My 210 FOWLR Turned Reef

[FLESHY]

Wow. You didnt tell me it was going THIS badly last night...

Excited about the new fish, hope the clowns learned their lesson.

I had similar issues with my koralia 6's when I started using them. Took a lot of tinkering to get just exactly right.

As far as the zipties go, workign with them even when your rock is drilled can be a nightmare...it was a pita for me, I know that. Most require two holes so that you can tighten them against each other. This is why mine looks...fairly clean I would say.

 

[dlp40]

Dang!!!!! That makes my little cyno problem seem like nothing. I can't wait to see some pics of the improvements and fish though. I kind of really want to see your new rock wall as i have though of doing the same thing on one end of my 75gallon.

at any rate, i hate things are going so rough for ya, but it will get better i'm sure

 

[nonstophoops]

Finally got some pics of the upgrades. So here they come, there will be better ones coming soon when I get a hold of the gf's camera and get the front glass cleaned. 1st pic is a before canopy and rock stack shot.

I added some pictures of everything I have received in the mail the last couple days. The last pic is my QT setup, 20 gallon on top and 29 gallon on bottom. Vlamingi tang is currently on the top and the Achilles tang will be going into the 29 tomorrow.

Still have to get the Phosban reactor up and running tonight.

 

[nonstophoops]

Got a few pics of the clowns, but not good ones yet. (They won't stay still )

Wasn't able to get a Hippo tang today. The store I want to get one from didn't have any that looked healthy at the size I want. Somewhere in the 2 to 3 inch range. Hopefully I will find one soon, don't want to add any tangs after the Achilles.

 

[nonstophoops]

Got the Phosban Reactor running with some bulk GFO from Premium Aquatics. Currently running at about 35 gph with a maxijet 600. Definitely seems like you can buy a tiny pump for this, the 600 is overkill and the ball valve is turned almost all the way closed. I plan to tweak/change around when it is located to make it a bit more orderly. I am planning on getting my calcium reactor running soon so I will need the space and order. Here are a few pics of it in action, granted there isn't much to see.

 

[FLESHY]

Crazy crazy crazy...I agree you coulda done better with the rock, but it is cooler than it was.

Next time you wanna fidget with it, bring me down, its easier with a nice drill and a couple sets of hands.

 

[nonstophoops]

Crazy crazy crazy...I agree you coulda done better with the rock, but it is cooler than it was.

Next time you wanna fidget with it, bring me down, its easier with a nice drill and a couple sets of hands.

Agreed. I will most likely redo it in some way. I still like the idea of the stack with the overhang, but will probably need a drill to get it the way I want. Your help would be greatly appreciated in that regard.

I think I will start moving some colors over this week and seeing what happens with the angels. I also might pick up a sunset monti that is overgrowing a reef plug for 25 bucks.

Also, an update on my fish order. The shipment did not go out today due to my Achilles acting strange I guess. I am sort of sketched out, but we will see what happens. I now might be getting a hippo tang from him again. Everything is coming in on Friday. I need the Male Flame Wrasse asap or I might end up with more than one male problems.

 

[nonstophoops]

Correction: I meant corals in the last post, not colors.

Got my powerhead issue seemingly remedied. I put 1 Koralia 8 on the front right, 1 8 on the back left, 1 4 on the front left, and 1 4 on the back right, so the 8's don't point at each other and cause problems. I don't think I will be adding any more of the 4's, though possibly one on the right side up pretty high in the middle. Or maybe a 3 on the back wall facing the front of the tank. Just to try to break up the linear flow some and make it more random.

Did some water testing today, and was sort of suprised by the results. My Nitrates are still at 0 despite adding 8 more fish which I was happy about. My Ph was lower than it has ever been at 8, normally it is at 8.3 to 8.4. I did test right about the time the lights went on for the day, so that may have affected the reading. Same deal with my Dkh being low at 7 maybe 8, didn't seem to fully change between drops. I guess it is time to get that Calcium Reactor hooked up too, because my Calcium was almost down to 300! Yikes! Magnesium was good at 1280. Same with Phosphate, used my old test kit so it is hard to tell exactly because the increments are so big, but it was less than .25. The Phosreactor has only been running a day, so that little bit should be gone soon.

The low calcium readings are most likely because I have been slacking a bit on the water changes and haven't been dosing really. I might have to do a little Kalk dosing for the time being. I want to make sure my Ph stays up before adding the Calcium reactor because I know that will have some effect even with a second chamber and being plumbed directly into the skimmer.

It is time for a water change(looks like overdue!) anyhow, so I will do that and then test the water again in a couple days and see if the results differ much.

Vlamingi Tang will be going into the tank on Thursday if all goes to plan.

 

[FLESHY]

Glad to hear the vlamingi is ready for the tank now.

I wouldnt dose kalk right now...what I would do is an h2o change...you dont really have enough coral in there to warrant kalk, calcium reactor, or even dosing.

I would do an h2o change, and then get your reactor and kalk set up so that the kalk buffers out whatever your reactor is bringing down.

Keep a close eye on it, now is the time to get the whole thing up and running before you add sensitive inverts.

 

[nonstophoops]

Glad to hear the vlamingi is ready for the tank now.

I wouldnt dose kalk right now...what I would do is an h2o change...you dont really have enough coral in there to warrant kalk, calcium reactor, or even dosing.

I would do an h2o change, and then get your reactor and kalk set up so that the kalk buffers out whatever your reactor is bringing down.

Keep a close eye on it, now is the time to get the whole thing up and running before you add sensitive inverts.

I obviously wasn't going to set up the Kalk or Calcium instead of a water change, Ha! Going to do a big water change in the morning, about 50 gallons. Still the water changes won't correct the Calcium shortage that much unless I do a ton of them. It's weird, I have been slacking on water changes but I have done 2 for a total over about 70 gallons in the past 6 weeks. Surprised my system would be using that much. It might have been the box of normal IO salt I used recently to get rid of it instead of RC, bad batch or something. Really thats the only thing I can think of.