280 gallon tank project has begun!!!!!! - Page 23

Lunchbucket · #**551** 05/07/2006, 11:21 AM

Travis - love the drilling and acrylic rod. there is a guy in TCMAS that comes over to peoples houses to help them drill and set up the rock...maybe you should do this...for a fee

if/when i ever set up a bigger tank i am going to drill my rock as you described. it is hard to stack the rock w/ out it being unstable. the rods help a lot. only problem is you have to remove the whole structure if you need to remove part of the rock. if i do it i'll leave them in 3-4 sections (for a bid stack or arch) so i can removed part if needed.

glad to see that the tank is getting back to normal! can't wait to see everything stabilize and start settling in. please keep us updated w/ pics!

i'm surprised at how little rock you added. i like the way it looks but i figured you would have bigger structures or more of them. it is very open and looks nice. can't wait to see it in person

Lunchbucket

melev · #**552** 05/07/2006, 12:50 PM

Travis, that was very informative, and I'm sure it will help others. Are you expecting the tank to cycle since your LR was out of water for so long? Or were you able to get each pillar drilled, puttied, and submerged within the hour?

Lunchbucket · #**553** 05/07/2006, 07:01 PM

that is what i was thinking melev...wondering how long the rock was out of water.

Lunchbucket

Travis · #**554** 05/08/2006, 11:17 PM

Lunch, when I was researching what to do with my aquascaping I found some posts where people made structures with rods through them but didn't epoxy the rod in place. This way you would be able to remove the rocks easier. I wanted the most solid structures possible so that is why I chose to secure all of the rods.

melev, the longest any rock was out of the water was 45 minutes tops. Probably long enough to negatively affect some sponges but other than that I'm hoping there isn't too much to worry about. When I was working on a structure and I started feeling that the rock was out of the water for too long I would put it back in the sump for a few minutes and then take it out again and finish.

I know I mentioned earlier that the excessive amount of epoxy used had no unusual effects on the skimmer. I guess I was wrong. I thought the effects went away after a couple hours but the skimmer has been very finnicky ever since I finished adding the corals back to the display. I am even running the outlet pipe wide open and one minute I check the skimmer and the water level is 6" below the top of the riser and the next minute it is overflowing. I can't get it to produce any skimmate yet. Must still be a lot of crap in the water from the epoxy. Might just need to do a few large water changes to dilute everything down.

Lunchbucket · #**555** 05/09/2006, 05:17 AM

i agree stable is best. really looks nice. i've always thought of doing acrylic rod especially in a small tank so you can make some funky arches and stuff. geshields had his 58gal all done up w/ rods and it looked great

can't wait to see it in person
Lunchbucket

melev · #**556** 05/09/2006, 03:11 PM

Travis, try turning off your skimmer, wait 2 minutes, then restart. Watch it to make sure it doesn't start overflowing for a few minutes.

Travis · #**557** 05/09/2006, 04:04 PM

I did that last night when I took the cup off to clean it. I also ran 2 cups of hot water down the air intake. Lastly, I took the pump apart and inspected the NW to make sure there was nothing caught in it. I think there must just be a lot of chemicals in the water still. The only time I've had a skimmer stop skimming for this long was when I was having issues with my OM 4 way leaking and I used lots of vaseline on the seals. A lot of vaseline got into the water and my MR-6 wouldn't skim for several days so I did a couple daily 100 gallon water changes to dilute the water and that solved the problem.

arconom · #**558** 05/09/2006, 04:10 PM

Aquamend makes my skimmer go crazy for 2 to 3 days.

Dudester · #**559** 05/10/2006, 05:14 PM

Travis, that's some beautiful work and documentation with the acrylic rods. I love the open look you've created. It'll look great with your corals re-mounted.

Quote:

Originally posted by maxxII
The plan so far is to hit the tank w/ Prazi once a week, increasing the dosage as I go. Next week will be triple dose.

Nick, I believe that when using Prazi-Pro, the drug is to remain in the system for a week and the skimmer is to remain off. If you're dosing every week for several consecutive weeks, aren't you concerned about running your tank skimmerless for so long?

maxxII · #**560** 05/11/2006, 12:44 AM

Quote:

Nick, I believe that when using Prazi-Pro, the drug is to remain in the system for a week and the skimmer is to remain off. If you're dosing every week for several consecutive weeks, aren't you concerned about running your tank skimmerless for so long?

Thats why I set up a 10 gallon QT tank.

I did a 95% water change today....(all I could siphon out) and did 4x reccomended dose for the tank. Last week was a 2X reccomended dose and I found one good sized AEFW happily munching on an acro. Blew it off w/ a powerhead and caught it in a brineshrimp net. I placed a sacrificial frag in with it to see what would happen....and the AEFW committed suicide by climbing above the water line of the net and drying out.

So I dont know if the 4x dose will kill them or not. I'll have to observe the corals closer. I've noticed several corals RTN'ing though. So I'm not really sure this is a better solution than Levamisole just yet.

Nick

Dudester · #**561** 05/11/2006, 09:14 AM

Quote:

Thats why I set up a 10 gallon QT tank.

Right, got it, must have glanced over that little detail.

hoover86 · #**562** 05/20/2006, 01:38 PM

Hey Travis, just noticed there hasn't been a reply on the thread lately. I'm sure you're busy, but I was just wondering if there had been any more progres with your acrylic rods with your LR? It looked like a pretty good idea and I was just wondering how it's coming along. I'm FINALLY getting my stand put together for my 8 ft 125 so I might need to start picking your brain about getting my plumbing set up finally!!

Travis · #**563** 05/20/2006, 10:42 PM

Hey Josh, the aquascaping was finished a couple weeks ago. I posted some pics on the previous page. Not much new since aquascaping and putting the corals back in. Corals are doing ok, for the most part. Still battling a little ongoing recession on a few pieces. Other than that, most are good and healthy and I'm just waiting for them to color back up, which they are taking their sweet time doing. Once the corals are back to normal I will take some pics and post them up here.

You know you are free to pick my brain as much as you need.

arconom · #**564** 05/21/2006, 11:09 AM

I'm glad things are doing better Travis

Lunchbucket · #**565** 05/21/2006, 07:57 PM

i'm w/ arconom...glad everything is coming around!

Lunchbucket

melev · #**566** 05/21/2006, 10:57 PM

And I'm with Eric!

kau_cinta_ku · #**567** 05/22/2006, 12:16 AM

i'm with melev also

Lunchbucket · #**568** 05/22/2006, 05:21 AM

melev - you always follow me cause i'm such a tredn setter

Lunchbucket

Travis · #**569** 06/07/2006, 12:52 AM

Well, things have been looking fairly good in the tank lately (as I knock on wood) so I decided I would get some updated pictures. Most of the corals have colored up at least 80%. Some still have a little bit of coloring up to do but that will come with a little more time and TLC.

First, I will explain a couple things I have been doing differently with the tank lately. About a month ago I got a large fluidized reactor and added a 1200 gram bucket of Phosban to it to help control phosphates. It is working great and I'm very happy with the results. When I got back from IMAC I realized I had tuned my skimmer to run so dry that it literally didn't collect anything in the cup for the whole week I was gone. Add to that the fact that my tank sitter way overfed the tank during my vacation. The end result is that my phosphates were at .34. This is when I decided to try a GFO to keep phosphates under control. In this tank they usually hover around .12-.20, which is a little higher than I prefer. After adding the PO4 reactor, the PO4 was down from .34 to .03 within 3 days. It now holds it down around .03-.06 and I have been feeding the tank HEAVILY, probably over twice as much as I used to feed because I want to make sure I'm not starving my corals. Here is a pic of the new reactor with a 1200 gram bucket of Phosban in it (sorry the pic is so dark, I forgot to turn up the exposure after taking tank pics):

Here is an updated pic of the BK. Probably looks the same as the first pics I took of it. It is still kicking a$$ and taking names.

I could not be any happier with this skimmer:

With the addition of the PO4 reactor, I have decided to try to be more economical and stop doing 100 gallon weekly water changes. I was pretty much doing such large and frequent water changes to keep the PO4 down but now I don't need to. I have not done a water change in a month now (please don't tell on me) and things are looking great. The problem I would normally run into is within a week after a water change, my sump would have a thick layer of detritus in the bottom of it that would need to be siphoned out and the water would then be replaced with fresh saltwater. I decided to get proactive and use that detritus instead of wasting it. Detritus is probably the best sps food we can provide in our tanks. So each morning for the past month, while the tank lights are out I go through the sump with a turkey baster and blow all of the detritus into suspension where the corals can feed on it and it can be removed by the skimmer. Normally, when there is a lot of detritus in the sump and you blow it into suspension, it will kill the skimmer's foam head for a while. But since I'm doing it daily, it is not enough to kill the foam head so the skimmer pulls the detritus out. I am skimming very wet and have actually done a 100 gallon water change in the past month just by replacing skimmate every few days. The end result has been that all of the detritus is being utilized by the corals and removed by the skimmer and I have not had to do any siphoning at all.

The last thing I have changed is I started adding some trace elements. I have not added any trace elements to this tank because I was doing such large water changes. Now that I am doing far less water changes I wanted to experiment with some trace elements. Not only to make sure they do not become depleted but also just to experiment and see what effect they would have. In the past month, I have started adding the following:
ZEOvit Ammino Acid High Concentrate
ZEOvit Pohl's Coral Vitalizer
ESV Potassium Iodide
ESV Strontium Chloride

I started adding all of these at the same time so it is hard to tell which additives have made the most difference but I am amazed at some of the colors on some of the corals. They are much "richer" than ever before and some corals are showing colors I have never seen them show before. I am very happy with the results and plan to continue adding these additives.

Travis · #**570** 06/07/2006, 12:57 AM

And now for the good stuff.

Here are a few pics. I will post more of the next few days as I get more spare time to go through and edit them. But here are some full and partial tank shots along with a few of my favorite corals.

Full Tank:

Right Side:

Middle. This is what I call "table island". This pillar holds my large LE soli and 2 efflos along with a single stag in the background. I think it should look really interesting when it grows in:

Left Side:

Travis · #**571** 06/07/2006, 01:06 AM

The following 3 corals are my favorite corals in the tank. I thank God that these corals were salvaged from the massive losses I suffered while treating for AEFW's. I would have been devastated had I lost any one of these three corals.

Purple Monster. This is one of the corals that has really darkened in color with the addition of the new additives. My camera just can't capture the richness of color on this coral. This coral has the appearance that it is glowing in the tank.

The good ol' Oregon tort:

LE soli. Again, here we have a prime example of the positive effects in coloration from the additives I have been using, and possible from all of the changes I have made lately. Notice the rich green coloration that this coral now has in the top down picture. I was never able to get this color out of it before. You can compare it to the picture in my avater, which I will have to change soon with this update.

Travis · #**572** 06/07/2006, 01:14 AM

To finish off the pics for tonight, I will leave you with a pic of 1 of my recent aqusitions. When I went to IMAC, I decided I wanted to get at least one very rare, exotic, and beautiful coral that I would not have to worry about treating for AEFW's. After looking at only a couple of vendors on the first day, I immediately knew which coral that would be. The LE watermelon chalice of course.

Oh yeah, and here are a couple side shots of the tank that I forgot to include in the full tank pics post earlier:

As you can tell from the pics, I do still have a lot of corals left after my battle with the levamisole treatments. I am thankful for this. But the losses were great. It is hard to tell but I did lose around 30% of my acros. Some common and some LE's.

melev · #**573** 06/07/2006, 01:32 AM

I'm really happy for you, Travis. Based on the last 6 weeks of posts, I had a feeling you had almost nothing left to work with. Instead, it turns out you have quite a bit on hand, with some stunning pieces.

That soli is gorgeous. Keep up the good work.

clkwrk · #**574** 06/07/2006, 02:35 AM

Looking great Travis

Lunchbucket · #**575** 06/07/2006, 05:37 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by melev

I'm really happy for you, Travis. Based on the last 6 weeks of posts, I had a feeling you had almost nothing left to work with. Instead, it turns out you have quite a bit on hand, with some stunning pieces.

That soli is gorgeous. Keep up the good work.

i agree. i thought you had little to nothing left....heck you have a LOT of NICE corals left!!! i'm very happy about this!. everything looks great!!! i really like the aquascaping too. can't wait to come visit this in person.

thanks for the update and PLEASE update us more often now that you can go ahead w/ good progress

that corloration is looking amazing. so you think it is the zeo additives and the ESV ones? hope i get some good results from the Prodibio like you are w/ those

later buddy
Lunchbucket