Guess who`s upgrading?

Adding more to the list, I may have to sell a few things on Ebay to cover this. LOL

ORA Marshall Island Bottlebrush 2.5"
ORA Plum Crazy 2"
ORA Marshall Purple & Green 3"x2"

X-Mas is coming early this year apparently.

 

It's been a bit since I've updated this thread so here we go...
Got a big shipment of corals in earlier this week.  Unfortunately , they shipped like $%@#%.  Still got a few very sweet pieces out of the deal  though.  Luckily we had a good deal worked out on DOA's so I'm not out much money.
Starting to get some algae growing on my rocks so I added a cleanup crew and decided to switch skimmer.  I had a Deltec MC500 in the sump.  It is an awesome skimmer but I just could never seem to get it set right.  It was sort of buried in the back and was super hard to tell where the water level was.
We had a Reef Octopus NWDB-110 at the shop so I decided to give it a try.  Here is is all plumbed up with NO LEAKS!!!

By running this skimmer I am losing ATO reservoir capacity but at least I can actually see what I am skimming, plus I like red!
The CA reactor is now running.  It along with the new skimmer is being fed by the return pump which I love because I really don't have any more room to plug anything else in.
It shouldn't be too much longer now and I will start adding corals to the tank.
In the mean time how about a quick shot of the new corals.  Yes, #2 is GRANULOSA!!!  My favorite coral of all time!
 

 

Nice pieces!

 

Bout time you updated this thread/DesktopModules/ActiveForums/themes/_default//emoticons/smile.gif jk. Do you have those in a frag tank? With all the stuff from the nano? Frags look good! I like #5!!.... And the rest/DesktopModules/ActiveForums/themes/_default//emoticons/sad.gif...cant wait to see some coral.....

 

Looks great! Nice use of space! Love the Alternative Rock! Is that an Aqueon Proflex overflow? How do you like it?

 

I did not think you could fit any more in there , ,,,,,,,but you did!! Love the coral pics. Completely understand loosing the happy wife when you break the budget. Mine has been tolerant to say the least. I might be pushing it with frag fest.LOL Kep up the pics Love to see the development.

 

Been loosing a little sleep at night thinking about the consequences of my external skimmer overflowing so I decided to order a small skimmate locker. There is a LITTLE more room so I think I may be able to squeeze one in. The plan is to install a float switch in it to if the switch closes the feed pump shuts down. I may also add a small stand pipe in my skimmer cup because the drain for the cup is drilled on the bottom. This way the skimmate locker is only used for emergency overflow and the cup will still collect a majority of the skimmate. I may also add a switch to the cup itself which would just send an email alarm notifying me it is full.

Gotta love technology...

 

Almost forgot, I have decided to squeeze in a refugium as well. Now that the skimmer is external I now have the middle section of my sump empty (aka more room) might as well get a light on it and grow some cheato. This would help aid in growing pods so I could eventually get a Mandarin Goby again.

Hopefully, if everything goes well I will be adding all the coral from my QT before the beginning of the new year!!

Exciting!

 

Sorry no new pictures this week.
I did get some more work done to the tank though. Ended up buying a different light while at Fall Fest. I currently run a Current-USA 250 watt HQI Sunpod. This is a nice little fixture buuuuut, well it's kinda cheap. The reflector sucks, the fan is loud and I found something better for cheaper.
I ended up with a 250 watt Hamilton Tech Belize fixture. Its built a lot better has a better reflector and has some t-5's. I just need to either find some legs or buy a hanging kit for it before I can use it.
Added refugium light and cheato to the system too!  The light is just a little coralife 2-6watt T-5 unit.  I ordered some GE warm daylight bulbs for it from Ebay.  They should grow cheato well.  Not only will they grow cheato they will aid in helping me see inside my stand.  It's darker that @$## in there!
Also, yesterday I received my skimmate locker which is super cool! It acts as sort of a safety net in case my skimmer decided so go crazy and flood. I installed a float switch in it and it will now shut down the feed pump in case it were to ever fill up.
Corals will start to be added soon....I can't wait!!!!

 

Added a couple corals today so I guess that makes it official. I now have a full blown reef tank!!!

Added a few more fish during the week as well. I now have 10 blue chromis, mckoskers wrasse, yellow/purple wrasse, helfrechi firefish, yellow watchman goby, and a pistol shrimp.

I will keep adding corals from QT tot he display over the next moth or so.

It's getting exciting now!

 

UPDATE!!!!
Coral is in!!!  Decided against the whole "add things slowly" plan and decided to just add it all at once and ride it out.  This allowed me to put corals exactly where I wanted them the first time as well as get the QT tank tore down.  As it turns out I HAVE WAAAAY TOO MUCH CORAL!!!!  LOL
I managed to fit all of it but a couple pieces that need to be trimmed before I can add them.
How about some pics???


Front FTS



Left Side


Right Side

As of right now the tank looks a little rough, things need a little time to settle in and adjust of course. It will just take some time.

Having a bit of a problem with the sand blowing around and it's causing my tank to look a little bit hazy which sucks. I am hoping things settle down over time. If not I'll pull the sand and either go BB or get a larger grain size of sand.
 I am currently running 3 MP10's and have another on the way. They are all non wireless models, someday I may upgrade them to wireless for more control but for now this will do.

All corals seem like they are going to be just fine even though some are pretty pissed off atm. Fish are doing great and eat like pigs!!!

Oh! I almost forgot, I added a new feature today! I can now shut down my return with a small micro switch located inside my cabinet to do maintenance. Sure I could use my phone, laptop, or just unplug it but what fun would that be? I just hooked up a switch to my breakout box which is hooked up to my apex. When I hit the switch it shuts down all the pumps for "X" amount of time so I can do what I need to and it turns back on by itself! How cool is that???
 That's it for now.
Hopefully soon, things will start clearing up and corals will start growing again.

 

Looking awesome Jeremy. It will be very cool to see how everything grows and fills out.

4 mp10's!?!?! Holy Flow! What setting are you running them on and at what percent right now?

 

What a great week for my tank! The 4th mp10 is in place and the flow is great!!! I am only able to turn the ones closer to the bottom of the tank to around 60 percent. Anymore than that and I get HUGE sand hurricanes. It's actually pretty cool to watch but all the sand eventually blows from the front of the tank to the back.
All corals seem to be doing well. There are a few I need to mount with epoxy as I have filled all the holes that were in the rock. My little frag of tenuis seems to be getting to much light and is starting to get sort of pale looking so it will have to be relocated. Some colors are starting to come though a little which is awesome. I hate looking at corals with dull and drab coloration.
Today I picked up a PAIR of Velvet Fairy Wrasses (Cirrhilabrus rubrisquamis) courtesy of Saltwaternewbee. They are a great addition to the tank! I think it may be time for some sort of screen for the top though. All of my fish except the Chromis and Bluespot Watchman are notorious jumpers. I think the yellow/purple wrasse I added last week either jumped or died as he is MIA. Not sure if I should go with eggcrate or a screen frame and birdnetting. Eggcrate would be easier but I fear it may block too much light.
I have noticed since I stopped running carbon last week the clarity of the tank has improved dramatically. I think dosing sugar water lead to excess bacteria which was great for nitrate reduction but also caused cloudy water and lots of growth on the glass.
I think I may have found a source for a couple used RF modules for my mp10's. I just finished studying RF transmission in my Communications class and am certain that I can reproduce the Vortech's RF modules fairly inexpensively.
I am also planning on doing some more organizing under the tank. Changing the lighting forced me to relocate the ballast so I now have a bunch of extra room. I may use this space to make some sort of panel to mount all the Vortech controllers and some other peripherals too. Just to make things look nice and neat without being a cluttered mess like it is now.
That's it for now. With the water clarity improving and the corals coloring up look forward to seeing a bunch of new pictures/videos soon!

 

I've come to the conclusion that sand is not going to work in this tank. It is pointless to have 4 mp10's and only have them turned 1/4 way up.

The let sand sucking begin!!!

 

lol yep bear bottom baby !!!! no sand with that flow, lol.

 

No wonder I was burning through GFO so quickly! That sand was holding a TON of pure nastiness. I managed to suck most of it out with one good water change but I think it is going to take a bit before I manage to get it all. Not sure what is going to become of my nassarius snails, pistol shrimp, and blue spot goby though.

I can't say for sure but I think my tank looks more clear already.

Sand should stay on the beach.

 

Hey if you wanna get rid of those nassarius snails let me know.

 

10-4
On another note, now the sand is mostly gone my tank has never looked so clear.  Before it always had a sort of cloudy haze and the glass would always be covered in a green film.  Today it is stay pretty clear and very little haze. 
I can't wait to get the rest out!

 

Did another water change last night and got most of the sand out. I think I will keep a very small amount in the back and under my "rock" for the pistol, goby, and snails. The tank has cleared up dramatically and doesn't seemt o be blowing around at all anymore.

Had a little "incident" with my alkalinity however. I should have been keeping a better eye on my levels and drip rate of my Ca reactor. Alk got up to 16dKh and it burned up my granulosa colony a little bit. No other corals seem to be affected. Why is it whenever something goes bad your favorite coral has to suffer the worst???

Now the tank is clear expect some pictures possibly even later tonight.

 

UPDATE:

Tanks is doing very well and things are really starting to take off! I am noticing growth on pretty much everything at this point which is good. Starting to get a little HA here in there, I guess that means I need to lay off the food a little.

I ended up switching circ pumps. I really like the looks of the Vortech's as their low profile made them seem almost invisible but the fact I needed to turn my TV half way up just to hear it wasn't working. I ended up going with a couple Tunze 6095 Nanostreams along with an Aquasurf. The 6095's are a little bigger but I only need 2 of them and push a lot more water. The best part is, they are virtually SILENT!!! I got a pretty sweet waver going on in my tank as of now and am owrking on building a couple other profiles in the Apex to chenge up the flow patterns over the course of the day. The tricky part is not to set them so they start making water slosh over the side of the tank, learned that the hard way. Ooops! LOL.

I'll see if I can get some updated pics up later after the kids crash.