Maroun.c 400 G build thread

[maroun.c]

Purple Haze Montipora

Oct 2015

Mar 2016

June 2016

Mystic monti and Tyree Undata
post quarantine 25-oct-2015

mystic is one on Right

2-Nov 2015 my SSC falls on mystic and this is what remains of it.

16 Jan 2016

Mystic recovering beautifully

Undata

Attributed the growth difference to the SSC burn
June 2016
more growth on undata but nearly none on the Mystic

 

[maroun.c]

Another Undata.

few polyps saved from an old colony in oct 2015 recovered and growing but still not going back to original purple colors

June 2016

And one last undata
From Near dead behind the Setosa Frag in Oct 2015

June 2016

Meteor Shower
16 Jan 2016

June 2016

Chillipepper

Jan 2016

March 2016

June 2016

 

[maroun.c]

Jedi Mind trick monti

16 Jan 2016

June 2016

A frag that got confused between one of two frags in a shipment one of which didn't make it. This came as either a red Robin or a myagi Tort. Still can't make out which one it'll turn out to be if any. Appreciate any suggestions.
Oct 2015

June 2016

WWC Tricolor Valida
October 2015

Mar 2016 top down shot

June 2016

And one of my most preferred corals that I have been struggling to find or grow since 2008. is this Blue Oregon tort. Found an ORA blue tort in 2010-on a trip to US and kept it only gre an inch in2 years before I lost it. picked up with Blue oregon tort from US again in OCt 2015 and it STNd on arrival. only a coupleof coralites stayed alive
Oct 2015

26 Mar 2016

and reasonable gorwth for the Slowest growing coral !!! and an amazing blue!!!
June 2016

 

[maroun.c]

And to end the sequence with the faster grower in my tank by far.
A wild colony which looks the same as the Paletta pink tip green acro.

Oct 2015

March 2016 top down shot

since Mar it's being fragged every other week from the front side to decrease shading of corals below it.
June 2016 ]

 

[drernesto]

Amazing growth and stunning top down colors!

 

[maroun.c]

Thanks

 

[urbaneks]

I just came across your journal. Love what you have going here.

 

[maroun.c]

I just came across your journal. Love what you have going here.

Thanks,
would be very happy if my corals look half happy and colorful as yours

 

[revhtree]

Beautiful!

 

[fabutahoun]

Very Nice Maroun

 

[drernesto]

We need some recents pictures/updates
Thanks!

 

[maroun.c]

Time to re-update this thread
A roller coaster of updates for this build.

So around Sep I relocated to Dubai for a new position at work. As my family will not relocate with me, and after loads of thought we decided to keep the tank running and my wife will keep taking care of it and I would do water changes and other stuff when I travel home on weekends every other week...
As thrilled as I am to keep the tank this meant that serious preparations needed to be taken for this not to turn out into a recipe for disaster.

Started by installing a controller (Apex) to have more visibility and some control on things. The extensive wiring on my setup (tank and Basement setup) was modified to accommodate the apex and still have a set of plugs that my wife can switch to, in order to bypass the APEX just in case it failed..
Apex also had to be placed partly in basement with some modules near DT. Which made it a bit more difficult.

Also as we're on 220V here and Apex powerbars are limited to 8 Amps per Power Bar, this meant that I would need an extensive amount of power bars for my setup as i have the following at least to control:
DT Return pump from basement 4 A
Return pumps for basement frag tanks 2 A
Filtration pumps (Skimmers and reactors) 2 A
lighting for DT alone 7A
Frag tanks lighting 5 A
chillers 6 A
heaters up to 10 A in cold days.
so went with relay switches so that Apex powerbar only provides the signal to a relay that takes power from an outlet to tank equipment. I can now have up to 16 A total draw per outlet of the APEX which so far is more than I need.

 

[maroun.c]

Couple days after installing the Apex I get couple emails notifications about tank temperature.. With me being new to the controller I thought it might mostly be a newbie setup mistake. Email alarms keeps coming so I end up checking fusion and see my tank temperature at 26.5 and it keeps rising Called home to see what wrong and to ask wife to turn of the halides as they can raise temp by 1-1.5 degrees per hour… and she tells me halides are off but LEDs are on! Of course Apex was programmed to shut them down!!! So I head home and monitor temp while on the way and Its at 27.5 when I get home. Check the system to find out one of my 2 chillers has failed. Home AC doesn’t help much as basement is not on AC.
I call the LFS for replacement and they’re out of stock and expecting new stock in few weeks (was looking for a 1.5-2 HP one so not frequently available. So LFS owner lends me a used 1 HP chiller he had!!! This solves it yet the spike costs me STN on a couple of colonies one of them my Paletta pink tip which keeps STNing for weeks till it’s totally lost as well as frags from it!.

So with that incident alone Apex paid for itself

 

[maroun.c]

The Saga continues and few days later I wake up on a dead skimmer. Check it and it’s a broken impeller!

Easy fix as I have a spare one, I immediately replace it and its working fine. Go to work and come back to find second impeller broken. Call the LFS thinking it’s a faulty impeller and they have a replacement in stock luckily (airblaster 10000 ain’t a common size so not many spare parts) I install the new impeller and wake up next day on a broken impeller as well. At 90usd a pop this is not fun and now it’s clear that my pump is faulty and causing impellers to shatter!

Call LFS and there is no pump replacement, it needs to be ordered which will take a week at least. LFS asks me to come pick up a temporary skimmer while my pumps ships and when I arrive they offer to lend a brand new in box skimmer to use while waiting for pump. I insist on refusing it as it doesn’t make sense to open a brand new skimmer. They had a much smaller one that I said I would borrow, but they insisted it wasn’t enough for my tank size and took off the skimmer they have on their DT and lend it to me till I received my pump which unfortunately took 3 weeks! In a country with very little customer support this was a first.

The Saga continues and few days later I wake up on a dead skimmer. Check it and it’s a broken impeller!

Easy fix as I have a spare one, I immediately replace it and its working fine. Go to work and come back to find second impeller broken. Call the LFS thinking it’s a faulty impeller and they have a replacement in stock luckily (airblaster 10000 ain’t a common size so not many spare parts) I install the new impeller and wake up next day on a broken impeller as well. At 90usd a pop this is not fun and now it’s clear that my pump is faulty and causing impellers to shatter!

Call LFS and there is no pump replacement, it needs to be ordered which will take a week at least. LFS asks me to come pick up a temporary skimmer while my pumps ships and when I arrive they offer to lend a brand new in box skimmer to use while waiting for pump. I insist on refusing it as it doesn’t make sense to open a brand new skimmer. They had a much smaller one that I said I would borrow, but they insisted it wasn’t enough for my tank size and took off the skimmer they have on their DT and lend it to me till I received my pump which unfortunately took 3 weeks! In a country with very little customer support this was a first.

 

[maroun.c]

On a positive note new external chiller arrived. got a 1 HP external chiller. compared to internal Deltec and REsun 1 HP internal chillers I have on the setup, each alone can barely keep the temp stable where as the external one at same power draw is able to lower the temp at same power draw.

 

[hybridazn]

Sorry about the recent misfortune. Seems we all go thru this at one point or another...

 

[Preme]

Sorry to hear about that

 

[fabutahoun]

Sorry About all That misfortune Maroun, the Paletta pink tip is one my favorite corals and i know how much you like it and it should be heart breaking to lose a beautiful colony.
Its look like your tank is being struck with one disaster after another

 

[maroun.c]

Thanks Fadi, Yeah its a very nice coral and I'm very sad to lose it. I'm hoping a forgotten frag will pop up in one of the frag tanks or that I'll get my hands on one in the future.

 

[maroun.c]

And for the saddest update I have had in my reefing years. Couple years back I started noticing tiny bubbles in the left front seam which somehow looked to increase very slow. I discussed them with tank builder and also with couple of other builders and the input from all after inspecting the bracing for stress mark and the look of the silicone was that this was either a normal occurance with time (although only at the 5 years mark) or a bad patch of silicone (after the bubbles started looking like a dry area of silicone and I could see either water or vacuum in) they agreed on that in a worse case scenario this would lead to a minor drip and that could either be fixed by silicon injection in the seam, an internal resilicon of the seam or an internal/external glass being added on that side to seal it if it happened.
With time my concern grew especially after I could see water moving inside the seam. The fact that I was now remotely located made it more annoying as I didn’t want my wife or family to struggle with a tank leak or burst when I’m away which most probably would result in total loss of the livestock, water damage and most important risk of injury electrocution or fire.

The idea of the tank failing kept getting worse that I decided despite all reassurances, to have a new tank made and do a 1 day swap of the glass. So I flew back to Lebanon on Dec 1 and we had the new tank assembled by Dec 5th.
Although previous tank was built beyond safety factors, and that I couldn't attribute the seam issue to the build I decided to make the following changes:

Glass thickness: from 15 to 19mm glass with starphire front
Bottom pannel: from 15+10 mm glass to 2x19mm glass pannel and front pannel in front and not on top of bottom pannel. Also bottom pannle is made in 2 pieces for lower glass and 3 pieces for upper part which would give a bit of flexibility to the glass.
Bracing: from 2x12mm Euro bracing with no front to back bracing to 20 mm horizontal front and back braces and 3 front to back 19mm braces on top of those. I have grown to love a braceless design, and although I didn't atribute the happening to bracing I felt that this would proved an added security that is higher priority than flexibility when scaping or adding corals or a bit of shadowing. I had hte braces made from starphire glass for less shadowing.
Overflow: still external and in same position but made it a bit deeper for easier tuning.
Tank dimensions: made the tank a bit higher to allow for a higher wave without seing water/air so from 220x85x75(88x34x30) to 220x85x81 (88x34x32.5) 1400L (365G) 1515(410 G)

Believe the clarity of the bracing will minimize shadowing.

Double bottom

front to back braces added

Front and back braces added