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

[nightOwl]

General Updates - Fish

Day 3 of fish and the 6 that are left are still looking pretty strong. No signs of ich or major damage to the fins. They are all still thin but seem to have great appetites. I had to reduce the power of the powerheads drastically. The current was too strong for the little group. I could see them working really hard to stay in one place. They are now more comfortable in the tank and have found a spot where the flow is not as heavy. Feeding time is still a little chaotic but I think they will settle in. Only one is eating pellets two others have tried them and spit them out. Hopefully more will eat pellets in the coming weeks. So far they eating two things for sure and that's mysis shrimp, and brine shrimp.

General Updates - Apex to Tunze control and Break Out Box

I forgot to mention both arrived Wednesday of this week. I have installed the Apex to Tunze cable and the 6055's are doing really well in the tank. I still have some tweaking to do. I have learned that without anything in the tank the flow is not as chaotic as I would like it be but still very powerful. Reducing the intensity of the pumps seems to work for the fish and the current is still sufficient to keep food suspending during feeding.

I will be ordering things for the break out box soon. I am just not sure what I should install on it besides a water sensor.

[BowieReefer84]

Do you have any freeze dried cyclopeeze you can try feeding them? It drives my fish crazy.

[nightOwl]

Originally Posted by BowieReefer84

Do you have any freeze dried cyclopeeze you can try feeding them? It drives my fish crazy.

BowieReefer84,
I have some Whole Freeze Dried Cyclop-eeze and that is on schedule to try for today. Tomorrow is flakes by New Life Spectrum then the Sunday the veggie flakes. Monday will be my own home blend . I am trying to expose them to as many things as possible. Each feeding is also dosed with garlic and selcon every other day. I like nice plump fish .

[tclipse]

Henry, nice progress man.. good to see you're back on wamas too. Gotta post up an FTS so we can get the full before/after effect

[nightOwl]

Originally Posted by tclipse

Henry, nice progress man.. good to see you're back on wamas too. Gotta post up an FTS so we can get the full before/after effect

Teddy,
It has been a long journey to get to this point. I now have fish so it actually looks like a tank to me. I will warn you it is looking pretty bad right now. I will get some pics posted tonight hopefully.

General Updates - Fish

Day 9 - Everyone is looking great. They are eating and will eat a few times a day if I feed them. They seem to be catching on that when the pumps stop its feeding time and it is a good idea to head to the side of the tank with man and turkey baster...LOL. So far they seem to like the following:

• Mysis Shrimp
• Cyclop-eeze
• Freeze Dried Mysis Shrimp
• Brine Shrimp
• Shaved Shrimp- Thanks Pampered Chef Cheese Grader

Not fond of

• Flakes - They spit these out but try different colors
• Veggie Flakes- They spit these out pretty fast
• Pellets - They spit these out shortly after entering mouth

I will keep working on giving them flakes and pellets. Hopefully they will come around.

I will move my other three Glass Cardinals over in a week or two.

General Updates - Tank

I am going through the normal diatom/Dinoflagellates outbreak so there is brown stuff everywhere and since the little group is not fond of of the powerful current I am not moving as much water as I would like to. Today I will adjust the pump profiles to increase past 60% in the hopes of moving more water. I also turned the lights off this morning so I am going to try two days or no lights and see what happens. I added 1 giant turbo zeba snail and two nerite snails a few days ago and they seem to be eating some of the algae. They were from my old tank. You can actually see the path of the little monsters. I need to add some more snails, but these were the guinea pigs to see if the tank was stable enough.

[willandmelsreef]

Tagging along, looking to upgrade my 90g to a 180 when I return from the family summer vacation. Been looking for a used 180 in the area for months with no luck, may have to break down and buy new. Very impressed by your equipment list, good job.

[nightOwl]

Originally Posted by willandmelsreef

Tagging along, looking to upgrade my 90g to a 180 when I return from the family summer vacation. Been looking for a used 180 in the area for months with no luck, may have to break down and buy new. Very impressed by your equipment list, good job.

willandmelsreef,
Thanks for joining my little party. I had been wanting to upgrade for so long and when the opportunity came had to jump on it. I think the equipment list turned out pretty well. So far I am extremely happy with all my purchases! You are joining at the right time because now its fish and coral time .

[nightOwl]

Updated FTS with only center MH on...

[BowieReefer84]

Can't see it?

[nightOwl]

Originally Posted by BowieReefer84

Can't see it?

BowieReefer84,
For some reason the picture is not showing up for you and others. I got a couple of PM's this morning . I can see it hmmmmmmmmm....must be a permissions issue. Let me know if you can see this one...


I moved the picture to a new website since the dimensions are awkward. I can see I need to get a better picture so this weekend I will try to get a picture that is clearer.

[redneckgearhead]

Looks good! How far back in the wall is the tank?

[nightOwl]

Originally Posted by redneckgearhead

Looks good! How far back in the wall is the tank?

redneckgearhead,
Welcome to my little party and thanks for the compliment! The tank is 2' back in the wall. Tank measurements are 6' x 2' x 2'. I took the picture with my wide angle lense and that my be adding some distortion.

[d3hree]

i like the inceased indent into the wall, it makes it look more like a public aquarium IMO, nice work sir.

[redneckgearhead]

Gives you a great place to put your drink while staring at the tank for hours. (or is that just me) Love this build!

[nightOwl]

Originally Posted by d3hree

i like the inceased indent into the wall, it makes it look more like a public aquarium IMO, nice work sir.

Thanks!

Originally Posted by redneckgearhead

Gives you a great place to put your drink while staring at the tank for hours. (or is that just me) Love this build!

redneckgearhead,
It's not just you! Now that I have fish in the tank I act like a little kid in front of the tank with drink in hand . I am in the process of searching for some cool fish themed coasters to use for just that purpose. Initially I was thinking of adding a slab of marble or granite on the bottom ledge. You probably can not see from the picture but the tank is perfect level to sit on a 28" bar stool and rest the drink on the frame. All in all I am glad how it has turned out.

[baws187]

I got to say wao you got major skills and it all looks so awesome.

[nightOwl]

Originally Posted by baws187

I got to say wao you got major skills and it all looks so awesome.

Thanks baws187 and welcome to the upgrade party. Thing hopefully will pick up a bit and I can get corals and fish moved into the new tank.

General Updates - Tank

On Saturday 5/28 I added a clean-up crew to the tank. My ugly brown covered rocks are white again. The clean-up crew is really working. I will turn the lights slowly back on to the schedule where the algae growth will be enough to make the snails happy. The LFS I visited was out of a few things when I went but I was able to pick up the base of the crew. My clean-up consists of the following:

• 10 Margarita Snails
• 20 Large Nassairius Snails
• 20 Cerith Snails
• 5 Large Turbo Snails
• 3 Peppermint Shrimps - Actually 2 - One was eaten during acclimation
• 15 Red Leg Hermit Crabs

Clean up crew


Turbo working his magic






I also added some Tigger pods on Saturday but as of today I do not see any. I will have to look closer tonight before I reach my verdict. One of the LFS owners was kind enough to give me some free pods about 15 -20 about a week or two ago and they are multiplying like crazy!

Tigger Pods




Updates - Kalk Reactor

My kalk reactor is fully installed. I am not dosing any kalk yet but I have the aqua lifter in place and it is ready to go once I figure out how much evaporation I am having per day.

Aqualifter pump and top-off controller


Kalk reactor and calcium reactor



I realized I had not taken a picture of my breakout box so here it is.

Updates - Probe Holder

I thought I had more magnets so this is going to be put on hold until I order some more magnets. I drilled the holes and used some thumbnail screws I had laying around and overall I am happy with it. Since I have more scrap pieces of acrylic I will continue to come up with small items .

Probe Holder

[SPotter]

Wow...I cant believe how organized and neat everything is!!!!! I tried the tiger pods twice and i really cant tell you if they worked. I had a lot of luck with pods from reefcleaners.org and reef2go.com. I have a nice population of pods in my fuge and frag tank but havent really seen any in the DT. I am sure my mandarin is hunting them down

[redneckgearhead]

I used tiger pods in my tank, but later was told that they wont reproduce in our tanks because its to warm.

[nightOwl]

Originally Posted by SPotter

Wow...I cant believe how organized and neat everything is!!!!! I tried the tiger pods twice and i really cant tell you if they worked. I had a lot of luck with pods from reefcleaners.org and reef2go.com. I have a nice population of pods in my fuge and frag tank but havent really seen any in the DT. I am sure my mandarin is hunting them down

Steve,
Thanks man. I know it will probably go downhill once I am really using the tank but it looks nice in the mean time. I can officially say Tigger Pods are a total waste of money! I searched for over 30 mins and could not find a single red colored pod in the refugium. I thought they had improved from when they first came out. I purchased some a few years ago and the numbers on the bottles in no way matched what I saw. The newer bottles had me fooled. Everyone I picked up was full of happy pods swimming around say saying pick me, pick me. I will have to transfer some of my regular pods over to my frag tank. I have a lone piece of live rock in there that some mini brittle stars are hiding in. I have two people I am supposed to pic up cheeto from soon and that should help boost the population even more. I am going to need a ton of them to support the types of fish I want.

Originally Posted by redneckgearhead

I used tiger pods in my tank, but later was told that they wont reproduce in our tanks because its to warm.

redneckgearhead,
I think you may be right. In hindsight they pods were in a refrigerated unit. They were an impulse buy! I got to the register and saw so many in the bottle. I remember asking my LFS guy will these multiply in my tank. I even spent time trying to acclimate the little guys. They were still swimming around happily when they entered the tank. Lesson learned...LFS knows fish and coral but not so much on Tigger Pods...LOL.

[denash24]

Nice job on the tank it looks awesome and very organized, more pics pleas.

[nightOwl]

Originally Posted by denash24

Nice job on the tank it looks awesome and very organized, more pics pleas.

Thanks and welcome to my upgrade party. I will try to get more pics posted soon.

[nightOwl]

So updates are on hold for a bit as I have sprained my ankle in a sporting event which makes going up and down the stairs a chore. I was allowed some unsupervised time with my tank by the powers that be and managed to take a few shots.

General Updates

I have noticed that since I have turned up the power on the pumps the fish no longer stay together as much except for at feeding time and when the pumps go to night mode. They have divided themselves into the 3 groups.

• Strong Swimmers - 3
• Weak Swimmers 1
• I don't want to be bother with the rest of you - 2

I think they have caught on to when the pumps stop its feeding time and you can actually see them try to find one another.

I added some cheto last week and it was loaded with pods. The pods that were already in the tank were doing well. I still have another batch of cheeto to pick up from a fellow reefer to add more diversity. Pods multiply fast and that is a great thing. They are now all over the front of the tank, sides, and in the sump.

I check my filter sock on the drain of the old tank and each week transfer over whatever pods and mini brittle starfish are in it. Tonight I hit the gold mine and was able to transfer 12 mini brittle starfish and 10 amphipod. I have noticed that some of the mini brittle starfish release sperm in the water after being in the tank in less than 5 minutes of being added. Tonight at least 4 released once they were in the tank.

My three strong swimmers


Nassarius snail


One of my I don't want to be bothered fish


The white spots on the snails shell are mini feather dusters worms when extended they are red


Various Pods - White spots. If you look closely you can see the patterns from where the snails have been cleaning the glass


Various Pods - White spots


Mini brittle starfish


Close up of rock - the brown stuff will be cleaned by the snails in a few days. The pink and green I am hoping is the beginning of coralline algae.

[twitchy4821]

absolutely gorgeous tank =). Your build is actually one of the ones that inspired me to finally take the time to organize all of my thoughts before i start building my tank =). (ultimately leading to an organized tank/stand/sump/electronics)

[kalgra]

I cant see the pics either. Sounds awsome I WANT TO SEE!