro pellets. Its funny because when the achilles jumps it gets scared and runs down to hide in the pvc pipe, until it sees the micro pellets sinking by the pipe and comes out to eat them as fast as possible.
 
We have decided to purchase an Apex. So far we are planning on getting the kit with the lab grade probes for $799, then add on an additional energy bar 8, and an auto feeder. Is there anything else we should be getting right from the start? We are new to the whole Apex/controller thing.

Hood construction begins this weekend should be interesting.
 
You guys have invested a lot of time and money in this build from the looks of it. It's builds like this that make me love this hobby
 
Well I really hate to post a terrible update like this but here it goes.


It sounds like the 400g is coming down. I got the BA overflow height all dialed in yesterday and added the salt last night, the tank was running for a little over 24hrs. Walked by it this morning and a good sized rectangular bubble on the back wall immediately caught my eye. I thought that was weird since the back wall is black, I looked into the over flow and realized that is where the brace for the external overflow connects to the tank. The external overflow and brace for the overflow are siliconed to the black tint on the back of the tank and the tint is lifting off the back glass in that spot. The back acrylic panel of the overflow is deflecting outward and that pressure pulling on the brace is what I think pulled the tint off the glass.


I contacted AGE and they have been great, luckily we bought from a company that stands behind their products. They advised me to drain the water out of the external overflow right away. It sounds like AGE is going to be building another tank with a different design for the overflows (smaller) and sending it our way to swap out with the current 400g. They are reviewing the original build specs and getting back to us.


Jessica is devastated. We were 15 days or so from adding the first round of fish. Some sort of manic shock would probably best describe my state of mind at the moment, so close, but yet ssssooo far!! The plumbing/holes in the wall and rockwork placing/epoxying were a pita, just thinking about re doing this all over again after we just finished everything up just makes me want to throw in the towel. I will have to cut the rocks apart with a dremel cut off wheel or something, I used 9 tubes of epoxy :lol:. Anyone looking for a way to acquire more patience just need to take up reef keeping I guess. :noidea:
 
Don't throw in the towel! you're right there, very true a major setback but hell if it was easy everyone would have a 400g build. thank goodness AGE is all about perfect customer satisfaction.
 
Ok guys, I know it has been awhile so here is a little mini update of what is going on at the moment. Tank size has moved up from 400g to 470g to accommodate the internal overflow. AGE is stepping it up from 1/2" glass to 3/4" glass, and they are also moving from 1.25" stainless steel bracing up to 2" stainless steel bracing. There will be a brace going across the top of the overflow divider of some sort, I am guessing stainless but it could possibly be glass or something. The hole locations will change a bit but other than that this should be a fairly accurate representation of whats going on. AGE is covering all costs associated with the tank rebuild and up-sizing and we will be covering the cost of new plumbing and new stands. Ian at AGE even offered to build us a metal stand for the new 470g to send along with it, but we turned it down because we want a nice wood, furniture grade stand in the house. We were surprised when he tried to throw in the metal stand on top of all the other upgrades, that's when we really realized they are trying to do anything in their power to make this right.

 

IF YOU HAD TO TAKE A REEFING EXAM, WOULD YOU PASS?

  • Yes!

    Votes: 32 45.7%
  • Not yet, but I have one that I want to buy in mind!

    Votes: 9 12.9%
  • No.

    Votes: 26 37.1%
  • Other (please explain).

    Votes: 3 4.3%
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