Tore down my 180 last night

kogle

kogle

Member
Well after a week or so of hoping the fuge lights running would stablize my pH and bring my ORP up I finally decided to dose to get my mg up.
pH last night was 8.05 and ORP was 330, and mg was at 1150 still.
I dumped a cup and a half of Epsom salt into the tank and this morning the pH was up to 8.15, the ORP was at 380, and I'll have to test the mg tonight. I'm hoping it bumped it up to 1300 or so...
I also added 50 snails and 15 crabs about a week ago. I've got them busy cleaning up the diatoms...
One more week and I'm firing up the metal halides and starting to add my first corals, I'm also going to add the mandarin I've had in the QT tank since I tore this thing down...
It's almost go time.
 
kogle

kogle

Member
Here's some of the pictures that turned out ok from this weekend. The move to the 180 starts this evening...




 
kogle

kogle

Member
Ok, moved the mandarin over to the 180 last night. Also moved some corals...
Here are the pictures. Wish I could have gotten a shot of the mandarin but as soon as I put him in he was hiding in the rocks...
The metal halides are also running 6 hours as of today. Ran them for about 2 hours last night.
I've got some more coral in the QT tank. The plan is to wait two weeks from last night, add the 6 line wrasse from the QT tank and the rest of the corals in QT.




 
kogle

kogle

Member
I took some more pictures last night. I've now moved everything over to the display that was in QT except for some orange zoas that have a little bit of bryopsis on the rock they're attached to. trying to figure out the best plan of action there...




 
kogle

kogle

Member
One thing I'm struggling with is how to dose for magnesium and not upset the corals so much. I'm using epsom salt right now and even after dumping it into a high flow area of the sump some of the salt crystals are still making it into the display before dissolving. I thought about taking some RO/DI water and dissolving the epsom salt (or the magnesium chloride) into it and then dumping it into the sump. Might try that tonight to see if it seems less upsetting....
Anyhow, let me know what you all think so far. If you've been following this thread you'll know it's been while since this project started.
I think letting the tank cylce for 3 months really shows. This thing looks awesome in person...
 
kogle

kogle

Member
I think my mandarin died Tuesday. Haven't seen him. Guess the 180 was too new for him even with all of the pods I put in there.
 
kogle

kogle

Member
Well it's about week 18 since I've set this tank back up and most things are going well. I've only lost my mandarin. I'm starting to get a green algae bloom on the rocks and sand. I think it's time to fire up the po4 reactor.
What do you guys think? I don't want to start up the skimmer until the 6 month mark but I think it would be ok to start running the phosphate reactor.
 
kogle

kogle

Member
Thanks for the compliment. It's not so clean looking now, I've had my first major algae bloom. I ended up firing up the po4 reactor but the algae hasn't gone away. I did test my TDS and it was at 16 ppm so I changed out the carbon filters, the sediment block, and the DI resin. It's only been two days since I've done that so I need to check my current TDS levels. Hopefully that will starve the algae.
I'm also looking into getting another 100 or so mixed snails and crabs. I'm really trying to go for diversity with this tank as far as the inverts.
 
kogle

kogle

Member
The tank hasn't really matured yet. I cycled this thing according to a strict schedule and part of that was to leave the skimmer off until the 6 month mark as well as not stocking the fuge until the 6 month mark. Kind of give things a chance to balance out on their own before I start pulling things out of the water collumn.
I know if may sound a bit goofy and I'm not sure I completely agree with it but I've seen this method of cycling have amazing results for the long term health and stability of a tank.
 
lion_crazz

lion_crazz

Active Member
I really enjoyed going through this entire post. I cannot believe the backlash you got from the first few posts. That algae was horrendous! I probably would have thought about doing the same. It's so good to see that you didn't just give up and get out of the hobby either. When I opened the thread, I thought that was what you were going to say.
Great work so far

Keep us updated.
 
kogle

kogle

Member
Originally Posted by spanko
http:///forum/post/2839112
Been doing any mechanical or chemical filtration during this time or just water changes?
I've been running mechanical filtration since day 1 in the form of a filter pad but eventually switched that to a filter sock to polish the water a little better. I am now only running the sock about 1 week out of the month. Tank has no measurable nitrates or phosphates but I still got an algae bloom. As far as chemical filtration there wasn't much except for carbon and recently the po4 reactor. I also have the deep sand bed in the fuge maturing but no macro algaes yet.
Originally Posted by lion_crazz
http:///forum/post/2839124
I really enjoyed going through this entire post. I cannot believe the backlash you got from the first few posts. That algae was horrendous! I probably would have thought about doing the same. It's so good to see that you didn't just give up and get out of the hobby either. When I opened the thread, I thought that was what you were going to say.
Great work so far

Keep us updated.
Thanks lion crazz that means A LOT coming from you. As mentioned before this was a real pain but it's been well worth it. Everything was off to a rocky start at first but most of that can be attributed to new tank syndrome.
I'll try and get some pictures this weekend to show off my algae bloom.
 
kogle

kogle

Member
Thought I'd give you guys a Tanksgiving update

I found a new wholesaler in Indianapolis this past weekend and talked them into letting me "walk in" Well long story short I ended up spending about $135 by the time it was all over. I just couldn't pass up some of the prices.

My 180 is almost at the 6 month mark and I needed to complete my clean up crew. I could tell this because I was starting to get some algae growth. The plan of action was to get as many clean up crew items as possible. Here's what I came home with:
Large Fox Face
Large Diamond Goby
Cleaner shrimp
Coral banded shrimp
40 large nass. snails
35 Trochus snails
2 red mythrix crabs
Large fighting conch
15 scarlet hermit crabs
medium colony bright blue with purple tips acropora
I think that's it but I'm sure I'm forgetting something. I acclimated everything Friday night and at the end of the day yesterday they already had the tank looking almost spotless. Here are some pictures. I took a lot more of them but my camera is dieing so I had to delete the crappy ones.




 
kogle

kogle

Member
One last picture, the picture doesn't do the the acro justice. The color is amazing even after looking at it all weekend.
 
kogle

kogle

Member
Haven't updated this post in awhile so I figured I'd let you all know about my unexpected Christmas present. Guess I've been naughty this year because it wasn't a good present. A power surge fried my Lighthouse controller and that almost fried my tank. No pH control, heater on the fritz due to faulty signal. Good stuff. All because I didn't have the controller plugged into a surge protector. I assumed the power strip with the controller had a protector but I was oh so wrong.

Seizing the opportunity I upgraded to a Neptune Aqua Controller III. No comparison in the two controllers. Don't get me wrong, the Lighthouse was great but very limited in it's capabilities. The Aquacontroller has been a wonderful investment so far. I'm still learning how to write the programming for some of the functions but I really like the lunar cycle, sunrise/sunset capabilities, and the seasonal programming. Good Stuff!
 
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