Zachtos’ unique 240G reef w/ 375G sump/fuge-growout/RDSB/aggro tank

[zachtos]

skimmer running, breaking it in


refugium lights setup now finally, chaetomorpha macro algae growing now under dual 23W PC flood lights


another boring sump shot


a shot of how flithy the tank is at the cycles peak

*still need feedback on my fish choices

[zachtos]

Tonight featured a wonderful little disaster. My 50gallon sump developed a rather quick leak. I lost maybe 50 gallons today in the basement down the drain. One of the seams split on the plastic trash can. I ended up having to shovel out every bit of sand which, took around 2 hours to fix this ordeal. I put in a new trash can, this one is round with no seams and is much thicker. I think this one will stand the test much better. I had to cobble in the old bulkhead, but it'll be fine with the low flow. Plenty of silicone fixes it all.





nitrates are 0ppm, but the hair algae is insane in my display now, going on 1" and growing! no phosphates or anything else either. I'm guessing I just started the cycle all over again messing w/ the DSB. We'll see huh?

[Waxxiemann]

There is no phospahtes because the hair algae is using it as fuel to grow. It should eventually starve itself out. If you are currently lighting the tank, I would hold off until this happens.

[zachtos]

ok, i'm cutting the lights for a week, and i'm not feeding the fish anymore. there is only hair algae in the display which leads me to believe the lighting is causing it... but that stinks, because it means it would happen sooner or later anyways doesn't it?

[zachtos]

I'm going to order SNAILS from reeftopia.com
36 astrae
12 cerith
12 nassarius
12 nerite
2 lettuce nudibranch
2 neon gobies
and I'll pickup a diamond goby later
$130ish shipped

[Bax]

My HA kicked in and grew to over 3" across the tank!

I tweeked all the neutrient in/out stuff, but what got rid of the HA was a Sea Hare one will do the job and they are pretty cool, just be ready to remove it when the HA is gone.

[zachtos]

hair algae is dying off, I can see bare rock now. Lights still off, this is day 3 w/ no lights, week 3.5 of the cycle. still showing no nitrates, nitrite or ammonia. the chaetomorpha is beginning to grow under the fuge lights. I'm dosing nano/tetra phyto cultures every other day for the pods. still can't see any copepods in the system at night, that worries me a bit. I ordered snails too, $135 got me:
48 astrae
12 cerith
12 nassarius
6 nerite
2 lettuce nudibranch
2 neon gobies
1 fighting conch

I'm sure I could do better ordering a package deal, but all the packages include hermits. I HATE HATE HATE crabs. No, thanks. They seem to do more bad then good IME.

I may be adding a sailfin tang and villengi tang to my system, both 8" range in the coming weeks from a fellow reefer.

[sltloser]

I think that you should get a *regal angel* personally they are my favorite angel, they are reef safe and don't get huge like the queens. What about gobies/blennies?....Imo i think that chromis are terrible fish...hehe i have five of them (which i am getting rid of soon ) but they never schooled and they don't really add anything to my tank so i would personally get pajama cardinals or the orbic cardinals if you want a school of fish. Also try a few of the dwarf angels flames, CB, Lemonpeel, Bicolor, etc...
Hope it gives you some ideas
-brady

[zachtos]

Yeah, I've heard that chromis may not school if there are agressive tangs present. I'm thinking about that still. I'll look into the regal angel and get more opininions on reefsafe-ness. Thank's for the ideas, I'll check into them. cost could come into play on some of them as well though, I don't wanna buy a school of fish for $400 either.

[melev]

Okay, I'm all caught up on this thread. (Check that off my To Do list now )

Overall you did good. It looks like one of the things I was worried about has already been resolved (the DSB debacle).

Refugium Lighting. Lower the bulbs to about 8" off the water, and get rid of the reflectors. The bulbs have internal ones and will be fine.

IceCap ballasts. These are very good ballasts with great customer support, but you need to know that even if the wiring is correct, you should always wait 15 seconds before restarting them. If you turn them off, don't flip them on and off and on and off trying to get them to work. Something inside gets burned up every time. They'll fix it every time, but just knowing this will save you time and shipping fees.

Electrical. I really am worried about your coverplates. Please replace these with the correct kind that cover the internals completely. They are quite cheap ($1 each, perhaps). The trick is screwing the switch and outlet the correct distance apart so that the cover fits over them perfectly. You'll have to tinker with this a bit, but it will look cleaner and you'll have less risk of water splashing inside. It will also help reduce the humidity dangers, but not stop it entirely.

LR. You mentioned a specific number of pounds, but I'm going to assume that isn't all LIVE rock. Some of it is base rock, or dead rock. That means it won't be viable filtration for at least 6 months as it gets seeded and only then will it begin to assist the real LR you put in the system. Try to avoid overstocking the tank during these 6 months or you'll be fighting a battle with nutrients and spiked parameters. Trust me on that one.

Fish stocking. My tank is a 280g reef that had 29 fish in it 2.5 years ago. I had to feed heavily, and then I had to deal with the Phosphate Wars of 2005. I had 6 tangs and a bunch of other fish. I would recommend that you only put 3 tangs in your tank, so pick your favorites. Tangs create an enormous amount of waste in the water, and over time you may decide you can add another one or two. There is no rush on this one. Dwarf Angels are hit or miss. You might get away with a Potters Angel or a Coral Beauty. Flame Angels are 50/50 so you probably made the right choice in taking that one off the list. Put it in your 75g instead, perhaps.

Corals. Don't put any mushrooms in your tank. That's it. Lots of reefers have learned this the hard way. I'm still nuking my "ultra rare" red mushrooms every couple of months. Dang things cause so much damage it is rediculous. Same for GSP, Xenia, Anthellia. These corals (esp. mushrooms) can travel quickly and don't stay isolated in particular areas as you might hope.

Heaters. Get an Aqua Controller Jr. These cost about $179 or so, and will turn on and off lights, heaters, fans and more. It is a great device that will measure tank parameters and enable or disable equipment based on those numbers. I have two heaters on mine. If either of them sticks on, the AC II will turn off the power to the heater so it can't cook my tank.

Feeding. Don't overfeed. This is tricky, but you'll get it down to a science over time. I turn off the return pump every night when I feed to keep the food in the display. The Tunze & VorTechs keep the food blowing around in the tank and the livestock can eat as they catch it. 30 minutes later, turn it back on. DON'T FORGET to turn on the return pump.

There was something else, but I can't recall at the moment.

I really like your water change station, but you may find those barrels will do the same thing the DSB barrel did.

[zachtos]

Lighting: I suppose I can unscrew the metal reflectors since they do serve no purpose other then a mount.

Electrical: Yeah, I know I need to fix the cover plates. I'm just having a hard time finding ones that fit properly. There are definate humidity issues in the basement! I left the cover off my drill bit case and now they are all rusted! not cool.

LR: Thanks, it's maybe only 150lbs of seed rock and 400lbs of 'dead rock' if you will. I'll be careful of adding coral for sure. Fish, I'm not so sure about how important that is at the moment?

Corals: Yeah, I don't recall putting softies on my stock list, but I don't plan to have any softies or LPS, other then MAYBE Zoathids if those are acceptable?

Heaters: Only problem w/ the aqua conroller dealie is that I'll need two, one for the lighting circuit and one for the heating circuit. the breakers are too loaded to swap things around. I've found that the heaters stay off while the lights are on and then maybe run 4 hours tops during the night to keep it at 79. I think the temp is stable and wont pass 81F w/ the AC set to 74F in the house.

Feeding: Not sure how much tetra/nano to feed my system yet. A really cool project I'm going to implement is a spa timer that shuts off ONLY the return pump during feeding and then kicks it back on later depending on how far you twist the dial, neato huh? and it'll take only an hour to build it and cost maybe $20.

I'm can't wait to fix my water change station, WEEEeee. I know they are going to rupture too, but when? who knows. It can wait I think.

THANKYOU so much for your input marc. I have followed your advice for many years now.
-----------
I added my snails to the tank the other day. My hair algae is nearly gone by the way. that was quick huh? i'm going to resume feeding the tank every other day and keeping the lighting at 6 hours/ day since there isn't any coral. If it blooms too much again I'll lower it again. I'm considering adding a bunch of anthias/chromis and a pair of clowns soon. And then nothing for a while.

[melev]

I'm glad I could help. Sorry you had to wait so long for my reply.

On the reflectors, they don't do anything other than overheat the ceramic base of those particular bulbs. I'm using the same thing myself.


For the cover plates, they make every configuration you can combine. It comes down to how you've got them screwed into the gang boxes. You may need to move the switch side 1/8" to the left, and the outlet slightly up and angled to the right. That is why I said you'd have to tinker with it.

Since LR is the basis of your natural filtration, the more fish you add to that tank full of base/dead rock the bigger the problem becomes. That is why liverock is so important.

You only need one Aqua Controller to control lights, heaters, fans and more. It is a very nice system that uses x-10 technology that has worked well for me ever since I set up my 280g.

Did you do a thread about your Spa Timer?

Oh yeah, that other thing I was going to mention earlier was that I buy 100 astreas at a time.

[zachtos]

Well, I realize I need to be patient. But 6 months w/o fish, I can't handle that. I'll probably end up stocking too heavily on the fish and holding off on coral.

I'll look into the aquacontrollers more as I get closer to stocking coral, I doubt the fishes care at the moment.

I don't think I did a thread on the spa timer. I can handle that on my own. It's friggin simple. I have a spare AC relay as well. Just need to feed another pair of wires throught the floor and mount my timer somewhere convenient/safe.

I'll ramp up the astraes with time/need obviously... don't want them to starve. I'm guessing I bought too big of a cleanup crew as it is.

Oh, my calcium reactor is at home, but I'm still missing parts that the guy may or may not have sent yet. No yank, I got no coral still!

*I'll make a video in the future of the flow when I feed my tank as well. I can't stress how great the liverock frame is without video. Food shoots in and out of every orifice in the display and never settles. It's great. But the overflow catches it and pushes it right back out and it wont come back, so I think I do need the spa timer afterall.

**OH, I also swapped my maxi mods to the carbon fiber rods and put the vortex shields on. No more annoying buzzing and the tank is much quieter. I think my return pump got quieter now that it's broken in as well, either that or it's like a dog barking in the night already.

[erics3000]

Did you address your noise yet?

[holeinone1972]

Patience, patience!

I am enjoying watching my old reef be re-born.

[ReefWreak]

Holy crap dude. What an awesome tank build thread. I'm gonna keep this one bookmarked. Good luck, and yeah, it's gonna be rough to not stock up, but it'll pay off, and save you money in the long term because you won't have to fight all the problems that overstocking causes.

[zachtos]

2 weeks later



won these frags at a swap

[zachtos]

How to do a water change without buckets/hoses in my system in 3 steps:

step 1: open the water change valve


step 2: watch the levels on the dipstick drop


step 3: open the valves on the refill tanks



I designed this dipstick to aid in water changes. Basically, my first water change required me to pull out 10 gallons at a time in measured buckets. I then measured the loss in the sump while the system was running. If I don't use this method, I will have no way of knowing how much water is lost when I open the water change valve. Now I can accurately do up to a 15% water change at a time. I only plan to change 60G/month which is only 15% ($27/month of salt though!)


macro algae is growing, started w/ a baseball sized clump 3 weeks ago or so.


A photo of my tetra/nano phytoplankton cultures


My needlewheel skimmer in action, I really don't know what a 'normal' amount of skimmate is for my system yet though.

Current tank status
-100% hair algae free
-now in the 'green algae' phase (done w/ hair algae, cyano bloom, diatom bloom)
-I am seeing specs of corraline algae starting on much of the baserock now
-I also see copepods all over the glass at night now
-2 of 3 of the orange monti caps seem to be extending polyps and doing well under the T5s at their locations
-no snail deaths that I know of yet
-I lost one of my neon cleaner gobies somewhere in the sump, he jumped into the overflow and is hiding in my refugium downstaiirs... the other neon goby actually was cleaning one of the fish the other day!
-STILL waiting on the rest of my Ca Reactor to show up! #$@%

current paramaters as 4 days ago
sg: 1.027
temp: 78-80.5F daily
ph: 8.1-8.3 daily
alk: 12dkh
calc: 425ppm
mg: 1327ppm
phosphate:0-0.5ppm
nitrite/ammonia:0ppm
nitrate: 2-7ppm, can't tell on the stupid seachem test kit! I need a better one that isn't all shades of pink

* I had to dose 6 Tbs of baking soda, 10oz of CaCl and 18cups! of MgCl to bring the paramaters up... I NEED that Ca Reactor! I also hope my Mg levels dont decline that fast anymore, a 10lb bag of Mag flakes a week is NUTS!

Plans
-install my spa timer that shuts off the return pump during feedings and kicks it back on afterwards
-mix up my 2 part solutions & Mg supplement
-make my fish food
*Start ordering my fishes very soon

*****
I ordered my own fish food, similar to melev's fish food mix
*****
.50 lbs Shrimp
.33 lbs ClamsScallops/mussels
.33 lbs Octopus/Squid
.33 lbs Silversides/smelt or wild salmon


3.5oz Mysis
Brine
Plankton
Krill
Daphnia

1 tsp Ocean Nutrition Marine Pellets formula 1
Ocean Nutrition Marine Pellets formula 2
1 tsp Spirulina
2 tsp Garlic extract
1 tsp selco

1 stick Frozen Cyclop-eeze
EPA 11.7% and DHA of 11.09%
Two sheets nori, freeze dried

x cups? gelatin to bind

[erics3000]

The pics were great..That is a very sweet way to do it. I love how you marked it. I have been trying to figure something like that out. I never thought about using a 5 gal bucket to measure, that beats a milk jug. Great idea..It all looks great..it must have been a lot of work and a lot of fun...

[melev]

You don't need any gelatin binders. It will freeze up nicely.

Your water change system looks great. However... (you know the rest)

[zachtos]

Home Made Fish Food:


I made this just like the recipe in the prior post. I estimate that I have bought enough ingredients to make 2 bags of this stuff 10-14 more times (minus $10-$15 in seafood each time). It cost me around $300 for all the ingredients I think. But that should last me hopefully atleast 2-3 years.


Thawing in a bowl...


A lovely medley of seafood goodness - scratch the screen, it smells like vomit and salmon


Sneaky trick to make the food easy to break without a chisel


Frozen in POWER BAR FORM!


I let the tank lick the bowl! A nice hearty overfeeding for the display should help me restart my hair algae bloom right?

*Feedings will consist of a small chunk of my frozen food twice daily
*Nori as needed daily (500sheets of this in the mail still)
*Freshly hatched brine shrimp once per week or so
*Nano/Tetra home cultured phytoplankton dosings 3-4 times a week

Stocking List Phases:
(*** I am adding phase 1 this weekend***)

Phase 1
20 green chromis, 2 percula clowns, copperband butterfly, foxface rabbitfish
Phase 2
hippo, yellow, purple tang, 2 bangaii cardinals
Phase 3
sailfin tang
Phase 4
achilles tang
Phase 5
2 mandarins eventually

*Coral additions will start ramping up after I see more corraline and have very stable paramaters in a few more months

Next Projects:
-Setup my Ca Reactor WHEN IT SHOWS UP!
-Install my return pump spa timer for feedings
-Drill and Install my 75G aggressive tank

[zachtos]

DIY Feeder Timer

Twist the Knob during feeding time to shutoff the return pump and keep food in your display longer!!!



Basically, It's a relay that inverts what a spa timer does, instead of turning something on, it turns it off when you twist the dial. The relay is 120VAC rated for up to 1/2hp motors

New Fish


-added a foxface rabbitfish, copperband butterfly (hiding because the kole tang and angel are attacking him (not my fishes, need to get them out evenutually)), 20 green chromis, 2 false clownfish
New Coral

Yellow Porites

Green Slimer

Pink Pocillopora

Purple tip acropora

Blue Tort

Next Projects/Plans
-STILL waiting on my Ca Reactor, planning to start a small claims case against this dick hole in georgia. Send PMs to reeferman75 if you want to help harass him to get my stuff, it's been 3 months now since I paid him in full!
-adding yellow, purple and hippo tang in about a month
-adding 8" sailfin and juvenille achilles tang in around 2-3 months
-more SPS to come after Ca Reactor
-upgrade my refugium lighting
-setup my brine shrimp hatchery

Paramaters
nitrate: 0.1ppm!!!
calc:460ppm <--need the rest of my Ca reactor
dkh: 12dkh
mg: 1575 (high)
nite/amm/phos:0
sg: 1.0265

[jay2525]

wow... i would've never tried any sps with that algae or diatoms....I like all the fish though

[melev]

I love your idea of how to break up the fish food using the bars of the freezer. Very creative!

The feeding timer looks awesome. I'd like to copy that one. Did you post the How To in the DIY forum?

[zachtos]

Originally posted by melev
I love your idea of how to break up the fish food using the bars of the freezer. Very creative!

The feeding timer looks awesome. I'd like to copy that one. Did you post the How To in the DIY forum?

Thanks, nope I haven't. My whole thread is DIY! I suppose I could give more details if I have time next week. Off to go swimming w/ the doggie!


Yuna, my new lil' helper