afboundguy's 35 gallon and display fuge build!!!

[afboundguy]

SPS frags have not been fairing well which has prompted me to do a bunch of troubleshooting and I ended up dusting off the Hannah nitrate tester and my nitrates were around 60

Ended up doing a 48 and just started carbon dosing with vinegar this morning to help lower nitrates as well as lowered how much phyto I have been dosing to 210 ml vs 300 ml per day.

I know the wire management is a nightmare and that's on my list of things to do when I hook up the Hydros system that I really need to do sooner rather than later!

 

[BiGGiePauls33]

60 Nitrates are fine

 

[afboundguy]

60 Nitrates are fineView attachment 229244

Not for my tank right now. Not sure if it's the nitrate or something else and I'm still troubleshooting...

 

[afboundguy]

I may or may not have overflowed a 5 gallon bucket for a few hours after I forgot to set a timer a few days ago... Prompted me to look into adding a float switch for when I make water and found this little beauty for $8 on Amazon that clips to the side of the bucket!

I may be heading somewhere to pick up a tank (shhhhhhh) and will be stopping by Home Depot to grab some brute trash cans to try and setup a water mixing station to alleviate this issue so I'll have fresh mixed SW and RODI on hand...

 

[dilligaf29]

Need to fix mine also . Almost passed out making water last night

 

[afboundguy]

Carbon dosing has gone well so far. Nitrates seem to be in the 30-40 range instead of 60-70 after the first week so I bumped up the dosage for week two.

Big shout out to @Chris.Reef for helping me with some 3D prints while my printers are still offline. He graciously printed some Hydros cable management clips and these bad boys for mangroves!

The white egg crate wasn't really cutting it and some of the mangroves were dying off so I took the ones that weren't looking so well back in the mainly freshwater-brackish bucket to see if they'll recover and transported two from that bucket into the tank.

Before:

After:

 

[afboundguy]

Took a few minutes to create a walk through update video of the setup! I know I need wire management and a bit of tidying up!

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[afboundguy]

Been a bit under the weather for various reasons and trying not to totally lay around 24/7 so I spent a little time organizing the layout. Moved some stuff around and vacuumed and threw down a cheapo "waterproof" mat on top of the foam board. I know about the cords it's one of my next things to do!

 

[afboundguy]

Also installed a cheapo paper towel holder since it was annoying to not have a permanent home for it! It's the little things!

 

[afboundguy]

Oh boy what's happening?

 

[afboundguy]

Took a little time to springboard off yesterday's progress hooking up the Hydros stuff to start mounting!

Some before

 

[afboundguy]

Took everything that was left off the board.

Attempted to screw into the fieldstone foundation but it proved difficult so I pivoted and used boards screwed to the back of the wood where the breaker box is mounted.

 

[afboundguy]

Ended up doing sort of a sandwich with a board in-between and secured to both sides of the breaker box board.

 

[afboundguy]

Still a ways to go but mounted a small board to the side of the stand and put the Hydros X10 and iV and the two return pumps and three powerheads and finally hooked up the third inkbird and two extra heaters that I have been meaning to do for a while.

I figured it would be easier to have the X10 and iV closer to the sump for testing and to give more room on the other board.

I plan to add a board to the rear of the panel so I don't see the cords when looking at the sump as well as use some plastic wire organizer stuff to clean it up even more!

 

[afboundguy]

I forgot to put the skimmer controller on the board. I used alien tape for the pump controllers and man does it work. Had to use some force to take them off!