Raymo's ~120 Gallon Tank Build 2011
- Thread starter magnetar68
- Start date
magnetar68
Member
Here's the latest video shot this morning with only the blue actinics on:
[video=youtube_share;FGTf6fk20IM]http://youtu.be/FGTf6fk20IM[/video]
Yesterday I added 5 CAPTIVE-BRED Green Chromis (from Sustainable Aquatics). The female clown does not seem to be to happy about them, although I added the two sleeper gobies a month ago and she was fine with them, as well as the fire shrimp I added in Nov. She has been exhibiting more spawning behaviors lately (digging, rubbing the rock), so perhaps she is a little more territorial now. I lost my other soft corals when I had an incident with my heater controller, so I am down to only the one (very large) torch coral (thank goodness it survived the 90 degree water). My plan is to add a few more fish and then focus on adding corals the rest of 2012. Also, I got my biopellet reactor online last weekend, so there is a little bit of cloudiness from the Dr. Tim's Eco-Balance probiotic I added to the reactor. That should clear up soon.
[video=youtube_share;FGTf6fk20IM]http://youtu.be/FGTf6fk20IM[/video]
Yesterday I added 5 CAPTIVE-BRED Green Chromis (from Sustainable Aquatics). The female clown does not seem to be to happy about them, although I added the two sleeper gobies a month ago and she was fine with them, as well as the fire shrimp I added in Nov. She has been exhibiting more spawning behaviors lately (digging, rubbing the rock), so perhaps she is a little more territorial now. I lost my other soft corals when I had an incident with my heater controller, so I am down to only the one (very large) torch coral (thank goodness it survived the 90 degree water). My plan is to add a few more fish and then focus on adding corals the rest of 2012. Also, I got my biopellet reactor online last weekend, so there is a little bit of cloudiness from the Dr. Tim's Eco-Balance probiotic I added to the reactor. That should clear up soon.
magnetar68
Member
For now, I am using the return flow, but I have two Tunze 6105s and a wave controller I will add when I need more flow. I do not need it now. My return pump is delivering about 1000gph, so there is a lot of flow just from the returns. You can see from the Torch coral there is plenty of flow.
Yeah it seems like you have good flow. I'm building out a 120 myself and considered the C2C overflow....what happens when you get a lot of surface turbulence? I know the mp40s can make the water "rock"......wonder how that could/would affect the overflow.
I love the room in the tank though.....what happend to the 3 pillars and the connecting arches?
sorry for all the questions!!
I love the room in the tank though.....what happend to the 3 pillars and the connecting arches?
sorry for all the questions!!
magnetar68
Member
I don't think the C2C is the issue, it's more a problem with a rimless aquarium. If you want that kind of wave action I would design for it: give yourself more room between the rim and the overflow (maybe 2"+) and then I would seriously consider a Eurobrace. That should keep the sloshing over the sides in check.
I felt the PVC was too obvious and the whole thing was rather large. The one thing i learned is that the foreshortening effect of water in the tank really impacts the way the rock work looks in the tank with water. I just did not like the way it looked with the original PVC-based rockwork, so I redid it. I will likely add more rock over time to give myself more surface area for coral, but at this stage, I like the minimalist look/negative space and I like all of the open sand (and so do my sleeper gobies).
magnetar68
Member
Well, I lost one of my firefish. I have had this pair since summer of 2010. I got lucky with them. I bought two at the LFS and they were chummy from the start sharing a little hole under one of the rocks. I noticed that one of them was getting fat. I assumed this was a mating pair and she was gravid. She started coming out of her hole less and then the last few days she did not come out. I read online this was pretty common with firefish when they spawn, so I assumed she would come out after a week or so. Well, today, I found her floating on the bottom upside down in distress. Upon further inspection, it was clear she had a mortal wound: her tail was almost eaten off. The only culprit could be a hermit crab. When I stocked this new tank I bought only micro-hermits, but one of them must have been big enough to do this. I am quite surprised. I think it's time to rethink the micro-hermit crabs. She may have been quite ill anyway, but I thought a 3" fish would not be prayed upon by a 1/2 in hermit crab.
hockeyhead019
Member
sorry for the loss man:/ it might have been that the fish was sick prior to being eaten. It happened with one of my clowns that way other wise a fish is fast enough to get away from hermits
magnetar68
Member
Video Update
The tank has had fish and coral in it for about 3 months. As I stated early, I lost the other few corals due to the heater malfunction and I lost one of the fish likely due to disease which I suspect was precipitated from the heater malfunction (water over 90 degrees F). Here is a video update and the current parameters. I setup the calcium reactor last night, so we will see how that goes, but I expect that will take some time to dial in. While I have been adding 30ml 4x week of ESV B-Ionic and while I don't have a lot of corals, I think the coralline algae is growing pretty well and consuming that Ca. The Ca reactor may be too much, but I will see where I end up. I think I could put it on a timer so it does not flow all day long. I also increased the flow on the biopellets hoping to see the NO3 drop. I have been waiting for better water quality before adding any more corals. I also don't like the way the torch coral has been looking the last 7 days or so. One of the polys died today and several are retracted a little. I had my hands in the tank a fair amount with some sump maintenance this weekend, so maybe that was an issue for the one polyp. One of the polyps looks fine, however. I had thought it was too much light, so I had turned off the MH light above the torch coral, but that did not help. I also noticed the fireshrimp cleaning the torch coral and this does seem to be aggravating it. I should probably sell it since I do not plan on having any LPS in this tank in the long run, although I am undecided.
The tank has had fish and coral in it for about 3 months. As I stated early, I lost the other few corals due to the heater malfunction and I lost one of the fish likely due to disease which I suspect was precipitated from the heater malfunction (water over 90 degrees F). Here is a video update and the current parameters. I setup the calcium reactor last night, so we will see how that goes, but I expect that will take some time to dial in. While I have been adding 30ml 4x week of ESV B-Ionic and while I don't have a lot of corals, I think the coralline algae is growing pretty well and consuming that Ca. The Ca reactor may be too much, but I will see where I end up. I think I could put it on a timer so it does not flow all day long. I also increased the flow on the biopellets hoping to see the NO3 drop. I have been waiting for better water quality before adding any more corals. I also don't like the way the torch coral has been looking the last 7 days or so. One of the polys died today and several are retracted a little. I had my hands in the tank a fair amount with some sump maintenance this weekend, so maybe that was an issue for the one polyp. One of the polyps looks fine, however. I had thought it was too much light, so I had turned off the MH light above the torch coral, but that did not help. I also noticed the fireshrimp cleaning the torch coral and this does seem to be aggravating it. I should probably sell it since I do not plan on having any LPS in this tank in the long run, although I am undecided.
- Temp: 78.0F (Calibrated to mercury thermometer)
- S.G.: 1.024 (Hanna Digital Refractometer)
- pH: 8.2 (API)
- Alk: 8 (API)
- Ca: 360 (API)
- PO4: 0.05 (Hanna Checker)
- NO3: 10ppm (Salifert)
- NO2: 0.0 (API)
- NH4+: 0.0 (API)
- Mg: 1275 (Salifert)
BLADEYAMAHA
Well-Known Member
Thanks for the videography.
magnetar68
Member
Bad News...
The tank is starting to bow. This is a real bummer. The builder was very quick to insist he make me a new tank with a euro-brace at no cost to me, so I am going to take him up on this offer; but this means I need to do the equivalent of a tank move when I get the new tank. Arrgggg. The good news is that he has agreed to make some changes for me that will end up being better in the long run:
The tank is starting to bow. This is a real bummer. The builder was very quick to insist he make me a new tank with a euro-brace at no cost to me, so I am going to take him up on this offer; but this means I need to do the equivalent of a tank move when I get the new tank. Arrgggg. The good news is that he has agreed to make some changes for me that will end up being better in the long run:
- After having this rimless, I think the euro-brace is better because the water does not slosh out of the tank when you clean with the magnet.
- The euro-brace means we can drop down to 3/4" acrylic which means more placement options for an MP40 or similar.
- The 3/4" material has a little better visual quality than the 1"
- Having a cross-brace will be better since I can add a two part net top that is more manageable than one big open top.
- The cross brace will be clear acrylic and only 3", so it should not cut down on the light from above.
- I am going to re plumb with 1" since 1.5" is total overkill.
- I am going to add two filter pad pre-filters in the overflow box and with the 1" plumbing I will have more room for them
- I am going to move the return nozzles so the magnet does not hit them.
- I *might* move the sump into my fish closet behind the tank to make the whole thing more manageable.
- I *might* add a larger separate refugium and use the refugium space in the pump for the external reactors.
- I *might* plumb in a continuous water change system from the garage next to the fish closet for more stable water parameters.
magnetar68
Member
Here's a video of a overflow prefilter I made for the tank. This keeps the socks much cleaner so I do not need to change them as often (on this tank, changing the socks is a bit difficult).
[video=youtube_share;885PnhPhYAU]http://youtu.be/885PnhPhYAU[/video]
[video=youtube_share;885PnhPhYAU]http://youtu.be/885PnhPhYAU[/video]
magnetar68
Member
Well, I realize it has been 7 months, but I finally had time to get back to this project over the long weekend. I am still not done, but knocked out building the distribution panel for all of the Meanwells, setting all of the amps on the drivers, and building the fixture to hold the heat sinks. All that is left is to layout the remaining two sets of LEDs and wire them to the power panel. I think I will also need to build a circuit to extend the 10V dimming signal from the Digital Aquatics ALC unit to the Meanwell ELN-60-48D drivers. I am told these drivers pull a fair amount of juice from the ALC and won't be able to drive the six blues with one channel. I might be able to drive the three whites. Another option would be to drive the 3 royal blue drivers and 3 white drivers and just use a 10V power supply to turn on the blues.
Here are some pics:
LED Fixture:
I used two 4' elbow pieces from ACE and just drilled through the heatsinks and the elbow in order to use #6-32 screws to bolt the hole thing together.
Fan Clips:
I made these Fan clips by bending a piece of aluminum. It grips tightly, so I don't think I need to use thermal epoxy to secure it in place (my original idea). I like that they are not too obtrusive.
Hanging Brackets:
I already have wires hanging for my current fixture, so I made these hanging brackets from a piece of cut elbow. The are secured the same way the heatsinks are but here I use #8-32 2" screws. For the wire, I drilled two holes in the elbow and used 1/16" wire and ferrules. The hole fixture only weights about 10lbs.
Power Panel:
This is a 27"x10" white board with the Meanwell drivers, Digital Aquatics PC4 power strip, and the ALC which provides the 0-10V dimming input from the ReefKeeper controller. My plan is to chain all of the RoyalBlues into one plug, all of the Blues into on plug, and all of the Whites into one plug. Then stagger when these three turn on. I am hoping there is no issue with the inrush current. I did a test and it seemed to be OK, but I realize it is somewhat random as it depends on what phase the power is at when the initial capacitor charging happens.
Here are some pics:
LED Fixture:
I used two 4' elbow pieces from ACE and just drilled through the heatsinks and the elbow in order to use #6-32 screws to bolt the hole thing together.
Fan Clips:
I made these Fan clips by bending a piece of aluminum. It grips tightly, so I don't think I need to use thermal epoxy to secure it in place (my original idea). I like that they are not too obtrusive.
Hanging Brackets:
I already have wires hanging for my current fixture, so I made these hanging brackets from a piece of cut elbow. The are secured the same way the heatsinks are but here I use #8-32 2" screws. For the wire, I drilled two holes in the elbow and used 1/16" wire and ferrules. The hole fixture only weights about 10lbs.
Power Panel:
This is a 27"x10" white board with the Meanwell drivers, Digital Aquatics PC4 power strip, and the ALC which provides the 0-10V dimming input from the ReefKeeper controller. My plan is to chain all of the RoyalBlues into one plug, all of the Blues into on plug, and all of the Whites into one plug. Then stagger when these three turn on. I am hoping there is no issue with the inrush current. I did a test and it seemed to be OK, but I realize it is somewhat random as it depends on what phase the power is at when the initial capacitor charging happens.
Wow....just read about the tank bulging......that is tough. I'm bulding a 120 now and avoided the rimless for some of the reasons you stated so I went with a perimiter brace on the top (starphire tank). Really suirprised 1 inch acrylic bowed like that.
In regards to the power panel.....wow - good for you!
In regards to the power panel.....wow - good for you!