Jestersix

Temporary Reef (take-2)

HiFidelity

HiFidelity

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Well this tank is born as a result of a recovery from catastrophic silicone seal failure. You probably saw the "emergency" "help" thread... funny how crashes/disasters somehow always only happen when you are away, in my case I was about 500 miles from my tank when I heard the news, anyway that was last week & here's the new chapter.

55 glass tank w/ crappy HOB overflow (had no choice, livestock was sitting in temporary holding tank) and Proflex sump running OR 2500 pump & Euroreef RS-80 Skimmer, it's not running yet because I misplaced the O-Ring at the neck and waiting for new one to show up in the mail, meanwhile aqua-C Remora to the rescue.

This was setup in the garage and shall live there until painting/flooring, etc. is all finished. I literally slapped this whole thing together from parts I had laying in random boxes in the garage, had to make a quick run to HD to buy some connections & hoses then on to the move process, I somehow managed to throw the whole thing together in less than 48 hours and finished last night.

Today will be the first day everything is in this new tank, fish all look happy and very active, somehow they are more active in this tank than their old home, I figured they'd hide for a while but they seem to be enjoying themselves. Crossing my fingers & hoping all my corals made it through, still don't know since I'm working on scaping the rocks so I can finally place all the corals where they need to be.

I'll be back to do some work on this thread with more info so I can finally have a proper journal from the start. For now I have a lot of clean up to do and of course getting started on a long to-do list for this new tank...

quick phone pic:

IMAG0086.jpg


More to come...
 
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Fidel - exactly where in your tank did the leak from the silicone seam failure occur? How old was the tank and is this something totally unpredictable and unpreventable?! (Scary...now I'm nervous!) So glad fish are doing well - amazing how fast you put this together!
 
Geneva, The tank that sprung a leak was a used tank I acquired 2 years ago in november, prior to filling it I looked over all the seals and they looked completely fine, the leak I imagine started slowly because over the past few months I noticed the top panel of the stand swelling but I didn't think this was from a joint seal I figured I'm splashing too much when doing maintenance since I couldn't find any visible water around the tank. So to answer you question more directly, no there weren't signs other than mysteriously damp stand. The age of the tank is probably about 5 years of actual saltwater use. It is a cheap chinese Oddyssea tank so I would say the best precaution is to stay away from garbage quality tanks. Consequently I have decided that the next tank going inside my home will be a brand new custom made Cad Lights tank, no question of quality work there. I have to note that this replacement tank is overkill when it comes to build quality; 5/8" thick glass and the joints looks seriously impressive, because the glass is so thick the joints don't have to have conventional silicone seals and the contact surface between panes is enough for it to hold which makes for very smooth looking corners (I'll post close up pics later) but this comes at the cost of a heavy green hue in the glass.
I too am very glad that I was able to put together this setup in a blink of an eye (speaking in reef tank terms) it definitely paid off to horde spare parts over the past couple of years, otherwise I would have been posting another thread begging for extra parts haha.

Erin, I've got things covered as far as parts go, the only thing I'm missing is a dosing pump (missed out big time on Vadim's fire sale ;) ) but that's not a necessary item until I come across a good deal. I'll probably try pay you a visit sometime soon to hang out & see how you're doing...

Devon, I tried to send you that pic but it failed lol, I'll keep you posted and will need your chaeto donation again when I get a gravity fuge going on this one, I will actually get to run a very nice refugium now that I have an entire wall to use in the garage and not worry about aesthetics anymore.

I'm feeling kind of nervous right now because many corals are still sitting in the sump and have not seen light for over 48 hours, this weekend has been nerve wracking due to the holiday and work that I was scheduled to do but I'm trying my best to spend every spare minute doing work on the tank. I plan to have the scaping finished today and hopefully all the corals (or the ones that survived) mounted and hopefully recovering.

I'm going to be giving away the leaky tank/stand/hood/lighting/filter etc. (it's an AIO) as soon as I have time to clean it out, someone who knows how can reseal this tank in less than an hour.
 
Quick update;

Scaping is finished, it's the best I can do while working with rocks that are already in the tank and of course with a full tank and all livestock....

I made a ton of caves/holes/tunnels for the fish and they are LOVING it, corals were at the bitter end of this ordeal, there's plenty of tissue loss but oh well, I can grow them back now & make sure I attend the next frag swap. I'm just glad this was not a total wreck of a situation.

I took a quick snap

IMAG0087_1.jpg


The entire center of the rockwork is open with just a small branch supporting the front of the big flat rock at the top, I gave myself plenty of room for everything from SPS to softies :)

Quite happy this is over but now the garage looks like someone threw a grenade through the doggy door & ran haha, another 6 hours or so to sort out the mess I made.
 
Updates;

All equipment is running perfectly now (almost all), I got the skimmer going, sump kind of figured out, ATO, water level alarm, make shift temporary water station, dosing of kalk vinegar & vodka back online, rebuilt the lights entirely, 140mm brushless fan to cool the tank down, wavemaker & powerheads all running, controller configured with 12 outlets. God did this take a while haha, and so much more to go, I haven't even had a chance to drill my siphon break or put together a new top.

Something about this new setup is making everything happier, all the fish are out & social now instead of hiding all the time when I had the old tank, also finally I have a little more room for corals and a variety of locations for a variety of coral types. Most of what's left is cleaning things up in regards to wiring, controller & so on. Need new corals & moar fish now :D

& here are a couple of pics that I finally was able to spend time on;

7-30-14.jpg


she decided now that she hangs out in corals
ClownTorch.jpg
 
Your tank is looking real nice man! I have some rapidled stuff for you. I don't need it so I can pass it along to you. I'll bring it to the swap.

See you there
 
Heyyy Devon thank you and I still haven't forgotten about our brews ;)

I've been meaning to talk to you actually about the lights you needed work done on. I finally finished work on my fixture so I'm free to start on another one now :) apologies for the delay on this since I've been trying to catch up on my new tank & working to get it in cruise control again.

I'll talk to you about it before the swap so that perhaps you can bring that too so I can get it going for you...

I posted my build in this thread if you're interested in taking a look;

http://www.bareefers.org/forum/thre...pectrum-led-concepts.14120/page-4#post-253362
 
he's totally fine, apparently thinks that the powerhead is a nice place to hang out! thanks to this behavior I'm ordering a Jebao and ditching my old school wave maker.
 
Death wish.

I had a tailspot blenny that used to do that every time I turned my MP10 off to feed my Mandarin. I'm surprised he never got chopped up, but amazingly I always remembered to check for him before I turned the pumps back on.
 
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