CaveMan's 240 Gal with 2-29 gl. Specific Tanks

[demeyer2]

Any plans or dates when you are going to do more stuff? Really interested in your thread.

[uztaryn]

I need to talk to you about that cryptic fuge... I want to set something up like it as well. I am going to try to get up to the shop this weekend to bring you some macros.

Looking good... When you bringing the 240 in?

[CaveManNOhio]

Originally posted by SitBackAndWatch
I don't know if this question has come up already.... How many gallons is that total? You have a 240 gallon tank and ??? gallon filtration. Correct?

The Total system volume is 703 gallons. The break down is 240 for main display, 2-29 gallon specific tanks under the 240 tied into the same system, then in the basement is 405 gallons of filtration.

Toledofishguy & tabndust, I will be letting you know when I'm ready to move the 240 in for sure. Thank you in advance for the help.

demeyer2 Any plans or dates when you are going to do more stuff? Really interested in your thread.

I don't have any dates of the up-coming plans, but things will be happening pretty fast hear in the next couple days. Thanks for your interest in my little project.

uztaryn, I would be more than happy to talk with you about the Cryptic Fuge. And thanks in advance for the macro's. Look forward to seeing you at the store.

[CaveManNOhio]

Well the tank was brought into the house last night, thanks to some very good friends!! And I just want to say it looks a lot better sitting in the house rather than the garage. Hopefully it will be filled with water with in the next week or so.
New pictures will be coming out soon.

[tanya72806]

Looks sweet good luck with everything

[CaveManNOhio]

Ok, so it still does not have water in it yet. But I am closer now than I was a couple weeks ago. I was lucky enough to get a very bad case of Tennis Elbow(or sissy arm, according to the guy's at work)and it has slowed me way down. It hurts like you wouldn't believe to work with plumbing. I can only do a little here and there before the arm says enough is enough and then I have to wait a day or 2 before I can do more. Ok enough crying now.

I have managed to get all of the main plumbing on the 240 & the 2-29's done, drains and returns. All that is left is CLS on the 240. I have attached it all to the plumbing in the basement by unions. So that if needed I can always unhook them and slide the tank out of the way.(empty of course). I will also hook the CLS lines up with unions at the floor.

While putting in the main drain leg I cracked my 30 gallon macro tank, I didn't know it until I went down to the basement to get some thing a couple hours later and happen to see a bunch of water. I was able to isolate that tank and keep every thing else going. The only other thing that was effected was the Cryptic fuge, since the 30 GL tank is the only way that get's water is through it's drain. I will be adding another feed line so that will never be an issue again.
If I would have been thinking about it I would have shut that tank down and taken the bulk head out while working on it. Lesson learned. I got a new one and had it back on line in about 5 days.

Here are the latest pictures. Any and all comments or input are welcomed and appreciated.
This is the main drains for the 240
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I dry fitted every thing and labeled them

Drains and returns on the back of the tank. Also notice the back flow valve hooked up to the return line. I have one in the basement and this one up-stairs. Hopefully they break the siphon like they are supposed to.

Lower half of drains and returns

Looking down the back side of the lower system

And two of the lower system from the front

[tabndust]

wow looking great, almost there

[Genetics]

Man I have that feeling that you'll be tank of the month in a year or so. If you need any help moving let me know. It's looking awesome so far!

[CaveManNOhio]

Originally posted by Genetics
Man I have that feeling that you'll be tank of the month in a year or so. If you need any help moving let me know. It's looking awesome so far!

Thank's for the complement. I only can hope that my tank would be worthy of such an honor.

I have a bunch of up-dating to do, so I can bring every one up to date. The 240 is up and running. I will be putting up some pictures and info over the next couple of days. My computer was down and it took them 3 months to get it fixed and back to me. So now I have to go through the 100's of pictures resize them, up load them and get them posted.

BTW your clams I got from you are looking real sweet Genetics. I will be posting pictures of them as well.

[CaveManNOhio]

Alright let's try to get every one up to date with the tank. It is up and running. I put water in it 4-21-07. As you can see the closed loop system was modified a lot. I did a fresh water fill and run on the CLS before putting in the Salt water. I didn't like the flow(lack there of) so I cut back and got it tweaked out.
This is filling it with Salt water.
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This is filled and running.
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Since my water volume in the basement is so large and been running for several months I figured it would be like doing a 50% water change. So after filling it I went ahead and opened the main valves to the basement and bring every one up.
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Unfortunately there were some losses to the basement move. Lost pretty much all of my Frog Spawns and my big Torch. I have one Frog Spawn with 2 heads left on it and my torch has two heads on it. Lost 2 of my Scolymias, one of them is still hanging in there. We lost both male and female Blue Throat Triggers. Lost 2 Chromis, and a Bananas Wrasse and one of our Rock Anemone.

On the bright side we did have some survivors. And I am restocking every thing.

You can tell a very big difference between Star Fire Glass and Regular Aquarium glass. The pictures are way better. I love how it looks like you can just reach in and touch stuff. Nancy, say's I have to keep the black part of the tank clean as well because the back being painted makes a big difference as well. On the 125 we used the plastic sheet stuff that you tape on.

As you could see in the picture above I stuck with the deep sand bed. I used most of the Rock from the 125 in the 240, how ever I did put some back into the 125 since I set it up as a Fish only system. But even with using some in there I still had enough to do a long peninsula down the middle. Although I think it could use a couple Big Pieces of Rock to finish it off.

Here are some pictures of the survivors. And some of these got bigger while they were in the basement. I got these leathers from hystrix at a frag swap 2 yrs ago

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This GBTA went down to the basement as one and came back up as two
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There wasn't to many of these Tulip Anemones that I got but the rock came back up pretty much covered, it looks real sweet now
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[okkiedokki]

I'm glad to see most everything went well. Knowing your tanks, your torch and frogspawn will grow back really fast.

[CaveManNOhio]

Thought I would post some more pictures of some of the old stuff and some of the new stuff.

This is a center tank shot. As you can see I got me another male Blue Throat Trigger. I love them so much I had to replace my other one. I was thinking about getting another female one, but the female I was looking at started picking on a male Cross Hatch that was bigger than her, so I decided not to get her. The leather in the center is another one I got from hystrix about 2 years ago. The little Toad Stool in the bottom is from my larger one that checked out, that was a small piece that I was able to cut off and save.
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I got these cool little Anemones from porky, started out with 2 now after coming up from the basement I have 6. They get to be about the size of a quarter.
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I've been wanting a fish like this for along time, my Naso Streamer is one of my favorite. Their face looks like it is air brushed on them.
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This is a Indian Blenny, his name is Indian Larry.
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This little guy only has one eye, it looks like he was born that way.
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I had to get back into the clams to of course. I got these from Genetics.
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[aninjaatemyshoe]

No pic of the seahorse or angler tank?

[mflamb]

Looking Great!!!
What's the Wrasse in the pic with the Blue Throat?

[tcmfish]

exquisite wrasse not sure on the spelling but its close

[tabndust]

looking great cant wait to see it in person.

[CaveManNOhio]

Originally posted by aninjaatemyshoe
No pic of the seahorse or angler tank?

Not yet. I have not put any thing in them yet. I have started looking but I still have to rock scape them. But soon I hope.


Thanks tabndust. I'll get you over to the house real soon.

[CaveManNOhio]

Well it's been some time since my last up-date.

Have added some new equipment today.

I got my new custom GEO Skimmer & Phosban Reactor.

The Skimer is around 5'2" to the top of the collection cup. It's a 12"cylinder, has a Dart Needle Wheel Pump, and get's it's Air Supply from a Alita-40 air pump. And fed by the Main Return Pump.
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The Phosban Reactor is a 6" cylinder & is 17" tall. Also fed by the MRP.
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So now I have the complete GEO line up.
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[CaveManNOhio]

Might as well keep up-dating

I have made some modifications to my Ocean Clear Canister that I use for Carbon.
One I added a bleed off valve on the top so that I can bleed off the air after changing the Carbon.

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Also added a pressure guage so I no when I need to change carbon. I figured since we use them at work on the swimming pool filiters then why not on this as well.
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I've also set up one of the lower 29 gl. tanks. The Sea Horse tank to be specific. I have added some Macro since this picture so I will have to take another full shot of it.
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[CaveManNOhio]

Got some clean up crew stuff Sunday, two of the items were Black Sea Cucumbers. One of them managed to find a small hole through the rock work that covers the Closed Loop suction on one end of the tank. It sucked about half of him through the strainer basket and spewed it out every where. Came down Monday Morning to find all the fish suffering and looking bad. Dumped a butt load of water out of the tank immediately, while changing the water how ever I also was pulling the fish out as they died one by one. Ended up losing pretty much all of them. 18 fish total and 3 cleaner shrimps. IT SUCKS.

We still have our 2 clowns, Pink Spotted Watchman Goby, and a Coris Wrasse. All the urchins, lobster, sand sifting stars, and serpent stars made it as well. Corals and clams all seem to be ok as well.

We ended up changing 697 gallons out of 703 gallons and I put a 3 lb carbon pillow in the canister, I will be changing it out tomorrow for another 3 lbs.

Here is the list of what died: Male & Female Blue Throat Triggers, Naso Streamer Tang, Yellow Tang, Lime Wrasse, Christmas Wrasse, Hawk Fish, Copper Bandit Butterfly, 4 Chromis, Vlamingii Tang, 2 Cinnamon Blue Stripe Clowns, Dog Face Puffer, Green Bird Wrasse, Dragon Wrasse, 3 Cleaner Shrimps

I would like to thank all of you that I talked with on the phone through out the day on Monday. With out Nancy and all of you I would not have made it through the day or stayed in the hobby. You guys were a GREAT support group for me. So THANK YOU, Phishy, Hormigaquatica, geo, szwab, sammie, and jh2pizza. You guy's are the best. If you need any thing don't hesitate to call.

[asnatlas]

CaveManNOhio, I am sorry to hear I know how you feel first hand... Hopefully everything will turn out for the better...

[crazinezz978]

This is about the sikkest setup i have seen so far!
Good luck with your setup! How many Gallons is the display?

[CaveManNOhio]

Originally posted by asnatlas
CaveManNOhio, I am sorry to hear I know how you feel first hand... Hopefully everything will turn out for the better...

Thank you. It did suck hearing about your situation as well and I hope it all turns out for the better for you as well. I think we both have way to much in it to walk away. We both can only pick up the pieces and learn what not to do a long the way.

crazinezz978 This is about the sikkest setup I have seen so far!

Thank you(I think). The main display is 240 and the two specific tanks below are 29's.
I still have to wrap the stand with Oak sheeting, but I want to make sure the 2-29's are complete to make it easier to work on them while I get them set up. The Sea Horse/Pipe Fish tank is done. Now I have to set up the Frog/Angler tank.

[ReefArtist]

CaveManNOhio, very sorry to hear of your mishap. You have an awesome tank going and as you said - learn from the mistake and move on. That was the reason I was afraid of going CL, but I'm sure you will find a solution and move on. Thanks for all the photos - I just love the Tulip Anemones, they are beautiful.

I also love your Sea Horse tank, I'm doing the same with my build. You also have some very nice Gorgonians in with your sea horses - they're my favorite coral.

[danskim]

Holy crap... Sorry for your loss. I hope my cucumbers don't decide to see what the strainer is.