MitchM tank build

[Delphinus]

Wow that was the RO/DI filters?? An exercise in patience for sure. Good to hear it's clearing up...

[MitchM]

It doesn't make any sense to me either Tony, but I was getting huge algae blooms in my freshwater tank the day after a big water change there. I thought that maybe my fertilizer dosing wasn't right or something.
The RO unit was what the two tanks had in common.

[MitchM]

Starting to add some inhabitants.
Snowflake clowns and ritteri anemone.



There are others, but I'm still learning camera settings

[monza]

Mitch
That is quite the tank and a long road to where it is now, looking good! Interesting read for sure. Good luck with it. Looking forward to updates.

Dave

PS. Did you get wet during the floods? Looks like high ground and with a steep road I hope not?

[MitchM]

Thanks Dave.

We're at the top of a hill here, so no risk of flooding. However, with the streams and bridges around here, the possible 4 routes out of our location were reduced to 1 with last years flooding.
All back to normal now.

[MitchM]

Draining my 600g saltwater tank today.

I had an incident where a 50% water change was required (at least) and I just wasn't set up for it. It's not feasible for me to be ready for a water change of that size in the future, so I've moved all the surviving inhabitants to a smaller 180g where an emergency water change is possible.

- so a lesson to be learned is that it's all good and fine to have a large tank, but it's vulnerable to a wipeout if you can't intervene in an emergency.

I'm going to be using the 600g as a planted freshwater now. I have a 320g fw planted that is doing very well. I can do large water changes to that overnight, if required. 300g in 24 hours is possible with my R/O unit.

The incident happened a few weeks ago. My anenome, Heteractis magnifica, got drawn into a new MP60. I didn't put the protective foam on the powerhead because I was letting all the newly stirred detritus be filtered out via the filter sock. The anemone was on the other side of the tank so I thought it was secure for the time being.
I lost a few fish and corals by the next morning.
My mistake, obviously. I feel terrible about it.

Amazingly, the blue tang I've had for almost 15 years now survived, with the help of some medication. "Big Blue" as we've named him, is one tough fish.

The anemone has survived, with about 30% less tentacles, but is eating and looks much better.

Hopefully others can learn from my mistake.

[Delphinus]

I'm really sorry to hear this Mitch.

I kept that species myself for close to a decade (9 years? I think?). Over that time it was responsible for a number of tank wipeouts. The last time the emotional toll was too much so in a fit of weakness I decided to sell it. Unfortunately it never survived the transition into a new tank so I felt responsible and sad for that loss too. Every time I see this species somewhere I feel that loss all over again. They truly are magnificent but such a cost to keep.

There was a time I might have washed my mouth out with soap for saying these next words but ...... 600g would make one incredible planted few tank!!!

[MitchM]

Thanks Tony.
My wife is actually encouraging me to redo the saltwater tank, but like I said, if I can't properly intervene in an emergency, I don't want to do it.
The anenome was stuck in the powerhead for a few hours at least. I shut off the MP60 and let it be. It managed to crawl out and retreated to an upper dark corner of the tank, along with it's clownfish. It was brutal watching as the clownfish were able to swim in and out of the slits in the body of the anenome.

Still, the anemone has survived but the clownfish need to be kept away as I feed it. The clownfish will remove any food that the anemone tries to eat.

I found a 600g fw setup by a doctor over in India that looks to be successful:
http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/sh...highlight=600g

I have a lot to learn about fw water circulation and lighting though. I have my 2 4' ATI hybrids that are probably overkill for fw. Maybe just changing the bulbs and reducing the intensity will work.

We will see.

[Delphinus]

The solution is simple, really.

Bury one of these bad boys somewhere: http://www.rainharvest.com/norwesco-...k-102-wide.asp

Bam! 100% water change, whenever you like.

What's the frostline? It can't be more than 8 feet or so.

No need to thank me, I like to think of myself as a problem solver.

In all seriousness if there was anyone who could get away with a buried 2500 mixing tank somewhere, I would have guess that was you

Frankly I wish I could somehow get a buried 500g tank under my deck and be able to use it year-round. I totally empathize with the "want to intervene in an emergency". Well even without emergencies, there are times you just want to do a big/significant water change. I just changed out 50g out of my 65g FOWLR yesterday, you wouldn't believe how good it looks today. That same volume however is a "regular/weekly" waterchange for my 280g and when things aren't going right, it's really only a drop in the bucket. There are many times per year I find myself wistfully wishing I could changeout 150g-200g (or more) at a time, but I just simply don't know where I can put that much water to mix it up. So I do feel the pain of "sometimes a bigger tank isn't necessarily better" sentiment.

[MitchM]

I actually put in a 6000g goldfish pond a couple of years ago, more for backup water supply in case of fire. It's all rainwater, so I guess that could work - in the summer, anyways.

Yep, nothing beats a really big water change every now and then.
A place and the containers to mix a lot of salt water is the issue.