54 corner

[Pat02026]

There will be another 1x1 across the front under the shelves as well as at least 3/4x2" trim across the front of the shelves. It's sturdy, very sturdy. The shelves as well as the support strips are glued and secured using lifetime exterior decking screws through the braces and shelves. After all the holes are drilled for the plumbing, inside is getting a coating of either exterior porch paint or some type of heavy duty exterior coating to prevent water from penetrating and de-laminating the plywood just like my display's stand. Then stain and poly on the outside. One thing I wanted to do was dado the sides and back to accept the shelf but I was not set up at my house to be able to do that.

 

[Pat02026]

Plumbing is done, it's all coming apart for paint tonight, tomorrow I need to pick up a couple 90* fittings I thought I already had and it will be ready to hook up. It's going to be nice for maintenance now. The tank wasn't all that bad to work with before but there's so much going on under the stand at this point with the addition of the ATS there would be no more room to do anything. It's going to be nice!

 

[Pat02026]

Here's an update on the sump, I am running some water through everything and still working on the plumbing and wiring, but this is about as neat as I can make it, while keeping it easy to work on in the tiny (7'x7') room it's located in. There's also a desk and my 2'x2' footprint water changing station in the same room. Also a few new additions to the display, thanks to Archit @ love the reef!

 

[Pat02026]

And one more piece to the puzzle for when the new sump gets tied in is a DIY auto water change using peristaltic pumps and a float switch in the make up water tank

 

[Pat02026]

Going to try to add a quick little video of my system here, lets see if it goes according to plan

http://youtu.be/gwaspDNGIKo


Cool, sorry for the quality. Its my first time uploading through my phone. So the tank is obviously a little crowded, but everyone including the corals are happy. The small amount of cyano in the tank is from a few issues, D/i resin is spent so I'm starting to get 1-2 ppm which I need to swap out before next water change.

The frag tank is obviously only been running for two weeks now, so its going to go through the cyan/diatom/GHA/ phases, and hopefully it don't pollute the display too much. The rock thats in the frag tank has been in my system for close to a year. Theres an MP10 on lagoon mode in the 20l. Please ignore the DIY hodgepodge light, its only up for a few more days until the reefbreeders bridgeluxe color fixture arrives. You can also see the overflow box I built out of acrylic, single 1" drain (running a very low turnover rate, really through the entire system which is solely powered by an eheim 1262 still)

next up is the refugium, soon to be replaced with the Algae turf scrubber. Theres not much to see here

Then the control area, which houses the Co2 tank for Ca rx, and my Avast media reactor housing 1/2 cup GFO on the bottom and 1 cup of rox.8 carbon changed monthly, sooner if I feel it's necessary. You also see filter socks; they are there for cleaning time, and if theres a chance of me moving things around, each part of the system has its own return area in the sump with a dedicated sock. For instance when the frag tank starts building any nuisance algaes, ill toss in the sock to hopefully prevent anything large from escaping and seeding itself elsewhere, like the display.

The avast skimmer rocks. This is literally two days after being tied in to the system, and I've already emptied the cup twice from half. It is running in recirc mode, being fed by the return. The air silencer could be a little quieter on the skimmer, but overall the whole setup is surprisingly quiet. the display in my livingroom is now much quieter that everything is out from underneath the stand.

Then theres the sump and calcium reactor. I guess its all pretty straight forward. I tried to build this to be as efficent and simple to work on/maintain as possible. So far has proved 10x easier than working under the stand. I also added about 25 additional gallons to the system, and about 15 gallons worth of extra real estate in the sump for whatever reason would necessitate it! Thanks for looking!

 

[Pat02026]

Just a few final notes, disregard the wiring and plumbing disaster, as well as the TV in the background. I will be neatening things up as time goes on, half of the controller is still under the display, so until I move that to the sump system there are a couple extra wires running back and forth. Also plan on implementing an automated water change in the near future. Theres still a lot of cleaning up left to do, but I will update with a new video in a few weeks when I can neaten and finish everything up!

 

[Pat02026]

Small update; Everything is doing very well, and has adjusted to the changes in the system. My acros are back to full PE, my RBTA split again (I've been feeding it 2x a week to force a split and it finally has) and I picked up a few new frags. ORA chips, pink millie, candle light acro,and some purple death paly's to name a few. Theres a Reefbreeders value dimmable 120w color led fixture above the frag tank, which I must say is pretty sweet. I am not by any means convinced to take the halide down from the display yet though. The Avast skimmer just plain rocks. It has been super stable, and filling the cup every four days with..... well..... reef diarrhea. I yanked out the few mangroves I had, since they havent been doing well. My cheato has since grown 4x the size in less than a month. I really need to bring the algae scrubber on-line. Its been sitting collecting dust, might be a good project for this weekend.

 

[yukyuklee]

looking good pat!

 

[BlackSmith]

Hi Pat. I enjoyed reading\viewing this journal. Your tank looks great. I am close to putting water in my 60g cube. About 3-4 weeks away. Still need to buy a few things. My fixture is a 250w MH + 96W t5 actinics. Looks like a Coralife Aqualight Pro. Heat is definitely a concern for me and I REALLY don't want to buy a chiller, used or new. Your tanks lighting looks good. Even though we have different fixtures I wanted to know how many inches away the bulb is from the water surface? Did you ever buy or make a screen top for your corner tank to prevent more suicide jumpers?

 

[Pat02026]

Thanks,
My Halide fixture sits merely 6" above the tank. If I raise it up, the amount of light spillover is unbearable, and thats wasted light too. I think 2" higher would help to reduce the heat issue, but honestly its not even all that bad. I say from june through august Ill run a fan across the top of the tank to keep temperature stable/down. I literally use a CVS 6" desk fan and it got the job done. I am not a canopy fan/ maybe on a 6' long tank, but on small tanks they make the tank seem even smaller so I like the look without a canopy.

As far as tops, nope. I haven't made anything and luckily I have not had anymore jumpers. Well actually one of my bartletts anthias jumped out while I was feeding brine shrimp a few weeks back, but luckily I was right there and scooped it back up and right back into the tank he went.

 

[BlackSmith]

Thanks for the info!

 

[Pat02026]

Finally got the ATS running on sunday. I've been putting it off for not much reason, aside from a bit pre-occupied. Anyway I have noticed a lot of my stony corals colors not looking how they used to, as well as little to no polyp extension on a few montis in particular. After some thinking, the MH bulb (250 watt pheonix 14k DE) has been in use for over 2700 hours. WOWZER, didn't think too much about it until I did the math. I guess that can explain the recent growth of hair algae, cyano, and lack of color in a few corals. Well, I should say maybe a bit of a contributing factor!!

I will admit, there has been about 1 hr (give or take within the past three months) of stray direct sunlight hitting my display. Funny thing is I noticed it almost directly on the hair algae area. At this point I have not taken any extreme action, aside from close the blind on the window in which is the offender of letting the morning sun hit my display; besides starting the algae turf scrubber my only other exception against what many might suggest, has been stop running GFO.

I stopped adding GFO to my reactor, in hopes that maybe it was sucking too many nutrients out of my water. I have a HEAVILY populated tank, and it is mixed reef also. My SPS, although I am sure they wont color up to their full potential, nor grow as rapidly as I would like, have what I would like to think is a fair chance with the amount of filtration, lighting, and parameters I try to provide.

I will post up some pics this weekend. I am going to dust off the old P&S to see what I can get for pics. For now, I will track progress to see if the ATS and/or lack of GFO help my tank get back to where it should be and what I hope for it to be.

 

[Pat02026]

ATS is running great. I made a slight modification to it tonight. Its been a bit since I've added any pictures, so heres a few shots
my new Crocea:

Acan from LoveTheReef

and a FTS

wow, those pictures really suck. I need to clean my glass and get my buddy to come by with a real camera again. Oh well, it looks good from my couch!!!

 

[dilligaf29]

great pics tank looks great it looks so stuffed

 

[Pat02026]

The pics are very deceiving, actually I think its the curved glass that makes it appear "packed". Theres a lot of coral in there, but in person theres quite a bit more room in the tank than the pictures depict. I am going to try to get my buddy to come over with his Cannon and get some good pictures again. I am going to be moving soon, and the tank will be at least getting relocated so I would like to get some quality pictures before that happens.

 

[LoveTheReef]

That crocea is GORGEOUS! ;-)

Absolutely love the colors and patterns on it, and it looks great in your tank!

Sent from my SCH-I535 using Tapatalk 2

 

[Pat02026]

This is likely the last of the 54 build, I bought a house and I'll be moving in a few weeks. The new tank is a 90 gallon, and I look forward to seeing that tank grow as this one has. Here's the latest shots of the 54, some things have grown by a large amount, and others have been lost; its been a great experience and this past year I have learned a lot of what not to do! I will apply my experiences with this tank to the new one and hopefully it will be twice the tank this 54 became!

 

[Pat02026]

Cell pics, I know I know. Someday I'll own a decent camera.

 

[s_kelley]

Looks great Pat, shame ya gonna have to break it down. Are you able to set the other tank up and swap when its ready or is an all at once kinda thing?

 

[Pat02026]

Nope, have been planning this for as long as I've been house hunting! The 90 will be up and running at the new place and ill have plenty of time to make the transfer. I do have intentions of dipping and qt ing every piece of coral, and starting with fresh rock in the new display. The new system needs to be done right; I thought I knew what I was doing with this tank but after fighting Zoa nudis, redbugs, flatworms, bryopsis, hair algae, and now possibly monti nudis (losing montis left and right the past two months) the new system is going to be as steril as I can get it!

Luckily the fish are, and always have been healthy! At least I knkw I'm good at keeping a fish tank lol.