Planning for the future

My 90G setup is sitting in the basement, and it's getting some attention but not nearly what it could get. My wife had hinted that if I can find a nice stand for it that it can move back upstairs.

Of course that only needs to be said once. I fell in love with the Red Sea Max-S.
This thing is awesome, I visited our LFS, A Reef Creation, www.areefcreation.com they have one on display.
This stuff is so well though of, it's crazy. The power management,  the slanted sump, lighting etc..
You can check this tank out for yourself here: Red Sea Max-S-series

Enjoy, and let me know what you think. I'm looking forward to hear of your exepriences with this system.

Getting stable

Finally I'm spending some time at home. I've been able to get some good tank maintenance done, and keeping the calcium /mangnesium and alk in check.

I added a dual chamber reactor with both carbon and GFO to help with the clarification and the posphate levels. It's amazing how quickly the corals turn around and start coloring up.

I should take some pictures, not that I have many corals left but the ones that tare there are looking good, imo.

Happy Reefing!

Waffleman

Disaster Strikes!

I had to leave town for work, So my son usually takes care of the the tank while I'm gone. He feeds to tank and tops off the water.

So 2 days into my trip, he calls me a says. What's with the tank? the pumps aren't running.

Not only were the pumps not running, the whole tank had stopped functioning. After some remote trouble shooting, we came to find out the the GFI had tripped. This takes everything out in the tank.

More trouble shooting, It appears that a faulty heater was the culprit. My son plugged in a backup heater in to the power strip and the heating light came on. The temperature in the tank had dropped to 65DegF.

So problem solved, and keeping our fingers crossed  that nothing had died.
We  monitored the temperature for a couple of days and it seems to be steady at 78.5F

Next question: Hey dad, how come the lights are never on? After a couple of days we finally get a chance to trouble shoot this problem. Apparently the heater took out the controller power strip and the circuit breaker reset is not working. After another mad scramble to find good old fashioned timers, we have light in the tank again.

Between the heater and the no lights for 4 days, I did end up loosing some corals. My orange crush acan and the pulsing xenias are goners. My Blue chalice took a big hit. I hope it will recover.
Good news: non the fish died.

Lesson learned: Have your tank on multiple outlets with seperate GFI's , so that at least 1 pump can keep going if a heater misbehaves. and always have equipment on standby.

I'm back!

OK, I never really left.
I had stuff stuff in survival mode for over a year and I finally put my 90G back together.
This recreated system uses all the same components as before:

• 30G sump
• ASM G3 skimmer
• Eheim 1262 return pump
• 6x55W T5's
• AquaController jr.

Here is a picture of the reborn 90G:

I had 1 casualty from the transfer to the new system, my Hippo tang, who seemed healthy and was eating well was found dead 5 days after the transfer.

RIP little buddy:

 

I will keep you posted of the goings on of the 90G reborn.

 

Picture update

Here are some pictures of the corals in the transfer tank under the LED lighting

Getting Ready to move

In 2 months we will be moving to a new house.

With this, we would like buy or make a new stand that is more in line with our current furniture taste.
Also, I would like to switch to LED lighting for all the obvious reasons:
- Heat
- Longevity
- Flexibility in color temperature
- Price

I will post picture soon about the DIY LED fixture

In preparation of the move, I have reduced the tank to a 29G set-up.

I sold most of my corals so that the remainder can fit in a small tank. I still have a 55Gallon tank running to keep the 2 tangs and a bunch on live rock. I may sell this before the move.

Where does the time go?

Since my last posting I had a seriuous bout with algea and it too until end of August for it to finally clear.
Now that fall is back upon us I may have more time to spend on the tank. I have been in maintenance mode.

Doing the absolute minimum to keep it looking presentable.


Here are some pictures of the rebuild:

The corner wit the finished floor:

 The temporary set up: a 55G with most of the stuff crammed in

 new hardware and a new return pump:

 new sump plumbing for the silent overflow

 the return is now opposite from the previuous configuration.

 Ready for water

 The silent full siphon overflow