MrH 55 gallon reef

[Shooter000]

Noice

 

[teebone110]

I am on the fence with my rockscape, what do you more experienced folks think? Too high? Too much? The plan is keeping lps and a few montis, zoanthids and different kinds of mushrooms... Will have predominately small not too active fish like clown gobies, clownfish, firefish and a blenny. Any criticism is welcome . View attachment 26805

View attachment 26804

Looks great.. clean, open layout with nice shelf space for LPS. The separation between islands will help with flow and coral placement too

Only tweak I would also suggest is offset the top plates slightly to reduce shadowing, and make sure you’ve got good flow under those shelves to avoid detritus buildup. Otherwise, solid scape.

 

[MrHermit85]

Looks great.. clean, open layout with nice shelf space for LPS. The separation between islands will help with flow and coral placement too

Only tweak I would also suggest is offset the top plates slightly to reduce shadowing, and make sure you’ve got good flow under those shelves to avoid detritus buildup. Otherwise, solid scape.

The shadowing is a great point. I ordered some more mortar and will tackle it again. The plan is to have a dual return with random flow generators and two octo pulse 2 pumps so I can hopefully get things moving around the structures we go with.

Recently did a leak test and had a few leaks around the bulkheads. Weirdly, this overflow requires a gasket between the tank and box which causes the box to have a bit of play. My solution is to make my own gasket the size of the box to avoid any movement.

Everything else ran perfectly and I managed to get the overflow silent. The bean animal is really a great idea! The pump is great too, I have never tried a DC pump and boy it is silent and moves a good amount of water. I am looking forward to setting up the hydros system and running all the pumps off of one hub. This will also be a first for me so I am quite excited.

There will be loads of pictures and updates to come once we start working at it again, I have been really busy with work but it has calmed down again so can focus on the build.

 

[MrHermit85]

Hopefully this gasket will prevent the overflow from shifting and causing leaks. In theory it will act as a brace too.

 

[MrHermit85]

Rewired the lighting controller now just to make sense of what my plans were 2 years ago when I bought all these bits.

 

[MrHermit85]

Built a control board today. It will have a sliding rear panel which will have the pass throughs in it. This will be where my hydros, inkbird and return pump controller will go. Just need to give it a sand and paint then add the pass throughs and then can mount it to the wall next to the tank.

 

[MrHermit85]

Been busy figuring out my cable management. I thought I would try wire mold and I added 2 receptacles to a low shelf next to the tank so that I can route all main power away from behind the tank making it easier to get to it. The plan is to make a dummy front for the shelf and have a PC fan blowing on all my powersupplies. My main support equipment will run off of a 15amp dedicated and the rest will share the basement circuit. All my controllers will go on the controller board next the tank with grommets for the cables leading to the "chase" behind it.

 

[MrHermit85]

Its a start

 

[MrHermit85]

Been slow on the build for a while as the plan was only to get it wet after our summer vacation. Back at it again and re did the aquascape with your suggestions in mind. Made the scape lower and more lower profile too so tou can see the back. I guess I would call it tapered.

I definitely forgot how tedious water making gnis lol. We have a 200gpd unit this time so its alot quicker but still tedious. Rinsed the rocks cape and put it in its final place, next we are starting to make the saltwater!!!

Still have to complete the lights though but not worried about that until after rhe cycle...

 

[MrHermit85]

Third times the charm. I re-wired my lights into a smaller enclosure and removed the connectors I was using. They said they were waterproof but they made me uneasy.

3D printed an enclosure for the joints that will have a gasket and then going to add a little 4 inch pc fan to the driver/controller box.

 

[MrHermit85]

And it begins, everything is running smooth so far. Now just to wait

 

[MrHermit85]

Things are clearing up nicely, we are at the nitrite spike now. Ammonia is down to 0.

 

[MrHermit85]

Got the lights working, running the fan through the hydros to make things simple.

 

[MrHermit85]

Not much happening these days, just patiently waiting for things to happen in the tank. Started getting a major Nitrite spike and Ammonia down to zero so just the long wait now. We are using the brightewell aquatics quick cycle and microbacter XLM, seems to get good reviews. We added some Maxpect Biospheres to the sump area considering we are using man made rock, started with just a few and will add some more as we stock.

Also picked up a bigger ATO holding tank so I can set up a float valve.

 

[MrHermit85]

Cleaned up all of our wiring around the hydros and sump/lights with "WireMold" from Amazon. It seems to work quite well. I guess we will see how long it stays like that. I still need to add all the leak sensors, PH probe and backup temp probe which will run through the hydros. I have the inkbird doing the main control for heating and the hydros to power everything down if things get a little too far off. Also next is the ground probe and switched receptacle shelf.

 

[MrHermit85]

FINALLY!!! Nitrites are starting to go down. We are almost at week 5 and trying to be patient. Got some supplies in the mail for our ATO. We decided to piece our own together as I prefer the idea of a diaphragm pump, triple sensor and stand alone sensor. The stand alone will be for extra security considering we go on 2 week vacations a couple times a year so the extra security to prevent overfilling is worth it.

 

[MrHermit85]

Little bit of progress today! We wanted some way to cool the ldd drivers so we installed a small pc fan into the controller box. Nothing fancy but I am able to control it with the hydros which is great. The fan is a noctua and I have to say I love their range of fans, they have such cool ways of mounting them! We have started up the protein skimmer, giving

it a vinegar soak and now going to run it like this over night before installing it.

 

[MrHermit85]

AND so the journey begins.

 

[MrHermit85]

It has been a crummy start so far, my smaller clownfish has beaten the living crap out of the bigger one, at least I think it has. They dont spend much time together and the bigger one has fin rot and looks pretty messed up on its sides whilst the other looks better than ever. At first I thought it was sick, but nothing has spread to the other.

I have started a QT tank so I can pull the hurt one out and treat the fin rot and Popeye. I will see if I can get the bigger one to come around and possibly try again. It is a little confusing though because they do sleep together but then the bigger one hides all day and recoils when the smaller one comes close at feeding time.

 

[MrHermit85]

A bit of an update, good and bad news. My one clown fish crossed the rainbow bridge. Poor little guy just kept getting worse to the point of no return. I tried some suttle medications in the tank without removal but he just got worse and then when I decided to pull him out he only lasted a day in QT.

I get the feeling he was just messed up from the start as I spent alot of time watching the tank to see if there was any aggression and there was none. The clowns would still sleep together but only the one would eat. I must have tried 10 different foods with no luck.

Apart from that my skimmer has been taking forever to dial in, I have resorted to blocking the intake for now so it can at least skim wet until it settles. Its now pulling reasonable dark crud out. Because of the lack of skimmer my ugly phase got a little nasty with a rusty dust type algae. A bit of elbow grease and water changes seemed to help a little, but I am just riding it out. Water has become quite clear which is nice.

I am looking at getting a little refugium going in the sump with my live rock that I have down there and biospheres. I also think its time to introduce some pods. I am also little weary of adding any sort of media yet. The plan is to stick to a refugium and chaeto with frequent water changes.

I also added a couple cleaner shrimp, a mushroom and a torch. A bit early for the torch but I have always had luck with them, hopefully still the case.

I added some more rock too, turns out the open look is not for us. I also wanted more hiding spots for the fish and shrimp