220 Gallons of Pure Awesome

revhtree

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Great build man!
 
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eranschau

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Well, it finally happened! After spending almost an entire week cleaning up from adding live sand, and the mini-cycle that caused, things had stabilized enough to try adding some fish. As they're relatively inexpensive, but pretty, I opted for a small group of Green Chromis. I'm hoping in this larger tank - and once they have larger tank mates - they'll keep up their schooling behavior. It's been about 48 hours, and so far, so good. Everyone seems healthy and happy.

Next comes the arduous task of pulling corals from the 75, getting them cleaned and prepped, and moving them over. That could take an entire weekend. Lucky for me I have no life. ;)

 

monkiboy

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nice aquascape, space, and photos!

did the chromis go through any quarantine or prophylaxis to deal with the potential uronema? do you have a protocol in place for new additions for this tank?

thank you for sharing!
 
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eranschau

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Thanks! Aquascaping is the bit that always stresses me out the most, but I'm super happy with how it turned out.

As for quarantining, I have two 40 breeders in the garage for that job. I keep to of the more porous filter pads for an old Marineland canister filter in the sump so that I can set up a quarantine quickly, and as needed. The extent to which I go in quarantining does depend a bit on the species of fish, and from where I purchased it though. My favorite LFS quarantines everything the ship in before putting it out for sale, and for some species a prolonged quarantine process is just as likely to cause illness as it is to cure it.
 

Bradw18

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Beautiful tank. Love the pvc Frame you built. As I type there is a 220 gallon on its way to my house. Wife didn't realize how big it was I till I showed her the picture of the frame over the 75. (I'm going from 55 to 220)
 

cracker

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Looks real nice, I'm working on a 180 build myself, Thanks for the frame idea for aquascaping This way I get to see how it will look height wise.
 

revhtree

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Nice job!
 
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eranschau

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It's been about five months since I moved out of my old 75 gallon and into the new 220, so it's past time for a quick update. So far, things are going swimmingly with one exception. Everything is healthy and happy and I have zero complains with the hardware I chose for the build, but - despite my best efforts - I did manage to move some vermetid snails into the new tank from the old one. (Ugh.) But, on to the good stuff...



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Bronc

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Looks really good, especially great work on the sump area!
 

revhtree

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Awesome job!
 
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eranschau

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So I went to feed the fish this morning and noticed that the tank was looking...funny; the color of the lighting seemed off. After poking around a bit, I discovered that the blue (B) channel on one of my three Maxspect fixtures was no longer working. I fussed with it for a bit to no avail. Off to the the LFS I went. Turns out the problem is fixable but could have ranged anywhere from reasonably inexpensive to prohibitively expensive, so... I decided to solve two problems at once (As I purchased them at different times, my three Maxpect fixtures ran at two different color temperatures. You can imagine what this did to my OCD.) and bought myself some new light fixtures. Radion fixtures, here I come!

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eranschau

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w00t! So I sold the old Maxspect light fixtures on Saturday and rather than use the cash to pay off a credit card or do anything else that even remotely resembled "adulting," I went to my favorite LFS - Saltwater Empire - and bought every single female Lyretail Anthias they had! They're like little bolts of sunshine zipping around the tank! Getting to watch whichever female ends up on top of the pecking order change into a male should be fun to0!

 
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eranschau

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So I had to perform a little minor surgery on Saturday.

I've been having issues lately with my protein skimmer; The Vertex Alpha 200 ROCKS, but lately it's been a bit bipolar. It will alternate between not really producing foam at all to overflowing and getting salt spray on EVERYTHING and it would always happen when I was either asleep or not at home. (My hunch is that this has something to do with the hang-on-glass algae scrubber I installed not so long ago.)

Got sick of cleaning up the salt spray, so I added a float switch on a small bracket to the collection cup. I may end up needing to empty the shimmer a bit more often, but hopefully the float will now kill the skimmer before it gets to the point where it's overflowing and washing that disgusting green crap back into the tank. o_O

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monkiboy

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you need a skimmate locker from avast for your skimmer - check it out. incredible peace of mind and between that and a swabbie cuts maintenance down a bajillion fold.
 

Leadfooted

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Amazing tank build! I've been looking for a shut off for my Skimmer overflow chamber. Where did you get that little trick (float valve) from?
 
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eranschau

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Amazing tank build! I've been looking for a shut off for my Skimmer overflow chamber. Where did you get that little trick (float valve) from?
I picked up a few from @Bulk Reef Supply when I started the build. Have a couple in a box on my supply room as spares just in case one should ever fail. They're excellent piece of mind! The bracket that holds it in is just a bit of plexiglass I picked up from Lowe's and cut to size then bent with a heat gun.
 
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