MrGone
:)
This is sort of a temporary aside:
My Dad has a 255 gallon tank at his office he had setup a couple years ago. Seeing it setup really sparked my interest in this hobby and is when I started researching and learning. A few months later I setup my own 10 gallon tank in my dorm room which has evolved into the 150g tank and system showcased in this thread.
Unfortunately his tank crashed last week, 5/18/2010. I'm not sure what exactly caused it but he has been fighting a losing battle for the last year. The way the company set it up works if you have their weekly service contract, but it has quite a few shortcomings (no baffle for the skimmer so the water level constantly changes, no auto top off either, no live rock (they would switch out the coral skeletons with clean ones weekly), bio balls, an undersized skimmer (rated for 180g on a heavy stocked 255 gallon), used tap water, among other things). When the skimmer broke it took them 8 months to replace it. He canceled the contract, was doing weekly water changes with RO water he brought from home, switched to live rock and removed the bio balls, switched out the crushed coral substrate for live sand, etc. but last week something caused the nitrogen cycle to become upset, nitrates were off the chart and ammonia/nitrites were up above 0 (I forget what). I want to say thank you to Barrier Reef Aquariums for doing water tests for him, and for all the help with trying to get his tank to where it needs to be. It is tremendously helpful and he wishes would have known about you when he purchased the tank.
He lost over half his fish, including my old flame and bi-color angels I recently gave him. In total he lost his show french angel, powder blue tang, purple tang, yellow tang, heniochus butterfly, royal gramma, flame angel, bi-color angel, occelaris clownfish, 6 yellow tail blue damsels and I forget what else.
Luckily since he has let me take over a good portion of his house with my own fish tank stuff while I'm away he has been able to save his queen angel, one occelaris clown, six yellow tail blue damsels and the two skunk cleaner shrimp I gave him with the angels. Primarily because I have a lot of "old" tanks and equipment I need to sell but haven't been home to be able to. (from transitioning from a 10g to 29g to 40g to 55g to my current 150g).
On the "plus" side now the live stock isn't affecting our options/decisions on how to fix his setup. Now we can drain it and start from new, before we could not. It is not really a plus but any aquarist who has experienced this kind of loss knows how defeating it feels and how discouraging it is. I think if it were not him taking care of my setup he would have exited the hobby for a while.
A couple months ago I asked him to setup my old 40 gallon breeder and fill it with the old water from water changes on my 150g. I was having him do this for two reasons, to use the tank to cure live rock and so he would have a quarantine tank in case something bad happened. For the last 5 days his fish have been in this tank.
There is nothing wrong with his fish, the deaths were water quality related, not bacterial/disease. They've spent a week in quarantine and look and act fine so I recommended he attach my old 55 gallon reef ready tank to my system and keep his fish in there. This way they have excellent water quality and he doesn't have the additional maintenance with the 40g running (potential cycle, fresh water top offs, setting up filtration, the occasional forgetting to feed his fish because they are in another room, etc) and stressing his fish in it (his queen is too large for a 40g breeder for more than short term). Attaching the 55g to my system to keep his fish in removes any time pressures while we redesign his tank.
Additionally my protein skimmer is rated for 700 gallons lightly stocked, 400 gallons heavily stocked and I'll be right around 250 gallons with the 55g on my system. I also have a 100lb dry rock order coming in and having the 55g setup works two fold because now he can put the rock in there and still have it seed instead of making a huge temporary rock pile in my display tank lol.
He has new water mixed and up to temp, as of right now the only thing left is finishing the plumbing for the return pump.
Here is the 55g in place
Here is the overflow plumbing from the 55 gallon to my sump (the ATO sensors have been relocated)
I had him use my mag drive 7 as a return pump for the 55 gallon. I originally bought it for my 29g but have since been using it for water changes.
He is using the return piping I had on my 29g setup. It was laying in the garage and already has anti-siphon holes drilled. It is going behind the tank, he just sent me this pic to show me what he is doing
And he just sent me this pic while I was typing this post:
But the union he bought did not come with the o-ring so he has to go back to the store tomorrow. I think he'll have the tank filled tomorrow and probably transfer his fish over on Tuesday.
My Dad has a 255 gallon tank at his office he had setup a couple years ago. Seeing it setup really sparked my interest in this hobby and is when I started researching and learning. A few months later I setup my own 10 gallon tank in my dorm room which has evolved into the 150g tank and system showcased in this thread.
Unfortunately his tank crashed last week, 5/18/2010. I'm not sure what exactly caused it but he has been fighting a losing battle for the last year. The way the company set it up works if you have their weekly service contract, but it has quite a few shortcomings (no baffle for the skimmer so the water level constantly changes, no auto top off either, no live rock (they would switch out the coral skeletons with clean ones weekly), bio balls, an undersized skimmer (rated for 180g on a heavy stocked 255 gallon), used tap water, among other things). When the skimmer broke it took them 8 months to replace it. He canceled the contract, was doing weekly water changes with RO water he brought from home, switched to live rock and removed the bio balls, switched out the crushed coral substrate for live sand, etc. but last week something caused the nitrogen cycle to become upset, nitrates were off the chart and ammonia/nitrites were up above 0 (I forget what). I want to say thank you to Barrier Reef Aquariums for doing water tests for him, and for all the help with trying to get his tank to where it needs to be. It is tremendously helpful and he wishes would have known about you when he purchased the tank.
He lost over half his fish, including my old flame and bi-color angels I recently gave him. In total he lost his show french angel, powder blue tang, purple tang, yellow tang, heniochus butterfly, royal gramma, flame angel, bi-color angel, occelaris clownfish, 6 yellow tail blue damsels and I forget what else.
Luckily since he has let me take over a good portion of his house with my own fish tank stuff while I'm away he has been able to save his queen angel, one occelaris clown, six yellow tail blue damsels and the two skunk cleaner shrimp I gave him with the angels. Primarily because I have a lot of "old" tanks and equipment I need to sell but haven't been home to be able to. (from transitioning from a 10g to 29g to 40g to 55g to my current 150g).
On the "plus" side now the live stock isn't affecting our options/decisions on how to fix his setup. Now we can drain it and start from new, before we could not. It is not really a plus but any aquarist who has experienced this kind of loss knows how defeating it feels and how discouraging it is. I think if it were not him taking care of my setup he would have exited the hobby for a while.
A couple months ago I asked him to setup my old 40 gallon breeder and fill it with the old water from water changes on my 150g. I was having him do this for two reasons, to use the tank to cure live rock and so he would have a quarantine tank in case something bad happened. For the last 5 days his fish have been in this tank.
There is nothing wrong with his fish, the deaths were water quality related, not bacterial/disease. They've spent a week in quarantine and look and act fine so I recommended he attach my old 55 gallon reef ready tank to my system and keep his fish in there. This way they have excellent water quality and he doesn't have the additional maintenance with the 40g running (potential cycle, fresh water top offs, setting up filtration, the occasional forgetting to feed his fish because they are in another room, etc) and stressing his fish in it (his queen is too large for a 40g breeder for more than short term). Attaching the 55g to my system to keep his fish in removes any time pressures while we redesign his tank.
Additionally my protein skimmer is rated for 700 gallons lightly stocked, 400 gallons heavily stocked and I'll be right around 250 gallons with the 55g on my system. I also have a 100lb dry rock order coming in and having the 55g setup works two fold because now he can put the rock in there and still have it seed instead of making a huge temporary rock pile in my display tank lol.
He has new water mixed and up to temp, as of right now the only thing left is finishing the plumbing for the return pump.
Here is the 55g in place
Here is the overflow plumbing from the 55 gallon to my sump (the ATO sensors have been relocated)
I had him use my mag drive 7 as a return pump for the 55 gallon. I originally bought it for my 29g but have since been using it for water changes.
He is using the return piping I had on my 29g setup. It was laying in the garage and already has anti-siphon holes drilled. It is going behind the tank, he just sent me this pic to show me what he is doing
And he just sent me this pic while I was typing this post:
But the union he bought did not come with the o-ring so he has to go back to the store tomorrow. I think he'll have the tank filled tomorrow and probably transfer his fish over on Tuesday.
