To drill or not to drill

[Salty Cracker]

Mix on the light fixture is: Channel 1 - 12 Royal Blues  Channel 2 - 4 White, 2 blue, 4 UV, 2 Royal Blues.

I have a dimmer on the white channel, don't really need it on the RB channel.  I can go from very blue to pretty much 12,000K with this setup.  I'm toying with draining it so that I can get some vinyl on the sides....

 

[Salty Cracker]

Got the salinity to 1.026, got the temp up to 78.  I threw a few pieces of liverock in from my DT sump. For god's sake one of those unholy paly's has been alive in there for months with no light!  If it survives the cycling of this tank I'll know it's truly some sort of zombie paly. 

 

[Salty Cracker]

Chucked a couple of clownfish in to help with the cycling (Thanks aaron),got the sump installed (thanks J_T) and hopefully have a few items from BRS tomorrow.  I tested the RO/DI setup and have sparkling clear 0TDS water.

Finally I have a spot for that crazy rock full-o-GSP. 


Put a few frags in to see how they do.  Some zoas, and a couple of little sps pieces. 

 

[Salty Cracker]

Sump layout is going to need some tweaking.  I have the overflow silent now so I can sort of finalize the plumbing, but fitting any kind of decent skimmer will be a trick.  The BRS reactor is going to have to hang off the back.  There's a lot of cloudiness to the water still so I'll run a batch of carbon for a week or so then switch up to gfo. 

I plan to add a couple more smaller frag racks on the sides once I know I can keep coral in this, then new additions I buy can first be dipped in coralRX then monitored to see if the tank needs an interceptor treatment.  THEN they can finally move to my DT. 

 

[GirDance]

Got the salinity to 1.026, got the temp up to 78.  I threw a few pieces of liverock in from my DT sump. For god's sake one of those unholy paly's has been alive in there for months with no light!  If it survives the cycling of this tank I'll know it's truly some sort of zombie paly.

I have several of these zombie palys myself...  Wondering if I should just toss the rock before they take over and choke out the stuff I actually want to keep!

 

[Salty Cracker]

[quote author=Salty Cracker link=topic=4961.msg49640#msg49640 date=1367278431]
Got the salinity to 1.026, got the temp up to 78.  I threw a few pieces of liverock in from my DT sump. For god's sake one of those unholy paly's has been alive in there for months with no light!  If it survives the cycling of this tank I'll know it's truly some sort of zombie paly.

I have several of these zombie palys myself...  Wondering if I should just toss the rock before they take over and choke out the stuff I actually want to keep!
[/quote]

Yes, yes you should.  Be wary, they are extremely toxic.  Don't boil them off the rock to re-use!! 

 

[Darryl_V]

Looks good salty.  Im personally fighting a diatom bloom in my new frag tank.  Hope it burns out soon....its pissing off my beautiful zoa frags for frag fest.  Hope you have better luck.

 

[Salty Cracker]

Looks good salty.  Im personally fighting a diatom bloom in my new frag tank.  Hope it burns out soon....its pissing off my beautiful zoa frags for frag fest.  Hope you have better luck.

I've got a strange string algae in there, but it's receding.  I won't put anything of value in it until it's 100%.  I am expecting a fairly noticeable bloom of something now that I have rock, and fish in there.  It will be interesting.  Was your frag tank on separate water from your main system?

Hope they pull through, I'm thinking of starting a zoa garden when I move a lot of misc stuff out of the DT.

Oddly enough, when I added UV (violet) bulbs to the DT I haven't had a single outbreak of diatoms or dinos.  Do you have any on the frag tank??  I almost wonder if they work as a bit of a sterilizer.  I'd battled them for years on and off before that.  ??

 

[Darryl_V]

my frag tank is tied in.  The stringy stuff is a diatom bloom and is too be expected and burns off in a few weeks.  The zoa's are just a little ticked at the stringy stuff but I keep blowing them clean regularly, IM sure they will be fine.

You might have some more or longer algae blooms though as mine is tied in like I mentioned.

 

[Salty Cracker]

my frag tank is tied in.  The stringy stuff is a diatom bloom and is too be expected and burns off in a few weeks.  The zoa's are just a little ticked at the stringy stuff but I keep blowing them clean regularly, IM sure they will be fine.

You might have some more or longer algae blooms though as mine is tied in like I mentioned.

Yeah, kind of expecting it.  Hoping that the carbon will help keep the water clear, and the gfo will help with the phosphates until the nitrates and ammonia drop down.  Tougher since it's only ~40 gallons total, not the 500 gallons your total volume must be.  That said, it's nice having a tank I can blast with interceptor if need be, or on the flip side, a place to put hermits and shrimp if I have to do the DT. 

 

[curiousphil]

Looking great!  Aaron tells me that you are the "LED guy"... and that I must come check out your tanks sometime.

 

[GirDance]

Yes, yes you should.  Be wary, they are extremely toxic.  Don't boil them off the rock to re-use!!

Yes, the toxicity was why I was thinking I would just pull and chuck the rock... I really didn't think they would come back, but they are apparently invincible...  Which makes me what them out now even more!  LOL

 

[Salty Cracker]

Looking great!  Aaron tells me that you are the \"LED guy\"... and that I must come check out your tanks sometime.

Between you and me, Aaron has some mental problems, but I may be able to scare up an LED setup or two to look at

 

[Big_Als_London]

[quote author=curiousphil link=topic=4961.msg50798#msg50798 date=1368626554]
Looking great!  Aaron tells me that you are the \"LED guy\"... and that I must come check out your tanks sometime.

Between you and me, Aaron has some mental problems, but I may be able to scare up an LED setup or two to look at
[/quote]Glen, This is no secret.

 

[Salty Cracker]

[quote author=Salty Cracker link=topic=4961.msg50817#msg50817 date=1368634888]
[quote author=curiousphil link=topic=4961.msg50798#msg50798 date=1368626554]
Looking great!  Aaron tells me that you are the \"LED guy\"... and that I must come check out your tanks sometime.

Between you and me, Aaron has some mental problems, but I may be able to scare up an LED setup or two to look at
[/quote]Glen, This is no secret.
[/quote]

Oh!  Hi Aaron!  NOTHING TO SEE HERE!!!!   

 

[Darryl_V]

[quote author=Darryl_V link=topic=4961.msg50785#msg50785 date=1368588267]
my frag tank is tied in.  The stringy stuff is a diatom bloom and is too be expected and burns off in a few weeks.  The zoa's are just a little ticked at the stringy stuff but I keep blowing them clean regularly, IM sure they will be fine.

You might have some more or longer algae blooms though as mine is tied in like I mentioned.

Yeah, kind of expecting it.  Hoping that the carbon will help keep the water clear, and the gfo will help with the phosphates until the nitrates and ammonia drop down.  Tougher since it's only ~40 gallons total, not the 500 gallons your total volume must be.  That said, it's nice having a tank I can blast with interceptor if need be, or on the flip side, a place to put hermits and shrimp if I have to do the DT.
[/quote]I gave up on shrimp and hermits a long time ago.  Shrimp would be lunch for my tusk and hermits are snail killers.  Not too mention if I ever have to do an interceptor dip I have nothing to worry about.  Havent had to do it in a few years though.  Helps I rarely add acros these days.

 

[Salty Cracker]

Okay, day 1 after adding coral.  Big GSP rock looks like it never changed tanks.  I have frags on the rack that seem fine, and stringy algae seems to be disappearing.  Did my first feeding and the clowns ate fine, they seem to be realizing they have the whole damn tank to themselves.  I'll show them and put 15 soho tangs in there.

Frags: some zoas, some gsp, some xmas favia, blue/green spongodes, some of darryl's indestructible red digi, some branching monti, and a misc acro tip of something or other I found wandering the sand. 

Oh and for god's sake a yuma showed up...again a sump survivor.  I'll see if I can turn one microscopic yuma into 10,000 (again). 

 

[Salty Cracker]

Hooked up a brs reactor to it today, didn't realize they designed it to hold both GFO and carbon in the same chamber, that's cool.  Not what I would do in a large system, but in this, that should be plenty!

So now I'll wait and see if the carbon will knock down the dull haze that's everywhere.  Then I guess the next step is an ato of some sort and a dosing system, and it should be pretty bulletproof.  Too bad I like growing frags out more than I like selling them!

 

[Salty Cracker]

Specs are all good in the tank.  Nitrates and phosphates are 0 and all the pesky algae died away.

Alk mag and Ca are all good so I plunked in a few more sps and added a teeny tiny tang.

So far, I think things will work well with this tank, I'm just more worried about water changes since a bucket of water is 1/4 of the total water volume so I have to be sure I use a refractometer and a quality thermometer on the new water. 

I plan to add dosers just to keep things stable.  The BRS reactor cleared the haze out of the water in just a day. 

Any new frags I get at fragfest will go in here first before they head to the DT.  Gotta watch for pests!!!  

 

[J_T]

Well, now you can get ready for next year! I have no doubt that people would pay the right $$ for some colonies, and not just frags!

Perhaps the fall.... If you look on GTAA it has been hinted that someone is planning to do a TO show. Perhaps they will contact you for some pointers!