Jared’s sca 50g reef (1 year update 5-17/24)

[Ef4life]

So the summer rages on in Phoenix, the house has been pretty steady only hitting about 90* inside for a few hours then cooling back down. So the tanks aren’t in really in danger anymore with the fans on.

The sca has been chugging along, I haven’t done much as far as maintenance goes besides cleaning the glass, been kind of burnt out lately and neglecting the reefs. But everything is looking good and growing.

The 40b has went through some stuff. Just last week I lost 3 corals, my blue tort, a pink Mille, and about 50% of a teal stag horn. Not entirely sure what caused it. But again I’ve been slacking and whatever it was seemed to be stopped by a much needed waterchange last week. I think whatever it was might have killed my harlequin shrimp too as I haven’t see in for a few days now. I did some maintenance today cleaning all the powerheads and looking things over. Im
Doing another 5g wc tomorrow, along with one on the sca.

The mangroves are doing ok. Getting tall, so I’m probably going to wire them up and bend them a bit to reduce the height.

The pirates ended up double crossing each other, the boat was too small for 2 pirates and treasure. Dead men tell no tales

 

[Ef4life]

So I managed to break off the drain pipe on my 40g system, that was a mess. I ended up risking it all and drilling the glass while to tank was still full so I could upgrade my drain setup. The downside was I wasn’t able to raise up the hole height at all, so the drains are going to be a tight fit as I only have 1” between the rim of the tank and the bottom of the drain bulkheads to fit 2 seperate 3/4” drain lines. I’ll probably have to trim the bulkheads length down slightly for a little more clearance.

Used some magnets to hold the template on the tank.

Successfully drilled the new large hole

Installed the new overflow box

Bulkhead clearance - gonna be tight

 

[Ef4life]

And I got the pipes snaked in, I had to trim the pvc street fitting end and the bulk heads a little bit, and I had to Sand the emergency drain pipe just a smidge to clear the tank rim. I wanted a gate valve, but this being last minute on a Saturday night repair a ball valve is all I could acquire. Honestly the gate valve probably wouldn’t fit in the space I have. Now I need to wait a few Hours for the glue to cure a bit before I turn the flow on

 

[Ef4life]

Hindsight being 20/20 I could have just reversed the 2 drain bulkheads and had plenty of space. It would have raised the water level in the overflow box slightly but would have saved me an hour of modifications and test fitting

 

[Ef4life]

the new drain setup on the 40b system is working flawlessly, it took a few days to get the ball valve tuned, but it’s silent and keeps a consistent water level.

I also lost quite a few corals over the past month or 2 had a huge algae outbreak. I lost 3 of my little acropora colonies in my display and dozens of frags - All my blue tort frags are gone. I still have the little colony in my display though. I lost my last torch frag I was growing And a single head of hammer. I can’t say if it was a specific thing that happened, but i feel it’s been a combination of factors, summer temperature swings due to the house construction, me slacking on maintenance a little bit, ato stopped working so i have been manually filling it up a few times a day. The tank is looking ok now though, it’s turning the corner on its way into recovery

The sca 50 is doing well, I was dealing with some kind of pinkish slime in the sump, it’s not as nearly bad as it was but still hanging out in the sump. Mangroves are getting tall. I’m thinking of taking one out and planting it in a pot. I put some wire on one to bend it and hopefully will grow out a cool little bonsai styled tree. Speaking of bonsai, I have 2 seedling from the original batch still growing, one has really taken off this past month, the other is slowly catching up. I am trying to grow one in the cascade style. Anyways the tank still has the turfy algae growing, but it’s getting better every week. The hob filter turf scrubber is starting to grow algae now so that’s helping. Corals all looking good and growing , the acroporas are all a little pale, but they pretty much have been. Photo from cleaning time,

I haven’t messed with the lego reef display too much, I got a few more lobsters, and a collectible minifg diver with a unique baby turtle that I added. I have been working on my large castle build, building out the stone stairs up the mountain. I really want to get this thing built so I can get it on a shelf and out of my way - it’s 3ft long and 15” front to back and when finished will be around 2ft tall minimum