High Tide Aquatics

Coral reefer’s 360 gal system. 225 display and frag tanks

Have considered it, holes gotta be fixed either way, and if I went in the wall I'd have to make a hole in the top/bottom plates which is not ideal. Also, the pipes would be less accessible inside the walls.
 
Yeah, cutting holes in the bottom/top plates is not ideal unless it's really small. Something tells me Mike might run larger than 1/2" diameter pipe :D Plus with the wood floor you can always replace pieces, only issue might be trying to match the stain.

Did you notice any issue with the wall/paint near your tank? When I moved one I noticed the paint peeling pretty bad right at the tank height, I'm guessing a little too much spray hit the wall and it caused the paint to go kaput.
 
It's better than a sump, sure someone will want to set it up. An yeah, it has overflows built in. I have an old acrylic tank I may use as a sump, might go the 40 breeder route instead. Not looking for anything fancy, just a place to put skimmer and return. If I have room or some macro I'll do it, not a huge priority tho. I rely on changing water, skimming, and gfo. I will probably go with a smaller sump to have room for a frag tank in the stand.
 
Almost pulled the trigger on the super reef octopus 5000 today...$800, more than I paid for the tank...
BRS sent me a one day only 15% off coupon code and I was all ready to do it, but I guess the code was no good for certain items including the skimmer. Oh well, I may try to throw a nice new pump on a crazy old big skimmer body I have laying around.
I also need to pick up an mp60 or an mp40 or two, or drill a few holes in the back of the tank for a closed loop.
Oh yeah, and pick up another sol blue or two...lots of costs with such a big tank.
Oh yeah, and a bigger gfo reactor. Gonna go through like $300 worth of gfo per year changing 8 cups a month.
 
You might want to wait a bit on skimmers. They are starting to put the new DC pumps on them.
For something that size, it could save a lot of power.
 
Coral reefer said:
Almost pulled the trigger on the super reef octopus 5000 today...$800, more than I paid for the tank...
BRS sent me a one day only 15% off coupon code and I was all ready to do it, but I guess the code was no good for certain items including the skimmer. Oh well, I may try to throw a nice new pump on a crazy old big skimmer body I have laying around.
I also need to pick up an mp60 or an mp40 or two, or drill a few holes in the back of the tank for a closed loop.
Oh yeah, and pick up another sol blue or two...lots of costs with such a big tank.
Oh yeah, and a bigger gfo reactor. Gonna go through like $300 worth of gfo per year changing 8 cups a month.
Click to expand...
wait a sec, you go thru 8 cups of gfo a month?? is that normal at all?? I switch my gfo out every 1.5 months.. should i be rethinking that??
 
I use 4 cups a month on the 120 now, but will be going up to a 225 gal soon and adding extra volume underneath as well. Also will be adding a few fish at some point, so I'm guessing it'll be 8 cups or so a month.
The only way to know is by observing your gfo (is it in a reactor?) and by testing. I use the Hanna checker. Do you test phosphate?
Gfo can seem expensive, but 8 cups a month is only like $300 a year, and that can be the cost if like a few colonies. Not so bad to keep all your corals happy and thriving.
 
when do you know its time to change your gfo? I use about 1 cup a month.. i get my phosphates tested but not on a regular basis, Usually when i see algae pop up. But i bring my water to a buddy who has hannah kits and my phosphates last registered .07ppm and that was a week after a fresh cup was replaced in my reactor. How do you know it gets exhausted so quickly?? you are totally making me rethink my maintenance schedules haha
 
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I prefer to change it a week too soon than a week too late. Easier to change than test sometimes. Better safe than sorry. Etc Etc...
If you can tell its clumping at all in the reactor its done. .07 is a great reading. If its consistently low then stick with what your doing. Are your sps happy and growing? All good then!
 
Coral reefer said:
I prefer to change it a week too soon than a week too late. Easier to change than test sometimes. Better safe than sorry. Etc Etc...
If you can tell its clumping at all in the reactor its done. .07 is a great reading. If its consistently low then stick with what your doing. Are your sps happy and growing? All good then!
Click to expand...
i see that makes sense. catch it before it goes downhill, i respect that. My sps are growing, but color could be a bit lighter. I will look out for clumping! usually when i see a stagnant corner in my reactor ill give it a good shake and its back at it! looking forward to more tank shots! Got any acros :D?
 
Coral reefer said:
I prefer to change it a week too soon than a week too late. Easier to change than test sometimes. Better safe than sorry. Etc Etc...
If you can tell its clumping at all in the reactor its done. .07 is a great reading. If its consistently low then stick with what your doing. Are your sps happy and growing? All good then!
Click to expand...

I'm with you on this. I change my GFO every other water change (and the carbon) which works out to about every 25 days or so. I cut back on the amount of GFO I was using and it's working very well. Consistantly reading between 0.0 to 0.8. Of coarse the fuge helps. ;) I don't know how many cups I use. I just eyeball the level in the reactor. 8 seems about right though.

Not sure what GFO you use. I was buying the high capacity from BRS, but damn that stuff is expensive. So I switched to the regular stuff from BRS. I run it very slow (just barely tubling around the sides at the top). The regular stuff is the bomb!!! In fact for some reason it works much better than the high capacity did for me, and I'm using less of it. It's possible that my phosphates were just much worse when I was using the high capacity, hard to say.

I'm stoked about your new tank Mike. Congrats.
 
funny story, i just started using the high capacity to give it a shot and so far it has worked out but i have noticed that i get better even tumbling and less stagnant areas with the regular coarser grain gfo. IMO i think the reg gfo is just meant to function better in the reactor i have(two little fishies 150 gro reactor).
 
Finally did the whole tank interceptor today. Hopefully that will take care if it once and for all. I'll probably do it again in two weeks or so. What does everybody think about the necessity of that? Are they live bearers and of I killed them all they're gone? Or are there eggs that interceptor won't kill and I need to go again to get them once they hatch and before they reproduce? Or go again just to make sure I got them all?
Went w a 50 gal change and a bag of carbon afterwords. Ran skimmer with no air intake during treatment so it'd get treated without skimming anything out. Took gfo reactors offline and will clean and bring back online starting tomorrow.
 
I did 2 treatments about 8 days apart. Worked very well. One dose may have done it, but I figured it was worth the effort to do it twice, just in case.
 
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