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Brandon’s 180 Upgrade
- Thread starter Johnson556
- Start date
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Johnson556
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Johnson556
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Haha I was going to text you today, swing by Saturday. Just installed two MP40's and fixed 90% of my rock work. @gurumasta
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Johnson556
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Haven’t updated in a while, Tank is finally stable and has been steady at 8.2 dKH for three weeks. Calcium is still balancing out, currently around 480. Current light schedule is kessils from 12pm-10:30pm with a 2 hour ramp up/down, and peak of 90% from 4pm-6pm. The 6 80W T5’s rum from 3pm-9pm. Just finished getting some PAR readings, will mos
t likely be turning the kessils down from 90% to 80%.
Tuesday I began loading it up with a quick trip to @Tim190 to get some nice SPS pieces. Anyone that’s stoppped by his place knows how incredible it is, highly recommended.
Here’s a few pics to show it’s current status, only piece of equipment left is to upgrade to a DOS at some point. May add a trio of lyretail anthias in the near future. Added a marble wrasse yesterday, hasn’t came up from the sand yet.
Tuesday I began loading it up with a quick trip to @Tim190 to get some nice SPS pieces. Anyone that’s stoppped by his place knows how incredible it is, highly recommended.
Here’s a few pics to show it’s current status, only piece of equipment left is to upgrade to a DOS at some point. May add a trio of lyretail anthias in the near future. Added a marble wrasse yesterday, hasn’t came up from the sand yet.
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Johnson556
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Since my last post the tank has been a complete headache. Nothing is making any sense and I’m just going to blame it on new tank syndrome at this point. Yet, I have to deep clean my MP40’s almost every 3 weeks because of how fast they get coated with Coralline. I haven’t added any corals in over two months yet two weeks ago I notice AEFW on numerous acros...funny how that happens. Everything’s been dipped and dealt with. Haven’t seen any signs of them in a weeks time and have inspected 90% of corals for eggs.
I’ve lost numerous acro colonies and frags in the past three months. I just noticed a big rainbow acan colony deteriorating today. Tank has been stable between 7.8-8.0dkh, calcium balanced out around 430PPM, and Nitrates at 2PPM. I can tell phosphates fluctuate depending on how the glass and sand looks, added some GFO while the scrubber seeds just to keep them low. I do 40g water changes each month and sometimes a quick 10g in between using Red Sea blue bucket.
I disconnected the scrubber in June to let my nutrients accumulate due to everything being so pale before hand. Because of that I’ve developed this weird green crap all over my rocks and have some nice brown acros as well....decided it’s going back on. I plan on adding more fish and making it a high import/export system with the scrubber. I feel like the scrubber worked so well on my 90G (along with everything else) because I added the scrubber when the tank was 8 months old. I also had a significantly greater bioload in respect to what this tank has.
Added a Neptune Dos last week and let me tell you, so far I hate it. The Auto programming is garbage and it’s loud. I plan on going full nerd to program how I want later this week. BRS 1.1ml dosers did a fine job and I should have stuck with them.
Going forward I’m just going to let the tank mature until things color up and everything’s in good health/stable. Going to be adding some more fish and cuc in the mean time. Hopefully by December I can confidentially dump 20+ sticks in it.
I’ve lost numerous acro colonies and frags in the past three months. I just noticed a big rainbow acan colony deteriorating today. Tank has been stable between 7.8-8.0dkh, calcium balanced out around 430PPM, and Nitrates at 2PPM. I can tell phosphates fluctuate depending on how the glass and sand looks, added some GFO while the scrubber seeds just to keep them low. I do 40g water changes each month and sometimes a quick 10g in between using Red Sea blue bucket.
I disconnected the scrubber in June to let my nutrients accumulate due to everything being so pale before hand. Because of that I’ve developed this weird green crap all over my rocks and have some nice brown acros as well....decided it’s going back on. I plan on adding more fish and making it a high import/export system with the scrubber. I feel like the scrubber worked so well on my 90G (along with everything else) because I added the scrubber when the tank was 8 months old. I also had a significantly greater bioload in respect to what this tank has.
Added a Neptune Dos last week and let me tell you, so far I hate it. The Auto programming is garbage and it’s loud. I plan on going full nerd to program how I want later this week. BRS 1.1ml dosers did a fine job and I should have stuck with them.
Going forward I’m just going to let the tank mature until things color up and everything’s in good health/stable. Going to be adding some more fish and cuc in the mean time. Hopefully by December I can confidentially dump 20+ sticks in it.
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Cpage101
Current BRS Vice President
nice build thread! I went through this with the 120G upgrade ended up battling dino 2x. fingers crossed I’m done with that forever. I’ll tell you best thing I did was set up a CA reactor. since I have done this the system parameters have been super stable. it like the ronco electric oven set it and forget it [emoji23] Look forward to seeing the 180 progress along[emoji106]
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Johnson556
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I went through 3 tanks before I landed “the one”, my only advice is to just suck it up and buy new, it’s not worth the headache/stress. The tank I chipped held water with intense waves for two weeks but I’m far to neurotic to have a tank with a blemish. Sold it to someone for $100 just to get rid of it.
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Johnson556
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Thanks Corey, I was so close to getting a Ca Reactor but I backed out last second and went with the dos, will Deff make the switch with future tanks.
Tank since my last post has been rock solid however, Oct. 1st I ripped all of the SPS out of my tank and tossed it. Time to start fresh, no pests, no nonsense and thorough dippings/QT going forward.
I also started doing 30G water changes weekly (for now) and the tank is looking crisp. Been exactly where I want to be with the exception of PO4, still waiting for scrubber to take off. Completely revamped it 5 minutes ago; smaller screen with higher flow to fine tune it appropriately. Here’s and updated shot just after the lights turned one.
Added about 30lbs more of rock to the display to increase the hieght a bit in some areas.
Current Stock List
-2 Purple tangs
-3 yellow tangs
-melenarus wrasse
-yellow coris wrasse
-lubbocks Wrasse
-ruby head wrasse
-Solon fairy wrasse (currently in timeout in a 10G)
-trio of lyretail anthias
-swallowtail Angel
-orangetail damsel
-pair of clowns that spawn non-stop
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Cpage101
Current BRS Vice President
looking awesome do you have male and female anthias? I want a pair of them. I also want to get a med-large long-nose hawk fish. oh ya and some more acros [emoji23]
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Johnson556
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1 male 2 females, but it took 2 males and 6 females to make that trio....
Can’t wait to put acros back in, game plan is to throw a few testers in before thanks giving then if all is well come January I will load up again.
Can’t wait to put acros back in, game plan is to throw a few testers in before thanks giving then if all is well come January I will load up again.
gurumasta
Senior Moron
Come by and I’ll hook you up with a few guniea pigs...
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Johnson556
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Quick Update because I did a bunch of maintenance last night and took a full tank shot.
Since my last post, seemed to overdo water changed a bit and eventually got some Dino going. After a 50 hour black out they seem to be gone. Has been two weeks now with no signs of there return, that strange algae also seems to be going away. The turf scrubber has been taking off and doing its job. NO3 has been at between 2-4ppm for a while now and PO4 is detectable at around 0.01. I aggressively dosed phosphate a few weeks ago and shocked my system...amateur move. Things are recovering, got some bad STN on a few pieces but I think they’re turning around finally. The only thing that might not make it is a green slimer...go figure.
One fish away from having my live stock complete (Radiant Wrasse) and other than that I have no plans of doing anything different until I move early next year. Just add corals, and maybe do a few water changes. Certainly going to scrap the weekly changes, maybe once a month from this point forward unless things start to get ugly.
Also added a little frag tank I made from a Red Sea ATO thanks to Marty at European Aquatics.
Since my last post, seemed to overdo water changed a bit and eventually got some Dino going. After a 50 hour black out they seem to be gone. Has been two weeks now with no signs of there return, that strange algae also seems to be going away. The turf scrubber has been taking off and doing its job. NO3 has been at between 2-4ppm for a while now and PO4 is detectable at around 0.01. I aggressively dosed phosphate a few weeks ago and shocked my system...amateur move. Things are recovering, got some bad STN on a few pieces but I think they’re turning around finally. The only thing that might not make it is a green slimer...go figure.
One fish away from having my live stock complete (Radiant Wrasse) and other than that I have no plans of doing anything different until I move early next year. Just add corals, and maybe do a few water changes. Certainly going to scrap the weekly changes, maybe once a month from this point forward unless things start to get ugly.
Also added a little frag tank I made from a Red Sea ATO thanks to Marty at European Aquatics.
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Johnson556
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Johnson556
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Changed my lights from six 80 Watt T5's with three Kessil A360's to three Radion XR30 G4 Pro's with four 80 Watt T5's. The layout from back to front is Blue+, Coral+, Radions, Actinic, Blue+. I started running the lights at 50% intensity and noticed only a small increase (between 6-10%) in par compared to my prior set up. Well, came home to some LED burns yesterday on a few pieces so I've bumped them down to 40% intensity. I'll be adding my "final" acro's this weekend, once added I will increase intensity 2% a week until I'm at 60%.
I've attached a spreadsheet of my schedule and par readings. Par was tested at with the T5's on and 50% intensity. Par was measured with an apogee my-200 so all values are 8% higher than labeled. I have yet to see it during the day so that may change, the T5's come on at 14:00 and shut off at 20:00.
So far I'm indifferent on the radions. They're incredible pieces of gear but the subtle disco ball effect on the sand pisses me off. The kessils just blended so well and created the best shimmer around. Time will tell. Something tells me the growth I'll get from these is going to be comical compared to the kessils, fingers crossed. Plan on picking up my final 10 sticks this weekend to make it an even 50 acro's. After that we let things settle and grow grow grow.
I've attached a spreadsheet of my schedule and par readings. Par was tested at with the T5's on and 50% intensity. Par was measured with an apogee my-200 so all values are 8% higher than labeled. I have yet to see it during the day so that may change, the T5's come on at 14:00 and shut off at 20:00.
So far I'm indifferent on the radions. They're incredible pieces of gear but the subtle disco ball effect on the sand pisses me off. The kessils just blended so well and created the best shimmer around. Time will tell. Something tells me the growth I'll get from these is going to be comical compared to the kessils, fingers crossed. Plan on picking up my final 10 sticks this weekend to make it an even 50 acro's. After that we let things settle and grow grow grow.
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