Asylumdown's 275 Tank build

[asylumdown]

Did some re-working of my sump last weekend. Two things about my sump have bothered me from almost day 1.

1 - I have too many things that require pumps and power in my sump. The only place to put them is the water change chamber mostly, which makes it cluttered and takes up volume.

2 - My sump is a micro-bubble factory. It's U shaped, as in to say water entered and exits the sump on the same side, but since going back to regular durso style overflows I have come to realize that my design allows for a fair amount of water to basically bypass the entire sump, which doesn't give the microbubbles from the overflow time to rise and pop.

Unfortunately I don't have many pictures of how it used to be, but the changes were thus:

I previously had one pump running my GFO reactor, and a separate pump whose sole purpose was to drain water from my sump for water changes. The GFO reactor pump was VASTLY over-powered for the amount of flow I needed, and the other pump, which wasn't as powerful was taking up a lot of space for only ever getting turned on for 6 minutes every 10 days.

I got rid of the over-powered GFO pump and through some fancy plumbing, set up my water change pump to have more than one function



I t'd the line coming off the water change pump that previously went straight to a drain to the sewer, so that when the valve you see there is closed, water flows in to the reactor. When I'm doing water changes, I close the valve on the top of the reactor, and open the valve to the sewer and that pump drains my sump. Since a failure here would obviously be catastrophic, there's a second gate valve further along the pipe closer to the sewer drain, so two gate valves would need to fail for that pump to start draining my tank. I also put the first gate valve well below the water line, because the line is under some pressure from the reactor flow being throttled. This way if there is a failure in my hoses the pump won't go spraying water all over the inside of my cabinet.

I also took a piece of acrylic and siliconed it to one of the exits from my skimmer chamber. Previously, water leaving the skimmer chamber was split by a bulkhead, with half flowing in to a skinny and long 'frag chamber' (though I've only ever used it as a cryptic refugium filled with live rock and sponges), and half flowing in to the large water change chamber. The water that went directly in to the water change chamber could then make a quick 90 degree turn and flow in to the return chamber, taking all sorts of micro bubbles with it. I don't remember my logic for thinking that the 'frag' chamber couldn't handle 100% of the flow of the sump, but with this acrylic piece in place, water now is forced to make the full journey from one of the the sump to the other.


Before I had to run filter socks, or my tank was a micro bubble mess. Now without filter socks, there's about as many micro-bubbles as there were with a fresh sock on the tank before. With filter socks, there's now zero micro bubbles.

And even though very little has changed because I chopped so much stuff back, some gratuitous full tank shots because I can

[asylumdown]

oh, and you can see from the pic of the GFO reactor that my GFO is all up near the top of the reactor. Since I started dosing MB7 I've been having problems with things clogging - the output line of my biopellet reactor, the sponges in my GFO reactor, etc... I've been having to empty the GFO reactor and rinse out the sponges really well every few days or they get so clogged the whole mass of material inside it rises to the top like a hydraulic piston. I don't think fresh water actually kills that biofilm though, so last time I did it I bleached the heck out of the sponges and so far it hasn't happened again.

I've cut way back on the amount of MB7 I'm dosing hoping this will stop happening.

[Skimmer Juice]

Looks good, always feel's good to clean stuff up a bit .
Also how is the cowfish doing? Is he healing up ?

[asylumdown]

yah his tail is about 75% back to normal. It will never be completely as it was before though I don't think. Even if it manages to regrow back out to it's original shape and extent (It looks like two large bites were taken out of the top and bottom of it), there's definitely scarring in the new tissue. The fin rays aren't perfectly straight anymore.

He's getting so freaking big. He no longer fits between the rock and glass in one corner of my tank. I might have to re-scape to accommodate him.

[asylumdown]

It's been a long time since I posted. Mostly because 2014 was so bloody heart wrenching. Lots of my tribulations were played out in the main room so you all know, but the tank has gone from this in January:



to this today:



mystery coral die off in February that required herculean efforts to correct, then a house renovation in August that poisoned the the tank with self levelling cement and glazed porcelain tile dust.

A few things came through ok - namely most things in the montipora genus, but nearly every single acro either lost massive amounts of tissue, or died completely. I've thrown out about 30 pounds in dead coral over the last two months, but things finally seem like they're turning around. New growth tips are forming and places where I've cut away dead skeleton are starting to heal, but nothing is the right colour anymore, and I've lost lots of specimens I may or may not be able to find again.

Worst hit area of the tank was the North side:



to this:


If it wasn't for a couple very weedy, common and boring montiporas that have exploded through all of this, the tank would be awfully bare.

[Cujo#31]

Very well done. What a stunning tank. The die-off must have just crushed the spirit I'm sure.

[CM125]

Its still a beautiful tank, Im sure it wont take long to get back to where it was

[asylumdown]

Things are slowly recovering, enough that I've felt comfortable buying some new frags to fill in holes left by my old corals.

My biggest issue recently has been keeping my macro elements up, however. I've been extremely time poor recently, so I've only been testing once a week, before a water change. If the levels have been low, I up the dosing rate, do the water change, then test again the next week. I know i should be testing before and after the water change, as well as testing the newly mixed water, but I'm getting tired of every single Saturday being taken up by this tank, and have other things I don't have time in the week to do in my house as well. Grrr.

This week I was floored. By yesterday morning my levels had cratered:

dKH: 5.9
Calcium: 303

This is after doing two water changes last weekend (Saturday and Sunday), and upping the dosing rate. My magnesium test is well and truly expired so I don't trust it, but it claims I'm in the 1250-1300 range.

I adjusted the alk up in to the low 7's, and calcium up to 360, then did a water change. I also upped the dosing volume by 15 mL/dose, then did a water change. I'm up to a grand total of 600 mL of Tropic Marin Part A and B balling salts PER DAY, mixed to the concentration specified on the box. I'm going to have to switch back to less expensive bulk chems.

This morning, (24 hours later), alk is still good, dKH of 7.11, but calcium was back down to 303! These levels are too low and too balanced for me to be having a precipitation issue, the only thing I can think is that this batch of H2Ocean has absurdly low calcium. I'll have to mix up a batch to test it.

These wild swings can't be helping anything, and I've got some STN at the base of an A. abrotanoides that I think might be a symptom.

Anyway, here's some crappy pictures. I dropped my new iPhone and cracked the camera lens, but won't replace it until the case I want it released in Canada. I'm notoriously hard on my phones. These pictures are blurry, and the colour balance is WAY off.




Thankfully my Pink Lemonade frag never had any damage through all this and is now a mini colony


The lime green stag on the left used to be a colony that almost left the water, that's all that's left, but it's growing. The purple battered looking thing is all that's left of a plating acro from walt smith, but it's started sending tissue out over some of the dead areas again. The rest are frags I bought to fill in the worst hit part of the tank.


These two frags are all that's left of a dinner plate sized colony. They were the underside of the old colony, so they were brown and have never been exposed to light. It was touch and go for weeks, but they turned purple in the last couple of weeks, and there's the tiniest hint of growth. I'll move them up in to the rocks soon


This poor guy.. I don't know if he'll ever be the same. Before this disaster the stalks were glowing white, with neon green polyps, and electric blue tips. It's growth pattern is all messed up as new growth tips start at odd angles from where things died. That monti is out of control


Nearly lost this guy but it's got all sorts of new growth


Randomly, this guy never even slowed down, grew right through that disaster as though it ain't no thing.


Only thing I can think that explains my trouble with the chems is those montis everywhere. They weren't damaged by what happened at all, and have EXPLODED. I stupidly put pieces of that big red monti cap that I broke off doing normal cleanings in a couple of places and it's turned in to a major weed. I just throw those pieces out now. I can't imagine how much calcium and alkalinity it must be sucking out of the water to grow that fast alone.

[lastlight]

nice to hear a positive update adam! hopefully the new year is going to return the tank to its former glory. i still think your colours are really nice i wish i could match them.

[kien]

Looking good Adam! How's my frag doing that you've been holding for me ?

Seriously though, you may be onto something about that cap. My cap totally took over as well during my last round of issues and I totally think it crashed the Alk by agressivly consuming it!