Blaxsun's Abyss: Red Sea 750XXL

[Susan Edwards]

Fish population is holding steady in the mid 40's, and the sump is the cleanest it's been since I setup the tank. Now I just need to tackle the outstanding algae buildup on the glass...

you and me both on the glass algae....

 

[blaxsun]

you and me both on the glass algae....

Front down - 2 sides to go (it's progressed to the heavy duty scraping point that even the stainless steel blade is having difficulties with). Looks like my UV bulb burned out at some point in the not too distant past - so that could be a contributing factor.

 

[blaxsun]

October 14. "The light that burns twice as bright burns half as long"
The coral gods giveth and they also taketh away. This was my massive Chip's acropora that I'd grown from a wee colony about 1/10th the size about a year or so ago. My alkalinity spiked (still below 11, but above the usual 8-8.5) and I think this caused RTN as it was basically gone in 48 hours. The other bonzai acropora I have was seemingly unaffected (go figure) - and none of the other corals were worse for the wear. So now it will adorn my wall of fame (or shame, depending on your viewpoint).

The underlying cause seems to be something with the Trident that led to a lower alkalinity reading (despite a recent calibration when I switched out reagents). This normally isn't an issue as I manually test every month or so, but this time the Trident failed spectacularly and the DOS kept on plugging away as alkalinity showed in the "green". Just a reminder to only trust your equipment as far as you can physically throw it...


"And you have burned so very brightly Roy..."

 

[blaxsun]

October 15. An Ecstatic Sump - Addendum
Now we're playing with power! These are the two Nyos Quantum 160 skimmers running in tandem. The first is being fed ozone and has a Stink Sink to trap and dispense with any stray ozone (I probably need a bit more carbon next time I service it).

This is the skim they've pulled after about 3 days (so not very much, but quite dark). The tank is surprisingly quite clean considering I still have two panels to continue hacking away at with a scraper.


Double the pleasure - double the fun...


Still sparkling clean after a week or so! Let's keep it that way!!

 

[Projects with Sam]

October 14. "The light that burns twice as bright burns half as long"
The coral gods giveth and they also taketh away. This was my massive Chip's acropora that I'd grown from a wee colony about 1/10th the size about a year or so ago. My alkalinity spiked (still below 11, but above the usual 8-8.5) and I think this caused RTN as it was basically gone in 48 hours. The other bonzai acropora I have was seemingly unaffected (go figure) - and none of the other corals were worse for the wear. So now it will adorn my wall of fame (or shame, depending on your viewpoint).

The underlying cause seems to be something with the Trident that led to a lower alkalinity reading (despite a recent calibration when I switched out reagents). This normally isn't an issue as I manually test every month or so, but this time the Trident failed spectacularly and the DOS kept on plugging away as alkalinity showed in the "green". Just a reminder to only trust your equipment as far as you can physically throw it...


"And you have burned so very brightly Roy..."

You shouldn't throw anything with your bad knee...
https://getyarn.io/yarn-clip/09bd3a...b8b906eb/embed?autoplay=false&responsive=true

 

[Susan Edwards]

Front down - 2 sides to go (it's progressed to the heavy duty scraping point that even the stainless steel blade is having difficulties with). Looks like my UV bulb burned out at some point in the not too distant past - so that could be a contributing factor.

Mine is offline. The tubing needs tightening as it was doing a slow leak and I was worried it'd become a bad leak. Into the 2nd sump but too close to the front edge. Waiting to get hubby to help. Yeah, I have to use stronger blades. Going to try to get the front redone this week. Life is nuts

 

[DarkReefer]

This is a very entertaining build thread. Full of pictures, fun comments etc.
Following for more!

 

[blaxsun]

Mine is offline. The tubing needs tightening as it was doing a slow leak and I was worried it'd become a bad leak. Into the 2nd sump but too close to the front edge. Waiting to get hubby to help. Yeah, I have to use stronger blades. Going to try to get the front redone this week. Life is nuts

Life with fish is definitely nuts at times! With any luck I'll get the algae done by the end of the week. Come on fish - get with the program!

Going on a brief trip to visit the folks next weekend (haven't seen them in quite some time). Weather should hold just long enough such that we can still drive summer tires (last time this happened we got caught in a lightning blizzard!)

 

[blaxsun]

October 16. The Great Experiment
This is arguably a less than ideal snapshot, but I wanted to share an updated image of our reef-safe Emperor angelfish which is just transitioning out of adolescence. Yes, that wasn't a typo - this one prefers seaweed.

We've had him (her?) for just over a year now. For the past few months I though one of the pumps was on the fritz until my wife pointed out that this was the emperor "grunting". Noisy suckers... Now I can tell whenever it gets excited or is chasing something away from the food (this one can be kind of a d**k sometimes).



When we got this one I knew there was a better than 95% chance it was going to go after my corals, so the odds were definitely stacked against it becoming reef safe. The hope was that we'd get one young enough without any bad habits and hopefully not be influenced by bad behavior on the part of the other angelfish. So it's been a surprisingly successful experiment.

 

[TangerineSpeedo]

October 14. "The light that burns twice as bright burns half as long"
The coral gods giveth and they also taketh away. This was my massive Chip's acropora that I'd grown from a wee colony about 1/10th the size about a year or so ago. My alkalinity spiked (still below 11, but above the usual 8-8.5) and I think this caused RTN as it was basically gone in 48 hours. The other bonzai acropora I have was seemingly unaffected (go figure) - and none of the other corals were worse for the wear. So now it will adorn my wall of fame (or shame, depending on your viewpoint).

The underlying cause seems to be something with the Trident that led to a lower alkalinity reading (despite a recent calibration when I switched out reagents). This normally isn't an issue as I manually test every month or so, but this time the Trident failed spectacularly and the DOS kept on plugging away as alkalinity showed in the "green". Just a reminder to only trust your equipment as far as you can physically throw it...

you know it was truly dead
"And you have burned so very brightly Roy..."

How do know it was truly dead... My urchins bring me bits of corals that were bleached and they have come back to life... I never give up on anything until the Algae Zombie Apocalypse over takes it.
But I guess its dead now... So we will never know will we...

 

[StripeCore]

"Sherman, set the wayback machine!" So a bit of time travel here - all the way back to February 2021. I placed an order with my LFS for a Red Sea Reefer 750XXL v3 aquarium - right around the time there were glass shortages (naturally) - and literally 2 weeks before they announced the new S-850 (#$%@..!!!). So this gave me some time to work on reorganizing and renovating the new fish room. This was originally my office but we decided it would work better for the new aquarium (replacing the pair of Innovative Marine Fusion Nuvo Fusion Lagoons in the adjacent room).

February 2021. All cleaned out waiting disassembly of the desk.

March 2021. The old cork flooring had to go - replaced with waterproof/antibacterial laminate.

March 2021. While the flooring was being replaced in the old office, I decided to take advantage of the wait and pre-treat some rocks in a 50-gallon Rubbermaid livestock trough. I used the water from the water changes on my old tanks, used filter floss, Microbacter7 and ghost feeding (first week). I also hooked up my pair of Maxspect XF330s and a pair of Fluval M-100 heaters. The rocks were treated and pre-cycled from the latter half of March to April.

April 2021. It has arrived! Well, some of it (everything I could pull out of the tank), which includes the sump, plumbing and parts of the stand). The Roomba was not included.

End of April 2021. And it's here! 5 guys, a tank dolley, four glass suction cups and the tank is in-place! Sump, plumbing and the two Neptune EB832 energy bars are also pre-configured.

May 2021. Just before the tank went live the first week of May. This is the Adaptive Reef cabinet all setup and ready to go. Adaptive Reef makes custom panels so I've gone with one for the DOS, one for the Trident and a recessed one for the pump controllers. The panels on either side of the Trident pull out for some level of minor access so you don't have to take the Trident panel off (at least not often, anyway). Not shown - the insane amount of cabling and wiring that was still left to be done so that it looked reasonably organized while not posing a fire hazard...

Nice

 

[blaxsun]

How do know it was truly dead... My urchins bring me bits of corals that were bleached and they have come back to life... I never give up on anything until the Algae Zombie Apocalypse over takes it.
But I guess its dead now... So we will never know will we...

I waited 2 weeks until coralline algae started growing all over it. Trust me - it wasn't going to be coming back... All the chromis and I really, really wanted it to pull a Jesus routine at the last minute.

 

[blaxsun]

October 17. My Unholy Crab Army
It doesn't look like our latest addition (valentini pufferfish) is going to make it. We found him wedged under one of the rocks this morning on his side. Still breathing and active when he wants to be, but for the most part just lying on the bottom. Despite my desire to have at least one pufferfish in my tank, this will probably be the last attempt. I'm not sure if it's a salinity/temperature difference between my LFS and my tank that they can't seem to adjust to or if something is harassing them off-peak.

My wife was the one that spotted this and when I asked where the pufferfish was she mentioned the main cave and that our "cave crab" Gordon was showing a keen interest. So I went downstairs to the tank to "shoe" the pufferfish out lest we tempt nature/fate. To my surprise, Gordon "clawed me" by grabbing onto my finger. While it wasn't an attack per say, it was definitely a "Leggo my Eggo" kind of gesture, ie: I have dibs on this particular meal, so get your meaty paws off...


"I has claws and am prepared to use them..." (btw, this isn't Gorden - it's a similar Sally Lightfoot)

What's bizarre is that I routinely stick my hand in that cave (with or without Gordon, but mostly when he's present) to remove whatever shell or seaweed rock the denizens have dragged there - and he's never made so much as a peep (in most cases he shies away to an adjacent cave he's scoped out as well).

So I'll have to keep a close eye on our growing "pet", and if he ends up adding fish to the menu he'll need to (sadly) be re-homed. Incidentally, the cave he shares (on which he hangs upside down nearly 24/7) is home to the quoy's parrotfish, marine betta and usually at least one of the tangs - and they all seem to get along great.

 

[blaxsun]

October 19. Spider Cucumber
Black Sea Cucumbers for the win! Completely reef-safe in my experience (4+ years now), and I've only inadvertently managed to get "webbed" once (which was quite enough; akin to getting your fingers sprayed with insta-drying super glue). I have four (4) in my tank - two large 1' long specimens that can move small mountains if push comes to shove and two 3-4" mini versions that don't seem to grow as fast (not sure why).


Crab, you're doing it all wrong...

 

[Woodyman]

October 6. A Fish Room To Die For
In my next life my aquarium is going to have a fish room like this... Credits to @Rcs_12 and his new massive 375+ gallon reef tank.

That sink... the perfect size, height...

so beers, bourbon and reefs at your place when!?

been away the last month, but enjoyed the updates. Looking forward to the 3rd use of fleece roll. I'm delaying making a decision until I see how this works for you.

 

[blaxsun]

so beers, bourbon and reefs at your place when!?

been away the last month, but enjoyed the updates. Looking forward to the 3rd use of fleece roll. I'm delaying making a decision until I see how this works for you.

Haha. I've got two "recycled" rolls in rotation right now so the experiment continues in earnest!

The first recycled roll averaged ~40" daily (on the second use). The second recycled roll has averaged ~50" daily (also the second use), but I also added the media tray with a small bag of Nyos carbon so I could expand the parameters a bit.

When it's due to be swapped out I'll be running the first recycled roll for the third time (1 new, 2 recycled) without the media tray to see if this changed anything.

We've also refined the cleaning procedure somewhat such that it only requires a rinse, soak and single wash (will post some details and photos on that when we do the next roll so everyone can see exactly what's involved).

 

[blaxsun]

October 26. The Blair Fleece Project: Part VI
I'm nearing the end of the second recycled fleece roll. Usage for most of the month has been ~20% higher, which I've attributed to the ReefMat media holder (I filled it half full with Nyos carbon as an experiment after cleaning both the sump and ReefMat). Instead of the typical high 30's to low 40's (inches) I was seeing high 40's to low 50's (inches).

In the above images (particularly the right) you can see there was an immediate fleece usage drop when I removed the media basket in the afternoon (about 4-6" less).

 

[blaxsun]

October 27. Take Me To Your Leader
On my way out of town on an errand I passed one of the local storage companies. Always cracks me up when businesses get into the Halloween spirit!

 

[blaxsun]

October 28. Algae of The Abyss
Although I've personally experienced very few of these types of algae, I've been collecting photos and decided to compile everything into a handy visual chart. Where applicable I've included natural predators that will supposedly help tackle this.

Not in any particular order. Expected on the left, beneficial on the right.

If anyone has any to add to the list (along with possible images), please post and I'll get this amended (thanks!)

 

[Projects with Sam]

October 28. Algae of The Abyss
Although I've personally experienced very few of these types of algae, I've been collecting photos and decided to compile everything into a handy visual chart. Where applicable I've included natural predators that will supposedly help tackle this.

Not in any particular order. Expected on the left, beneficial on the right.

If anyone has any to add to the list (along with possible images), please post and I'll get this amended (thanks!)

awesome! forum downsampled the image so hard to read the subtitles.