Reefingbuddha's 300 DD

[reefingbuddha]

Thanks guys!

They really are great tanks and I love the dimension. It does trick the eye a bit and its hard to tell how wide it is.

Its a constant struggle to try and keep things clean and trust me, the fish room looks pretty banged up, just not taking pictures of it. I still need to get a work bench and shelving system worked out but things are on track. Just got lazy since the display has been doing so well.

 

[reefingbuddha]

Good luck with the netting. If you have the same cra ppy luck as me then all your wrasses will make it out the ONLY spot you have open (by your returns). So you might wanna think about closing that off as well. Just my opinion.

Yeah I've heard that's the way it usually goes. To bad there are no 45's or semi circle screen frames. I'm going to tool around with some acrylic to see if I can't figure something out. I have a few ideas.

 

[EliteReefs]

great tank. i also see no problme with the tangs you have chosen. i had almost the same mix in our 450 a few years ago and never had a problem.

 

[reefingbuddha]

great tank. i also see no problme with the tangs you have chosen. i had almost the same mix in our 450 a few years ago and never had a problem.

Fantastic! Great to hear.

I'm dealing with a little ich at the moment but its contained to 2 or 3 fish, at least based on visual inspection (which I know is not 100% accurate). I'm trying some relatively non-invasive ways to get rid of it at the moment and we'll see how it goes.

I'm using a pentair 160w UV Sterilizer that's currently running on my return pump. Its rated at 6000gph so the 3000gph or so that are going through my return manifold should handle it. About 2000gph go through the display so that means it should process the tanks volume every hour and 20 minutes or so.

I do know the UV sterilizers are not usually considered a effective way of ich eradication in a display tank but with this units turnover and the small infection I'm hoping to break the parasites reproductive cycle before it takes further hold. The infected fish only have a few visible infection sites and are still eating aggressively. I'm feeding vitamin enriched frozen foods at the moment and will start feeding fresh fish once I get a change to hit up the local fish market.

The UV sterilizer brings up the tank temp a bit, to between 81-82, so the slight increase in temperature should also decrease the time it take the parasite to complete its life cycle.

Thanks to Amashun, jnarowe, and a few others for their suggestions and advice.

 

[reefingbuddha]

Not very happy with my controller this morning. Power went out at about 3 this morning and the emergency generator immediately kicked in. Normal power resumed some time after that, not sure I was sleeping.

The short of it is that when I woke up at 6 I noticed that that all the lights for the tank were on and the return pump was off! The controller for some reason thought both these outlets were on so it continued to run the heaters and everything else. The tank is just fine but under difference circumstances it could have been a disaster.

I guess I'll need to get a UPS just for the apex but what about all the connected control outlets? Will they change state during a power outage and the controller won't know again?

Makes me nervous...

 

[revhtree]

I use a ReefKeeper Elite, but I run my main return straight into an outlet just in case the controller fails.

 

[reefingbuddha]

Makes sense Rev! The reason I have it on a controller is that during feeds I shut down the return pump for 5 minutes and that automatically adjusts cuts off heaters, skimmer, alarms, top-off, etc.

One of the dangers of significantly automating the system I guess. I'll have to find a affordable UPS solution that bridges the short gap between power outage and the generator kicking on.

Another annoy thing is that I need the DHCP option on (which I think automatically assigns IP among other settings) to get the controller to network properly but after every power outage it obviously gets assigned a new, and usually different IP.

I really need to get someone over that understands networks better then me to set this up properly.

 

[Murfman]

BUddah, you could assign it, and your modem/router a static IP, this way it never changes. You need to work with your ISP to do this though.

 

[reefingbuddha]

I've tried to talk to bright house (my service provider) and the customer service is crap. Maybe I'll make up a problem so they send out a technician and get him to help me. Thanks for the suggestions.

thought I would show everyone the tank log I have been keeping. Please excuse spelling mistakes as I never spell checked it.

 

[reefingbuddha]

Thought I would share my tank log this morning as well. This is the spreadsheet I came up with. Its setup as a list so that I can sort by any of the variables on the top and totals are automatically updated with each entry.

Updated for spelling errors

 

[Murfman]

What are you using for the spreadsheet?

Here is some info on static IP addresses;

http://portforward.com/networking/static-xp.htm

 

[reefingbuddha]

I'm just using excel. Thanks for the link, I'll check it out.

 

[Murfman]

Much nicer than my tracking sheet.

 

[reefingbuddha]

Its a standard Excel auto format. There is a bunch of color and combo options.

 

[reefingbuddha]

BTW Murfman, your tank link in your signature links to what appears to be nicks387's 300g.

 

[Murfman]

BTW Murfman, your tank link in your signature links to what appears to be nicks387's 300g.

what the heck??? I wonder how that happened. I am subscribed to Nick's build though. Thanks for the heads up.

 

[reefingbuddha]

Great tank build murf, I really like the rock work and coral placement. I like the idea of a introduction box as well, have to make one of those. I also really like the bar top and wish I could have incorporated a side view as you did. At least I can enjoy it from the tank room.

 

[reefingbuddha]

Picture time!

All they fish are out cause they think I'm about to feed them

Back of Tank

Left Side

Right Side

Front

 

[thanhreef]

wow. it looks great. The sand is very clean. What is the secret?

 

[dabruecker]

Awesome set up!