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Peter's Garage Tank

Peter is keeping busy today. We picked up about 150#s of live rock with coral on it from BAR member scuzzy. He says it is tricky since there is a lot of coral growth, it takes some planning to keep the corals exposed to light. I will get him to chime in later as to what he now has in the tank.
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Ok let me say this, but that's just awesome for a kid to be into the hobby like this. Especially after have the realization of how long it takes for some corals to grow, definitely is not an instant gratification hobby (unless you have deep pockets)

Edit: I take that back, I usually get a great feeling when I first set up a tank, and the water is pristine, and I put my first frags in.
 
Wow! The protein skimmer typically spits out about 2 cups overnight. Last night 2 1/2 gallons got pumped out. The garage also has a fishy smell to it.
 
Is it the dark brown color or is it clear? Certain things will cause your skimmer to be over active. I have a particular food that does it. Epoxies are notorious for it.
 
Tossing that much rock into a tank that size all at once most definitely will get some proteins stirring around. What I will usually do in a case like that is set my bubble level really low in the protein skimmer if there's that much junk in it then it definitely will pull them out, and it won't go so crazy as to pull out too much water.
 
Wlachnit said:
What does this homemade skimmer look like?


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It aint pretty but it works. I made it from a bunch of old pvc. It is basically a large u made from 1 1/2" and on the bubble side I drilled a hole to insert a powerhead into. As the foam goes up the pipe it reduces to 1" then 1/2" and then drips into a bucket. Here is my kindergardner drawing of it.


skimmer.png
 
Flagg37 said:
Is it the dark brown color or is it clear? Certain things will cause your skimmer to be over active. I have a particular food that does it. Epoxies are notorious for it.
Click to expand...
It was a little cloudy. I raised the "spit" tube a bit to get a little dryer skim
 
Well it took a couple of days of fine tuning but I think we have the skimmer back to a slow drip of foam. It will be nice when we get the 100g with sump going so we can put a "real" skimmer in.
It looks like a lot of the corals (a lot of zoanthids, brain coral, mushrooms, several types of sps, and a lot of other varieties, including starfish and small anemones ) have managed to survive the move into Peter's tank.. When we got the rocks, they were in a dark/cold garbage can. I don't think they were in there more than a day or so, but I thought a lot more of them would be dead. It seems that everytime we look into the tank we spot a new coral or creature.
The brown algae bloom looks like it is past and now we have a little bit of green and some hair algae. Took Peter to the fish store today and he decided that we needed a Sea Hare. Strange looking creature. I was told he only eats algae so he is a welcome addition (and the first animal that we have put in the tank).
We are preparing to leave the tanks unattended for 7 days. I presume that we will just cover them with glass, unplug the skimmers, put the lights on timers, and set the powerheads to inject some fresh air into the water.
Mark
 
Don't forget ATO

my 55g DT and 30g sump (garage kept) will use 5g ATO water in less than 4 days. set up a big brut with water and have ATO feed from it.

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Last edited:
ashburn2k said:
Don't forget ATO


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my tank lost 4 gallons in a week. forgot to tell the person taking care of the tanks to top off. heater and returns ran almost dry for a day. luckily nothing bad surprisingly happened. top off is important
 
Kremis said:
my tank lost 4 gallons in a week. forgot to tell the person taking care of the tanks to top off. heater and returns ran almost dry for a day. luckily nothing bad surprisingly happened. top off is important
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Was you tank covered or was the top open?
 
Everything seems to be just humming along nicely with this tank.
-Calcium has dropped from 530 to less than 500
-Nitrates are holding steady at 5
-KH is 160
- Salinity is at 1.025
-Phosphates are down around 0
All of the corals look good and the Sea Hare is cruisin' around making great progress on keeping the algae under control.
coral.png
purp.png
brain.png
zoa.png
 
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