Upgrade #4 (and not the last) - 360G Main Display

[Daniel@R2R Verified Admin]

Awesome! Following!!

 

[Peter K]

Wow I bet there will be some happy fish in there. @Peter K if you don't mind me asking, how much for the entire build?

Oh boy the most painful question of them all! Right now, and pretty far from it all being 100% complete, I think we are just under $15k just for tank/equipment/etc.. We had to do some modifications to the room to deal with humidity and add some more breakers but I can't remember exactly what that cost as we bulked it in with some other repairs to the house. Keep in mind, a lot of this stuff was acquired over a long time period. The calcium reactor / some of pumps were in use on our 180 for a year and the tank sat for almost 4 months before any water even hit it.

 

[Peter K]

Due to give some updates as it has been a while since the last one. Fish are all happy and have been in for a few weeks now and we put in our first tester piece of monti to see how it does. We haven't had much algae (fingers crossed) so far other than some diatoms on the sand and we started dosing vibrant every two weeks just to see what effect it has. I'll take some pictures later today of the frag system as well. We have a bunch of corals sitting in quarantine right now but they still have about two months left on them so we won't be adding much coral in the display in the near future unfortunately.

In the meantime since the lights are all still off:
Apparently one of our dogs is just as fascinated with the fish as we are

 

[SaracensRugby]

Great build, can’t wait to see it with everything in there.

 

[ycnibrc]

If you start 100% dry rock it's better if you dose some type of bacteria source to build up your tank diversity bacteria. Just cycle the tank only good for fish but corals need more different type of bacteria. There's a lot of tank crash thread and the common theme is 100% dry rock to start with. It could be because they don't have enough diverse bacteria source.

 

[Peter K]

If you start 100% dry rock it's better if you dose some type of bacteria source to build up your tank diversity bacteria. Just cycle the tank only good for fish but corals need more different type of bacteria. There's a lot of tank crash thread and the common theme is 100% dry rock to start with. It could be because they don't have enough diverse bacteria source.

That is what I have read as well, I've been dosing prodibio biodigest, seachem stability, KZ zeostart, and vibrant. I'm also vinegar dosing as well. The tank will be up for about 6 months before acros start going in so I am hoping that is enough time for the bacteria diversity to stabilize.

 

[ycnibrc]

That is what I have read as well, I've been dosing prodibio biodigest, seachem stability, KZ zeostart, and vibrant. I'm also vinegar dosing as well. The tank will be up for about 6 months before acros start going in so I am hoping that is enough time for the bacteria diversity to stabilize.

If you want to keep it simple just dose zeobak n zeostart3 for the first 6 mon. Then later u can go which ever system u want. Zeobak n zeostart3 just a bacteria source doesn't mean you are running zeovit. Some believe zeovit is expensive but if you calculate the cost vs how long then u see that it's not expensive. Zeovit additive is very concentrated.

 

[User1]

Nice setup.

Note on the dry rock. Having recently upgraded my 40 breeder to a 210 gallon tank and using 150 lbs of dry Pukani rock I'd agree with the prodibio stuff. Whatever you choose using dry rock without it will take a while to mature. I seeded my Pukani with about 40 lbs from my existing tank to include corals and some sand even then only now after 1 1/2 years do I think it is finally mature.

Had I dosed something like this I think overall the tank would have been better off. That or use TBS rock like I originally planned.

 

[Peter K]

Nice setup.

Note on the dry rock. Having recently upgraded my 40 breeder to a 210 gallon tank and using 150 lbs of dry Pukani rock I'd agree with the prodibio stuff. Whatever you choose using dry rock without it will take a while to mature. I seeded my Pukani with about 40 lbs from my existing tank to include corals and some sand even then only now after 1 1/2 years do I think it is finally mature.

Had I dosed something like this I think overall the tank would have been better off. That or use TBS rock like I originally planned.

I just need to remember to keep dosing it and not forget! I wanted to use old rock but we have dealt with ich outbreaks in our old tank and I wanted to start this tank as clean as possible. Hopefully, this tank will be up for at least 5-6 years at a very minimum so I'm being extremely OCD when it comes to quarantining absolutely anything that even comes close to the main display.

 

[Jeto2004]

Tank arrived early (I had not even started working on the stand..oops):

Now onto the stand:
-Main frame was made out of 2x6's and all glue and screwed. Probably went a bit overboard with supports and all but would rather this thing not collapse. It was then covered in 1/2" maple plywood. I sealed all the seams and used marine paint and primer for the stand. I used flex seal where the sump will be going for hopefully a fully waterproof area. The back area was covered with plywood and flex sealed as well but I don't have any pictures on hand of that right now.

One nice looking stand!

 

[Jeto2004]

Nice build! Looks good! Following....

 

[Peter K]

So these dang AP700's have been a royal pain recently. Connecting directly to them wasn't bad, however, now I'm running into only 2 of the 3 syncing and the other one doing its own thing even though it's on the same program. Seems to be whichever light is set as the "master" is out of sync with the other two as I have successfully got each of the 3 to be off sync with the other two. Working through this with Kessil but this is definitely a pain....

On a positive note, the montipora we put in to test has already encrusted and is starting to grow. Lights only at 35% - monti is at about 150 par.

 

[Peter K]

Not a ton happening so far...test Monti is doing well and growing pretty quick. First batch of corals are 3 weeks away from being done with quarantine. Diatom bloom has gone away and have a tad of green algae but not overly concerned. Nitrates are holding at 5 and tangs are doing a good job cleaning some of it away. Still need to hang the 4th AP700 and finish the stand doors but things are working for now

 

[buck27]

Lets see some pic of this sump in action man!!! Love the dimensions and build!!!

 

[Peter K]

Boy it has been a long couple of months. Had a pretty bad outbreak of GHA after all the corals had been moved over for a month or so. Ended up removing all the frags and putting them back in the frag system and have been doing a "black out" (just the lights on the tank off but still ambient light) for 3 weeks and dosing vibrant (3x dose a week) for a few months as well. Algae is 95% gone and phosphates and nitrates have seemed to stabilize at .1 phosphate and 5 nitrates.

Lessons learned from this:
-Have a CUC ready to add when fish go in. Since we are quarantining everything we had no snails or CUC ready to go into the tank when the lights turned on. A few trochus snails finally finished their 90 day quarantine at the beginning of December and they have done wonders on the algae. Another 20 astrea snails will finish quarantine next week.
-Take your time with dry rock. I think the biggest problem was we used all brand new 100% dry rock and although we waited about a good while before adding corals I think the tank is just not quite established enough yet. To try and aid the bacterial populations I've been continuing to dose microbacter7 and zeobak. I'm still dosing vibrant once a week so we will see what happens. This is the first time in the hobby where we have used exclusively dry rock. When we started 6 years ago we received multiple year old rock from another hobbyist and in every tank we have set up since then we have used at least some mutli-year old rock.

On a positive note, all the fish are doing great and come spring we will be adding a few more as well. Achilles tang and atlantic blue tang will round out the tang collection and a pair of flame wrasses is on the radar as well.

 

[Peter K]

Sump has been working well. Shame the company went under. SRO6000SSS is probably the best purchase hands down I have made on a tank. This thing is a beast and super easy to tune.
The Nyos Torq, however, is probably the worst purchase I've made for this tank. I saw it at Macna in 2018 and was pretty excited by the design of it but as you can see in the picture I am having to run carbon in a media bag inside it. First time I tried running BRS ROX .8 in it without the bag it caused the top of the reactor to be blown off and flooded the entire tank and sump with carbon. It might be fine with a bigger grain carbon, but definitely not small media. It is also nearly impossible to adjust the flow with it running and submerged in water. You cannot simply just turn the top like I believed. I have to grab the base to hold it steady while turning the canister. I probably will get rid of it for one of our spare reactors or put it on the frag tank.

 

[User1]

-Take your time with dry rock. I think the biggest problem was we used all brand new 100% dry rock and although we waited about a good while before adding corals I think the tank is just not quite established enough yet.

Can I second and third this I used about 150 lbs of dry Pukani and only feel it is mature now 19 months or so later. It takes a long time to stabilize and whatever bacteria or life takes to the rock. Pukani has so many nooks and crannies it was a bit miscalculation on my side. At least this is my experience during my 210 upgrade the past 2 years.

Thanks for the update. Oh, out of curiosity how long did you wait?

 

[Peter K]

Can I second and third this I used about 150 lbs of dry Pukani and only feel it is mature now 19 months or so later. It takes a long time to stabilize and whatever bacteria or life takes to the rock. Pukani has so many nooks and crannies it was a bit miscalculation on my side. At least this is my experience during my 210 upgrade the past 2 years.

Thanks for the update. Oh, out of curiosity how long did you wait?

The fish went in about 2 months after start up. Lights were off until about mid September (about 3 months after start up) and the first set of corals went in at the end of October / early November so about 4ish months after start up. I wish I had waited to turn the lights on until about 5 months in and then another few months probably until corals. We never lost any sps or lps when we put them in but they weren’t flourishing so they came back out and I’ll try another tester piece in a month or so.

 

[vetteguy53081]

You planned, didn't skimp on equipment . . . . . I KNEW THIS WOULD TURN OUT AS NICE AS IT LOOKS !!!!

 

[Peter K]

You planned, didn't skimp on equipment . . . . . I KNEW THIS WOULD TURN OUT AS NICE AS IT LOOKS !!!!

I appreciate it, was almost a year in the planning. Wish it would move faster but I know it will get there one day. Frag system is getting a big upgrade here soon as well. Will have about 150 gallons of frag space so I'll be able to get my coral fix until the big tank is ready!