Fishy Business

210 gallon Dream tank

MichaelB said:
Here is a breif update:

Two new additions.

1.) Porcupine Puffer 3.5-4 inches
View attachment 75411
Picked him up 2 weeks ago.

He's crazy cool follows me around the tank and I mostly feed him with tongs but he's let me hand feed him as well. He pretty much ignores all the other fish and goes where ever he wants very peaceful. He's also shown zero attention to any corals or my snails.

I've only been able to get him to eat Krill, and occasionally he will grab frozen mysis or larger brine when I feed the other fish.

I've tried clams on the half shell he ignores them and mostly everything but Krill (I may try some regular shrimp and just cut them up to the size of krill)


2.) Clown Tang 5 inches
View attachment 75412
From @Srt4eric

This fish almost thinks it's a wrasse. It just swims back & forth, up & down, and around & around all day long. I will say by that he loves the tank.

He's.shown no aggression to any of the other fish. They really crazy part despite the size of the tank. It sleeps in the same cave with the yellow tang, flame angel, and the two maroon clowns. They are all literally touching while they slept.

As far as the tank itself:

View attachment 75413View attachment 75414
I'm starting to see some hair alage popping up.

I tested p04 a few days ago with hanna ulr and got a reading of .57 so a bit elevated but nothing that has me crazy concerned. I'm still slowly ramping up on cuc over time.

In orderto keep p04 from rising more I added a larger brs reactor like I have on my main sps tank running Rowaphos.
View attachment 75415

I will test again tomorrow and see if the reactor is making a difference or if I need to adjust it some.

I'm also noticing bubbles clinging to some of the rocks. I strongly suspect I need to add more mp40s to the tank. Currently only running one. I do have 3 older white mp40s waiting to be added. Though I'm concerned about tripping breakers in the house so I've Hesitated to hook up more. I will likely try to get at least one of them added to increase the flow so that hopefully I don't end up with cyano or the like.

I want to also add the uv from my frag system as well, but the same power use and tripping breakers has me again worried about adding another energy draw.
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That’s a phat lil yellow tang!
 
MichaelB said:
It's older construction and I have 3 tanks in the same room. So a total of 7 - 360xs, 3 different heaters, 6 return pumps (3 are small ones granted)

The tvs and other typical house appliances.

It's not all on the same outlet of course, but most of these outlets are on the same breaker with my livingroom and master bedroom. I had to plug the bed room ac up down the hallway with super long extension cord not to trip the breaker. I may likely need to do the same for one of the tanks to spread out the power draw on different breakers idk.

In my kitchen different breaker. I can't run microwave and washing machine at same time or that breaker will trip. In my garage I have to unplug the frag tank to run my air compressor as well. So kinda a older house type issue.
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Sounds pretty sketchy - you may want to have an electrician take a look. If the breakers are 15amp circuits it would be a pretty easy upgrade to 20amp to open up some capacity without needing to do a ton of work. But if there's room in your panel you could just add an entirely new circuit as well.

Your situation would give me some serious anxiety, fires are not uncommon in this hobby!
 
derek_SR said:
Sounds pretty sketchy - you may want to have an electrician take a look. If the breakers are 15amp circuits it would be a pretty easy upgrade to 20amp to open up some capacity without needing to do a ton of work. But if there's room in your panel you could just add an entirely new circuit as well.

Your situation would give me some serious anxiety, fires are not uncommon in this hobby!
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It's was like at 530 pm every day they would trip turning off all my tanks like clock work until we plugged ac up elsewhere hasn't happened since than. It's a apartment so highly limited on what I can change or alter. Not sure if trying to get a electrician to upgrade a breaker would be to much.
 
MichaelB said:
It's was like at 530 pm every day they would trip turning off all my tanks like clock work until we plugged ac up elsewhere hasn't happened since than. It's an apartment so highly limited on what I can change or alter. Not sure if trying to get an electrician to upgrade a breaker would be to much.
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Ah yeah I forget you’re in an apartment.

If it was me I would just go with fewer tanks. But I have STS, the opposite of what most of y’all got :)
 
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MichaelB said:
It's was like at 530 pm every day they would trip turning off all my tanks like clock work until we plugged ac up elsewhere hasn't happened since than. It's an apartment so highly limited on what I can change or alter. Not sure if trying to get an electrician to upgrade a breaker would be to much.
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Electrician…$$$
But not burning your apartment complex to the ground may be worth the investment.
Or less plugs and watts
I’m sure your neighbors would appreciate it
How the renter’s insurance?
 
MichaelB said:
It's was like at 530 pm every day they would trip turning off all my tanks like clock work until we plugged ac up elsewhere hasn't happened since than. It's a apartment so highly limited on what I can change or alter. Not sure if trying to get a electrician to upgrade a breaker would be to much.
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It’s a waste of time to have an electrician come out. This is how buildings work. The breaker is not to protect the equipment/ appliances. It’s actually to protect the wire. The wire is the most expensive part since if it fails it can cause a fire or super expensive to replace ( man hours ).
That being said. The wire is gauged to the breaker. It is sized correctly. Now if you change the breaker to a higher amp. You are commanding the wire to flow more amps which will heat the wire up. This can result in a fire. So yeah. No licensed electrician will be able to help. He will tell you to run a new sub panel and appropriate wire to the aquarium from the main.
Sorry for the bad new. A alternative is to find 2 separate circuits and share the load to the aquarium.
 
Kensington Reefer said:
Electrician…$$$
But not burning your apartment complex to the ground may be worth the investment.
Or less plugs and watts
I’m sure your neighbors would appreciate it
How the renter’s insurance?
Click to expand...
I have some renters ins, it's mainly high wattage stuff that surges ac, microwaves air compressor washing machine that we have to be mindful of using at the same time. None are on same breaker as tanks currently.

It's a issue through the entire house.
 
Turkeysammich said:
It’s a waste of time to have an electrician come out. This is how buildings work. The breaker is not to protect the equipment/ appliances. It’s actually to protect the wire. The wire is the most expensive part since if it fails it can cause a fire or super expensive to replace ( man hours ).
That being said. The wire is gauged to the breaker. It is sized correctly. Now if you change the breaker to a higher amp. You are commanding the wire to flow more amps which will heat the wire up. This can result in a fire. So yeah. No licensed electrician will be able to help. He will tell you to run a new sub panel and appropriate wire to the aquarium from the main.
Sorry for the bad new. A alternative is to find 2 separate circuits and share the load to the aquarium.
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This is likely the case. Sometimes wire could be large enough gauge for a 20 amp breaker, but this is older appartment building. I dont know enough about historical construction and electricity to know if everyone at that time just used 15 watt breakers when this was built or what gauge wires were common. No idea if this building would be knob and tube or romex insulated or…?
An electrician could likely tell you what gauge the wires connected to the breaker are and easily put in a new 20 amp breaker if the wires were sufficient.
I’m guessing it would wind up being a waste of time and money and they won’t want to do it.
 
Turkeysammich said:
It’s a waste of time to have an electrician come out. This is how buildings work. The breaker is not to protect the equipment/ appliances. It’s actually to protect the wire. The wire is the most expensive part since if it fails it can cause a fire or super expensive to replace ( man hours ).
That being said. The wire is gauged to the breaker. It is sized correctly. Now if you change the breaker to a higher amp. You are commanding the wire to flow more amps which will heat the wire up. This can result in a fire. So yeah. No licensed electrician will be able to help. He will tell you to run a new sub panel and appropriate wire to the aquarium from the main.
Sorry for the bad new. A alternative is to find 2 separate circuits and share the load to the aquarium.
Click to expand...

Yea I may try to get one of the tanks on the kitchen breaker. To spread it out more.

I will likely get ride of frag tank in my garage, so at somepoint, A tank can also be directed to that breaker.

My frag tank is pretty much empty except last of my torches I will move over today, lots of zoas a d some mushrooms.

Only a baby maroon clownfish in it as far as fish.
 
MichaelB said:
Here is a breif update:

Two new additions.

1.) Porcupine Puffer 3.5-4 inches
View attachment 75411
Picked him up 2 weeks ago.

He's crazy cool follows me around the tank and I mostly feed him with tongs but he's let me hand feed him as well. He pretty much ignores all the other fish and goes where ever he wants very peaceful. He's also shown zero attention to any corals or my snails.

I've only been able to get him to eat Krill, and occasionally he will grab frozen mysis or larger brine when I feed the other fish.

I've tried clams on the half shell he ignores them and mostly everything but Krill (I may try some regular shrimp and just cut them up to the size of krill)


Yeah let him fast a few days or more then try shrimps with shells on / squid/ silver sides. Small live clams/ mussels or crush the larger ones with a hammer a bit and toss in.. Im sure you know about the connection with krill and lock jaw linked with thiaminase..When I had extra clams would just toss them in the sump to stay alive sometimes for a month or two
They’re like little puppies !
Click to expand...
 
MichaelB said:
Yea I may try to get one of the tanks on the kitchen breaker. To spread it out more.

I will likely get ride of frag tank in my garage, so at somepoint, A tank can also be directed to that breaker.

My frag tank is pretty much empty except last of my torches I will move over today, lots of zoas a d some mushrooms.

Only a baby maroon clownfish in it as far as fish.
Click to expand...
I had the same issue in my garage. 15A wasn't enough. Upgrading it to 20A not possible since the wire gauge is too small. I ended up having the electrician run a separate 15A line.

If space allows, maybe plumb your frag tank to your display tank. This will reduce the need for a heater, return pump and PG&E bill!

Also check your microwave. Some microwaves are 1500w which isn't really needed. Maybe switch to a 600-800w model.
 
SupraSaltyReefer said:
I had the same issue in my garage. 15A wasn't enough. Upgrading it to 20A not possible since the wire gauge is too small. I ended up having the electrician run a separate 15A line.

If space allows, maybe plumb your frag tank to your display tank. This will reduce the need for a heater, return pump and PG&E bill!

Also check your microwave. Some microwaves are 1500w which isn't really needed. Maybe switch to a 600-800w model.
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I'll likely scrap the frag tank. One less tank to manage. And I have a small 10-15 gallon frag tank easy to set up for coral qt without a sump.
 
Coral reefer said:
Less tanks are your friend. Focus on the big one. It’s going to be awesome.
You dont need the training wheels tanks anymore.
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Yea, most of my focus is on the 40gallon sps.
Though it's mostly a thing of staying on top of the maintenance routines to keep things stable than actual work.

-10 gallon weekly water changes,
-5 drops daily hand dosing of minor traces. -16 mils daily of afr on doser controlled by hydros.
-Gfo reactor replace Rowaphos about once a month.
*This is really the only tank I actually test maybe every other week.
- It has a reed sea nano roller, and redsea rsk 300 skimmer.
*So nothing really for me to do there. Haven't needed changed roller in the 3 months it's been on there and skimmer has hose thing so just drain intoq bucket flush and done.

The 210 will eventually get there in time.
So far:
- just a gfo reactor
- this tank has filter socks unfortunately, no room for a filter roller without major modifications to the sump. (Though I could probably run 2 nanno rollers in place of socks but seems pricey lol)
- dosing daily 15mil afr (controlled by a doser running on same controller as my main sps tank. Was originally on frag tank until few days ago)
20251208_131619.jpg

The wire from controller to this tank is ugly as heck but jt works for now. I will eventually probably get another hydros controller to manage doser, heaters, ph probe, and ato. Yet not in a rush to get it.

The nem tank is kinda the easiest one.
- 5 gallon weekly water change maybe replace carbon/ chemipure every few months.


***Preparing to do the first water change on the 210 since running. Currently planning to do 32 gallon this week.

I still haven't gotten to the point where the 55 gallon water change is easy. More the back end methods of mixing the salt in the barrel. If 32 test goes well I will likey aim to try the 55gallon next month.

One less tank would make things simpler being they are all in same room.
 
Coral reefer said:
You’re gonna need to clean the neck of the skimmer, not just drain the cup! Or maybe it has that built in if it’s the Red Sea skimmer
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Has the little thing you turn to clean it. Granted if it's gets. Crazy dirty I would take it off and clean it lol.

cool part is I don't have to take cup off daily like with nyos ones spilling that guck on floor worse on hands ewww.

I have the rsk 900 on 210 so not sure why that's not a standard feature on most skimmers.
 
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