Sunshine Coast - 10ft 500G build

[ramasule]

Update please.

[thebrinc]

... travelling in Europe for our Honeymoon. Will update when we get home. No doubt I'll have my work cut out for me when I get back, missed a couple water changes!

[thebrinc]

Update time...

So after being away for a month the tank had some issues when I got back, as can be expected from skipping water-changes , overfeeding and a general lack of husbandry. The Sandsifting goby was also nowhere to be seen and hair algae had taken hold.

I removed what I could by hand, turned off all the lighting and increased the flow by upgrading my Reeflo Dart Gold to a Hammerhead. At the 11 foot head I was running the Dart was almost losing 70% of it's flow so it was time to do something about it.



The tank cleaned up nicely, and just in time for it's upcoming 1 year anniversary! Now all I need to do is start stocking corals...









Looking forward to getting rid of the remaining hair algae I put a couple Sandsifting gobies in QT along with a Scribbled Rabbitfish and a couple more turbo snails. That should do it right?

Well, wanting immediate satisfaction I dropped the snails straight into the DT, after acclimating them and giving them rinse and some toothbrush action, just to be sure.

Bad idea. Very, very bad idea.

Mega mundo bad.

10 days later the Kole tang has some discolored patches... yup, it's flashing. Hmm, I wonder... what's that on the 12 inch Naso tang? Ooh, a lovely white spot on his caudal fin, maybe he ran into something. Hmm, another white spot above his eye? Looking closely, (now getting down on my knees and gripping the tank stand with white knuckles). As the light catches the Kole you can clearly see, she's covered in spots! I get up and stagger away from the tank in disbelief, feeling the urge to projectile vomit, run away... or both... at the same time. Twice.

For the first time since starting this "adventure" in saltwater lunacy I was thinking of getting out. This tank has really taken a toll on my mental health and state of well being. The amount of time and money to set it up and then getting the rug pulled out from under me 1 day before the tank turns one year old.

Then again, without it I'd be bored out of my mind And I love my fish.

I did a lot of reading and decided to give it a day or two, I'm off to a overnight business thing the next morning anyway so can't act anyway.

A day later I get back and the Anthias start flashing and the tangs start showing more raised spots. I guess it's probably not Velvet 'cause they're still alive. Time to act none the less... I can't even look at the tank without getting a pit in my stomach so "hoping for the best and feeding garlic infused fairy dust" ins't an option. A couple tanks back I had a 140G rimless that had a dormant strain of Velvet for about 6 months. Everyone was 100% healthy, until they weren't. I lost every fish other than my cleaner wrasse in three days as I watched them dissolve in front of my eyes. Gruesome stuff.

This was not my vision for 2016's scary Halloween house decor so it was time to do something. No way to get a large enough QT anywhere (I'm a ferry ride away from the nearest serious pet store) so I decided to break the tank down and turn the display into a hospital tank. I'd have to remove the rocks to catch all those fish anyway. I've read good things about the absorption of Chloroquine and only a little bit will get into the glass itself but after leaving my LR and corals fallow for 3 months it should be okay. Run lots of carbon etc.

The sand and corals came out... only (insert sarcasm here) took 3 hours prep work and 6 hours of hard and heart breaking labor, thanks to the help of my friend Dave who brought over a Mag12 pump and some buckets.







The two largest rocks had to stay in the tank unfortunately... no matter how hard I shook those Anthias would not leave their "hotel" rock. I even pulled the one by it's tail but it only doubled up and burrowed deeper into the rock. I'm hoping with weekly 60g water-changes to replenish the medication absorption won't mess with the efficacy of the CP too much.

We covered the front of the tank to keep UV out. Looks better than a bed-sheet or garbage bags :/



I'll keep it up for 7 weeks and in the DT and then re-introduce the rocks and sand in Feb / March 2107. Balls.

Moral of the story... quarantine e v e r y t h i n g.

After 12 months of careful quarantine and stocking to make sure I don't make a hash of something that could turn into an overwhelming problem, I dropped my guard for two darn snails and royally screwed up.

The cursed snails passed away before the tear down anyway.

[tang daddy]

Any updates?

[thebrinc]

Updates...

So putting a 100G blowup pool in an un-insulated crawlspace turned out to not be the best idea for the coldest winter since 2008! Just took too many pumps, lights and of course heaters to keep it going and the evaporation was enormous. Just too much surface area. Other than that it worked great...

I set out to build a 40G frag tank for all of the remaining corals and some key live-rocks. I thought 1/2" glass would look cool, and it does! Total overkill on a 12" tall frag tank but it means I could try pull off some minimalist silicon techniques which turned out looking really cool.





The remaining rocks got bleached and assembled into rather elaborate and vertically unchallenged rockscaping. I'm still moving things around but have managed to create a couple of new and interesting areas with those and a new box of Marco rocks.

As of last week all the rocks, surviving inverts and corals (loosely dropped in) and fish are back in the same tank... all reunited and doing great. It's a bit of a blow being set back to the new-tank-syndrome stage after being so close to the 1 year mark but think it's for the best. White rocks and all ;p I have the sneaking suspicion there might still be some parasites left in the tank but after observing all the fish for 4 weeks after the 7 weeks in Chloroquinne could not draw any conclusions strong enough to warrant putting my livestock through more treatments.

The Kole tang got two spots, the day after I stopped treatment, on it's pectoral fin that didn't fall off or multiply in over a month and no one else as much as flinched / flashed / pooped funny or shook their heads at me.

In the meantime I've been making some progress in the fish-room. Plumbed in a 55G barrel to serve as a water-change zone so I don't have to turn the pumps off or drain the sump during water-changes. I simply isolate the barrel with ball valves, drain it and refill with premixed water. Also, I'm working on a remote DSB today to try and battle nitrates and algae in the year to come. I've always had great success with a DSB but the flow in my sump was way too high to make it work... ended up with fine sugar-sized aragonite sand washed into the display tank last time I tried.

Also, the Barracuda pump got some silicone carbide seals (U.S. Seal PS-1905), they REALLY work! If anyone out there is running a reeflo pump with a leaky seal this is a no-brainer and worth every cent. Every other factory seal kit I've used ended up leaking after a while on both this and the previous hammerhead gold pumps.

Overall I'm in good spirits about the tank and looking forward to the year ahead to watch it grow back to where it was. After 18 months of starting this build I get to glue my frags into place, TODAY!

[Myka]

I didn't see your update about the Ich!!! yeesh! I'm glad you made it out alive! Got any new pics?

[thebrinc]

No pics yet but I just glued the last frag down and there's potential for some cool growth areas!

I'm a little worried about Chloroquinne leaching out of the rocks... the corals are taking a long time to acclimate. Might just be my imagination.

[duncangweller]

Any more updates on this tank?

Sent from my Nexus 5X using Tapatalk

[thebrinc]

The tank itself is doing great! No issues at all... I've got some more full spektrum LED units hooked up that's making a real difference and plumbed in a 55g drum to the system that I can isolate, drain and refill super fast to make water changes a breeze.

Fish are super healthy, except for the one Sailfin tang that gets a little pale once every couple weeks but that might just be minir agression issues as she's growing largerthan the older Kole tang.

Corals however have been a bit of a challenge. I'm assuming there was a little chloroquine leaching at play for a couple months. I had little to no algea growth for a while and my corals slowly shrank. Lost all my zoas, mushrooms and even GSP colonys. Spofties like leathers and Colts grew enormous though.

I've been overfeeding the fish frozen food twice a day to keep any possible ich remnants at bay, which have led to some Cyano issues as well.

All that to say things have taken a while to get back to normal after the tear down and Xmas chloroquine nukeing but we're finally back to square one. I hope! Some new red shroom colonies are doing well and I'm hoping the water quality will support some new corals and nems that I have in QT now.

All that being said my lovely wife is 8 and a half months pregnant right now, so I'm dialling things back to an easy maintenance level for the next while.

I'll post some photos on Monday though if all goes to plan!