Bluez new upgrade.

[Bluez_01]

So after having a 60"+ tank in the past, I was forced to downsize when I moved home a few years ago to a AQ Blenny, I had great success with this, but once again I moved home about 3 months ago, the Blenny crashed about 2 weeks after the move and slowly but surely started to die off, I nearly called it a day again, but after a few weeks of deciding what I wanted to do, I purchased a clearseal 900 Reefspace and started again from fresh.



The Tank in its new location and level ready to begin.



I don`t have a lot of spare time to keep up with photo`s to be honest, obviously I am decorating and sorting things out in the new place and when I find time on my 2 days off, I try and get the tank done a little more, this a long with waiting for things to arrive make it a very long slow process...

However as it has already been a couple of months now, the tank is coming along quiet nicely.

Equipment list that has gone in to date:
Clearseal 900 Reefspace.
DC-3000 Return pump.
Coral Box D500 DC Skimmer.
4-way water split return unit.
Optic top up unit.
Baby Phos reactor.
10W LED Warm white sump lamp.
Nitrate recirculation reactor.
3 way dosing unit.
200W hydor heating unit.
Vecton 300 uv steriliser
Jebao RW-8
9Kg Dry Pukani Rock (Cleaned/Pressure washed/ hydro proxide and cycled before going in to the tank)
9Kg various live rock which was cleaned and and recycled like above.
10kg of 1mm sand
5kg of 3mm sand
Probably other bits and bobs, but that is the main items.



And...



The tank will have a Sunrise Marine Reef IT2040 WIFI over it, which I brought for the Blenny from Mark at UK Marine Lighting when they first came out, I have had good results from this unit on the Blenny, so I am sticking with it for now and see how it goes. This will be moved over once the tank has finished its cycling and the corals (what I have left) and fish are moved over.

I have modified various pipe work to suit my needs so I won`t go over that, but I wanted to try and utilize the DC-3000 as much as possible, so that is not only feeding the return, but also the 4-way water split on a tap, which in turn has another 4 taps off it which I can control independently, 2 will be used for the phos and carbon reactor, one will be for an extra sump flow and the last one feeds the UV unit.

Most of this is all controlled via a control panel area:



And from this picture you can see the nitrate reactor with the water change outlet pipe thru the wall, this allows me to open the valve and dump it straight out without the need of buckets.



So with most of the hard work done, the sand and rock work has gone in and has been cycling for about 10 days or so now, I used zeostart and pure 35% food grade ammonia to start up with, as I have always had success with this approach.
The tank is still untidy at the moment, and in time I will get it sorted out better, before that though, I need to install a 30L water change container in my garage with the R/O unit, a long with a 10L pure R/O container for topping off, which will be fed directly in to the house and in to the tank on a pump, this way all my water changes will be done without the need of moving any heavy water containers in to the lounge.




And lastly the complete tank set up without the bottom door on.




This is the current stage that I am at with the tank, once I get a bit more sorted out I will update the post, but when exactly that will be I can not say, but I will get around to it. :-d

 

[dannydization]

looking good mate can't wait to see it in full action will be following

 

[Alburglar]

Quite jealous of the no bucket water changes. Always fancied doing that, but it's impossible where my tank is

 

[chippypah]

Looking very nice there.

 

[CEECH]

Lovely looking tank you have there. Wish you the best with it Will follow your journey

 

[nodster]

Very smart build there mate must admit I too jealous of the water change facility you have ,will follow your progress good luck Big Thumbs Up

 

[Bluez_01]

So the big day has arrived, the tank has finished its cycle (5 weeks all told) currently doing a 50% water change to get the nitrates down, currently around 10-20ppm, normally I would not be worried about this but because my other tank has 0 nitrates I dont want to shock the corals on swap over, I will be happy if I can get it around 5ppm for now though.

Moved the light unit over to the new tank this morning, so its pretty much ready to go after the water change.

Going to a couple of local'ish marine shops this morning, with £600 at my disposal for some new corals and fish, then I need to get them attached to the new rock work and then transfer the fish / corals from my other tank, going to be a busy day today.

Will get some pics up later this evening, or tomorrow depending on how things go today...

 

[Fishpalace]

Nice set up and a tidy sum to spend on livestock.

What did you get?

Paul

 

[Bluez_01]

Well, I didn`t spend it all, so still have some money left for a few other bits that I would like, however...

This was taken at 8.30am when I finally got the light up and running over the new tank.




I did manage to get a few nice things got a nice magnificent foxface, Acanthophyllia, 12 head duncan, a mini scolly (though this is not 100% confirmed as of yet, needs to grow a bit to be sure) blue cheek goby, large RBTA, and a few other bits and bobs, at the moment they are settling in to there new environment, I was going to make a start on putting them on to the rocks, but decided after an hour and half journey I would let them rest up and recover a bit without any more stress, hopefully tomorrow I will have the majority in there locations, but I know you lot love pics, so this is how they currently reside tonight.

 

[Bluez_01]

While I am at it, this is my water change system in the garage, it is not an oil painting by far, however it works, and that is all I wanted to do really, just need to finish off the insulation on it to prevent the tubs/ro unit freezing up in the winter, this will be done by boxing it all in, and using a 40 watt green house heater under the tubs/ro unit with a frost thermostat set to around 3 degrees or so.

Issues I had, forgot to put on a blue pressure clip on one of the r/o pipes, LOL! Dam, these things run under some serious pressure even on a low pressure feed, the pipe popped out of its holder with a loud "boosh!" water hit the rear garage door, some 20 feet away, I got a little damp...

Bonuses: Because of the height of the tubs and the level of the sump (inside the house) I can get away without pumping the water in, gravity feeds it in to the house through the wall, takes approx 30 minutes to flow 15 litres, so the water change takes around an hour for the fresh mix to finish coming in, I quiet like this idea, as it allows the tank to adjust slowly to its new fresh minerals etc... rather than a big dump all at once.

Anyways, without further a due...

Making a start on it.


A bit more done.


Test run with breathers and all is well...


Will try and update tomorrow with some of the corals on the rocks...

*The red stuff underneath is the brick dust from drilling, and a bit of the water left from the explosion... lol*

 

[nodster]

Nice one mate U got a nice line of corals there that water change facility U got going there is smart Big Thumbs Up

 

[Bluez_01]

Thanks Nodster, Ive always liked the idea of not having any water buckets or water containers in the house, more so with the new carpet being laid 8 weeks ago, the woman would kill me if I got salt water on that... lol

I had pondered a few times on putting a water change system in the attic (a lot easier from the gravity point of view) its just the waste water has always been the key problem, how to get rid of it, (pumping it up 10 feet would need a good pump) I did consider running some 1" pipe around the skirting and boxing that in and pumping it from that, but in the end I went through the wall to the outside drain, laziness more than anything really lol.

Some of the corals from the old tank in the picture are looking ill, they have been cut up, dipped in hydy peroxide, and been scraped, to name but a few things they have gone through, but I know 75% of them will recover as I have seen them bounce back before, but I wanted to make 100% sure (or as close to that as I could) that no bubble algae got in to the new tank, so they did go through the mill a bit, but over time hopefully you will see from the pics I take, how they turn around and come back *fingers crossed*.

All in all though, I am reasonably happy with where the tank is at, hopefully tomorrow corals will be in place-(ish), and the tank can start to settle down and mature up, then I just need 2 more acro`s and a forest fire for now, and I will be content until xmas, then I will take another look at it and see where it is at.

 

[nodster]

Sounds like a good plan mate , corals should be fine once settled in , then just waiting for maturity , the usual algae stages and the like , good luck fella and post a picture or two once corals in place Big Thumbs Up

 

[Bluez_01]

Just finished placing the corals on the rock work, f%$%$£ milliput is a royal pain in the a$$! unless its planting a coral exactly upright, it is about as much use as a chocolate teapot, even the slightest tilt you can almost watch it start to go over, a house brick size chunk still wouldn`t hold, good old superglue gel, mixed in did the trick though, but my fingers look 6 times larger than normal now... lol.

I will get some pics up tomorrow at some point, most of the corals have closed up due to being moved, and hopefully they will remain where they have been placed by tomorrow, if not my sand bed will look like a war zone of coral bodies scattered all over the place in the morning

3 packs of milliput, 1 d&d aqua scape putty, 1 very large superglue gel bottle, and its pretty much done (I hope)

 

[nodster]

You all done now but I would have suggested using epoputty much better than the stuff you used , anyway can't wait for some pictures fella :w00t:

 

[dannydization]

looks very good mate i want to get my head on something to make my waters changes more simple

 

[Bluez_01]

So a quick update on how things are going...

As promised I have a pic of the corals now in place, remember though that some of these were and still are on deaths door after the old tank crashed, however most of them have gotten rid of damaged tissues and the likes, and are starting to look healthier again, growth on some of these will be slow for a while, as they need time to heal up and start to turn themselves around again.

The plate coral (bottom left on the sand) was completely brown with no tissue at all on it, only the mouth was green, as you can see from the picture hopefully, it has started to get some of its tissue back again and has started to colour up with its cyan and green/purple colours, the superman monti`s took the biggest hammering really, and I thought I had lost all 3 of them, but again, they are showing promise on turning themselves around again.



The tank is now starting its diatom bloom, which you may see on the right side of the tank on the white rocks, I would ideally like this to be more, not really for rushing the process, but more for feeding the corals with a natural food source.



On the left side of the tank, the RBT has moved a few times but seems reasonably happy in this location for now, but I do expect it to move again later on, the blue cheeked goby is constantly shifting sand at present looking for natural food, (hence the corals on the sand looking like a snow storm), hes taking and eating up any left over flake, so he is getting fed, but once the tank starts to mature up a bit more, he should start to slow down on shifting every bit of sand he can find.



Last but not least, the vodka dosing is starting to take hold on the bacteria side now, the tank is hovering around the 5-10ppm mark at the moment, and I am content for now to leave it in that range, the skimmer is showing me that it is deffo picking out the crud that is being created, even with a 200micron sock before it gets chance to skim anything, I am holding the dose of vodka at this level for awhile as I want the tank to settle a bit more, before I put it to zero, this should allow some color to get in and on the rocks, and allow some collarine to start to take hold in the future, once I get to that point, I will put the tank to zero on nitrates and start the journey with the ULN tank.

The skimmer was cleaned out 2 days before this picture was taken. (both neck and cup).


I plan on adding some more acro`s in a while, and a couple of other bits of coral I have in mind, but for now, this is the basic layout of the main corals, and as time goes on, hopefully they will start to fill in the gaps.

And in case anyone is wondering why on earth I would milliput 2 dead corals on to the rocks in the middle of the tank, they are there for the rainbow montipora when I get them, hopefully they will encrust them all the way down and make an upright rainbow monti display in the middle of the tank

 

[city1111]

Great read just caught up on it all from beginning, fantastic work with wc system every ones dream, looking really nice and well thought out

 

[nodster]

any updates @Bluez_01

Been a while since last post , looked to be coming along good

 

[Bluez_01]

*Evil grin* Watch this space, new arrivals on friday morning, tank has changed a lot I think, corals from the old tank crashed have started to turn around (thought they would, good old boys!) moved a few bits around from the sand bed (Note to self, dont get another blue cheek goby ever!).

Though I have had some bad luck, well not bad luck, it was me being a f^%3ing tight a$$, I found some brine shrimp eggs that I had brought when I got the old tank (18 months ago ish) so thinking I would save myself £6 on a new batch of them, I chucked a nice size teaspoon in the incubator and waited for a couple of days (this incubates in the tank), 4 days later nothing but some clumping with the eggs, decided to take the incubator out and investigate what was going on, sulphur smell was unbearable, eggs have truly gone south, in the mean time its thrown my nitrates toward the 40 mark. *Why do we do such things! for the sake of £6 I have risked the entire tank, and a stack load of water changes now to get it down again*.

Anyways, this happened at the beginning of the week, so I have been doing a daily water change, and cracked open the "Prime" and have been dosing that daily as well, hopefully by tomorrow I will have them down to 10 or so, if not I will have to hit it with a 50% water change to get it down to 10 at the most, as friday I have some new arrivals turning up and these are things I can not afford to lose really, as I want them to spread and grow.

Will update all being well (with pics) on Saturday!

Thanks for nudging me a long guys