75 Gallons of Entertainment! The build begins...

[TanksNStuff]

Well, as you can see in that last pic above, it takes a lot of junk out of the water! It is a lil touchy some times and I've had times where I had too much air pumping in and it filled up a 5-gal bucket while I was out of the house. :'(

It took some time to get used to how it works and you just have to be patient with it... and it will work great. The times I had issues were when I tried to get it to start foaming right away (extra air) and although it didn't go into overdrive right away, it did after a few hours of running.

Bottom line, it works great when you adjust it right, but when you don't... well, you can suck the water right out of your sump fast. It's powerful.


Well, since I'm replying to Rickyrooz... I may as well give a small update on my build here. I bought a 12-gal nano tank that was chock full of new corals. I don't have time to post the update right now, but I am now the proud owner of a much better QT tank and some very nice corals. A short list is: Acans (about 10 or so), a very nice hammer coral, a zoa/paly colony, a nice sized birdsnest, a beautiful blue/purple clam, a few ricordeas, a trachyphilia (sp?) and a symphilia.

I spent the past two days rearranging my tank and setting up the nano as my new QT tank... which is now occupied by a small mandarin goby. "Manny" will be replacing "Herman" the yellow watchman goby I had. Herman died after losing both his pectoral fins which came off down to the flesh. There are no aggressive fish in my tank, so he must have just gotten caught in the rocks he always hid in or something. It was sad losing him, but all the new corals and Manny will help to get my mind off of it.

I'll post an update in the next day or so with pics of all the new stuff!

 

[Rickyrooz]

What pump are you using with the AquaC? I replaced my EV-120 with the Gen. 2 Vertex IN-180 and love the results.

 

[TanksNStuff]

I'm using a mag 7 on my EV-120. Yea, I've heard the Vertex IN-xx skimmers are very good also.

 

[TanksNStuff]

Well, this is loooooong overdue, but here's an update on my tank... Part 1

I'll start off with some bad news before ending on a good note with some new equipment and all my new corals since last post.

FISH
Well, sadly "Herman" didn't make it much longer than my last update on him. When I moved him from the QT tank into my main tank, he was a pretty scared lil fellow. He immediately darted into the rocks for cover and rarely came out except at feeding time. He was doing pretty well for a week or so, but then an incident occurred which led to a not-so-good result.

He had both of his pectoral (side) fins ripped off at the body. Not just lil bite marks or tears... both fins were literally ripped off because you could see indentations where they used to attach to his body. I think he wedged himself into a tight hole in the rocks and got stuck, so they broke off when he tried to back out. I can't say for sure, but the other three fish are not very aggressive (2 clowns and a hippo tang) and besides that, Herman hid on the other side of the tank from where the others hang out mostly. I highly doubt any of them had a part in his demise.

The only other thing I think it could have been was a hermit crab. One time during feeding, a hermit grabbed a black worm that landed in front of him. Well Herman happened to be going after the same worm, and I thought it was funny at the time because Herman dragged the hermit back into the rocks with him. I guess it's possible that the crab had something to do with the missing fins because I believe it was the next day when I noticed they were missing. Either way though, Herman had a hard time trying to swim around after that and within 2-3 days he was gone. :'(

I started shopping for a replacement for Herman but couldn't find any small yellow watchman gobies (I like to buy babies so I can watch them mature in my tank.) I did however find a tiny, beautiful mandarin goby. I know they are hard to raise due to their diets, but the salesman said that they will eat cyclopeez and pods... but just not usually when you are watching. So I brought him home, named him "Manny", and put him in my new QT tank (more on that below) and he seemed very lively and happy.

I have tons of pods swimming in my tank, so I would scoop up some and put them in the QT for Manny. I also put in a small piece of frozen cyclops daily. At first, Manny seemed to eat some of it, but as the days went on, I saw him eat less and less. I remembered the salesman saying that I probably wouldn't see him eat much, so I was going on faith that he was eating. By the third week of his 30-day stay in the QT, he was barely swimming around, and seemed very skinny at the tail end of his body.

I was anxious to get him in the main tank because I knew the pods were more plentiful and figured he would have more opportunities to eat. So I was relieved when the month was up and he got moved. In hind sight, I should have moved him sooner because he showed no signs of any diseases, but I wanted to be certain so as not to infect the rest of my tank.

Well, he was obviously very malnourished or the waves were too strong in the main tank becuase he was struggling to swim in the current as soon as I put him in. I saw him take some shelter in the rocks and thought he would be ok, but by the next morning, we found him flipped over and dead. :'( I couldn't believe my string of bad luck with fish.

Here's a pic of Manny, a few days after I brought him home.

CORALS
Along the way, I bought my first few corals. Until now, I only had a red cap monti frag (that I won at my first NJRC meeting raffle), a xenia that was given to me after the meeting by Tony and Terri, and a mushroom frag and a ricordea frag that I got from Mike that same day when I picked up my invert order from a group buy. Anyway, until now, I had not much to speak of.

Then I bought a couple frags from Jon (NJRC member.) There was a nice acan frag (about 15 small heads) and a rock covered in green paly's and a few watermellon mushrooms. This added some much needed color to my tank, but it was still "empty" looking.

So then I see this ad on NJRC forums from Stephen (Mynd) who was selling a 12g nano setup that was loaded with corals. So I bought that and planned to start filling up my 75g tank. I also planned on using the nano as my new QT tank since it was smaller and more functional for such a setup than my previous 20g tank.

Here's a list of all the Equipment that I got:
1. 12g Nano - has a built-in overflow and sump compartment
2. Pan World external pump - mainly for recirc, basically a mini-closed-loop.
3. Small powerhead - for more circulation.. came with a loc line fitting + a spare loc-line
4. Filter sponges - to protect fish from entering the inlet of the external pump hose.
5. Cooling fans - Since the external pump would get hot, Mynd used a small fan to keep it cool. He gave me the brand new spare he had too.
6. Stealth Heater - Small one, about 6" long, perfect to sit in the sump section.
7. All hoses/tubing needed for the pumps provided.
8. A homemade frag shelf - made from egg crate and a couple suction cups.
9. A homemade filter bag shelf - made from egg crate, keeps a carbon bag suspended in the overflow chamber.
10. Coralife Digital Thermometer
11. Some other misc. spare equipment parts.

The corals included (hope I'm spelling these correctly, heh):
1. Birds Nest - Pink, pretty decent nest.
2. Trachyphillia - AKA Brain Coral.
3. Symphilia - Currently needs some attention, but nice specimen.
4. Pink Mushrooms - A ton of these things all over a couple rocks.
5. Zoas - About 3-4 different color colonies.
6. Hammer Coral - Translucent tan color with green tips... About 5-6 stalks with a total of about 30ish branches/heads.
7. Ricordeas - A variety with pinks/greens/orange colored.
8. Tyree War Coral - Small, but interesting looking with bright red/green colors.
9. Eleven different Acans! - Agent Orange Crush, Rainbow (fluoro green/orange), Blues Clues, Strawberry Fields, Zion, Turtleback... just to name a few.
10. Last but not least, a beautiful clam - Looks purple from the sides, but bright blue from the top.

When I brought all that home in a bunch of 5g buckets, it was quite the scary scenario to see me trying to drip acclimate them all at the same time. I had to set up all the tubing to drip at a decent pace, and then had to start adding new saltwater to my tank to replenish them all. After about an hour or so, I started adding the pieces wherever I could fit them... most ended up on the sandbed. It was getting late by now, the tank lights were out, and I just did the best I could. Over the next couple days, I started re-scaping to display them all better.

OK, now for some pics to show what I'm talking about here:

Here's a pic that Mynd took of the 12g nano setup, before I bought it.

Here's a FTS pic which was taken when I originally organized all the new corals from Mynd.

Here's a video of all sides of the tank I made last night, which is the result of many relocations of most corals. It's taken with my Droid phone and I had obstacles to get around so there are some shaky parts, but still a pretty good look at what I got now.


Close-ups:
This is a shot of part of the Birds Nest. You can also see a few acans, and that's a turbo snail in the middle.

Trachy - Pretty recent pic

Symphilia - When it was looking healthy

Symphilia - More recent, receding and starting to show a skeleton. Also shows my xenia which is growing like a weed, rainbow acan, another acan, and some Ricordeas.

Pink Mushrooms - Also shown is the Tyree War Coral, although it's a bit blurry.

Zoas - Mixed variety, brings some nice colors to the tank, and they glow under atinics!

Hammer Coral - This is when I first transplanted it.

Hammer Coral - This is a more recent pic, where it's fully expanded.

Ricordeas - Not a shot focused on them, but has them in it, also shown is an acan.

Various Acan Pics:
Strawberry Fields

Agent Orange Crush - Also shows the Red Cap I got at the meeting, Turtleback Acan, Blues Clues Acan, and the clam, and I think that small green one is an Incredible Hulk acan?... oh, and the finger leather I got from ssm05rsx (NJRC Member) in a trade for some Chaeto is in the lower middle.

That's about it, let me know if anyone wants to see a specific pic of anything.

Well, this is reaching max post limit, so I'll put this up and start Part 2.

 

[TanksNStuff]

Update continued... Part 2

EQUIPMENT
Yes, I've updated my system and got some new equipment since my last post. Aside from the new QT which was virtually Mynds old nano, I also added some other things.

I used to have a 5g home depot bucket that collected the skimmate from my collector cup drain on the EV-120. Well, I finally made a custom container out of acrylic that is 16"L x 3.5"W x 16"H. This fits right alongside my sump under the stand, and allows me to close the doors to keep it completely hidden. I'll post a pic of it later (sorry, thought I had one uploaded but didn't) but it's basically a rectangular box with an attached top. I left a small opening in the top to put the drain tube into, and it's big enough to use a garden hose attachment to clean it when necessary.

I also recently installed a Tunze Osmolator ATO system which I bought from Tom (NJRC Member - tgee). My tank evaps about 2 - 2.5 gallons a day, and refilling my sump with a small container or a powerhead everyday got old quick. So this was severely needed.

The actual setup of the sensor/floats and the controller was easy. I attached the rail to my sump, put the sensor and overflow switch at their proper levels, then did a dry run test. I put the pump in the sump, then took out water until the sensor turned it on. I then manually lifted the overflow float switch, and the pump stopped and the alarm sounded. This portion was a complete success at first attempt.

My problem though was finding a container that would fit under my stand, on a small shelf. In order to get it on the shelf, it had to pass between my sump and the edge of the stand, which gave me about 7.5" wide max. To make a long story short, I found an ideal size plastic container that was for bulk dog-food storage. It holds 5.1 gallons (which is good for 2 days worth of evap), and just barely fit in the opening available. I couldn't have found a more perfect size!

However, there were a couple problems to resolve still.

#1. The container lid is hinged on one end and has a locking latch on the other. The problem is that the pump tubing and power wire stopped it from closing/locking. I ended up notching the lid so they both fit through and allowed the lid to close. No biggy there.

#2. The pump has a bottom suction inlet, but it kept falling over inside the container. This would end up being a problem not getting the full volume of the container for use as an ATO. I fixed this by finding an old thermometer clamp with suction cups. I stuck it to the side, used electrical tape to keep the tube/wire together, then set the pump and ran the wire/tube through the clamp. This kept the pump almost perfectly straight up when I pulled the tube/wire tight. Not too bad here either.

#3. This was the doozie. I didn't consider gravity when planning this setup. :-[ Since the container was on the shelf and the filled height was way above where the pump discharge tube was mounted in the sump, this created a gravity feed ATO, except I had no float switch or solenoid valve to stop it. The container started filling up my sump with and would continue to do so until the two water levels were even. Well, I was able to stop it by lifting the discharge tube up high, and draining the water back to the container. This stopped the siphon and it didn't continue again when I remounted it in the sump, so I went to bed.

I woke up to find the ATO container half empty (down to the discharge point level) and my sump well above "normal" level. Either the skimmer lowered the water enough, or there was some evap that made the controller kick on the pump. Once there was water back in the line, it caused a gravity siphon until the two leveled out. Luckily my sump was designed to hold extra water in case my return pump fails so nothing overflowed, but this needed to be fixed ASAP.

So, I asked NJRC members for advice and got two ideas. Either mount the ATO discharge up in the main tank or better yet the overflow compartment... or just install some pvc pipe up the side of the sump and mount the tube higher than the container top level. I decided on option #1b and mounted the discharge tube so that it pumped into the overflow drain. This took a bit longer for the added water to register on the ATO sensor because it was a farther distance to pump, and then it had to get to the sump before it made a change... but it only ends up keeping the water in my sump slightly above "normal" level. I'm sure I could just moved the sensor down one notch to compensate, but I'll see how this works for a few days first.

Unfortunately, the tube I was using wasn't long enough to reach the overflow box, but I did have another length in the Tunze box that Tom gave me. So I looked around and found a quick connect valve in my Ro/Di spare parts bag. This enabled me to connect the two pieces of tubing and now I had it long enough to route it around the back of my stand and go up to discharge into the overflow box. This worked perfectly and I'm happy now!

Here are some pics of the ATO fiasco (some of them were taken at night, and the fuge light was causing a glare on the ATO container... so I was using the flash on my phone camera... and basically shooting from pitch black):

The initial setup - Controller dangling, wires a mess, pump falling over, and pump tube/wires preventing lid from closing.

The final version, fully functional and neatly organized. You can see the heater clamp inside, holding the pump upright by the tube/wires. I left the white pump wire untied so I could have more play length on the pump. I have to pull out the container before taking the pump out, and I need that extra play. I basically just tucked it into the other wires to keep it out of the way. You can also see how I attached the controller on the door, above my Vortech pump controller.

Closeup of the Lid notching.

Closeup of the tube and valve. I zip-tied it to my return pump discharge so it stays inside the sump... just in case of a leak.

Closeup of the sensor/float switch mounting. This also shows the original mounting of the ATO pump hose on the right, which was moved later.

Since I was doing all this maintenance and organizing, I decided to tidy up the wiring on all my equipment. Should have done that a long time ago.

Well, that's about it for this installment. It sure was a lot though. Stay tuned!

 

[Hawkeye]

Wow that is a great update.

Sorry I didn't see the post on manny earlier - With regards to fish like the mandarin - I would suggest (in the future) breaking from the QT and consider adding the fish in directly. As i understand it, the mandarin has a unique slimy coat (no scales) on it's body that significantly reduces the incidence of a parasite such as ich.

I used an EV120 on a 55 and you are right - it is sensitive. I recall getting bare hands in the tank would stop the bubbling immediately. But once it's dialed in - it does the job. Are you using a mag5 or 7 with it? Every once in a while, unscrew the airvalve and get a Q-tip to swat out the gunk that gets stuck in there.

 

[TanksNStuff]

Thanks for the reply Hawkeye. I'll remember that if I get another mandarin.

I'm using a mag 7 on my ev-120. I do clean the air valve pretty often too.

 

[JRWOHLER]

Great updates. Tank looks great.

 

[TanksNStuff]

Thanks JR! I just wish I had a better camera because it looks a lil better in real life.

I need to get my fiance's brother over to take some shots, he has an awesome camera that he uses to take closeups of insects and stuff. He can make a lady bug look like it's 6" wide, and the image quality is perfect.

 

[SirFragalot]

I agree.. Great update! I love to see progression pics.

 

[TanksNStuff]

Thanks James. Glad you liked it.

By the way, I almost forgot to add the pic of my skimmate collector container. Sorry, it's a lil blurry too (cell phone camera) but here it is:

That is completely hidden when I close the cabinet door, and it holds about 4 gallons so it could last a while before I had to empty it, but I empty it every weekend just so that the smell doesn't build up. I made it larger though just in case the skimmer goes crazy and it will take longer before it overflowed on the carpet. I plan to eventually add a float switch in there that will shut off the skimmer pump before it gets too high though. I knew I should have bought that JBJ ATO controller from Tom too.

I also plan on replacing the skimmer cup drain tubing with a black tube soon. Some green algae is starting to slowly grow in there, probably due to my sump light. It's not causing a blockage and isn't an issue now, but I'm sure it will be eventually.

 

[Hawkeye]

if you have the cash - maybe you could find one of these:
http://www.myreefcreations.com/Waste-Collectors

I use an MRC2 Collector. Basically if the skimmer goes crazy by accident and fills the thing up - the air is cut-off and the skimmer stops skimming. This prevents any kind of flood.

 

[TanksNStuff]

That's an option I might consider Phil, thanks for the link. Would that just replace the existing collector cup on my EV-120, or would the drain tube just feed into this like I have it going to my acrylic container?

If it is just a replacement for my homemade container, then I'd have to find a place to store it under the stand. I only have 3.5" wide between the sump and the front doors, which is why I ended up making my own to begin with. Those are all a minimum of 4.5" wide, which wouldn't fit.

I'm considering buying that JBJ ATO setup from Tom for $40 if he still has it, then just mounting the high-level float switch inside my acrylic container... that will shut off the pump if it gets too high, and give me close to 4 gallons capacity still. Would be cheaper than the WC-2 and I can still hold more waste, which might be useful for vacations.

 

[Hawkeye]

you would take the hose and attach it to the waste collector. The thing is designed to be placed outside the sump but you could put it in your sump and there would be no risk of the waste going back into the display.

The acrylic container is interesting but i'm concerned that if you open the door and then bang accidentally knock it over - that's a big mess.

 

[TanksNStuff]

I see Phil, so I would have to put it somewhere in the sump then because I'd have no other place it would fit.

I see what you mean about knocking the acrylic one over, but it's fairly heavy and it would take quite a bump to knock it over. I've actually bumped into it with my leg while setting up the ATO sensor/float stuff, and again with my knee when I was organizing my equipment wiring... and neither time did it come close to getting knocked over. It's leaning against the sump on the back wall, and the left side is pushed against the hinges on my door, so the only direction it can go is to the right or towards the front. Since it's lower than the sump height and I don't do much under there that would bump it from left to right, I'm not too worried about it getting knocked over. I'd have to be extremely careless or trying to do it on purpose I think.

 

[JRWOHLER]

I agree with Hawkeye...find someway to attatch the hose just to keep if from draining onto the floor....you know if it can happen it will....especially after we have jinxed you. :

 

[TanksNStuff]

Here's a small update... it's too late to post the details I normally give, so here goes the short version.

I tried to use a JBJ ATO controller to prevent my skimmer container from overflowing. I set all the floats perfectly and everything worked as it should when I tested it. However, the controller has a built-in "failsafe" runtime timer that automatically cuts off power to the pump after a max setting of 14 minutes. This was bad news since I had already tie-strapped all the wires up in the stand after testing that the sensors all worked where I had them. The manufacturer says there is no way to disable the failsafe, but I'm hoping they are just saying that for liability issues. Maybe someone can reply to my post in the Equipment section of our forums and tell me otherwise.

Anyway, here's some good news at least. I got a few new corals and a couple new fish. When I gave Ray (r2reyzer) some large sheets of glass to try to repair his cracked tank, he was grateful and generous to offer me some nice corals for the glass. Here are some pics:

Bright Green Acro (it's coloring is much better than the pic shows)

A Brown/Green Cap (The green isn't showing well in this pic... but it definitely has green coloring. It was also much bigger than shown, but I broke some pieces off when trying to glue it to my rocks.) :'(

Really nice green Favia (glows something fierce!)

Some Green Star Polyps (I'll watch this to make sure it doesn't grow out of control.)

A nice Zoa Frag (has green centers so it seems to fit in with the scheme here, lol)

He also gave me one other Zoa Frag, but it hasn't opened since the day after I put it in my tank. It did fall to the sand a couple times and I don't think it was very happy. I'm hoping it will recover, but it doesn't look good right now. Not really worth posting a pic, it's just a plug with a bunch of purple dots on it.

Ok, now some pics of my 2 new fish:

Six Line Wrasse (He's tiny, just like I like em... was hard to get a good shot of him in the QT tank though cause he's a super fast swimmer.)

And My replacement for Herman... A Target Mandarin! (He got right to work on eating pods as soon as I put him in my display tank.)

Well, that's it for tonight... I'll update when I can. Both fish were bought from East Coast Aquatics on Sunday 2/8/10.

 

[TanksNStuff]

Eh, I knew I was too tired last night. That was a replacement for "Manny", not Herman. I'm still looking for another yellow watchman goby to replace Herman.

 

[Hawkeye]

beautiful mandarin! I should have gotten one. instead i have a fat aggressive yellow coris wrasse lol.

where's the GSP situated? I picked up some GSP from herbieK (thanks!) and put it on a disc. The thing is totally overgrowing the disc and trying to get off the sandbed now... ;D Jrwohler's got them covering his overflow...pretty neat idea.

 

[TanksNStuff]

Thanks Phil! Yea, I fell in love with him as soon as I saw him.

Below is a really old pic, so the GSP isn't shown here, but this is the area I placed it. If you look below and to the right of the highest clownfish, you will see a sideways v shaped crevice (looks like this... > ) where the rock on the far right rests on the bottom rock. I sort of wedged it into that crack and it's stayed there ever since. I don't know if I want to keep it there or not, but it's there for now.

To give you an idea of where that is overall in my tank, I'll repost my most recent tank vid so you can see the whole tank again. (None of the new corals above were added when this was made though.) The cave area shown in the pic above is around 1:12 on this vid. If you let it run til around 1:36, you will get a pretty good idea of where it is by viewing the side. If you can last through all my shaking as I walk around the tank and get to 2:28, you can look through the cave and see that crevice again from the back.