90gal Sps And Zoa Garden (pic Heavy)

[Cliff]

Wow crazy! Never heard of that before. Are you going to try and re- seal it?

 

[sunnykita]

now that is definitely strange ! at least you have an answer as to the why it leaked.

 

[scubasteve]

ya will take a pic. is the only thing i can think of dont see a fish doing it so im blaming a crab i do have some crazy big mithrax that may have been running from an eel for dear life...... the damage to the sillicone must have allowed the water pressure to break the seal......i dragged a needle along the edge of the silicone and only place that was not sealed was a few inches either side the damage very depressing

 

[scubasteve]

still gotta take a pic of the damaged sillicone but need to clean a bit to get a good pic.... in the mean time i am sitting here twiddling my thumbs waiting for my lr in vat to not stink lol today i pulled a chunk seems to be ready to start adding so will move stuff around and pull out one frag rack so i can start dropping in some rock im hoping a peice every day or two depending on size should allow me to add without causing a cycle.

Every fish is doing fine except the naso is getting a little thin. Will have to hope i can catch the big striated tang as the 90 is too small for him even tho he is perfectly happy

 

[scubasteve]

some good news i saw the naso picking at the nori sheet so hopefully he starts to fatten up a bit more now and posted my yellow and striated tang for sale.

so far have about 50lbs of lr in the frag tank got all 4 of my sol blues hooked back up and running skimmer is getting nice dark skim produced now still will darken more onve bioload is fully set in. picked up another media reactor and cleaned my old pump so getting ready to hook that up to a t and couple valves and join the two instead just the one running.

Added a filter box for my overflow line in the sump so that should cut down on the amount of filter floss i use which means i can change even more often. I just need to make a contraption to get my algae scrubber running again as right now the pad covered in algae is just sitting in sump under a light.

Corals i held on to seem to be doing well... the one birdsnest has a little stn but seems to be stopping since my phos was high for a bit and finally getting that down. Has been a year since i had phos over .3 and first reading was 1.18 I almost dropped dead but now is at .65 hopefully another week or two and i can pic the rest of my stuff up from dave and eric just want to make sure water is stable first.

 

[scubasteve]

well got a used media reactor cheap and hooked up a spare pump i had and everything is tumbling nicely eventually will hook the two together but funds are low. got me 2 tubes of black scs1200 and all the crushed coral out so next person coming by for frags might end up with some for free for help for the lift lol ...... im sure my pm box will explode again lol and all goes well ill get this pain in backside bugger ripped apart and cleaned sometime this week. Still need a few corner clamps for this and think my bar clamps are seized so will need some of them again.

 

[scubasteve]

as it stands i have 4-90 degree bessey clamps and 4-24" quick release slide clamps. 2 tubes of scs 1200 black sillicone and some zip ties for spacers. once i scrape the glass clean from the drying out period i will start to disassemble the tank might as well buff out any scratches on front pane too. then i think i may try to drill it. it is an older tank but can get a new pane if it does break so not too worried. I really like the idea of a c2c overflow to a bean animal on the back side that way i can keep my overflow shadow very small draining through wall to the back box and down to sump quietly lol.....

Last night heather picked up all 3 tangs so while i had to add water i also threw in a bunch more rock. I now have enough that i can start aqua scaping and make a reef happen again so hopefully this turns out as good as im planning. I want to have rock angled against the back and side walls and a big zoo garden in the middle on the bottom. That should give endless possibilities for arrangment of sps since this will mainly be sps and z and p. Water is slowly getting to where it needs to be everything is fine but still tinkering with magnesium levels as they are a touch low and sure my iodide is as well but need a new tester to be sure i just ran out.... maybe ill try the hanna iodide checker since i love my phos checker so much

 

[HJab]

nice tank Steve.i never heard of feather dusters breeding in the reef tank before too cool

 

[scubasteve]

was a nice tank.... it is cool they will split into clusters but they are capable of breeding as well i had a total of 5 now got 8 after a year and only one was a split as he is attached all the others are separate and nowhere close had a bunch more babies forming but lost them in the leak

 

[scubasteve]

here is where im at so far on the 90....


I will be making a separate thread for the 125 build probably in the diy forum will be lots going on there have to strip it, clean it, buff scratches out of glass, once like new completely rebuild it, drill 4 holes in tank and 3 on bottom of back box for bean animal then i can finish my slim profile overflow but wont be setup untill i move...... but bythen it might get traded for bigger

 

[yveterinarian]

So glad you were able to salvage as much as you did. What an absolutely freaky thing to happen to the silicone. That crab must have been working on it for a while for it to get so shredded I would think. I think I'll stick to fish, I had been thinking of some form of crab to add to my system but I'll pass now. Looking forward to the rebuild thread. I know it will look great.

 

[jeffopentax]

So glad you were able to salvage as much as you did. What an absolutely freaky thing to happen to the silicone. That crab must have been working on it for a while for it to get so shredded I would think. I think I'll stick to fish, I had been thinking of some form of crab to add to my system but I'll pass now. Looking forward to the rebuild thread. I know it will look great.

I stopped considering crabs after this happened as well!

 

[scubasteve]

i know...... its a quarter size patch scratched right to hell 3 members saw it when they came because i had removed all the sandbed by then was only a 4" spot where the seam failed the rest is still holding tight but will be rebuilding anyway cuz scs1200 is some seriouse sillicone lol.

i had mithrax,hermit, and my horseshoe crab.... but being burried under a 4" sandbed rules out all but the burrowing horseshoe which i thaught this while talking to jeff open tax.... he asked me about mine and it is almost always burried just see a lump of sand moving but then thaught maybe he bumped into a rock against the glass and the lil bugger kept trying to get deeper would scratch quite a bit.... i know my hermits sure do keep trying to push through places they cant fit but i removed them a month prior and they dont dig.

I think no more horseshoe for me but will allways have mithrax

 

[yveterinarian]

I think you've hit the nail on the head - the horseshoe crab is most likely the culprit and it makes sense since they are always digging into the sand. Did you have a deep sandbed?

 

[scubasteve]

I think you've hit the nail on the head - the horseshoe crab is most likely the culprit and it makes sense since they are always digging into the sand. Did you have a deep sandbed?

ya i had a 4-6" sandbed im a believer of deep sandbeds and hate shallow ones too much maintenance but was prob only 2-3" deep at the back since my goby believes hes a backhoe and dumptruck lol jeff was asking about the horseshoe and we managed to figure he was the culprit.... i actually e-mailed someone who breeds and raises them to sell to stores he is from florida but i asked if he had ever heard of anything like this before as i believe he is the culprit so hopefully he gets some free time and will respond most people are more than willing to help with info you just gotta ask so figured why not took some searching to find him tho

 

[scubasteve]

all that adding rock wasnt fun keeping water safe and thanks to the multiple spikes during the long process i have quite a bit of gha so today got me a nice sea hare so time to sit back watch him rid my problem and keep an eye on water things are finally manageable again. algae has stopped growing wildly so back to stocking my cleanup crew i did lose quite a few snails in the beginning process but shrimp and urchin are a-ok just gotta get everything cleaned up now then get my goodies back

 

[heath]

glad to hear that the tank is back up and running..

 

[EricTMah]

Almost time to put your sps back in.

Or I can always find room in my DT for them

 

[scubasteve]

Almost time to put your sps back in.

Or I can always find room in my DT for them

already told ya to cut anything you like and yes once damn gha is gone water should be good enough for my preciouse back with no worries of being over run by algae

glad to hear that the tank is back up and running..

is still just the 90 that you saw everything in when you were here just now it looks like a half done reef instead of a jumbled nightmare but i am mixssing my colourful sticks lol

 

[scubasteve]

well water is staying good and finally choked out all the gha, slowly but surely it is disappearing but noticed i need a crap ton of snails i had lost quite a few in the rapid change from the other tank... added a few more peices of lr and started building a zoa garden, gotta grab some more small chunks from nate tonight to finish. moved some coral around and used reef putty to secure some so the snails stop knocking them around. had to change the powerhead setup around a bit was getting some buildup in dead zones but now am getting some crazy flow pattern switching one way to the other every 30 seconds with 4 powerheads.

Once the water clears up ill take a pic