cowfootball's Cade Reef 1200 S2

[shadyraro]

Your tank is coming along nicely!

 

[cowfootball]

Back from Hawaii to a healthy tank. Ugly phase is well and truly in process but fish and coral are healthy. YWG is nice and chunky. He happily pops up to the top of the tank to grab the mysis shrimp that's rehydrated from the Avast Reef Jerky.

I put some TDO Chroma Boost in the second feeder before I left just to make sure everyone was healthy and happy but it just ended up deposited in random dead spots around the tank. Annoying for parameters, which were still fine (0 ammonia, 5.1 nitrates), but helpful for identifying dead spots. I had the flow turned down to make sure the YWG could eat so I'm going to start progressively turning it back up.

The Kraken Reef lid came today and boy, it’s a work of art. Extremely good quality. They custom cut holes for my plank auto feeders and the fit is perfect. I’m really pleased how this came out.

 

[afternoondelight]

Im sure that's a relief to come home to no problems!! I'm leaving for the keys for a week on Saturday so I will be hoping for the best when I get home...

 

[cowfootball]

Pod population has gone insane. All of the white specs in this first shot are pods — when the lights are out you can see them scurrying around. Similar situation in my sump.

YWG hasn’t been coming up as often for food but I suspect he’s having a pod snack here and there.

First part of the ugly phase has completely cleared up, probably as a result of the pods and just general age and maturity of the tank.

 

[cowfootball]

Live view of the affectionately named and rather fat Mr Goby chowing down on some pods as they pass his cave.

 

[afternoondelight]

Nice work! My tank's pods are doing the same thing...making baby pods and going to town. I am buying a YWG and putting him a pistol shrimp and a Midas blenny in my Quarantine tank when we get back from the keys this weekend.

 

[cowfootball]

Brief update. I’ve been stocking for the last month or two and reached what will be our final stock list(ish).

2 clownfish
1 yellow tang
4 Carberryi anthias
1 pintail fairy wrasse
1 starry goby
1 YWG
1 Royal Gramma

I’ve also bottomed out nutrients without running a ref so that’s a problem for later me - 0.0 nitrates and 0.0 phos.

I’ve got a variety of smaller, cheaper frags to really push my luck and see what can survive. 2 monti’s, 2 acans, 3 favias, 2 torches, 5 Zoa’s (growing like weeds!) and of course a GSP.

The Monti Digi is actually growing really well but probably needs a little more light.

We managed to get a deal on 2 long tentacle anemones from AquaSD’s clearance sale. One of them had a damaged foot and spent 8 days in a quarantine tank on cipro and looks like he’s come good, now footing back in the DT.

Pushing my luck but alls well so far.

 

[cowfootball]

One last thing in the spirit of the build thread: my water change set up. I think I’ll eventually go for an automatic water change but for now I have a setup that lets me get it done in 5 minutes.

I have a matching Cade side cabinet with a drain and hot/cold tap in. Python goes in the tank straight down the drain.

Once it’s drained I have a 15 gallon Innovative Marine ATO tank that I use to store my mixed salt water. I put a Sicce ultra transfer pump in it that can push far enough and fast enough to get to my DT. I hard piled it with a pvc 90 elbow out the front with a quick connect to a hose attached to a python hook. Inside is a heater and MaxJet 1600 wave maker for mixing and temp matching.

I drape the hook over the front, pointed at a wave maker to disperse the flow, and flip the switch. Pumps 15 gallon of new saltwater in in ~2 minutes or so.

Quick and easy. WC’s have been the bane of my aquarium hobbies since long before I touched saltwater and making it quick and easy was a high priority for me!

 

[afternoondelight]

Looking good!! Keep it up. I got my second batch of fish delvered this past week. Now up to two clowns, Midas blenny, flame hawkfish, sixline wrasse, orchid dottyback and a YWG. The YWG is acting funny (floating around the tank on top and trying to get sucked into a power head) so I moved him to my coral QT and trying to get him to act right. He's eating and hopefully I'll get him to the display soon. Have 45 assorted frags quarantining in the QT. Good

 

[cowfootball]

Missed grabbing a pic before I ran out the door but first of coralline forming on my power heads now. The bottle stuff says ~10 weeks and we’re about in that window.

Pretty pleased with that.

 

[Overstocked Nano]

So, here we are, on day 5 of the cycle looking like we're almost done. 0 ammonia this morning so I dosed 2ppm and I'll check it tomorrow.

One last bonus piece of work I did while waiting on the cycle: the doors on the Cade cabinet are inset about the exact thickness of Second Skin's Luxury Liner Pro soundproofing. I used it on my truck a few years ago and had some spare so got it set-up in all of the doors and the room is now dead silent except for when the XF330's spin up.

The panels looks great, did you just glue it onto the doors? noticed a big difference in noise? Also is it easy to change the rolls on the red sea roller without opening your side door?