DBurr's betterlatethannever build thread

[Dburr1014]

I don't think I showed any pics of the rock I won at the Boston reefer show in December.
It's a good size piece, 21"x15"x14" if my memory serves me right.
I have another I'm making. I started it a few months ago but didn't finish it. I wanted to cure it and only did the base so it fit in the sump. I bought some Australian rock at FFM which is also curing in another tank to finish it with.
Once I get enough water in the display, I'll finish it and it will go right into the display.


Here is what I started to build. I didn't finish it purposely so I could start curing it in the sump.

Now I just need to biuld on it.
I have some aussie rock I bought at FFM. Love the branching stuff and the plates will make caves and/or shelves for mounting frags.

Coming together nicely.

And this is what I ended up with.
It's a little cloudy in the tank.

 

[Dburr1014]

And she is officially wet. Only 36ish gallons, but that's okay.


I added some more water and up to about 60 gallons now. Making more water, just enough to cover the rock. Then it looks like a busy weekend so this has to go on the shelf for now.

 

[Nano_Man]

I don't think I showed any pics of the rock I won at the Boston reefer show in December.
It's a good size piece, 21"x15"x14" if my memory serves me right.
I have another I'm making. I started it a few months ago but didn't finish it. I wanted to cure it and only did the base so it fit in the sump. I bought some Australian rock at FFM which is also curing in another tank to finish it with.
Once I get enough water in the display, I'll finish it and it will go right into the display. Pics to come.

Rock work looks really good and adding your water cycle time

 

[Dburr1014]

Rock work looks really good and adding your water cycle time

There won't be much of a cycle in this build. Tonight I'll be adding more water I made last night the rock scape I started. I'll finish it up tonight and throw it in. It's all cured and ready to be finished up.
I'm hoping my wife let's me be for a few hours this weekend and I can start throwing coral in there. I will probably have to wait I little bit before the fish and inverts go in because I plan to use ivermectin for the spionid worms.

 

[Nano_Man]

All sounds good
Can not wait to see it
This will be a stunning reef love the tank

 

[thatmanMIKEson]

Seeing as I didn't get the external overflow parts from planet, I had to make my own.
This will be my open channel. Give me a file and I can make interesting stuff, lol.



I drilled the top plug. If the water goes past the plug it cuts off the air making it a full syphone.
This is my first time doing a 3 drain system so I'm not sure how far apart the open and emergency should be. I think now they are about a 1/2" apart. When the system starts we may need to adjust.
This view is the emergency I had to kick to the side.

This view is the difference of the emergency to the open channel.
I have been hearing planet has some loud external overflow with the tideline series so I wanted to make sure it completly submerged the 2 bulkheads from tank to external overflow.
If that emergency kicks in, it's going to be tight.

I put a street 90° in the full siphon pointing to the over flow box and keep the water level on the higher side with a taller emergency because the flow from the tank bulkhead will have bubbles depending on flow. this can create a little water tornado to your FS and break siphon so the 90° helps stop the tornado.

I have a few of these overflow boxes and this is my experience ymmv

 

[Dburr1014]

I put a street 90° in the full siphon pointing to the over flow box and keep the water level on the higher side with a taller emergency because the flow from the tank bulkhead will have bubbles depending on flow. this can create a little water tornado to your FS and break siphon so the 90° helps stop the tornado.

I have a few of these overflow boxes and this is my experience ymmv

Thank you, will do.

My emergency is about 1/2" from the top of the box.
The open channel about an 1" from the top and above the 2 bulkheads, probably 3/4".(maybe more)

Does that sound right?

 

[Dburr1014]

Busy weekend as I predicted.
We did have a club meeting Saturday at OSA in Groton, CT.
Freshwater Joe did a class on magnisium testing and ionic balance in the reef. It was pretty informative to say the least.



I'm going to have to bite the bullet. With mother's day on the horizon, summer is coming and a few other things and important dates coming up, if I don't start transferring now, things will pile up on me.
I put some more water in the tank, trying to get it up to that magic number of 20.5". That's the height of my biggest reef structure. I'm at 16.75" now. 20ish more gallons to fill, it's made in the basement, along with two vats of heated saltwater. Tonight will be the 1st, tallest structure to go in and dose ivermectin for 1 hour. Then that will go in the other vat for rinsing for 24ish hours. Tomorrow I'll do another rock structure. The last is the rest of the rock. Nerve racking to say the least.
I'm going to leave the fish in the old tank for probably a week. I will keep that running while I have GAC in the new tank soaking up ivermectin. I'm going to have to watch the fish closely. Light feeding and I pickup an ammonia badge.

Almost forgot the best news.
My LFS called Saturday and found 2 bellus angels. Should be here Wednesday/Thursday. If they are healthy, in the QT they go, which is also another project. The QT has been up for a few weeks now.

 

[Dburr1014]

I started my Ivermectin dip last night. I mixed 1.5 ml into 12 gallons of water. I removed by tallest structure and of course it fell apart. It was only glued together with two part epoxy, fail.
Anyway, I brought it outside and started to smash all the tubes that the spionid worms created. I also checked for any snails and rumored them from harm.
This rock was also covered in cinnamon palithoa grandis coral. I definitely put on my PPE.



I started pulling off the palys, and I did my best to avoid the squirting but of course some got on me. After finishing smashing all the tubes and removing the palys, into the Ivermectin dip they went. And me off to the shower and wash my clothes, LOL.
Water is pretty cloudy and because the rock fell apart and my SPS colonies fell off the Rock they were pretty upset. Lots of slime. I couldn't remove my rock flower and anemone but he took the dip pretty well considering.

Then they went into a rinse tub for 24 hours with GAC. Then into the new tank.
Today will be rinse and repeat with more rock.
I had to order some more low viscous superglue to fix my rock. It won't be here until Friday.

Also today I pickup the Bellus Angels. Blakes Aqua Den called me yesterday and told me they came in. They look good and are swimming side by side. Couldn't be more happier with that news.

 

[Dburr1014]

These guys look really healthy and they're already eating frozen foods. I think Blake's Aqua Den gets really healthy fish.




The only other news I have to report is my first set of corals went into the tank and I put another set of coral into the Ivermectin bath. Everything made it through fine even the anemone. I think I'm going to have to do two more runs of ivermectin baths with what I have in my 75 gallon. I have some rather large pieces that take up the whole bathwater, so I end up stuffing Coral underneath the tall ones. And does anyone have any ideas on how to mount these very large Coral heads? I was considering just stuffing him in the hole and then eventually they'll connect but I'm not sure if that's really a good idea.

 

[Dburr1014]

What a day Saturday. Move all corals to dip them tank.
Lost a couple in the process.
My BC Bloodbank and probably my oragon tort. Completly my fault. I underestimated the die off and the power of ammonia.
I started Wednesday to dip and then a 24 hour fresh bath, continued Thursday with the second bath. When I got home from work, the stench was pretty bad. What I should have done looking back was either 1) change out water in both vessels or do the swap more quickly, IE, only 1 hour fresh bath. This way I wouldn't have an ammonia spike so quickly.
Funny part, my walt disney was on the same rock as the OT and the BC BB. It is unaffected.

WD in the front and BB and OT of to the left. not quite full of water yet. Looks full of coral, lol. Still need to move over fish and inverts. Waiting a week maybe. I have GAC working to take out med.

 

[thatmanMIKEson]

What a day Saturday. Move all corals to dip them tank.
Lost a couple in the process.
My BC Bloodbank and probably my oragon tort. Completly my fault. I underestimated the die off and the power of ammonia.
I started Wednesday to dip and then a 24 hour fresh bath, continued Thursday with the second bath. When I got home from work, the stench was pretty bad. What I should have done looking back was either 1) change out water in both vessels or do the swap note quickly, IE, only 1 hour fresh bath. This way I wouldn't have an ammonia spike so quickly.
Funny part, my walt disney was on the same rock as the OT and the BC BB. It is unaffected.

WD in the front and BB and OT of to the left. not quite full of water yet. Looks full of coral, lol. Still need to move over fish and inverts. Waiting a week maybe. I have GAC working to take out med.

what's a fresh bath? fresh water?

 

[Dburr1014]

what's a fresh bath? fresh water?

Fresh SALT water, correct.

 

[kevgib67]

These guys look really healthy and they're already eating frozen foods. I think Blake's Aqua Den gets really healthy fish.




The only other news I have to report is my first set of corals went into the tank and I put another set of coral into the Ivermectin bath. Everything made it through fine even the anemone. I think I'm going to have to do two more runs of ivermectin baths with what I have in my 75 gallon. I have some rather large pieces that take up the whole bathwater, so I end up stuffing Coral underneath the tall ones. And does anyone have any ideas on how to mount these very large Coral heads? I was considering just stuffing him in the hole and then eventually they'll connect but I'm not sure if that's really a good idea.

I put my sinularia and mushrooms a couple of times, in a plastic container with rock rubble and set on the sand in a low flow are. In a week or two they attached to the rubble which I then glued/epoxied where I wanted.

 

[Nano_Man]

You’re picture of your reef is stunning love it

 

[Dburr1014]

I put my sinularia and mushrooms a couple of times, in a plastic container with rock rubble and set on the sand in a low flow are. In a week or two they attached to the rubble which I then glued/epoxied where I wanted.

These are sps, I ended up using aragonite sand and water superglue. Just like when you glue rocks together. Worked perfectly.

 

[kevgib67]

Well disregard what I said, these old eyes aren’t what they used to be

 

[Dburr1014]

Lots of updates... And not good ones. I feel the universe is out to put me in my place. I don't like it. Where to start....

I last ended that I lost a couple things, Oregon tort and BC bloodbank. Okay, they can be replaced.

Right now other things are declining, lots of things. To many to list. Losing polyps or browning out. Brown I can deal with. The ones dying back are slowing down so I may not lose anything more. I mostly think it's because I couldn't get the tank started.

I had a couple leaks. 1 was a union took it apart, cleaned and lubed the oring, fixed.
The other was the External box. Tightened it so tight, nope, didn't stop. I had to take it apart. Stupid me put the seal in the wrong spot. Fixed that up started the tank sunday... 2 days ago. It went a week with just 2 wav pumps running with no skimmer.

Fish are all fine. I was worried about the ivermectin that could have been in the water but it must be very little with the rinsing I did with the rock. Even the 10yo royal Gramma is good.

I picked up a RSV virus. Started Wednesday, got me good Friday. Started to go downhill, fevor 102.
Chest wheezing making me cough. Can't sleep because off it. That's not all....

Those 2 bellus angels I pickup up. They were in QT, copper going. 1 stopped eating for 3 days so I made the call to start TTM method. That was this past Friday. Monday was the first transfer. Except I noticed a spot on one of the fish. Jay Hemdal thinks uronema. Probably is.



Hard to see clearly but it's a big spot.
Monday I did the transfer and also went on humble.fish site and spoke to them. Pretty much confirmed uronema. Humble has a protocol using melafix. As sick as I am, I have to try.

Go past the formalin and the Chloroquine Phosphate treatments.

Thread 'Us vs Uronema' https://humble.fish/community/index.php?threads/us-vs-uronema.15259/

Last night putting the one bellus in the bath I see the other also has redness behind the head. Okay, throw her in the bath too. They handled the 30 bath easy. Good. Back in QT but I don't have antibiotics. I have chemiclean, confirmed by RHF to be erythromycin. Perfect. 1 drop per gallon in.
Today the bellus with the open sore looks better, me more redness in the wound. 2 more baths to do is they survive.


But wait, there's more.....

Today I wake up and my wav pumps are disconnected. Won't connect. Deleted, updated, reconnect. Apex only sees one, not 2, and that one won't connect because it needs an update, it doesn't, rrrrrgggg. Ticket in to neptune.

Last night picture.

Here is the journey of getting my 2 bellus angles back to health with melafix.

Thread 'Young Bellus pair with spots on fins' https://humble.fish/community/index.php?threads/young-bellus-pair-with-spots-on-fins.19868/

 

[Dburr1014]

Oh goodie, neptune will call to support my wav pumps.... June 4th! What a joke, 2 weeks with no pumps?! That is disgraceful.
I don't think I'll be supporting neptune much longer.

And today another development, a brand new ati bulb went dead. I check the bulb in the other fixture, same thing. You can't make up these stories.
So crazy.

 

[Dburr1014]

Oh sorry about not updating this for 2 weeks. I have been laid up with an RSV.
Lots of things happened. I ended up ordering two jabeo gyre 120's. I only was able to get one of my wav pumps working. So I put the gyres in on the back wall standing vertical. I put the MP40 near the top in the Middle with the other wav pump.
Champion Lighting sent me the new ATI bulb and I got that in I still need to check par.
I have been tending to my two Bellus Angels daily. I went on humble fish.com and ask for their advice. I ended up doing a melafix baths every 48 hours for three rounds. The open sore is healed and it looks I'm all clear for the uronema. They are still in QT because they need to do 10 to 14 days with Metro and antibiotics. I'm hoping this weekend they can finally go into the display. It's possible one may have a swim bladder issue. It's not severe it's very mild I'm going to wait a few more days and see if it works itself out. I will wait a week and take the purple tang out of the sump and put him in the main display.

All of the coral that were on the declined have stopped. They are still browned out and hopefully soon they will color back up and start growing again. The one thing I wished I really didn't lose was my Oregon tort, I'm going to be looking for one of them soon. Maybe this weekend, we have a CTARS Meeting at exotic in milford. I'll see what he has.
Sorry I have not cleaned the glass and I still have to straighten out some heaters and stuff but here's a sneak peek.