Isaac's Cadlight 70 Gallon Artisan II Build

[Isaac Alves]

Homemade Masstick Food for Reef
Feeding the 70G reef some lunch with home-made Masstick-like-food. Showing the gloves I use whenever I feed. Keep my hands out of the tank as much as possible. I'm also using the aquarium app camera for iOS. It's not bad.

 

[Isaac Alves]

So this weekend appears to be about fixing my Avast Marine Kalkwasser reactor.

I obviously didn't apply the cement correctly when I built it. I went ahead and purchased the 2 oz acrylic cement Weld-On #4052 from @avastmarine. I'm wondering if I just drain, dry, then apply around the rim of the tube and base plate? And let dry for 48 hours...?

If anyone is reading this please let me know. In any case, I'll document the repair here.

Here's some pics.




This is the reactor. I have it in a Tupperware container to hold the water. Seems the welded joint from the acrylic tube to the pvc plate didn't take hold. It's weird that it took so long to start leaking so much.

I purchased the Weld-on 4052 from the Avast Marine website. They shipped it fast.

 

[Isaac Alves]

Removing avast marine kalkwasser reactor:

Connection from RODI reservoir needs to be removed

I have a shut off valve from reservoir to reactor. Sitting this off

Easy quick detach

Turning output dosing hose from reactor upside down so no effluent pours out.

Luckily i never removed the ball valve on these APEX ATK. Now i can just attach my freshwater line to this so my ATO continues working

Attached...

Unplugged continuous stories stirrer motor and carefully placed reactor into bucket.

Cleaning out reactor with hot water and vinegar.

Gunky...

Clean...

Now for the cement...

 

[Isaac Alves]

Gloves and eye protection

I got these tiny makeup funnels. Should work

Going to apply this liberally

Now to let this sit for a day...

 

[Isaac Alves]

https://instagram.com/p/BmEooG8hjhc/

Lazy Saturday. Ugh. The perils of getting older + heat. I wanted to do much more today. #staycoolcali #reefers

 

[Isaac Alves]

Going to bed and just happened to spot another baby rainbow Bubble-Tip on the glass! So many now. I should have gotten the frag tank up this weekend. [emoji37]


https://instagram.com/p/BmH51UclZBg/

 

[Isaac Alves]

I'm watching my Harlequin shrimp seize an asterina. This animal is quite impressive. Looks similar to one of those ornamental Praying Mantis. It took a few days for this shrimp to become comfortable enough to hunt out in the open. This link is a video from my instagram feed:

https://instagram.com/p/Bmj4e9dBUCc/

 

[Isaac Alves]

Can anyone help ID these Palythoas? At least I believe they're Palys. They've been doing well in this tank. Video clips from this evening:

Paly 1:


Paly 2:


Paly 3:

 

[Isaac Alves]

The above images are of:

Captain America's
Green implosion
Mind blowing

Thank you
@Triggreef

 

[Isaac Alves]

Full tank shot from earlier today.

 

[Isaac Alves]

Tank is now 2 years and 4 months old. And it's time to start seriously "pruning." the bio load is balanced, the parameters are stable so certain corals are growing too much, specifically the branching GSP.

I need to consider a frag tank to hold prunings and polyps and splitting anemones.




The challenge:
is that I don't want to manage another system. So it needs to be part of my display system. But I have limited space. Also, the frag tank needs to fit in a formal living space and it has to be inconspicuous. Of, course it will need good lighting and flow.

Most important... I didn't want to spend that much. So it has to be done on a super small/tight budget.

Step one was to find a tank.

Luckily, after being in this Hobby for a couple years I seemed to have accumulated stuff because of "never started" projects or over buying for no apparent reason; at least non that I can remember.

So, I had this 12"x12" cube tank I was going to house a scorpion fish, which never happened.

Coincidentally it's got black silicone like my Cadlight and it's low iron glass. So it should pair nicely.

Another coincidence was that I was watching the recap of the Florida Reef-a-palooza on reefbuilders and I saw this Xaqua INOUT overflow and return system that Julian Sprung was pushing, a few weeks later Dr. Fosters & Smith had a crazy sale with that same system as open box. I was able to nab it and the official hose kit all for $50.

And, when I thought I could just start this project the INOUT system uses European sized holes and of course I don't have that one size.

And that means special order.

Two weeks later I got the diamond coated drill bit. I probably could have used a nominally close sized bit but the glass on this tank is not thick and I didn't want to risk cracking it by not using the template.

But finally time to drill the tank...

...and, clean enough...

Not sure if anyone could tell but I really misread the template positioning. But I blame the manufacturer. I mentally assumed that the side with the facing sticker was supposed to face you as you drill... Nope. I drilled the holes opposite to the orientation of the INOUT unit. ‍

Anyways, time to paint the base and back of the tank.

And dry...

Now with the tank drilled and painted I could install the Xaqua INOUT system.

So, you'll notice, at this point I had to cut the INOUT unit in half to swap the return and drain lines because of my careless misreading of the drilling template.

Luckily, the INOUT overflow system is designed to allow for splitting the unit. So there are perforated cuts in the middle of the two compartments.

Time for a leak test...

The stand... My wife had a square stand she uses in her dance studio. I was blown away that it fits the tank perfectly, and matches color and style of the rooms other furniture. Perfect.

Just cut a piece of neoprene for the tank to rest on.

Now for the light. I did splurge a bit, but on sale, I bought a Kessil 160we Tuna blue along with an APEX controller cable from www.saltwateraquarium.com.


I just needed to mount the Kessil in a way that was adjustable but also aesthetically pleasing to me.

So I bought a pendant light farm style wheel and hook off of Amazon. And mounted it to a piece of mahogany wood scrap left over from my hanging canopy build.

 

[Isaac Alves]

Time to mount the kessil.

The Amazon purchased farm light mount worked out great. The two wheels keep the tension on the main cord which is built to withstand the weight of the kesdil. And all the tension is off of the APEX controller cable.

End with a little twist to make it look like an old style farm light. I'm happy with this...

Just plugging is the control cable to the vdm port 1-2 and we should be good.

The variable dimming program on the APEX is simple with the Fusion wizard. And bam... Light is connected...

 

[Isaac Alves]

I plumbed the Xaqua inout directly to my return from my Vectra M1 using a Y. The flow is very intense but the Xaqua is impressively silent.

Here a quick visual walk through of the piping:



So it's working great.

I've ordered a ball valve to insert in the Xaqua's return line to slow it down.

The flow is just too strong coming from the Vectra:

 

[Isaac Alves]

Two Little Fishies 3/4" ball valve finally came in. Time to slice the nice piping and get control over the water pressure going to the frag tank.

Tools I'm using...

The black tubing, which is amazing tubing from Xaqua -- I really need to get more of this type of tubing -- will be spliced to give me control over the return pressure going to frag tank.

Pop off tubing without spilling water everywhere.. Check.

Here's the Two Little Fishies ball valve. Similar to irrigation but NSF cert.

Perfect fit...

Clamps to hold tubing...

Not pretty. But it works great.

Here a fast walk-through:

 

[Isaac Alves]

Taking some PAR readings on the frag. First time using the BioTek Marine 3000 PAR meter.

With rough measurements all around I was able to determine the correct height and intensity levels for the Kessil.

The @xaqua_italia INOUT causes so much agitation I needed to order the ball valve to slow the flow just to cut the water current. The affect on the PAR readings was apparent.

 

[Isaac Alves]

REEFING-WISHLIST UPDATE!
I'm putting this @ghl_aquariumproducts measurement cell on my future "display-tank upgrades" wishlist.

It is a pressureless flow container that holds four sensor probes. By isolating the probes in this way I bet you get increased accuracy and hold back build-up on the sensors.

Thanks to @Jeffdstafford for showing this and his awc Genesis system on his Youtube vlog.

 

[Isaac Alves]

Seems my @ecotechmarine Vectra M1 has finally died after two years of continuous use. Woke up this morning, obviously on a day that I'm down with a flu, and found no circulation going to my display and frag tank. I first restarted the driver. Nothing. Just a humming motor then an automatic shut off by the Vectra driver.

Then, I took the unit apart to clean it. This is very easy on this pump. But the motor still just hummed and shut off. So, no blockage, and no stuck parts.

I went ahead and put in a standby pump that came with the @cadlights Artisan tank. It's way under powered but at least is circling water from the sump to the dt. And the noise.... The Vectra is truly silent.

Finally, ordered a replacement Vectra M1 from @bulkreefsupply with overnight shipping.

I was tempted to go with a @neptunesystems COR20 but I decided that keeping it plug'n'play was better.

Pulling wires is not fun.

 

[Isaac Alves]

Vectra M1 pump replacement installed! Pulling cords is my least favorite thing to do in this hobby, but I think the sweating burned off some of the cold bug I've got.
But it's done and she's up and running.

Also took the opportunity to replace my heaters as they were nearly 2-and-some-years ol

 

[Isaac Alves]

Happy Tuesday. Love the sunlight on my Yellow Tang and Foxface.

 

[Isaac Alves]

Current full tank shot as of January 23, 2019:

And one of the bubbly baby nems:

A growing black maxima: