Dan's 210 Build

[saltwaterwannabe]

I think that if my sea swirls are exposing the glass bottom of my tank in large arch shapes that I must have enough flow.
Guess I will be making some adjustments. I can actually adjust the 3 sea swirls and just about clean the sand off about 1/2 the tank bottom. Looks like I will be getting some flat locline nozles.
I have the pump throttled back quite a bit still, it looks like I will be changing out the impeller to conserve energy too.

 

[lmm1967]

Looking good !

 

[saltwaterwannabe]

Update with a little coral. The lights have been in night mode for a couple hours and I just cranked up the lights a few minutes ago so a lot of coral is still closed up.

I plan to build one more rock structure near the back middle with a ledge to the right hand structure to cover the glass patch near the overflow - then place the rest of the coral. I am contemplating just leaving the glass patch exposed and seeding it with coraline or attaching some palys to the back wall. The seaswirl attachments will be changed out for smaller less conspicuous black fittings.

I have been through half the 3 month qt period I set out for. With coral and light in the tank, it makes me think about a shorter qt period. I did change up my qt strategy after losing a couple of fish quite early in the qt period. I have lost a total of 5 fish out of 30. I still have 4 isolated qt systems going and I have been doing extra wc's on my main system, using dt water for the qt wc. The wc are almost painless now with some help of a hose and dedicated drain, but it would be nice to get everything into the dt.

All fish in qt have been through a week round of dewormer food (Dr G's) followed by a round of anti fungal food (also Dr G's) I also ran prazipro for a couple weeks. I am thinking of repeating the medicated food for a few days then moving the fish over by the end of this weekend. After a huge loss of fish, I am a bit leary of moving everything from qt, but I am also anxious at the same time qnd my family keeps asking. So...I will provide a bit of info and ask for some diverse opinions.

I have a 240 watt (yes, classic uv 240 watt on 660 gallons of water. 210+
+140+60+30+120) I have not yet measured the flow, but the duckbill nosles on the 3 sea swirls are moving the sand around very gently accross most of the tank bottom. I am estimating about 4000 gph, nearly 20x flow through the dt an hour based on the pump head chart. I have a pitot tube guage I plan to attach this weekend to verify the flow. The only flow bypassing the uv is going to my 60 gallon fuge and 30 gallon frag tank. The plan os to be able to kick the @@@@ out of any parasites that make it to the water column.

With that saod, would 45 days qt having ran throuh medicated food be enough time?

 

[saltwaterwannabe]

Family wanted the fish in the tank for Thanksgiving guests....decision made

All fish are in the DT for Thanksgiving!

 

[saltwaterwannabe]

I officially have a sickness.....I bought more fish today. Lol

 

[Dmitri]

Happy holidays!
What kind of fish did you get ?

 

[saltwaterwannabe]

Skimmer air supply.

 

[saltwaterwannabe]

Happy holidays!
What kind of fish did you get ?

Powder brown
Naso (could not find a blonde)
Naso 2 (thought it was a blonde...will return or fatten to sell)
Longnose hawk
2 frostbite clowns
Flasher wrasse
Neon dottyback
Purple dottyback
Copperbamd butterfly (replaces lost one)
3 cleaner wrasses (1 jumped from bucket)
Coral beauty angel(replaces lost one)
2 mandarins

 

[saltwaterwannabe]

I decided to make a list of everything I need to do to consider my setup complete....wow was that a mistake

Lol.

 

[AquariumSchmo]

I decided to make a list of everything I need to do to consider my setup complete....wow was that a mistake

Are they ever complete? There is always something to change or add.

How are the fish doing?

 

[saltwaterwannabe]

All fish aok atm. I lost one of the nasos a few days ago, so I am actually glad I got two. I think the powder brown got him.

I had a scare tonight with my blue regal tang. It looked to be covered in ich on one side, but on closer inspection it was microbubbles. One of the 2 two inch pipes from my basement 240 to the sump is partly blocked, causing an overflow a couple nights ago that lowered the water enough to start throwing bubblues up to the main floor dt.

I tried a few unsuccessful methods to clear the blockage but in the end chose to dial the flow back a bit and wait to dissasemble the plumbing when I relocate the 240, hopefully after Christmas.

At the same time, my skimmer is apparently overskimming so I am back to adjusting it again. I removed the homemade skimate locker with float switch shutoff a week ago since it was generating quite an odor. I programmed my Apex to turn off the skimmer if the ato runs for 15 minutes and not to turn it back on until the ato stops running for 15 minutes, which helps but does not sokve the issue. It is clear the ato and skimmer are now working together to lower my salinity and can draw the water level low enough that an old sock can backup enough water to lower the sump level...again causing bubbles and not likely great for the hammerhead pump. I plan to build a better locker soon and have everything I need. Maybe this weekend...

My list of stuff to tweak and build is 24 tasks over an hour or 2 each and growing...lol. it is fun, just time consuming. The family has been great at putting up with it, but I will be taking it slow over Christmas so I can focus on family.

I plan to focus any reef efforts tasks that reduce maintemance and improve wq first but it is so easy to get sidetracked

 

[saltwaterwannabe]

Here are some updated pics. I still have oje more wave of rockwork and fish then I will put the remaining coral in the tank.

Not bad, but I have a whole work week of stuff to do to finish....lol.

 

[Trizzino]

Looking awesome.

 

[saltwaterwannabe]

Found the overflow culprits. At least this only caused overflow in tbe basement and I caught it quickly.

 

[lmm1967]

WOW

 

[saltwaterwannabe]

Here are the new adapters for my Sea Swirls. The top and bottom pieces were just to keep paint from getting inside. They are each made from a 1.25 pvc coupling and a 1.25 slip x 0.75 fthd adapter. I cut off all excess on a chop saw then routered the end smooth. Hopefully these will no longer be noticable in my tank.

 

[saltwaterwannabe]

As I keep modifying the nozzles on my seaswirls and cranking the flow up on my return pump, the "freeboard" I have between pumping my sump dry to overflowing when the pump is off has become a limitting factor. Adding a check valve keeps about 20 gallons of water in the return line, leaving plenty of freeboard to crank the flow up further.

Now I no longer get the gurgling of air being pushed through the nozzles when restarting the pump. I shoulf have added the check valve long ago!

 

[saltwaterwannabe]

I modified my 2nd hammerhead to a barracuuda a few days ago but now that I have the hammerhead wide open, I may put the hammerhead impeller back in the backup pump. The only soumd I hear is the 1 inch drop through the weirs, not bad at all.

 

[saltwaterwannabe]

The QT's are finally coming down! All remaining fish are slowly aclimating and I have a new rock structure ready to put in the DT right before the new fish go in. I also still have a tub of fully cycled bioballs bioballs from the 65 as backup filtration in case any fish need to come out of the DT.

I will need to get rid of a couple of the tanks and will be posting for sale pics later. I plan to keep all the equipment for backups etc. If you have special interest in any of these, pm me and I will post them first. I will keep either the 120 or the 65 as well as either the biocube or the 29/10 plumbed combo.

 

[saltwaterwannabe]

All fish are in and QT's cleaned! Here is the latest fish stock list (for my record)

6 inch blue tang
6 inch sailfin tang
4 inch powder brown tang
4 inch naso tang
3 inch blue tang
3 inch kole eye tang
2 x 3 inch yellow tang
5 inch scribbled rabbit
3 x 5 inch engineer gobies
3 x 3 inch cleaner wrasses
4 inch christmas wrasse
3 inch pin nose hawk
2 inch 6 line wrasse
2 inch decorative 6 line wrasse
3 inch coral beauty
3 inch green harptail blenny
4 x 3 inch purple firefish
3/4 inch oscelaris clown
2 × 3/4 inch blizzard clowns
3 inch filefish
2 inch spotted mandarin
4 x 1 inch pajama cardinals
4 inch algae blenny
5 inch tiger goby

35 fish, I think that is at least enough for a 210. It looks like I may keep my rock loaded 240 online to help with the load.

Crossing my fingers, so far no aggression between 2 blue tangs and both have been out in the open minding their own business. I have the trap ready to go if needed. So far the mirrors on each end of the tank seem to be drawing most occupants' attention.

I added a little rock work to help disrupt the aggression as well. I have more rocks ro move and coral to add over the next few days.