ChrisQ's New beginning... and hopefully last.

[ChrisQ0904]

Well, I have reached that time again where I need to make a new build thread. I figure what better day than delivery day. I have a few other builds that have ended for one reason or another and always lead to teardowns. My last teardown was a waterbox 130.4 and whatever little remains from that are sitting in a neglected IM 50g AIO. I have been pretty checked out from reefing due to new job and this wonderful housing market. Long story short I finally feel stable in my new job and have finally found a new (to us) home.

My new tank is going to be a little smaller than the waterbox mainly to not take up as much space in the smaller living area. I ended up going with a IM 75 EXT taking advantage of the sale they had going on.

So far I'll be running:

Lighting
XR30 deciding between running 2 or 1 with t5 supplement

Flow
2x Tunze 6095
Return pump not sure yet

Filtration
Most likely simple 20g with baffles
redsea reefmat 500

I have my old lifereef skimmer that i need to see if it fits and isnt too strong

May also dry ditching the skimmer and attempt an ATS. I haven't had too much luck with these but maybe this time will be different and just feed more if needed.

I'll be doing new sand since I'm not a fan of reusing sand. For rock scape I ordered a marco rock shelf kit from BRS and will be moving over some from the 50g as well.

I'm sure I'm missing some details but will do my best to keep things as updated/documented as possible. First update should be later today after the tank arrives.

Thanks for following this build.

 

[nuxx]

Sounds interesting, post pics

 

[John Bolden]

following

 

[kevgib67]

Following!

 

[ChrisQ0904]

Well that was certainly an interesting delivery. To make a long story short I had to call IM before I accepted the delivery because of the driver. He brought it in my my garage no problem but when I went to open it up to check for damage he got upset. He literally blocked me from even cutting the plastic off because he said the outside was good. We went back and forth for a little so I made him wait before signing until I got a hold of IM. Thankfully they were understanding of the situation and worked with me.

Finally get to open the box and the tank was..... fine. Which is great but the driver was just unbearable and wouldn't budge. The IM rep did say they were going to be passing this instance to their logistics department and see if they can clarify with the shipping company.

Enough of the complaining... got the stand built after some fiddling around trying to get the stand square. I'm not really sure where I went wrong with building it but I had to loosen all the connections to adjust it to sit flat and as square as I could get it. All while having a toddler dying to help... good times lol.

I was kinda surprised the overflow is glass, I guess I missed that detail somewhere or just assumed it was acrylic.

Close to its final resting spot. I want to move it away from the switch a little more but I don't want to get too close to the TV. Might just end up playing musical stand tomorrow.

I also scored a great deal on a 20 long with baffles locally, just got to get it cleaned up. Forgot to order a gate valve because I thought I had one but can't seem to find it so here comes another BRS order.

 

[ChrisQ0904]

Was ae to get plumbing done and leak tested. Had no leaks thankfully! Only thing I need to add is a check valve since this tank like to drain a lot of water and I'm pushing it as far as not overflowing.

I seem to have lost my power supply for my algae scrubber lights. Now I'm more on the fence about running one or just setup a skimmer. I've always seemed to have issues with low pH so I now I'm leaning a little more towards skimmer with a line running to the garage.

 

[Gumbies R Us]

Love the stand for the tank!

 

[ChrisQ0904]

Well, things finally got settled down a bit. I transferred the fish from the 50g and the little coral I had left. Move went pretty good just going through an ugly phase right now.

Aquascape was kinda just thrown together and I actually like how it turned out.

Until clam is just too big for this tank so will have to find a new home.

Tank is still a little cloudy but it's not too bad. Skimmer already pulled some nasty stuff out so pretty happy about that.
Ran skimmer line outside and that has bumped my daytime ph from 7.8 to about 8.1. I just need to find a solution for lights out because it still drops to 7.6.
Plans were algae scrubber but I'm afraid to run too clean with the roller mat and skimmer already doing an amazing job. There's no space for a refugium in the sump either.

Even with the ph issue I'm pretty happy with where the tank is at right now.

 

[dstockwell]

Lookin good

 

[ChrisQ0904]

Lookin good

Thank you

 

[ChrisQ0904]

Well, I forgot to keep up with the updates... I ended up getting rid of the clam because it took too much space and was pretty much out growing the tank. I have added a few more corals as well. I ended up going through a weird huge cyano outbreak and ultimately ended up treating with chemiclean. The treatment worked well but bleached a few corals, at least things are coming back for the most part. I added an algae scrubber for a little bit but wasn't working for my tank very well. I'll need to get a chaeto reactor or find a way to add a refugium in this sump, but am very limited on space.

Here are some random pictures of a few things.

 

[ChrisQ0904]

If you guys like my build thread could you please follow my coral page on Instagram? It's a little outdated but hope to keep that going as well. Me and a buddy of mine, who has a 330g, post both of our tank stuff on that page.

@FatBoyCorals

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[ChrisQ0904]

Tank maintenance happened today. Did the weekly 10g water change and tested. Today my results were as follows:

Alk - 8.1
CA - 400
MG - 1305
N03 - 1.4
P04 - 0.03

Dosed some nitrates to try and bring it back up to 5ish. Tomorrow I plan to dose a little calcium to try and bump that up as well. Checked my par and my highest points were reading 330-340 so pretty happy there as well.

Got my R2R secret Santa gift and was lucky enough to get a fleece roll for the roller mat and a cool dog calendar.

Also, a few months back I had an aiptasia eating file fish that completely destroyed one of my scolys and I think I can finally say it's not dead and even though it's tiny it actually has good color and extends polyps for food.

And here's just some random coral picture from the tank.

Hope everyone had a great weekend!

 

[ChrisQ0904]

Fell a little off from my 3 day testing schedule due to Christmas mayhem but was able to test yesterday and numbers seem good. Pretty much ar my target so really need to start my fine tuning for stability now.

N03: 6.5 (want 10ish)
P04: 0.03
Alk: 9.0
CA: 425
MG: 1300ish I'm not sure if I missed the color change but fairly ok with.

"Bad" news is that I can't keep my glass clean for the life of me. I'll scrape the glass clean then about an hour later there's a noticeable film on the glass again.

Here is a picture of how the glass looks an hour after cleaning.

 

[ChrisQ0904]

Happy new year everyone!

I have officially given up my Ph battle. I will just have to accept that I'll drop below 7.8 at night and regularly hit 7.5ish and will never hit anything about 8.1 regularly. I live in Florida so 90% of the year I will have to have the windows closed. I have my skimmer line outside and a c02 scrubber and evern with all that my pH stays as listed above. I'll have to be grateful that corals stay alive but just grow slow I guess. Very very frustrating but part of the process for me I guess.

On the bright side, my glass is staying cleaner longer now. Not really sure what I did different but my water clarity has also drastically improved.

 

[ChrisQ0904]

Had a fun past couple of days... my skimmer broke and by broke I mean I snapped the ceramic shaft for the impeller during cleaning. After frantically searching for option I found that no one online had any impeller assemblies in stock. I reached out to coral vue and they were able to sell me just the ceramic shaft for $11ish. I was very anxious to get it here I decided to overnight it since my pH was somehow dropping to 7.5 without a skimmer running. I ordered 2 so if I am clumsy again ill be good to go.

 

[ChrisQ0904]

Went to RAP orlando and picked up a few goodies. Here are some pictures of a few pieces that I could get halfway decent shots of. Will try to update with more pictures once I get better shots.

Unknown

Fruity Pebbles

JF Neophobia

 

[ChrisQ0904]

With the new additions to the tank from RAP things have been consumed a little more. Here are tests from yesterday and had to make some adjustments to my all for reef. Not sure why my n03 and p04 are so high though, but not seeing any issues so not too concerned about it. Also sent out an ICP test this week since I have a bunch of reef moonshine products sitting around. Figured I would put them to use and do 20% quarterly water changes if needed.

Thanks to all who are still following this still.


Oh, almost forgot I also started feeding @coral reeftank 's concoction. Most of the corals have really responded well to it after only 2 feedings. And some sps still seem to be feeding the day after (at least visually). I'm no expert in this topic so please forgive me if anything about the concoction is incorrect in this post or any previous posts I may make about it.

 

[ChrisQ0904]

Not a great picture of the exact amount but my whiteworm culture seems to be thriving. Was able to find a "warm" culture strain and are super simple to keep.