Dan's 210 Build

I added one last blonde naso, I hope I’m not becoming a serial naso killer:)

the 125 had to be drained. All quarantined fish moved from the severely leaking 120 to a 60 cube.

I Went on a hunt for the cheapest 120ish gallon low end tank I could find. 4 LFS and a call to another and the largest I can find is a 75 gallon. I’m debating whether to hold out for a pair of 120’s that I want or go with a pair of 75’s. The 8 inch naso is definitely cramped in the 60 cube though and does not have enough room to swim around like he did in the 120. Maybe I will just setup the 240 as a qt? Certainly not my preference.

If anyone has followed this far along, let me know what you think use my 240, pickup a pair of 75’s, or wait to get the 120’s?
 
My view…
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Lovin how it is growing out. I will be ready for trades soon


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This hobby has its ups and downs, lightning got my apex last night and this morning my main pump was blowing water by the housing to the basement floor. Will post update pics when I get the lights back on
 
Still at it, gotta find my lens filters to post pics, my camera skills are a bit lackluster…lol. As always, thanks for the offer to help Todd! I ended up replacing the pump and apex.

I’ve been feeding by hand for a couple months since dunking one of my two feeders for a just a second accidentally. I rinsed and dried it immediately. Now both the dunked and “dry” feeder light up but do not dispense.

I have had an algae outbreak that is all but cleared out now and starting to look good to me again. I was working on the algae when I dunked the feeder.

I accidentally did a 100% water change last weekend, caught it quick though. I left the water fill pump on after vacuuming a couple of detritus hotspots left in my tank from the algae decomposition. I walked off distracted-doh, ADHD at its finest, lol. I typically maintain salinity by using 0.20 salinity in my auto water change setup (no ato), so this dropped my salinity a lot, think 200 gallon water change in a 300 gallon system with 0.20 salinity water...so glad I caught it quick.

Luckily, I wife accidentally ordered salt I left in the Amazon cart so I was able to react quick. I mixed a 0.30 half tank and slowly pumped it in over a hour or so until the tank salinity came back up to 0.2 less than I typically keep it . I did not bring it all the way back to help reduce shock of another salinity change. Everything looks fine ever since and the salinity is slowly returning to normal with constant auto water changes (6 gal/day). Even today, all inhabitants look great other than my larger snowflake eel.

Latest challenge is the aptasia has gotten out of control over the past few months, gotta take care of it but my aptasia wand stopped working and I’ve not replaced it yet. Aiptasia has taken out a lot of coral that will “quickly” grow back but is now encroaching on my larger Duncan colony - aiptasia has to go. The remaining eel will eat peppermints and crabs, so can’t go the natural route to clear them out. I used some Aiptasia X, but all aiptasia is coming back a week later, just smaller. Gotta hit it with a few more doses I guess.

My 16” snowflake bit the dust this morning for no known reason. It was swollen and breathing hard last night, I thought it ate the smaller unseen snowflake since it was swollen from end to end. I touched it with tongs and it took off like a “death swim”, but started acting normal the rest of the evening, just swollen. I saw the smaller 12 inch snowflake this morning, it looks ok - so not eaten by the larger one and not the cause of death.

I am guessing the larger snowflake was poisoned by aiptasia, maybe the 8” rabbit fish, no other explanation i can think of since all inhabitants look fine. I know aiptasia can sting fish, but have read that larger fish are more or less unaffected.

If you have read this far, thanks! Let me know if you have any idea what could have caused a perfectly healthy looking snowflake to swell and die in one evening?
 
Couple of other changes I’ve made the past few months:

I plumbed my 240 watt UV back into the system, running constantly at around 3/4 of the 1300 gph in my drain line - with two of 6 bulbs not working. I am full aware the bulbs don’t run as strong when they are old or used a lot, but I’m past that and even at 25% strength, they are plenty strong enough to kill any floating algae and most parasites. I put it online to help keep the water clear while handling the algae outbreak-it worked as intended and I think I will leave it on at least until everything is 100% back to running as normal.

I started dosing kalk and vinegar again, coral has been plump and bright:). The UV is before the filter socks, which seems to control the “healthy” protein bacteria blooms on my socks that the vinegar dosing causes. The bacteria blooms were good, but would make a mess when changing socks. The UV seems to work well in tandem with vinegar.
 
Also, fixed the cause of the algae outbreak, my fresh water tank has always remained spotless, but this time it was green when I checked. Fix:…I built a brand new 7 stage water filtration setup that I’ve had parts to do for over a year, then finally cleaned the 250 fresh reservoir and 240 peninsula I use for mixing. That was a month ago.
 
From my understanding, you want to connect the uv on your return line. You are wasting the bulb life having all the gunk pass thru before the filter sock and other filtration which is not the best practice.
 
Thanks and understood, the bulbs have been worn out since the last time I had the Uv on my system. I am only looking for water clarity, not really parasites, so I certainly don’t need 240 watts to clear the water though. I am guessing they are around half strength, so with 4 of 6 bulbs working, I am really only producing around 80 watts. I do worry about the energy usage though, maybe I will put a meter plug on it.

When dosing vinegar, I always have a thick mat of bacteria growing throughout the entire system, that literally fills socks and can grow a couple of inches long on the outside of the socks. This also grows on all parts of the system, just not at the rate seen on the socks. When pulling the socks out, there is no real option other than making a giant mess that reaches the DT. Eventually, everything clears out, but it is an ugly process.

The UV before the filter socks seems to dramatically reduce the buildup on the socks and practically eliminated it through the rest of the system. I am guessing it is the 25% bypassing the UV that is still growing on the socks. Without the uv, I have to change socks daily while dosing vinegar.

One would think the socks are doing most of the work with the vinegar dosing after looking at them, but it is really the skimmer that does the work. I adjust for a very wet skim to take out the daily 6 gallon water change, it works very well this way, I can attest that it is working by the rock and equipment turning white again, now even without the good bacteria strings
 
Here is my messy sump room. I’m setting up a 120 cube to start breaking down the 210 to fix the stand that has been wet too long. Probably going to sell or trade some livestock and equipment. Here is my messy sump room…lol, gotta spend some time making it look finished, got it working and more or less stopped setting it up.

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I have told my wife for a couple of years that when my Radeon lights stop working that I would break down and sell the system. Well…that day has come. I will start posting pieces in the auction forum this weekend.

In the unusual event that someone wants to buy the entire or majority of the system, let me know.
 

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I have told my wife for a couple of years that when my Radeon lights stop working that I would break down and sell the system. Well…that day has come. I will start posting pieces in the auction forum this weekend.

In the unusual event that someone wants to buy the entire or majority of the system, let me know.
hate to see you tearing down the tank
 
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