thetedinator's 240g Mixed Reef Build

thetedinator · Jan 16, 2016

With the help of some good friends I have returned to the hobby after a 7 year or so absence.

My system is:

Tank - 60" x 36" x 26" made from 3/4" acrylic tank with black back and 6" Eurobrace made by Advanced Acrylic
Stand - 60" x 36" x 36" aluminum extrusion held together with counterbore fastereners
Sump - 36" x 24" x 16" acrylic with black dividers made by Advanced Acrylic
ATO reservoir - 12" x 20" x 20" acrylic made by Advanced Acrylic
Dosing container - 3 compartment, black with a clear front made by Advanced Acrylic

Equipment consists of:
Apex Brain
3 Apex EB8s, one mounted under the stand and two in "the Master Control Room" AKA my office.
Apex VDM controlling my Tunze pumps
Apex WXM controlling my Radions
Apex PM2 monitoring Conductivity
Reef Octopus Regal 300INT Skimmer
4 BRS dosing pumps controlled by Apex when on-line
4 Radion XR30 Pro Gen3 (will add more later)
Vectra L1 plumbed as return and controlled manually
2 Tunze 6000s aimed up
2 Tunze 6100s aimed back to front
2ea Tunze 6000s, 6100s and 6200s not in the system yet
Home grown ATO float assembly connected to a custom 'breakout' box so the Apex controls the ATO pump

FTS - Doors and panels on stand are inset into the aluminum. Lights are mounted on acrylic brackets. I have ordered the Ecotech RMS hanging kit so I can hang the lights. I have a vaulted ceiling and so avoided this solution but I hate the custom brackets.

Doors Open and Side Panels Off - Stand has two hinged doors and 4 panels, all HDPE. The panels are held in place by magnets.

Under the stand - EB8 mounted to stand (upper left), ATO reservoir, sump, skimmer, return pump, heaters, ATO assembly, light to grow chaeto and smooth out pH swings, fan for cooling (controlled by Apex), leak detector connected to 'breakout box'

EB8 - Mounted under the stand. Not in my original plan but it was simpler and safer to do this.

Behind the Stand - Wires go through two portholes to my office

More pictures to come...

mlb7225 · Feb 26, 2016

Looks great Ted!

thetedinator · Feb 26, 2016

Thanks Michael!

thetedinator · Feb 26, 2016

FTS from today. A mix of frags I got from my personal reef whisperer (o2manyfish) and some corals I picked up from Mel at Unique Corals.

mlb7225 · Feb 26, 2016

Ur BTA making an appearance finally.

thetedinator · Feb 26, 2016

The BTA behavior is really puzzling...He did not appear today at all. He is in an open area underneath several rocks. Every now and then his tentacles poke through a crack but he has not come out like he did a on Wednesday and Thursday.

thetedinator · Feb 27, 2016

So the BTA has made an appearance.

mlb7225 · Feb 27, 2016

Finally! Like the colors.

thetedinator · Feb 28, 2016

The BTA has "appeared" at 4 different openings in this section of rock work in my tank. Yesterday he was at this spot for hours. I'll be interested to see if he appears at this same spot again.

mlb7225 · Feb 28, 2016

Have you been able to feed him?

thetedinator · Feb 28, 2016

I fed him earlier this week. If he settles at one spot, I will feed again.

thetedinator · Feb 28, 2016

I have been experiencing cloudy water off and on since I early January. Some days it would be very clear (although not crystal clear) and other days it would be cloudy enough to be depressing. After some research and everything I have tried below, I finally decided the cloudiness is being caused by diatoms and/or a bacterial bloom.

I done three 25g water changes without much affect. I am running ozone. Raising the target ORP has not really affected the cloudiness (now at 375). I have run (and am still running carbon) which might have helped a little but the water is still cloudy most of the time. I am skimming like crazy. I had chaeto in the sump but it was not tumbling so part of it turns brown so I removed that in case the cloudiness is from the disintegrating chaeto. That did not affect anything.

I have a chiton and some cerith and nerite snails which all eat diatoms. I am thinking to add more.

Note: I also have some hair algae on the back wall of the tank and a very small cyano patch in one low flow area of the tank.

Any thoughts or suggestions?

Thanks

thetedinator · Mar 18, 2016

Let's caption this photo...before you freak...I turned the pump off.

I submitted the caption "Uh-oh".

Jojoga1 · May 25, 2016

nice build!

thetedinator · May 29, 2016

Jojoga1 said:
nice build!

Thanks.

Towards the end of April, I added a Pax Bellum ARID Macroalgae Based Bio-absorption Filtration System (which I call an ARID reactor) to my system. When I started it up, I did not exactly follow the directions. Here is a picture of the Chaeto from my ARID reactor after restarting it and running for about 15 days. This time I more or less followed the directions and as you can see the Chaeto growth is as advertised. The 'more or less' part is that I put some Gracillaria into the ARID along with the Chaeto thinking that I might be able to create a steady source of Gracillaria for my tangs. The Gracillaria experiment failed in that some of the Gracillaria turned yellow and the amount of Gracillaria in the reactor stayed about the same.

This time, after cleaning the reator, I seeded it only with Chaeto.