The beast is dead!! long live the Newer Beast??

[mojoreef]

Well it time to shake things up in the beast and get a bit of a fresh start for the tank, so time to gut it and freshen things up a bit. So I thought I would put up a little history for those that might want to know. About three years ago I was facing some maintenance issues with the big L tank, with stuff like valves leaking, unions leaking, pumps needed rebuilding and some scratches on ad in the acrylic. So I sent the corals off to friends and along with the fish and so on, pulled all the rock and drained the tank. After repairing all the plumbing and so on I filled the tank with water to do a leak test, to my amazement no leaks first run (not bad considering their were 50+ holes) anyway walked to the front of the tank and noticed that the front corner, where the two 8 foot sheets joined had some color in the joint?? I thought ok I better drain this and see what is going on, took about two steps and that seem popped right in front of me, well I wont go into the rest of that day but it wasnt fun, lol

Anyway with the great help of Barrier Reef I was able to procure a replacement made of glass that was as big as one section of the original L, I think about 500 gallons?? or close to that anyway. Plumbed it, put all the rock in it and eventually brought all my fish back to it. Well from their life got real busy and the tank went into limbo where I didnt have the time to take care of it properly , long story short didnt bring the corals back, and did nothing with it besides feeding the fish for a couple of years or something like that anyway. So as with all things reef related you get what you put into it, and thus so did I.

About six months ago I cleaned the glass for the first time (solid covering of corraline) and look in, well we got aiptasia, and manjoni and every other pest you can imagine from not dealing with it for so many years. Also found out the calcium reactor and skimmer had stopped working, yada yada yada. lol So now I must pay for my sins and do a restart!! So I thought I would start a thread on that and here we are, lol


Mojo

 

[07FocusST]

Hell yeah! I love Barrier Reef! Hope all is good Mojo!

 

[crazyfish253]

I'm excited! I hope to help as much as I can. It's going to be a sweet new beast!

 

[pandora32]

Thats a bummer. I read your L-tank build. Looked really cool. Are you going to build another L-tank or something new? Good luck and I am following this! Cant wait!

 

[Krish]

You need detention Mojo!! :lol:


Looking forward to the turn-around.

 

[steven11]

Let's see the before picture...

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[mojoreef]

What the L??

 

[Peppie]

How exciting to start over on a semi new system.
What kind of new tech are you going to incorporate in your remodel? I heard thru the grape vine you have found a way to actually skim protein from SW. lol

Looking forward see how your ReBeast is reconstructed.

 

[Skimmy]

fuxing awesome mike!!!
im betting that your not doing live rock this time.. or are you just going to kill and reuse your rock?
and is it getting a new monster skimmer too??

 

[mojoreef]

Not alot of new tech Peppie although me and Guerry have designed a new LED lighting system to go over the tank, so that would be one. Some small flow changes but nothing dramatic.

Skimmy no not a chance on looking at LR, were going with the vacant apartment building type of dead rock, I will add what I want and not get what I receive. LOL On the skimmer I ordered one of those diffusers I gave you a link to so I going to do some experimenting and see what I can do, we will take it from their.

Mojo

 

[Krish]

Not alot of new tech Peppie although me and Guerry have designed a new LED lighting system to go over the tank, so that would be one. Some small flow changes but nothing dramatic.

Skimmy no not a chance on looking at LR, were going with the vacant apartment building type of dead rock, I will add what I want and not get what I receive. LOL On the skimmer I ordered one of those diffusers I gave you a link to so I going to do some experimenting and see what I can do, we will take it from their.

Mojo

Glad to see you will be trying L.E.D's this time around Mojo. I would really like to get your take on them when you get your corals in your tank. You've kept everything under the sun for many many years and so, it would be good to see your thoughts on led lighting and if you feel they "cut it".

 

[Skimmy]

were going with the vacant apartment building type of dead rock,
Mojo

lulz... i figured as much...
fwiw, im going to do the same.

and cool, im betting we'll see that air panel in it's own 12x12 sump chamber with a collection cup on top.

 

[mojoreef]

Glad to see you will be trying L.E.D's this time around Mojo. I would really like to get your take on them when you get your corals in your tank. You've kept everything under the sun for many many years and so, it would be good to see your thoughts on led lighting and if you feel they "cut it".

Oh I know they cut it Krish, I can see that by the PAr reading they put out. I think the barrier for me was the cost of the pre-built units. As an example if I was to go with AI sol (just picking them as they are popular) which is 8 blues and 16 whites it would cost me 500 bucks. With the one I am making it will be the equivalent of 9 of these, so that would be about 4500??? mine is costing 1600?? and it will have a much broader range of leds with reds, greens, blues, royal blues, cool whites, and intense whites. All dimmable and all wired into a controller. That I can pay.

fwiw, im going to do the same.

Do you have it yet?? I am going to cali on Friday to grab mine, let me know if you want me to pick some up. On the skimmer not sure yet, I should have the diffuser this week so I am going to do some playing. With the fact that it needs such a small air source, which is a good thing it kind of through a screw into it for me, so have to do some rethinking.


Mojo

 

[Scooterman]

How about some before and after photos, so we ca nget an Idea of what is going on i nthere and how well it looks?

 

[Darthv247]

sweet man. rebuilds are almost always better than the original because u can correct your mistakes and invest in areas you couldn't before. (wondering if my rebuild thread played a part in this idea)

 

[mojoreef]

(wondering if my rebuild thread played a part in this idea)

It was all you Darth!!!:biggrin1:

Ok here are some shots from the L prior to taking the coral and fish out, if that was what you were looking for.

 

[Ed Hahn]

I am very happy to hear and look forward to your latest build. You made my Day!

 

[Maxx]

Glad to see you coming back into the game full time.

I'd love to see your plans and eventual build of LED lighting.

Nick

 

[mojoreef]

I'd love to see your plans and eventual build of LED lighting.

Ok I will try and draw it up tonite!

Ok so here is the plan, well at least the plan so far, lol Going to take all the rock out then do some harvesting on it for worms/bugs/sponge/corraline and similar. So back to empty!! From their I am going to do a little re-plumbing inside of the tank but nothing spectacular. So in looking for new rock I definately wont touch LR anymore so I picked up a bunch of samples from a bunch of Dry rock vendors at macna took all tiny pieces and crushed the down to powder mixed in some SW and then did some tests for P and N's. Came up blank on Marco Rocks and the a product called real reef rock? After looking at both rocks I found the real reef rock to be very dense and heavy and not really porous at all. The Marco is basically dry real dead coral so it has the same structure as LR would but with out all the junk that come with it.

So Marco it is! I placed my order and will pick it up in cali at the reef a Polusa show.

450 lbs of this

Then a hundred pound of this neat looking they call Prime cuts, I got plans for this lol

and then 50 lbs of this shelf/plate looking rock??

So the plan is to do some real neat and dynamic rockscaping!! I hope, lol Going to cover an amount of the walls and bottom of the tank with the prime cut material, create bridges, overhangs, caves, swim thoughs and everything else I can fit into the project. We are going to use as many techniques as I can to kind of turn it into a "How To" type of thing. So doweling, thorite, maybe some foam work, zap straping and so on. Got the big tile saw out, drills chop saw and because it is dry no hurry or worry about taking to long!

Oh yea I am going to build the flow into the rockwork so that could be cool to

Mojo

 

[steven11]

I was thinking more of a current shot for the before.

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