404 gallon - round 2.5
 

I am in the process of a "do-over" on my 400 gallon display so I thought I'd start a "build thread" so to speak.
Here is a picture of the tank with a couple of hundred pounds of rock already out. (yes it is a big mess but who cares? It's getting a revamp and will be empty pretty soon. The only reason it isn't completely emptied now is I need the rock to support the the critters my mandarins & pipefish feed on) To save power I disconected some of the lighting on the RH third of the tank which is now barren.
http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h2...ps84fa63ae.jpg
Anyway I have added some "non-polluted" live-rock to seed the new dry rock in a 120 gallon tank that I am using for the transition & rock curing process. I moved a T5 fixture over the tank so I can keep an eye on some test corals & I added a pair of true percs to help with the cycle.
http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h2...ps9d03b762.jpg

And there it starts the fun or rebuilding a piece of the reef in Greg's home. ..the coral master at work....will be following along. ...lots of pictures...:biggrin:

Where did the corals go?
 

Here is a partial shot of some of them crowded into one of my prop tanks. They seem anxious to move back to the reef. :wink:
http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h2...psfda82d4b.jpg

The new "scape" will be featuring some of the sweet shelf & branch rock I got from you. :wink: Cure baby cure!!

Here's some shots of a few corals that are in storage & patiently waiting for the move back to the display.

Hawkins Echinata
http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h2...ps289b934a.jpg

Tri-color Vermiculata
http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h2...ps75f1b656.jpg

Meteor Shower
http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h2...pscb74c2c6.jpg

Peach Prostrata
http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h2...ps5e844c43.jpg

Pacific Chaos
http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h2...ps446e05e6.jpg

Sarmentosa
http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h2...psdd3113b2.jpg

Fijian Blue-tip Red Hyacinthus
http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h2...ps94f71889.jpg

A few more

Exquisita
http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h2...ps563567bf.jpg

Crocea clam
http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h2...psd3599a4b.jpg

Maxima Clam
http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h2...ps62fac355.jpg

Grape Humilis
http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h2...ps38b4dca5.jpg

Misc zoas
http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h2...ps962becb8.jpg
http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h2...ps9ab8ba8f.jpg

Florida Ricordia (starving for light so although healthy they are getting a bit faded)
http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h2...psf6c5d613.jpg

Yellow Tip Rose Mille
http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h2...psd6465f3c.jpg

Shocking Pink Mille
http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h2...pscdaf24be.jpg

I discovered today that I have a "vivid" setting on this camera and it makes the colors pop more so they look much closer to how they look in person. :biggrin:

Your prop tank is nicer than 90% of peoples regular tanks haahaa!

First thing I noticed was the better quality pics! Good job!

Omg Greg.! I have to agree with Scott... Your "prop" tank is awesome!

~Tony

The pacific chaos is freakin saweet.

:pop2:

Don't want you suing all of us with journals when you get popcorn lung :)

I only ever eat natural unflavoured popcorn. Plus, I never inhale.

Thanks, it's extremely crowded. I had a recent battle both with AEFW & M E Nudis in that tank so the colors are really just starting to come back again, still got a ways to go on most of them. Good thing I have it as a stand alone system.

I haven't used that camera for a while but my dive camera case blew an o-ring so I just used my old camera with my old acrylic "top-down" box. I was playing with some settings and found "vivid" and liked it.

Thanks Tony. :biggrin:

[quote][Proteus - The pacific chaos is freakin saweet. /QUOTE]
Thanks, it is a fave of mine grown from an "insurance frag" from a Fiji order I got a few years back - it seems to be continually evolving & changing (in a state of chaos). Unfortunately the picture doesn't show the pink hue the polyps are getting. I lost the original colony many moons ago but I am glad I had insurance.:wink:


Thanks for tagging along Kien. :biggrin:

Wow your coral looks amazing! Good luck with the rebuild and these are the bed pics you've taken.

Greg, thanks for sharing your rebuild. Tagging along as I don't want to miss this gorgeous reef mosaic of yours!

I want some of those Ricordia. Will you be selling those beauties on your site?

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk 4

Good luck with the rebuild! Looks like it will be pretty much instant-awesome once you get those beauties-in-waiting transfered over. Nice!

Thanks Brett. :question:
Thanks Wayne. :biggrin:
Thanks Tony - my problem is finding the time to do it all & the patience to wait for the new rock to cure.

It's tough when you loose colonies but it's not as bad if you were able to snip an insurance frag before they kicked the bucket.
Below are a few insurance frags (some grown from 1/8" nubs & nursed along for what seems like forever) that are starting to make a nice come back that will be heading to the reef in the near future.
My long lost - Ultimate Prostrata :biggrin:
http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h2...ps34c885c1.jpg
Tri-color Mille
http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h2...ps9926e2f5.jpg
Purple Polyp from Fiji
http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h2...ps54337489.jpg
Sunset
http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h2...psfee6ca76.jpg
Blue Polyp Mille
http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h2...psb501d052.jpg
Blue tip Green Slimer
http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h2...psf64c9a77.jpg
Purple Passion digitata
http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h2...ps0858bbcc.jpg

Some of my 'Coral Master' favorites there. :mrgreen:

Only as every time I look at Greg's photos of his old and new to be system makes me want to switch to full SPS :biggrin:...And now I could say there is a decent chunk of me in his new setup..:biggrin:..(fijireefrock.com)
Cannot wait to see how your doing your aqua scape.

It's been a while for some of these. :wink:

I quite liked my old aquascape so the new will be similar to the old but with some cool changes because there will be more accents with branching rock :wink:

The master is at work again.... can't hardly wait to see your new creation! I still remember sitting infront of the monitor and drooling over your totm on rc few years back. You are an amazing reefer, thanks for sharing it with us.

What's going to run this beauty behind the scenes for equipment?


So now with a fresh start do you think you'll change anything in the way of maintenance or routine?

Thanks for your generous & kind remarks Rich. :biggrin:
Since I did my main build on RC last time I figured I would do it Canreef this time.:wink:

I will be recycling most of my existing equipment but may spice it up a bit but haven't decided on exactly what changes I will be making yet.
I will update things as they come up.:wink:

Thank goodness for grounding probes
 

Had a close call on Sunday when doing a water change in my prop tanks. When I put my hand straight into the water there was no issue but if I just lightly touched the surface I would get zapped with a pretty strong shock that actually hurt. I thought it was wierd and knew I must have a stray current issue but couldn't pin point it. A short time later my overflow alarm starting to beep so I went to investigate and noticed everything plugged into one of the power bars had no power so I unplugged it all and rigged up some power to get things going again. When I plugged the heater in it started to spark and there were literally flames in the sump water so I quickly unplugged it and saw the glass housing of the heater had broken in two and the element was electrifying the water. I then realized where the stray current had come from earlier - and with an obviously cracked heater glass I was very fortunate to not get electricuted so I believe the grounding probe did it's job.:biggrin: Neither me, the fish or corals in the tank suffered any damage so I feel blessed - I think it could have been ugly if I didn't have the grounding probe hooked into the system. They are definately worth the few bucks I spent on them!!

Lesson learned - don't use an old glass heater as a permanent solution because when - not if they eventually go it could get dangerous.

I will post a picture of the heater when I can but I am out of town this week and since the pix are still in my camera at home it will have to wait.:wink:

Yikes!! Glad to hear everything is OK! I surprises me that they even still sell them considering the proliferation of titanium and polycarbonate heaters these days.

Man. I here these story's and am glad it hasn't happened to me yet. I really need to upgrade my heaters

Kien do you know who stocks the poly heaters. I googled them and only came up with uk sites

As mentioned this was an old one I had kicking around from years gone by and used it in a pinch and then just left it going not really thinking about it. (:redface: - amatuer hour)
That said it outlasted my titanium heater.:lol:

I have not yet seen them in aquaria but I've seen them in other applications. I'm just surprised that they haven't made their way to aquaria yet.

newbies...

Ya, I have heard problems with the titantium heaters too. Mine seems to be trucking along though. Bottom line is, don't stick anything electrical in your tank. Or better yet, just don't run a tank. It's hazardous to your health.

I think you might be on to something!! Let's all quit.:razz:

great looking corals!! I want! hhaha

Nice sticks specially that tricolour milli I want I want:drinking::drinking::drinking::drinking::

Thanks folks :biggrin:

broken heater
 

This is the old glass heater that broke last week - and threw actual flames into the sump water. It was kind of freaky - in an uncool sort of way.
http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h2...ps894c0369.jpg