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Spanky's "I like em big n wide" build


cptnspanky
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  • 6 months later...

Its been a while since ive posted anything at all, let alone an update on my tank.  So ive got a few minutes to kill while the wife is doing some photoshoots in the other room.  

Hell I don't even know where to start with everything that's gone on this year.....Ive been very busy with work kicking my ass both mentally and physically, and side gigs on top of that.  

So ill start by saying ive had numerous equipment failures on my tank, ive neglected it, and had outbreaks of colonial hydroids, flatworms, and cyano.  Lost every acro in the tank, a couple fish, and some inverts.  

As far as equipment goes, ive replaced the jebao rw-15s in there with Neptune wav's,  the cheapo sun sun power heads on the back are now koralia's,   my orphek dc skimmer pump crapped out, and turns out it was just a jebao dc pump, while I was in Ireland and so that was a direct replacement.  Ive added an external overflow box in the center section of the tank so I get better surface skimming to the sump, and turned up the flow on my Vectra L1 return.   I dont remember if I mentioned before that I no longer am using kalkwasser and dosing pumps, and have been running a calcium reactor for quite a while now, all controlled through my apex.  I have added a booster pump to my rodi system and now get much faster water production, use less di, and less waste water. Also added a "t" in the good water line and ran it to a float valve on my top off bucket, so when I go out of town it will manage itself, and normally I shut the valve off and open every 2 or 3 days to make larger more efficient batches of water. I also added a Neptune auto feeder, so that I may feed less at a time, but more frequently.....and also to automate the feedings when I go out of town.

While its a separate tank and system, I also purchased an additional energy bar and had a special 100' cable made to set the coral tank up on the apex as well.  it now is led lit, with modded black boxes so I can ramp the lights up and down on a schedule.  While im at it, I also have the kids 29 gallon tank that has had a lot of ups and downs as well.   While I was on vacation, my pool pump tied up, and took out the breaker that this tank was on.  Unfortunately I lost 4 anemones, including the ones I was holding for Jesse, and the tank was full of algae and cyano for quite a while.  I got it cleaned up, let the kids redo and the rockwork, and added quite a bit of new rock as well.  Its now going strong, has some new inhabitants that the kids picked out,  and a couple of basic corals that wont bother me if they get nipped at or killed.

Now that all that is out there, ill say I have been coating the hydroids section at a time with kalk paste, and am about to do the 4th flatworm treatment.  There are no signs of flatworms in the tank anymore at this time, and hasn't been for the last 2 weeks but just continuing the treatment for 6 weeks to ensure I kill all eggs as well.  I have a good bit of cyano still in the tank from all of the die-off ive had, but it is improving.  The remaining corals in the tank are now showing new growth and I am officially ascending instead of declining.  In fact I actually just made an order off of wwc, and got 2 sps frag packs (so a total of 10 frags) and a new tiger sand conch that should be delivered on Tuesday.  All of the additional flow my tank is getting, seems to be getting a lot more waste in protein skimmer cup as well.  And as much as ive hated doing it.  I have been doing water changes the following day after the flatworm treatment, which marks the first water changes this tank has had in just a hair under 2 years.  

Eventually I will get around to throwing some pictures up, but, well....baby steps right? Hopefully ill be able to get back into full swing of things on buckeyereef and get those corals growing again

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@Mussin ive had mixed results with it.   It seems to be killing them, but the problem is that many of them sit too high and the kalk paste just falls around it.  

@Muttley000 still have some zoas in the coral tank, and my lps has survived well in my 300, so shouldnt be too long before i get chopping some stuff up.  Wont be till a few weeks after treatment is done so i can ensure no pests. And i dont know if i mentioned, but i happen to own a gryphon coral saw now :D

 

@crimsonvice. What i did for the calcium reactor was replace the salinity probe with an additional ph probe.  The solonoid valve on my c02 regulator is controlled by the ph in the reactor.  On the output of the reactor going into my sump i have a plastic air valve to control the flow out, and that actually goes into one of those plastic fish things they use at the stores when they bag up livestock.  As that overflows it goes into the sump, which allows more c02 disipation and less impact on the ph of the tank.  Im not sure if your looking for exactly how i have the apex programmed but i can take some screenshots if you need.  But i get text and email alerts if my ph in the reactor goes above a mark or below a mark.

 

Screenshot_20181124-175551_Samsung Internet.jpg

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Sounds good!  I have a piece of DBTC birdsnest that should come back to you if you want it also.  What do you use to pump water through the reactor?  I am hearing about people using a dosing pump to get another facet of control, but I also am not sure I've got the whole thing understood yet.  What did you end up using for a solenoid?  I'd enjoy seeing some pics of this set up also if you get a chance.

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@Muttley000 i went cheap and reliable lol.  Cobalt aquatics (the old maxijet 900) feeds the reactor and the plastic quarter turn air valve meters it. Technically this reactor is a bit small for my tank when its loaded, and so i drop the ph in the reactor a touch more and increase the flow a touch.  If i add a bunch of new corals at once ill add a little alk to my topoff bucket.  As for the solenoid valve the one that came with my regulator was a bad one, cant remember the brand , but it actually had good reviews.  Well i had a milwaukee regulator and robbed the solenoid off of that. Its been working flawlessly since

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  • 3 weeks later...
2 minutes ago, crimsonvice said:

Amazing! What did you think, better than WWC??? I think I will be hitting you up for some frags once they have grown out!

Waaaaaaaaaayyyy Better than wwc!!!! I asked for something blue and didnt get it, buuuut i think everything i got was amazing all the same

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my miyagi is purple and green. nice looking coral but yeah i haven't seen any blue in it.

btw those are some sweet chunky frags. what box was that again? and what is the one second from the right? i can't quite read it but that millie is fire.

definitely on my list of places to buy from

Edited by buk
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25 minutes ago, buk said:

my miyagi is purple and green. nice looking coral but yeah i haven't seen any blue in it.

btw those are some sweet chunky frags. what box was that again? and what is the one second from the right? i can't quite read it but that millie is fire.

definitely on my list of places to buy from

I honestly cant read what he wrote on it.  I sent adam a email asking but my best deciphoring is golden sunrise _______.  No clue on the last word.  It was the $300 box and i selected 6 frags (and got 7)  so from left to right  i got miyagi tort, fox flame, shades of fall, bc de fuego, grape juice, golden sunrise _____ (?) And pc rainbow

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1 minute ago, Muttley000 said:

Great looking frags Mike.  I don't know why I would order frags from anyone besides him online to be honest.  I was super pleased with my box!

Ive ordered from lazylivin as well and been very happy, although hes been down for a while.  Matts corals was also good.  

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  • 2 weeks later...
1 hour ago, Mussin said:

Any luck on the hydroids?  I'm about ready to tear my tank down and cook all the rock...

Hydroids are gone.  I used the kalkwasser, and went back a day later to do a water change and suck out the settled kalk....definitely killed them. I did this in 2 rounds, but i did too much at once and had a major alk spike in the tank.  So the spike killed everything that didnt get hit directly.  Lost more corals but hopefully its what i needed to get back on track

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  • 1 year later...

Well, its been a while since ive updated this!   Big changes are coming for 2020, but probably not as fast as id like.  The last year has been issue after issue for my tank, and I decided that I will be combining a fish room remodel with a tank reboot.   The wife wants the back bedroom of our house cleared out, and to do that I will need to relocate my rodi, and salt mixing station along with downsizing the frag tank.   It took a lot of contemplating on where I could make space to relocate these things, to make it all work.   I finally had the idea to turn the front hallway and closet into a fish room, that is directly behind the tank.   This way I can move the sump outside of the stand for easy access and cut out the wall behind the tank to make water changes a breeze.  This should also contain a lot of of the humidity I battle with in my house since I evaporate about 6 gallons a day between the tanks.    Work recently cut hours down to 5 8 hour shifts, instead of the 60 hour weeks I normally work, so hopefully I should have the time to knock this out reasonably quick.

In addition, I should have earned the club a nice kickback from marine depot since I finally got an in stock alert and purchased some goodies. pics coming B)

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