New Setup - AGA 75 Gallon Pre-Drilled

[aromano]

Mike,

The silencer idea is really good and I might be able to implement something for the future once my setup is stable and broken in. For now I am going to leave the ATO on 24/7, because like you said "it's a good reminder that it's pulling from the reservoir so I keep an extra eye on it during these beeps" ...(I am using the original NC6 pump, which was replaced w/ a mini jet 606.)

My skimmer still breaking in and this morning if it wasn't for the beeps I would have never noticed that the skimmer was over flowing. Thanks for the ATO and your advice I was able to take care of the problem before it was too late.

The beep sound actually saved me a lot of cleaning up time if the skimmer had made a mess in my living room.

One thing that's concerning me it that w/ two 45W Mag-Drives, two 20W Maxi Jets 1200 and a 7.5W Maxi Jet 600, along w/ 432W of light my system is starting to overheat, keeping my temperatures between 81.5 and 84 degrees.

I am going to try to get a clip fan for the sump and perhaps disconnect the plastic covers that attach to the tank's glass lids to allow more ventilation and see if I can get the system to run w/ a maximum temperature of at least 82 degrees. Other wise a chiller will have to be my future investment in order to run the tank at a more desirable temperature.

I checked my parameters today and my tank is fully cycled, but I am not getting any live stock until I can get the temperature situation resolved.
I started buffering the water yesterday to gradually get the calcium level up to 420 and starting today a 5 gallon weekly water change has been added to the maintenance schedule.

Ammonia = 0
Nitrite = 0
Nitrate = 5

Mike, thanks again for advice. You saved me a lot of cleanning up time today :thumbup:

 

[mikeguerrero]

André,

I am glad that you decided to leave the ATO alarm enabled. As you can see it has helped you out as it alerted me to a disaster to be.

Regarding your heating problem, it will not go away unless you tackle it; and yes you have two ways of fighting it.

A lot of reefers in an attempt to save a lot of money steer clear of a chiller and instead use powerful efficient fans on top of their sumps. I encourage you to take a look at this option first as it will keep you temps down considerable.

But like everything in life its a trade off, you will get massive amounts of evaporation but hey you have a ATO machine and maybe just upgrade your reservoir to a larger size to compensate for large amounts of evap.

Or you go with a chiller like me and have no evaporation problems and a controlled environment; my temps will swing only 3 degrees from 76.5 to 79.5.

My tank never hits 80 degrees and my animals and corals seem to love this area. I did have it sway more from 76.5 to 83.5 but after listening to Incysor and DJ it was way to much of a swing.

Having a longer swing ment my chiller came on less, but I don't mind the extra time it comes on because my critters do come first for me.

I shopped hard for a good chiller and JBJ came up the winner because of it's powerful compressor and of course it's sleek look as it is exposed to the living room and may I say, it fits nicely as it looks very modern.

It's not a good idea to have a chiller in a confined place as you could end up heating up your sump and depleting the chiller of it's usefullness.

I went with the second largest chiller I could get since if I got a smaller rated one, it would come on more times to keep my temps steady.

Hope this helps out a little; plus you are right about waiting untill all these parameters are stable before critters are added.

Mike G

 

[aromano]

Mike,

Do you run your chiller's pump externally?
If I eventually get one I will definitely have to run the pump externally, because there is no more room inside my sump.

I was reading some reviews on the JBJ Arctica, and people seem to be very happy w/ them. I certainly cannot afford anything more than the 1/10 HP and I was wondering if it would be appropriate for this tank.

I was reading the intructions from the Arctica 1/10 HP and the recommended flow rate is 240GPH. I was wondering if I do get this unit in the future if I should go w/ a Mag 250 according to the chiller specs or If I should choose a more powerful pump.

In the mid time I ordered a 7" clip fan for the sump and I am going to experiment w/ that to see what kind of results I can get.

Thanks again for all the help you've been giving me.

 

[mikeguerrero]

Andre,

My pumps are all internal because I was limited to cabinet space. When the chiller came into play, I upgraded my return pump from the Mag 700 all the way up to the Mag 1200.

You need a pump that can fight any type of head pressure you might encounter; so if you read the specs correctly the 250 should be enough, I have the 250 mag running my external skimmer and it works great. You don't want the water to move too quickly through the chiller but then again you need to fight head pressure; if you get the 350 you would probably need a valve controller.

Like I mentioned earlier, the fan is going to help you so much, you will see, in the mean time talk to Santa Claus and see if he can make a visit after the holidays for that chiller, save and save....

Mike

 

[aromano]

Cool, let's see what results will come into play w/ clip fan vs. the trade off of evaporation and then decide if the chiller will be really necessary, or if the fan can be a more affordable solution to the problem.

Thx Mike.

 

[aromano]

My skimmer finally started working properly today after about a week breaking in and I was amazed to see the amount of skimate I got from a tank that has no live stock far. It's picking up allot of waste from the LR that was introduced to the tank two weeks ago.

I can't wait to get my temperature situation resolved, so I can introduce some fish to start eating the algae that has been growing unbelievably fast. I had been leaving the lights on for eight hours a day to monitor the temperature, but now I will start to leave them off to delay the algae growth and try to get it under control. Once the clip fan arrives, I'll start monitoring the temperature again and see if the results are satisfatory.

 

[aromano]

I removed the plastic covers that attach to my glass lid today to run a test, and check if there would be any significant change of temperature.
Surprisingly when I got home from work my temperature was 80 degrees flat instead of 84, even without the clip fan blowing over the sump.

This is pretty good news, so if in the next couple days the temperature remains stable, I might just add a little piece of egg crate between the gap in the glass lid to avoid any chances of fish trying to jump out of the tank.

Today I also picked up some macro algae from my LFS and added to my refugium.

 

[aromano]

The clip fan has really done an incredible job, keeping my temperatures running at 77.5 at night and 79.5 during the day.

I also setup a 10 gallon quarantine tank today for the new arrivals and fish that might eventually get sick. This used to be a freshwater setup, which had been taken down a couple of months ago. I used a cycled sponge from my NC24, a HOB filter and a Rio 180 powerhead. 50% of the water came from my cycled tank and 50% of new saltwater. I still need to get a small heater and it's pretty much ready to accept fish.

 

[mikeguerrero]

Andre,

Looks awesome and clean with where you placed the clip on fan. How much evaporation are you getting?

Also your QT looks great, how long will you place them in there before transfer into the main tank? Will you dose with copper?

Mike

 

[aromano]

Hi Mike,

The clip fan seems to be a good alternative for now, keeping my temperatures at a safe, stable range. I am glad I waited to see the results before buying a chiller, even though that might be a good future investment. With the fan on during the day, I'm getting about 3/4 of a gallon of evaporation p/ day, and I have to refill my 3 gallon reservoir every 3 to 4 days.

Unfortunately I don't have the time to maintain three reef tanks, so all my fish and corals from my NC24 will be transferred to the AGA75 in about one or two weeks. Before this happens a 25% water change will made and a new cleaning crew will be added.

As far as the quarantine tank, the main reason for this simple setup is to adjust the water parameters to the shipment bag and then treat the fish only as much as necessary in isolation until it has recovered from the stress of transport. There the fish can adjust to prepared foods, the new environment and I can replicate main tank conditions by doing waterchanges with tankwater.

If the fish don't show any visible signs of parasites or illness, I monitor the fish in the quarantine tank for about 3 weeks. Given good living conditions, and a healthy diet, there is no reason why a fish will not be able to rid itself of most parasites by themselves.

I'm against of the use of any chemicals to treat fish, unless it's absolutely necessary. The method I prefer to use is hyposalinity, which works by breaking the life cycle of the parasite. Hyposalinity should only be used on a sick fish IMO

If the fish develops any signs of severe "Ich" and I can tell by looking at the fish that he's not going to clear the infection on his own, then I gradually lower the salinity to a specific gravity of 1.009. The significance of holding the quarantine tank at 11ppt has been the inability of these parasites to gain a foothold and reproduce, but a 6-week period is necessary to make sure that all the parasites are dead before transferring the fish to the main display.

Soaking their food in water-soluble garlic extract also helps to increase their appetite and bust their immune system. While the fish are being treated it is extremely important to closely monitor the pH and specific gravity. There is a tendency for the pH to drop with lower salinity and levels must be constantly monitored. I find that buffering the freshwater to at least pH 8.0 initially and then buffering it again every 2 days if necessary, keeps the pH more stable w/ the low salinity conditions.

I have also read that when fish are under stress, one of the processes that are affected is ion regulation. This means they have difficulty adjusting the concentration of ions, sodium, chloride, etc. Lowering the salinity of the water makes the concentration of ions closer to the fish’s internal fluids and reduces the fish's efforts to maintain the correct concentrations.

P.S. Reef Safe No-Ich, also seems to be very effective, by eliminating the free swimming, infectious stage of the ich life cycle.

 

[mikeguerrero]

Looks,

Like you have researched your options very well. I am certain your tank is going to blossom.

I also had to take down several tanks because it was just too much work with three.

So I'm working on a RedSea Pico and my 72 reef tank..

Mike

 

[aromano]

I got a medium blue tang on Dec. 28th, and decided to put him in the main tank, which should provide the fish a more natural and less stressfull environment. After watching the tang for three days, I noticed he was very social, eating well and didn't develop any visible signs of parasites.

On the Dec. 31st I transferred my fish and corals to their new home and so far everybody seems to be doing fine. The blue tang started eating Formula One and Two Frozen Food and Frozen Brine Shrimp on the second day.

I also installed a Digital Aquatics ReefKeeper to have better control over my equipment. All the water parameters are reading fine except for calcium, which is way too high reading over 600 ppm. This is very unusual, as I have never seen calcium levels so high maintaining normal PH and alkalinity levels. I have to carefully monitor this and gradually adjust calcium levels by doing regular water changes until I get it down to 450 ppm.

PH - 7.9
Ammonia - 0.0 mg/l
Nitrite - 0.0 mg/l
Nitrate – 5.0 mg/l
Calcium – 620 ppm
Alkalinity – 2.51 meq/L
KH - 7.0
Salinity - 1.024
Temperature – 78.6 – 79.3

Click here to view larger images.
http://www.animationstudios.com/AGA75/

 

[mikeguerrero]

Absolutely gorgeous,

I love your tank, your equipment, and your aquascaping. You are doing a pristine job on this reef. I love the way you are documenting everything and choosing stealth equipment for filtration.

If you place your ear to your tank, your fish are bragging about how clean there environment is, good job.

Mike G

 

[aromano]

Thanks a lot for the comments Mike.
I am also really happy with the results of this project so far.
The first few days after moving a considerable amount of live stock to a new system is always a bit scary, since an ammonia spike could very easily do a lot of damage. Therefore I've been testing ammonia and nitrite on regular basis and have about 20 gallons of new water for any emergencies. Hopefully within a few more days the tank will mature to the point where I'll be able to stop worrying a disaster to be while I'm at work.:mrgreen:

 

[reefman23]

I agree...great tank!!! Look outstanding! Very clean, well thought-out.... very nice job.

 

[Anonymous]

very nice!

 

[sadielynn]

I also echo everyone your tank is looking great :mrgreen:

 

[aromano]

Thanks so much for all the comments guys.
I am doing my best to keep my critters as healthy as possible, but a new tank is a new tank and many changes will go through many months until it gradually matures. The corals and fish are gradually adjusting to their new environment and hopefully they will continue to do fine until their new home can feel more stable.

 

[jsholar]

Your tank is amazing!!! It gives me a goal to aim for. It will take years for my take to even think about looking so awesome though. :roll:

 

[aromano]

Thanks a lot for the compliment Jason.
Welcome to nanotank and to the world of reefkeeping...
I added a comment in your thred: http://www.nanotank.com/forum/viewtopic ... 9897#19897