Whiskey's 300 Gallon Glass Cages Dream Reef. It only took 22 years!

Wiskey · Jul 2, 2023

It's been too long, but I have some new photos! I did get an FTS, but the glare off my windows made it a bad photo, with the outside getting dark at like 9:30 here right now, and the tank lights going blue at 8 Full Tank Shots are going to have to wait for an earlier sunset.

Whiskey

Wiskey · Dec 5, 2023

Hello all! I haven't been updating this thread in quite a while - Sorry about that. Late summer and fall gives us great weather here and I've been out running with the dog, and doing a new workout routine and not really taking photos as much. Now that we're rolling into winter I'm sure I will be a bit more active.

The one interesting update I have is that I was struggling with a couple coral things, and I honestly wasn't sure if I was up against low light, or high light. The evidence could be seen either way, and I was starting to loose a little trust in my 10 year old PAR sensor. I've wanted the new one that plugs into the computer and does DLI and everything for quite some time, but it was a black friday deal with premium aquatics that put me over the top.

I actually ended up adjusting my LED lights down about 25% to land at the readings you see here, I may adjust down slightly more after I do DLI calculations. I would love a little more at the bottom relative to the top, but this is a case where I get what I get. I suspect some of the mega high light spots might be hot spots, but I don't have a great way to address that if they are.

Anyway, old picture, but current PAR readings:

Whiskey

Adam Houston · Mar 14, 2024

This Oklahoma weather definitely makes for a mild winter. How's the tank looking any updates? I'm finally about to setup my 120 after impatiently waiting far too long Lol

Wiskey · Mar 16, 2024

Adam Houston said:
This Oklahoma weather definitely makes for a mild winter. How's the tank looking any updates? I'm finally about to setup my 120 after impatiently waiting far too long Lol

Oh cool!! No more car problems holding you back eh? If you have any questions or want to see how some of this stuff works in person let me know. I still haven't done a dang thing with this RO, but if you still need one it could light a fire under me. I did put in a second DI, but I haven't swapped any of the canisters over or anything yet.

Yeah,.. I haven't done updates forever, let me get some pics up.

Whiskey

Wiskey · Mar 16, 2024

It's been a super long time since I've done an update! Sorry all, after working all day on computers, sometimes the last thing I want to do when I get home is get back on the computer if you know what I mean. I've actually been doing a bunch of running lately and trying to train to maybe one day do a half or eventually a full marathon! I have a long way to go though.

Anyway,.. the tank overall has been doing super well! I've had a few issues here an there, and there has been some settling in pains, but I feel like the tank is starting to get fully on the rails now. There have been almost no changes to equipment, other than I got an upgraded PAR sensor and found that my lighting was more powerful and spotty than I thought. In response to that I actually lifted the Gantry about half way up, and the lighting is much more even now according to the sensor. Those figures are represented above in the PAR chart. I also added a GFO reactor and use 2 cups of GFO changed Monthly. This is keeping Phosphate around 0.1 - 0.05 on the Hanna ULR tester. That seems to be the sweet spot in my experience. My Nitrate is hanging around 3.5, but honestly anything that's not 0 is fine by me. I continue to dose Acropower, use the Huge CA reactor, and about 6,000 ML of Kalk. I've had poor luck with the Kamoer Continuous duty dosing pump, the FX-STP2 or whatever. Is anyone else having this problem? I've had 2 motors fail, and one of the roller deals, and it sounds like I'm loosing a bearing right now. I have two of them because they are failing so often, so far they have replaced them on warranty, but I like things to be more reliable than that because I travel allot.

Anyway, what everyone is here for! Pictures.

Troylee · Mar 16, 2024

Looking good!

Katrina71 · Mar 16, 2024

Your tank is beautiful as always!

Mickey · Mar 16, 2024

Wish mine looked that good!

Wiskey · Mar 18, 2024

Troylee said:
Looking good!

Katrina71 said:
Your tank is beautiful as always!

MickeyCT said:
Wish mine looked that good!

Thank you!!! Overall I'm incredibly happy with it. I can't wait until my tiny Half Dollar sized Yellow Tang from Biota is big enough and ready to move in. It's so tiny! But it's eating really well in the 40 gallon frag tank, it eats Nori and Frozen food, and I bet it will grow super fast.

Whiskey

Wiskey · Oct 15, 2024

Hello all! Long time no update. I've been traveling for a work project allot in the last few months, and I've been working on building out my Jeep so that it's ready for prime camping and off roading weather, so I've been distracted.

Also, with regards to the travel, unfortunately these tanks take allot of attention, and even with a great fish sitter that did what I asked, without me seeing it day to day there are lots of little tweaks that didn't get done, and little issues that didn't get noticed. That all culminated into a major SPS crash, that has been going on for the last couple months, and I've been struggling to pull out of it.
These photos are taken by my automated time lapse camera, so it's not a perfect picture - but it shows you exactly what I'm dealing with.
This was taken 7/21/24

This photo was taken 10/1/24

NOT good. That being said, it was really only the SPS that were affected. Since I'm not ever going to get away without traveling, I've decided to focus more on the LPS and stay away from the SPS a little bit more. I will keep SPS on the very top, but overall I'm going to lower the light a little bit, and lower the flow a bit, and set it up like a tank geared at LPS with some SPS rather than the other way around. I think in the long term this will end up being much more sustainable.

That being said, this is the start of the refresh, moving LPS into more visible locations.

It's already an improvement, but I look forward to continue getting the LPS I have out of their shaded holes and more prominent.

Whiskey

Troylee · Oct 15, 2024

Only seeing 1 photo of a chalice.. what’s up with the sps?

Wiskey · Oct 15, 2024

Troylee said:
Only seeing 1 photo of a chalice.. what’s up with the sps?

That's super weird. Let me put the pictures back in and see if it fixes it.

lbacha · Oct 15, 2024

Just saw this thread, good luck with the switch to LPS I did that in one of my tanks for a similar reason as it was getting too hard to maintain 2 SPS tanks while traveling a couple weeks at a time. My new tank is very similar to yours (300g GlassCages tank and a sump with the exact dimensions of yours). I hope mine looks like yours in the near future even with the ups and downs. Len (I also go by WhiskyLen lol so a lot of similarities)

Adam Houston · Oct 16, 2024

Sad to hear about that SPS but it sounds like it’s time for that LPS to shine. Looks like that yellow tang is getting some size on em, looking great!

Wiskey · Oct 16, 2024

lbacha said:
Just saw this thread, good luck with the switch to LPS I did that in one of my tanks for a similar reason as it was getting too hard to maintain 2 SPS tanks while traveling a couple weeks at a time. My new tank is very similar to yours (300g GlassCages tank and a sump with the exact dimensions of yours). I hope mine looks like yours in the near future even with the ups and downs. Len (I also go by WhiskyLen lol so a lot of similarities)

Whiskey is where it's at! Lol. Yeah, I'm hoping that with the lower light, lower flow, and lower demand corals that things don't go wrong so fast. I'd love to keep a stable tank over the long term, and all the movement makes it really interesting.

I figured with redundant equipment, (Two reactors, two returns, 4 flow pumps, 14 lights of two different kinds, Trident, Trident NP, etc) that keeping a stable tank for SPS should work out just fine, but it turns out that little things still spiral down the same old system crash.

Do you have a build thread going?

Whiskey

Wiskey · Oct 16, 2024

Adam Houston said:
Sad to hear about that SPS but it sounds like it’s time for that LPS to shine. Looks like that yellow tang is getting some size on em, looking great!

Yeah! No doubt! I was super worried about that guy at first, but now he's doing amazing. He seemed so small when he first went in. Like throwing a chicken to a bunch of T-Rexes.

I'm excited about the new direction! Hopefully it's less stress. My maintenance will stay pretty much the same of course, other than turning reactors down because of less demand, but that was never the difficult part, it was when something went wrong that was tough, and traveling was always stressful.

Whiskey

lbacha · Oct 16, 2024

Wiskey said:
Whiskey is where it's at! Lol. Yeah, I'm hoping that with the lower light, lower flow, and lower demand corals that things don't go wrong so fast. I'd love to keep a stable tank over the long term, and all the movement makes it really interesting.

I figured with redundant equipment, (Two reactors, two returns, 4 flow pumps, 14 lights of two different kinds, Trident, Trident NP, etc) that keeping a stable tank for SPS should work out just fine, but it turns out that little things still spiral down the same old system crash.

Do you have a build thread going?

Whiskey

Yeah I stick with easier old school sps because we like to go on 2+ week vacations and it is near impossible to anticipate everything.

Here is my build thread for my new tank

Large Build - Lbacha’s 310g GlassCages SPS build

Hello fellow reefers Build details are in the second post Update picture 10/8/24 (tank is wet and cycle has started) Update picture 9/20/24 (final leak test) Update picture 8/23/24 (Tank arrived) Update picture 7/16/24 I’m starting this thread to track the latest stages of a 30+ year...

www.reef2reef.com

Gumbies R Us · Oct 17, 2024

Wiskey said:
Hello all! Long time no update. I've been traveling for a work project allot in the last few months, and I've been working on building out my Jeep so that it's ready for prime camping and off roading weather, so I've been distracted.

Also, with regards to the travel, unfortunately these tanks take allot of attention, and even with a great fish sitter that did what I asked, without me seeing it day to day there are lots of little tweaks that didn't get done, and little issues that didn't get noticed. That all culminated into a major SPS crash, that has been going on for the last couple months, and I've been struggling to pull out of it.
These photos are taken by my automated time lapse camera, so it's not a perfect picture - but it shows you exactly what I'm dealing with.
This was taken 7/21/24

This photo was taken 10/1/24

NOT good. That being said, it was really only the SPS that were affected. Since I'm not ever going to get away without traveling, I've decided to focus more on the LPS and stay away from the SPS a little bit more. I will keep SPS on the very top, but overall I'm going to lower the light a little bit, and lower the flow a bit, and set it up like a tank geared at LPS with some SPS rather than the other way around. I think in the long term this will end up being much more sustainable.

That being said, this is the start of the refresh, moving LPS into more visible locations.

It's already an improvement, but I look forward to continue getting the LPS I have out of their shaded holes and more prominent.

Whiskey

Best of luck with your switch to lps!

Wiskey · Oct 17, 2024

lbacha said:
Yeah I stick with easier old school sps because we like to go on 2+ week vacations and it is near impossible to anticipate everything.

Here is my build thread for my new tank

Large Build - Lbacha’s 310g GlassCages SPS build

Hello fellow reefers Build details are in the second post Update picture 10/8/24 (tank is wet and cycle has started) Update picture 9/20/24 (final leak test) Update picture 8/23/24 (Tank arrived) Update picture 7/16/24 I’m starting this thread to track the latest stages of a 30+ year...

www.reef2reef.com

Yeah, this is what I'm doing now too, and only a few of them at the very top so that I can have the light and flow for the majority of the tank perfect for LPS. It will be pretty, and less stressful.

You would not believe the amount of CA/ALK this thing took up, with my 135 I got to the point where I was going through a full set of Triton in under 7 days. Then came the CA reactor and Kalk after briefly trying the BRS stuff for a bit and finding it is just less concentrated, not much cheaper.

Whiskey