Building my Dream: It's a Miracles!

[BigOldReef]

Looks Sexy !!

[david00061]

Looks great. I like the rock

[gregphoenix]

Originally Posted by jt48

Took down the AquaticLife 8x39w T5's (which still had freshwater bulbs) and replaced with the Vertex Illumina SR260. What a beuty! The hanging kit alone was cool. The light spread fore and aft is incredible. As of now I have the fixture at 6" awl (4" is the minimum). I set it at 4" and it actually covered the 36" width but had a good shadow to right and left. Vertex recommends one foot short of fixture (5 foot fixture for 6 foot tank). As they do not make 7 foot fixtures, I took a chance with the 6 as opposed to getting two three footers and spacing them properly. I'm happy with my decision.

WOW... 8ft rimless with huge

LED lighting system! loveit!

[Crazy_Beaver]

looks great jt!!!

[jt48]

Thanks to all for the compliments. I'm at 5 small fish now and 12 turbos. The dry rock from BRS is doing its thing, something I've never experienced before as I have always used live rock. It releases small flakes and sorta looks like there is always uneaten flake food floating around. Otherwise water parameters are good and tank is at 85%? Clarity.
Unfortunate but interesting is that after I added 3 bg chromis, one died 2 days later. Then I replaced the lost one with another and 2 days later, one died (unknown if it was the new one that perished). At no point did any of them exhibit signs of disease or any aggression was observed.

[geaux xman]

Those b/g chromis just has a terrible track record. They will kill each other when you aren't watching. I tried it once with a set of 6 or 7 and they just dwindled down to 1 and that one finally went too. Occasionally someone will have luck with them though. I think the only way to keep a school of them is to just keep on replacing them.

They are pretty to have a school of them though.

Are you planning to leave your tank uncovered?

I left mine uncovered for about 6 months without any jumpers. Then when I had a fish jump in my QT tank, I decided to cover the DT too.

[Reeftanks6]

This tank looks great. This is my dream one day, hope it comes my way!

[EthanKyle]

Looks great. I'm trying to decide on a tank manufacturer myself. My tank will not be as big as yours but I'm leaning toward a rimless starphire set-up. The size will be 60x24x22. I'll subscribe to this thread for more input.

[Newbie Aquarist]

Nice LED fixture. I have seen those fixtures live and in person. I am pretty impressed with the spread it has. Tank is looking great also.

[jt48]

Just to give you an example of how much of an idiot i am and will need your help. This is my first reef tank that I am cycling with dry rock ( Pukani and branch from BRS). So, after several days of tank start up, when I saw small pieces of what looked like dry flake food floating around I thought wow that interesting, at least the rock is curing. Well, I am approaching the one month mark of tank startup and still intermittentenly observe these flakes but yet I never saw these flakes "fall off" the rock. Well today, I observed a huge section of "flake" enter the display from the return which made it doubtful the source of the flake came from the display. I discovered the source in the sump-the flakes were the paper that is placed on acryllic- on the bottom of my new skimmer. Obviously I never looked on the bottom of the skimmer to see the paper.
Two hours later, skimmer removed and cleaned of paper and glue and sump cleaned up from accumulation. Literally thousands of small flakes of paper filtered out.

[coralreefdoc]

JT48. Take your time, relax ...

This build of yours seems very rushed, decisions made/implemented with great haste, from the way the tank unloading was handled to how the baffle situation/scenario unfolded.

Why the rush ? A project such as this is a major undertaking, for the long term future, and should be executed with techniques suitable to a marathon, not a sprint.

Youre at the point in your build where you have hopefully satisfied the need for instant gratification. Use this transition to change the overall approach ...

There will always be mistakes that permeate in any build, such as making the return baffles the same height , but there isnt anything more solid than patience and puntiliousness in this hobby.

[Newbie Aquarist]

I totally agree with doc. You might be one of the lucky ones but from my experience of what I have seen and what has happened to me, if you rush you looking for troubles down the road especially with fish life.

[jt48]

Okay okay fine I'll slow down, but in my defense, the paper backing on the bottom of the skimmer didn't have anything to do with me rushing things, I had the skimmer lying around since before Christmas. It was more of a case of me not being careful and lack of inspection. Anyway, thanks for the advice, always appreciated. Took some time to slow down by my koi pond and took pic with iPhone. Wish I had a DSLR to play with focus and depth of field.

[Newbie Aquarist]

Everyone forgets. Not shooting you down for that. It could've been worse if it wasn't the paper so notch it up as a overlooked item and on to the next one.

[Petown Mike]

Thank you for maintaining this thread, JT, I have gotten a lot of vicarious joy out of it. Also very educational - I greatly appreciate the thoroughness of your posting, the pics, discussing mistakes, etc.

[jt48]

Been home sick for FMLA cough cough and had some time to play with the tank. Doing research comparing mechanical vs no mechanical filtration and initially decided to go without. However, I have found that my tank is not as clear as it could be. I know my rock is not mature and a year from now it will be much more capable but for now, I believe the addition of some non pressurized mechanical filtration will help with clarity. Knowing the dangers of nitrate production, I plan on changing the MF at least every other day. I decided to build a shelf inside my sump AWL. On this shelf will be a tray containing 50 micro felt pad. I could not locate any new or used light diffusers eggcrate plastic. I used 1/2 inch pvc for my shelf and connected it to the glass with aquarium sealant. I built the tray out of 1/2 inch cpvc, elbows and "T"'s and wrapped that in plastic gutter guard connected via plastic zip ties. Most of this material I had lying around so it was very inexpensive and easy. I also had filter socks lying around but was unable to come up with a plan to hold them in place. If this does not work out all I have to do is remove the tray and reinstall the pvc pipes which prevented the water from falling into the sump and causing unnecessary spray/splash.

PVC SHELF

THE TRAY

50 MICRON FELT PAD

PROJECT COMPLETED

[Noto]

Awsome tank. You have more paitence then me can't wait to see fish and corals. Keep up the nice work.

[jt48]

One week short of the 2 month mark. Brown diatoms in bloom but coraline flecks also just started. Stock includes 2 bg chromis, 3 occeleris clowns and new addition today a six line wrasse. My lfs recommended the addition of the small fish that i want but to wait till the 6 month mark before i add all my tangs at the same time (yellow, hippo, powder blue, purple, kole). The objective of this method is that my rock will be mature/my biological will be able to support the additional bioload and it will help prevent any one tang from establishing a territory and being too aggressive. Sounds logical, what do you think?

[milonedp]

Do you know what size tangs you are going with? The bio-filter will be established but when you increase your bio-load significantly it will take time to re-adjust, so if you are adding a large amount of bio-mass with those new tangs then watch for a mini-cycle. Waiting the 6 months is a good idea, if you go with smaller tangs I doubt you'll even have a mini-cycle in the tank given your system size but if you go with big ones watch for the mini-cycle and maybe go light on feeding at first.

[jt48]

Originally Posted by milonedp

Do you know what size tangs you are going with? The bio-filter will be established but when you increase your bio-load significantly it will take time to re-adjust, so if you are adding a large amount of bio-mass with those new tangs then watch for a mini-cycle. Waiting the 6 months is a good idea, if you go with smaller tangs I doubt you'll even have a mini-cycle in the tank given your system size but if you go with big ones watch for the mini-cycle and maybe go light on feeding at first.

Ideally i would want these 5 tangs to be in the small to medium range such as 3-4 inches. I have heard that real young juveniles can be very difficult to keep. I have been seeing an influx of dime sized hippos that i definately would stay away from. I believe it would be a good idea to dose with bio spira when i add these fish.

[milonedp]

The tiny hippos are hard from what I've heard too, so that is 5 3-4" size fish at the same time or were you doing groups of those tangs? Sorry I can't remember.

Those aren't huge given the system you have and seems as long as you go light on feeding and watch for a mini-cycle you should be fine.

Not an expert on the temperament mixing though I know some people put in the less aggressive ones first then add the more aggressive later so my comments are really more about bio-load than about personality so you may want more input there. I'm certainly paying attention to how you do this because my tang list may look pretty similar but I think I might do a Desjardin instead of the Kole, we'll see, I'm still several months from that point...

Hope this helps!

[jt48]

Im looking at a total of five 4" fish to be added at the 6 month mark.

[milonedp]

Okay, I think you'd be fine on the bio-load, just don't add too much more for a little while after that, go light on feeding and watch for a mini-cycle and you'll be fine. Can't wait to see them in there!

As for temperament I couldn't say...

[rotts4u]

Beautiful job !!

[summer6]

Just beautiful so far....glad to have found your build thread. Rock work looks great. Best of luck!