Cali Kid Corals

Bigfish's swim into the sea - a tank journal

Bigfish

Supporting Member
Hello everyone!

I've been meaning to get to this, but It's been a crazy few days shout out to @FreahSaltyGuy and his buff friend along with my helpful brother-in-law we were finally able to transport this beast back to my place.
There were a lot of interesting moments and unexpected mishaps from figuring out electrical to getting drenched while trying to save a long lost Goby! I will be referring to @FreahSaltyGuy as FSG for short just to save from typing it out.

A few nights before getting the tank I tried to find the best spot in my place for it. It was not easy with such a large footprint, but I was inspired by its location at FSG's residence somewhere near an exterior wall so I can eventually plumb the external water source for the tank from outside. This turned out to be a really great idea, also I needed to plan for a new electrical outlet to be able to run all the various equipment from pumps to lights.

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First day was emptying the tank and breaking down all the live rock, coral, etc... Showed up at 8:30am with 7 Costco yellow topped bins and a full spirit, after disconnecting most of the electronics we started removing the live rock piece by piece, with roughly 250lbs of rock this was a tall task we coordinated them into buckets along with tank water, eventually also getting the all the fish out as well, except for one.....a Goby that apparently had been stuck in the overflow for the past few months, impossible to reach by conventional means.

My brother in law and I were in charge of manning the bulkheads found at the bottom of the tank in hopes of loosing the connecting nuts fast enough before all the water drained and catch the goby coming down. As soon as we loosened the bulk head nuts water came pouring down all over us and the house. It was to our horror to find out there was no way to fully pull out the plumbing because how it was glued to the quick disconnect valves. I got drenched but we were able to eventually save the Goby thanks to FGS's quick thinking. Unfortunately due to this we ended up having to cut all the piping that ended up going into the sump. This caused me a lot of problems later but was unavoidable.

Once the fish and live rock was sorted, we realized we needed more Costco bins to hold all the sand, made a quick trip to get more bins and we finally got everything put away and taken back to my place. Then came the biggest hurdle...figuring how to move this massive tank and stand (which included a 75 gallon sump). I was grateful my father in law told me if I ever buy a truck make sure it's a 6 foot bed, because I needed it today. It took a lot of heart, grit and internal cursing to figure out and move everything to my place. Praying we don't drop the tank or accidentally nick it anywhere, but again thanks to FSG, his strong friend and my brother in law who were able to make it happen.

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Now the real work began... after all the work my brother in law did to help me move the tank, I couldn't ask him to help me do this part. I had to by myself add back all the water, sand, live rock and fish back into the tank, this has been a huge undertaking for me the last few days. It took me hours to put everything back in. I ended up staying up till 2 am the first two nights slowly adding all the sand back and arranging the live rock and getting the fish in, figuring out the water situation. My wife and I came up a funny slogan of "4 the Feesh" I chanted to keep me going late into the night. I placed the protein skimmer in with the thermostat to help keep the fish happy while I was working on mixing another big 50 gallon drum of salt water. This ended up being a big unexpected hurdle as it was hard to realize just how much water this beast held, coming from a smaller 75 gallon tank a few years ago made me forget, even with all the original tank water I brought in the 10 Costco bins. I was truly grateful to FSG for giving me a deal on his commercial grade RODI water system and including his big 55 gallon drums in the deal. As I wouldn't know how to get that much clean water ready to mix salt in.

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However before I could even fill the tank up all the way first and foremost I needed to figure out all the plumbing. Another thanks to FSG who helped me in trying to figure out getting that set up. It took me much longer than expected but I finally got a plan and figured out the fix which in hindsight involved a few couplers and some DIY'ing (maybe a little on the inside but still alive thankfully hahaha). Unfortunately soon after the bulkheads started to drip a bit and I had to figure out why, I realized I made the same mistake and couldn't remove the overflow pipes out to clean the seals. Then I thought back to the goby incident and realized I can try to flush any sand or debris out by moving the fitting around while my helpful wife poured water down the back drains. I got wet again but finally managed to get the sand flushed out enough to get a good seal. After all that work I realized it was leaking again but not from the bulk heads but a bit from the threads. I know generally not recommended but I was desperate (and at this point probably a bit delusional) as I slapped a good amount of pipe dope on them and prayed while tightened them up. Thankfully that seemed to work! After a bit more tightening (making sure I don't over tighten and break either the gasket or valve) I got it to where I could trust it. I came back the next morning and made sure it held up.

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Moving all the +250 lb live rock by myself was tough, I didn't even think about looking at FSGs layout but at this point everything was so mixed up in the tubs and what I had already put in the tank I pretty much just had to start from scratch. I just started one by one slowing stitching together the pieces until I was happy with them trying to be careful with the corals as I moved the rocks around. I accidentally tripped my breaker and blew my extension outlet by making a big rookie mistake. I had all my electronics on the ground and had a splash of water anciently fall on them. I realized how dumb I was, reset the breaker and make sure everything was high up (since then I screwed in a waterproof extension outlet on the side of the tank)

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After a lot of blood, sweat and tears I finally got the tank fully set up and filled with water, I think It came out beautiful. I filled up the sump and powered it on, but again it seems like I will have to mix up another batch of water to help fully fill the sump especially when I get the protein skimmer up again! Hopefully by tonight, but for now this is my updates thanks for reading and following me in my journey! :)

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Update
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I finally got around to "cleaning up" the cable system in the back still a mess but at least everything is labeled :D. I went ahead screwed both outlet boxes up high on the stand and put all the power bricks in an old waterproof storage container just to keep them off the floor in case it ever gets wet. I had no idea just how many things I would end up needing to plug in, defiantly thankful I had the new wall outlet installed before I set up the tank!

On another note I finally set up my doser, I am pretty new to this so I'm learning how to correctly dose when and what for things like Ca, ALK and others my tank may need Mg for example. (note nothing is turned on as of yet other than ALK, while I still do my research on this subject and finish all my testing)
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One thing I still need to set up is my ATO system so then I don't have to worry about my salt levels getting too concentrated with evaporation. Adding to the list of automation is always the best, one thing at a time I suppose, hopefully can get to it set up tomorrow morning. Also I really am interested in setting up a full fledged Chaeto chamber, after learning about all the benefits seems like a great addition especially since testing and my phosphates were a little on the higher end .47 ppm. I found an old Kessil light I never got around to using and realized I have a really nice potential spot for it in my tank. I slapped a wifi plug on it and can set it to turn on at night when the tank lights shut down.

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Does anyone have good tips on this? I hear mix reviews from Algaebarn (also know it's known to be pricey). Once the chaeto grows too big do you take it out and throw it away? Or can you just cut off a chuck and put in back into your sump to reuse again? How long does it usually last?

Thanks,
Bigfish
 
Thanks for the offer Mr. Seahorse, Atomic broccoli is so cool it was actually something I was really looking into! I might be interested. I actually thankfully don't have any Apitasia in my tank currently so I think I may just play it a bit more safe for now.
 
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Thanks for the offer Mr. Seahorse, Atomic broccoli is so cool it was actually something I was really looking into! I might be interested. I actually thankfully don't have any Apitasia in my tank currently so I think I may just play it a bite more safe for now.
You're welcome! If you are interested you can let me know whenever.
 
Update #2

Tank is starting to look really nice corals seem really happy so do the fish! I finished setting up my ATO (Still need to figure out how to automatically fill it up, I have the supplies but thats a project for another day hahaha). I checked my Alk and Ca a day or two ago and they both seem to stabilized. Love coming home and just spending time looking at all the beauty in the tank!

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HOWEVER for the first time I just notice what appeared to be diatoms (sorry for the bad picture) in one spot of my tank! I didn't see them before yesterday or even this morning my last nitrate and phosphate readings were a little on the higher side but nothing crazy. It is only located on a dead bird nest I had in the tank for decoration. I thought back and I realized I had some trouble with dialing in my protein skimmer for a while constantly fiddling with it (hopefully I figured it out) and thought maybe I have been feeding a bit on the heavier side.

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Thankfully it's only located in this one location I didn't see this anywhere else, I realized I need to immediately figure out how to lower my phosphate and nitrates. Thanks to @FreahSaltyGuy he had included a BRS GFO and Carbon reactor with the tank I never got a chance to clean and set up. I know this is pretty serious if unchecked so I knew I needed to act fast. I quickly figured out how to use it and cleaned it out putting in fresh GFO/Carbon. I looked up how much GFO I needed for my size tank and thankfully just had enough! I made sure to rinse everything out and run it with RODI water until it went clear. I adjusted the flow to having the GFO "tumbling" and put it in my sump, hopefully this helps keep my levels under control. I will check my Nitrate and Phosphates tomorrow night when I come home after it has a while to put in some work. I had to deal with diatoms in my old tank and remembered I had to black out the tank for a while. I really want to get this under control before it goes crazy, I pray this works! Also if anyone has a spare aqua UV transducer please let me know, I thought the light went bad and bought a new one just to find out it still doesn't work, I'm guessing the transducer is probably the culprit. Thanks for reading! I will try to figure how to take better pictures in the future!

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Careful with the GFO. In a new tank running mechanical filtration, skimmer, and a reactor you can strip nutrients really fast. You don’t want to bottom out nutrients and end up with dinos so keep an eye on those. In a new tank, you’re going to get diatoms. Kinda hard to avoid even with a live rock start.
Thanks for the response this tank was established for I believe at least two years before I bought it, I used a good amount of at the original water and all of the liverock/sand/mechanical filtration used previously in the tank. Would this still be considered a "new" tank? I have heard using too much GFO can be dangerous so I made sure to check the BRS website to use the recommended amount.
 
Thanks for the response this tank was established for I believe at least two years before I bought it, I used a good amount of at the original water and all of the liverock/sand/mechanical filtration used previously in the tank. Would this still be considered a "new" tank? I have heard using too much GFO can be dangerous so I made sure to check the BRS website to use the recommended amount.
Hmm interesting. Are you sure they’re diatoms? The bubbles are scaring me a little. Can you take a pic with white lights on? Usually diatoms look more like a brown dusting and I haven’t seen them trap air bubbles.

Did you rinse the sand beforehand? If not that could be the cause of your high nutrients. What readings did you get when you tested?
 
Ok, so let ts of stuff going on here, but its a big tank. Diatoms are not an issue, I believe you are mixing this up with dinos.

Also, I would test the water first and then action. I am absolutely against GFO, as it does remove a lot of good while its doing its phosphate removal job. Let us know what your nutrients are and we can then discuss next steps.
 
I think you're right @Alexander1312, I really meant Dinos they have bubbles in them. I use a commercial grade RODI water system that last time I checked had 0 TDS reading. I will test my nitrates and phosphates right now and see where they are
 
High nutrients and isolated occurrence do not really sound like dinos. Lets see what your testing results show. In some cases they do come with higher nutrients. Do you have a microscope and can take pictures with it?
 
I think you're right @Alexander1312, I really meant Dinos they have bubbles in them. I use a commercial grade RODI water system that last time I checked had 0 TDS reading. I will test my nitrates and phosphates right now and see where they are
I can stop by you house on my way home from work tomorrow and get a sample to look at it under a microscope for you.
 
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