Barely made the club but time for my 180 upgrade (Warning: Progress may be slow)

[wowkingjames]

Enjoying your thread, love your set up, is there a particular fish you want to get?

[nightOwl]

Originally Posted by Supernova26

Looking good.

Supernova26 - Thanks!

Originally Posted by SPotter

hey henry.....everything looks amazing. sorry for the losses!

Steve - Thanks for the kind words. As long as a frag survives I will be happy. All my other corals came from frags so it will be fun to watch them grow anyway .

I will have to see if I can find some more before and after pictures like the one I sent you of the birdsnest.

Originally Posted by wowkingjames

Enjoying your thread, love your set up, is there a particular fish you want to get?

wowkingjames - Thanks also for the kind words. It's funny you mention fish list. I have been playing around with it the last few days I am still trying to refine it.

General Updates - Modified Fish List

Currently Have
1 - Yellow Tang - Hawaii (Zebrasoma flavescens)
1 - Mated pair of Ocellaris Clownfish (Amphiprion ocellaris)
9 - Longspine Cardinalfish (Zoramia leptacanthus)

Want
1 - Blue Spotted Jawfish (Opistognathus rosenblatti)
1 - Chevron Tang (Ctenochaetus hawaiiensis) OR Spotted Bristletooth Tang (Ctenochaetus truncatus)
Anthias - looking at the more peacful ones

3 - 5 - Dispar Anthias (Pseudanthias dispar)
OR
3 - 5 - Evansi Anthias (Mirolabrichthys evansi)

Angelfish

1 - Female Bellus Angelfish (Genicanthus bellus)
OR
1 - Red Stripe Angelfish (Centropyge eibli)
OR
Golden Angelfish (Centropyge aurantia)
OR
Potter's Angelfish (Centropyge potteri)

Wrasses - Still deciding the exact ones...once I can keep one of the cheaper ones I will graduate to the more expensive ones

Line Spot Flasher Wrasse Male (Paracheilinus lineopunctatus)
Filamented Flasher Wrasse (Paracheilinus filamentosus)
Hooded Fairy Wrasse (Cirrhilabrus bathyphilus)
Blue Flasher Wrasse (Paracheilinus cyaneus)
Hawaiian Flame Wrasse (Cirrhilabrus jordani)
Golden Rhomboid Fairy Wrasse (Cirrhilabrus rhomboidalis)
Hooded Fairy Wrasse (Cirrhilabrus bathyphilus)

1 - Butterfly

[pico-reefer]

My god Tiny is the biggest bristle worm i've ever seen! I'd crap my pants if i were moving my rocks and he came out LOL, tank looks awesome!

[nightOwl]

Originally Posted by pico-reefer

My god Tiny is the biggest bristle worm i've ever seen! I'd crap my pants if i were moving my rocks and he came out LOL, tank looks awesome!

pico-reefer - Thanks for the compliments on the tank.

I have had Tiny for years now. The thing actually eats pellets whole. I use to have two this size but one disappeared. The first time I saw it I dropped the rock I was holding back in the tank pretty fast. I thought it was a baby eel or something when its head came out. A couple of times I have even seen him attempt to spawn.

[nightOwl]

General Updates - Aqueon Submersible Heaters Suck!!!!

First of all sorry for the venting. For the last week or so I have been trying to figure out why my temperature in the tank was dropping so low over night. The last few days the temperature has gone down as low as 75 degrees and I have been pulling my hair out trying to figure out why the display was showing three heaters were on and the water was taking longer to reach my desired temperature. To compound the problem when I installed the heaters I added a safety statement to the programing to turn the heaters off if the temp was below 76. I ended up checking my temperature probe twice to make sure I was not getting a false reading. The day before yesterday I decided to check all the heaters to see if I could feel heat coming from them. The first heater I checked was the one I temporarily put in the frag tank (300w) which felt good. The next was the Finnex (500w) that felt good as well. When I went to touch the Aqueon I noticed a small blue piece of plastic in my sump. It looked like a wire nut so I was confused as to why it was in the sump. Then I noticed there was a black piece of plastic attached to it. When I touched the heater there was no heat. I pulled the heater out and instantly smelled a weird burning wire scent. I unplugged the heater and held it up to see water inside. The blue piece of plastic was the temperature setter. I guess it popped off and water has been inside the heater for a while.

Lucky for me I order another heater and some goodies last week as my frustration rose about the temperature issues.


What I purchased around 5/28


What I had on 8/1

General Updates - New Kids - Ballasts and Heater

One small problem of having different ballast is that the color from the bulb varies slightly. I wanted them to look the same or as close as possible so I ordered two additional IceCap ballasts. I know the company is out of business but I like their products. Also CoralVue is providing support for the IceCap fluorescent ballasts so hopefully the will re-brand or support the IceCap MH ballasts. They are both say the same model but one looks a little bit different than the other. I was hoping they would be both look like my existing ballast.

New Heater


New Ballasts

General Updates - Odds and Ends

I hardly saw Tiny in my old tank so I guess he is still getting settled in the new tank. This morning when I came downstairs to check the temperature he was out.

Tiny Siting 8/3


I forgot to post I moved my Skunk Cleaner, Peppermint Shrimp, two large Brittle Starfish, and a few snails to the main tank on 7/26. My largest Brittle Starfish is about 2' in diameter.



A while back I had mentioned making an pan to catch the water when I needed to service my pump. I compared it to an oil changing station where the water could fall down a hole into a pan and I could let it drain. Well i was looking back over some pictures and forgot to post them. I finished it back around 5/28 and installed it when I replaced my loud Snapper. I cut a hole in the top (water drains into) and a hole in the front (water pan pulls out) of my pump stand.

Modified stand my pump sets on


Water pan


Water pan handle installed

[nightOwl]

General Updates - Odds and Ends Continued
I also found a picture of the UV Sterilizer installed that I had not shared. Currently the Skimmer empties into a bucket. I will make a new container so that it can empty into once I get around to having some spare time again.

Old pic of UV Sterilizer installed 5/18

[kayaking2]

Is the bristle worm a pet? I don't know why but I don't like them in my tank.

[nightOwl]

Originally Posted by kayaking2

Is the bristle worm a pet? I don't know why but I don't like them in my tank.

kayaking2 - It is not a pet . I know a lot of people that avoid them and try to trap them to remove them. In my tank I let them play their part as part of my clean up crew. I feed heavily and the more little critters that can get in the crevices and take care of any food before it starts decaying the merrier for me. When Tiny starts to bother my fish then he has to go but until then he has been a pretty good citizen. With the number I had in my old tank I was able to witness mass spawnings. It was pretty cool to witness. It looked like they were smoking cigarettes under water.

Bristle Worms Spawning

[SPotter]

Awesome picture Henry! But dont you think you should respect their privacy during this very intimate moment?

[nightOwl]

Originally Posted by SPotter

Awesome picture Henry! But dont you think you should respect their privacy during this very intimate moment?

Steve - The first time it happened I was in a panic. They did not seem the least bit concerned about privacy. Every bristle worm in the tank that could came out, tried to climb to high ground, and participate. My snails have also engaged in this type of behavior...LOL. There is so much love and happiness in my tanks...LOL.

[rehab]

Lol, one big squirmy bristle worms orgy. Great pictures!

[nightOwl]

Originally Posted by rehab

Lol, one big squirmy bristle worms orgy. Great pictures!

rehab - Thanks for the compliments on the pictures! I can not wait for there to be something of interest in this tank. Currently my Cerith Snails are laying eggs monthly. I have been taking note in my tank journal but should start updating here for my reference as well.

[nightOwl]

General Updates - Miscellaneous

Its been a little while since my last update but things are coming along pretty nicely. I have been busy doing little things so progress is slightly slow. I broke down the 90 last week and I am so happy to be done with it. I have been selling the items this week to try to get them out the basement. I need to start making decisions on flooring.

Fish Behavior

My Yellow Tang that could not stand to be more than a foot away from the Clowns has finally realized 3 is a crowd. He now sleeps on the other end of the tank. I am so proud of him . He also seems to be happy that he can swim from one end of the tank to the other pretty fast. Swim little fish swim

Coral Bleaching

Some corals are more picky about where they are placed than others. Back when I had some corals STNing others were looking pretty crappy, dull, and faded. Now they are getting use to the light they are slowly starting look pretty again. My Tri-Color is starting to get the pretty purple tips and the Miami Orchard is getting the lavender growth tips. I had to move some corals around to find a better spot.

Top-off Water Container

I had a weeeeeeeeee bit of an incident about 2 weeks ago where I hit the top off container hard enough with a 25 lb weight the back seam split and water spilled out. I repaired the seam but now I found a leak on the bottom. I will have to repair that soon as manually adding evaporated water sucks!!

Ballasts

I finally got around to trying to make all my ballast look the same. The one silver IceCap is throwing me off and I may move it to the middle so it will be blue, silver, blue instead of silver, blue, blue. I finally installed my other IceCap 660 and removed the 430 that was running my front VHOs. I went through and cleaned up the wiring on my lighting rig and used zip ties for cord management. It looks much cleaner now .

Skimmer

My skimmer that I thought "could do no wrong" (excuse the grammar) has turned into the stray voltage monster. The other day I stuck my hand in the tank to pick up a frag that was knocked over and I felt a strong tingle. I checked my hand for cuts and stuck it back in the tank. "Brain to hand...tingle is not good abort, abort, abort". The funny thing about trying to find the item that is leaking voltage is that you know you will feel the tingle before you put your hand in the tank. I have 15 electrical items in the tank. It took 14 tries to find the culprit. I have emailed CoralVue about the pump and I am waiting to hear back from them on what the next steps are.

Frag Tank

I have been searching to no avail for a IceCap 250w MH ballast for the Frag Tank so I finally broke down and put the old PFO HQI ballast over the frag tank. All the corals in there have been growing increasingly pale as the only light was from the VHOs that were on for 4 hours a day. I wonder how long it will take before things start to color up again? Updated the second pump on the frag tank with the other MP-10 from my 90. I have both on the frag tank slightly off center and they are creating pretty good flow in the tank.

Main Display

I finally was able to install my AquaMedic Triple doser on the main display last week. I was out of magnesium so I could not start dosing. I also needed some rigid tubing so luckily that arrived from BRS yesterday. I should be able to finish up things later this week.

New Frags

I added a few new frags over the past week or so and last night I picked up a few more. I am hoping they all pull through as I left them in the coral dip 3 mins past what I normally do. They showed signs of stress but hopefully will fine when I get home later today. In the past too long in the coral dip has not ended well for me .

[nightOwl]

General Updates - Miscellaneous

Skimmer

I had not heard anything form CoralVue about the pump so I sent an email to them. Within 20 mins or so Jeremy the rep handling my case informed me they had sent the pump out last week and apologized for not sending the tracking number sooner. Wednesday I should have my new pump. Not too bad a turn around and customer service was pretty good.

Wiring

I finally got around to disconnecting my previous two 20 AMP circuits and hooked up the two circuits for my tank. For the first time since having the tank up and running I was able to turn on everything, except chiller, without tripping my surge protector. I will program the chiller later tonight. Now all I have to do is repair the drywall.

Main Panel

Top-off Water Container

Weld-On 16 and #4 are my friends again. I had to pull out my big clamps but my container no longer leaks! No more manual adding water to the tank. Woo hoo.

Main Display

I have installed the rigid tubing and mixed up my magnesium and staring my dosing. Over the next few days I will test the levels to make sure I am hitting my target levels. Over the last few weeks my coralline algae has started taking off. I am hoping the dosing will help improve the growth even more.

• Calcium - 425 - 450
• Manegsium - 1300
• Alk -2.5 meq/L
• dKH 7-11 dKH

Tubing


Magnesium

New Frags

I end up loosing one frag from last week but the remaining frags are looking good now. I did not turn the pumps off when I snapped a few pictures so please excuse the quality. They all came from the same person I received the last four from. He consistently has nice corals and going to his house to look at corals is like putting a kid in a candy store.

[nightOwl]

General Updates - Miscellaneous Continued

New Colonies

Frags are always nice but occasionally I come across a nice colony I like for a reasonable price. A LFS in my area gets some nice colonies in on a regular basis. The good thing is they are relatively close and bad thing is they are relatively close. The other day I was in and picked up the two beauties below.

[roni]

Henry,

Everything looks awesome! btw, pm me who you got the frags from if you don't mind.

Roni

[nightOwl]

Originally Posted by roni

Henry,

Everything looks awesome! btw, pm me who you got the frags from if you don't mind.

Roni

Roni - Thanks for the compliments. I will check with my source and make sure he does not mind being named and PM you the info.

General Updates - Frisky Fish

This hobby is so rewarding! I just spent the last 15 mins trying to get pictures of two of my males. They are holding eggs in their mouth!!!! I hope I can get pictures and also hope this is the start of many times I can witness this. Now I just need my clowns to start spawning in the new tank. They have been doing their little romantic dance at night. Hopefully they will get back on cycle as well. I am so excited right now!

[/INDENT]

[nightOwl]

General Updates - Miscellaneous

CoralVue - Bubble Blaster Pump

CoralVue really came through on this one. The pump was supposed to arrive today but the pump actually arrived yesterday and I was able to get it back on line. The skimmer went back to doing what it does best. I can now go back to feeding heavy as I was before.

Hanna Calcium Checker

Glass Cardinalfish With Eggs

Sorry for the blueness of the picture but this is the best I could do. The fish is very camera shy. If I am standing at the glass without my camera he actually does not mind. He will swim within a few inches of the glass and look at me. As soon as I get the camera he starts to hide. The second male has released his eggs and there is no sign of them in the tank so far. I think this one will release soon as tonight when I fed he would swim up to food but not take it. It was almost like he was smelling the food.

[nightOwl]

Roni,
I sent you the information so check your PM.

[kayaking2]

Well "nightOwl" I've been following your thread for the day when I get my very own 180 G. I paid attention to what equipment you bought and why. Your plumbing really got my attention.
My tank should arrive on 9/1 and my journey will begin. I will continue to follow your thread since I think you did an excellent job documenting your everything. I may PM you now and again with questions if you don't mind:-)

[nightOwl]

Originally Posted by kayaking2

Well "nightOwl" I've been following your thread for the day when I get my very own 180 G. I paid attention to what equipment you bought and why. Your plumbing really got my attention.
My tank should arrive on 9/1 and my journey will begin. I will continue to follow your thread since I think you did an excellent job documenting your everything. I may PM you now and again with questions if you don't mind:-)

kayaking2 - Thank you so much for the kind words!!!! Please feel free to contact me. I love sharing my experiences as I find it may help someone not make some of the same mistakes I made . I look forward to seeing how your build thread will go .

General Updates - Glass Cardinals

Over the last few days I have been monitoring the tank daily to see how many of my cardinals are holding eggs. I am hoping to find out how long they keep them and see if I can identify their breeding schedule. I do not expect any fish to ever make it but it is so cool knowing they are repeating the process.

I got my notes out from downstairs in my log and here is what I have so far.

8/22 - Thought the mouth looked weird on two glass cardinalfish
8/23 - Same.
8/24 - Realized the weird mouth things was the males holding eggs. Only one male still had eggs.
8/25 - Same.
8/26 - Both had released eggs.
8/27 - Nothing.
8/28 - Nothing.
8/29 - Male looked like he was gasping for air. After further inspection repeat male with eggs...just looks like a white mass. Similar to Clowns the females seem to be bigger. My biggest female "chases" other females from around the male.
8/30 - Two males with white masses in their mouth. No sign of the eyes yet.

[BowieReefer84]

How are you like the hanna calcium checker?

[nightOwl]

Originally Posted by BowieReefer84

How are you like the hanna calcium checker?

Mike - So far so good. The instructions suck but it seems to be working fine. I now know that my RODI water has calcium level of 200 ppm. I was following the instructions too well. The instructions said fill up to 10 ml line with RODI water. At first I was mad and said the Hanna checker was a piece of crap. Then when I reread the instructions I added my tank water . Even though they are marketing it for saltwater the included instructions are for generic water testing. After my substitution of tank water for RODI water that seemed to solve the low calcium levels. It read 464 ppm on Monday. I will check it again this week before I do another water change. Since places were doing labor day sales I ordered the alk tester as well .

General Updates - Glass Cardinals

My tank is filled with love ! I now have 3 males holding eggs .

8/31 - Two males with white masses in their mouth. Still no sign of the eyes yet.
9/1 - Same...
9/2 - Same...noticed one of the males mouth has a darker mass now.
9/3 - Two males with white masses in mouth are starting to darken a little. I think the eyes may be starting to form.
9/4 - Noticed a third male carrying an egg mass in his mouth during feeding. The males seem to enjoy "sniffing" during feeding time.
9/5 - Three males eggs.
9/6 - Three males holding eggs. The one with the darker mass seems to adjust the mass more in the evenings.

[nightOwl]

General Updates - Wiring Complete

Oh almost forgot the wiring is completed so my tank is running on its own dedicated circuit (2 x 20 amp) now. I also patched the holes in the wall and added the first coat of plaster. I have to add a few more and then sand it all down. I also finally sold my tank so all I have to get out the basement is my workbench . I can resume my floor search in the next coming days.

General Updates - Odds and Ends

I built a little box for my skimmer to drain into. Nothing fancy and it was from some old scraps of acrylic I had laying around.

Next will be a stand for the skimmer to stand on in the sump. I will use some PVC and eggcrate so it will be pretty low key. I have already cut the PVC legs I just need to assemble it.

On 9/3 I picked up 20 Nassarius Snail (Nassarius sp.) to help turn the sand over. I am not sure what happened to my other ones but I don't see them that often so I replaced them. My Cerith Snails (Cerithium sp.) are doing fine and multiplying. I noticed a new egg mass on the tank wall yesterday.

[nightOwl]

General Updates - New Fish

I have been looking around at some of my local shops for some of the fish on my list. And finally struck the jackpot this past Saturday (9/17) at a LFS. The store was sponsoring a social for our local club (WAMAS) and with that usually come great deals on fish, inverts, and corals. I have been missing many of the socials, but was semi free on Saturday. The store had some great deals and I came away with a Blue Spotted Jawfish (Opistognathus rosenblatti) and two zoa frags. The fish has been pretty active and the thing I love about these fish is they have so much personality. He has a great appetite and is taking mysis without issues. I will try to get him on pellets before introducing him to the main display.

My VHO bulbs are old and needed to be replaced so I also picked up two new bulbs on Saturday. They only had two of the Super Actinic and the guy that runs the Saltwater section (Ben) is going to order me two more.

General Updates - Miscellaneous

BRS

9/10 - My order from Bulk Reef Supply came in with some items I had been waiting for. I have been having some phosphate issues which I think my be due to my overfeeding and also the type of food I am using. I have all but given up on getting my Glass Cardinalfish to eat pellets or flakes. Only two will eat pellets readily. My order included GFO, Hannah Alk Checker, Phosphate Reagents, Calcium Reagents, and Alk Reagents. I have not used the Hannah Alk Checker yet. I will post some results when I finally test it out.

BRS Order

New Toys

I picked up some new toys for the tank since I am having heat issues. I picked up two new fans that I will install to blow across the top of the tank. I will integrate them into my light system.



I also picked up an infrared thermometer. I have been playing with it and it is very accurate. This is really going to come in handy when I get my Poison Dart Frogs. For now I can tell where all the spots are in the tank in regards to heat. It has already helped me with the the jawfish in QT. I was using a small heater and turns out it was not enough for my QT tank.

Cerith Snails Artwork

At some point I should be able to see some tiny cerith snails in my tank. They are laying eggs very regularly. The two below were pretty much in the same area.

Nine


Six

Glass Cardinalfish

I now have two males again carrying eggs again.
9/7 - Two males with eggs
9/8 - No eggs .
9/10 - Cerith eggs 6 shape
9/13 - Cerith eggs 9 shape
9/16 - Two males with eggs

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