Zachtos’ unique 240G reef w/ 375G sump/fuge-growout/RDSB/aggro tank

HOLLYWOOD · Jun 13, 2007

zachtos said:
Tonight featured a wonderful little disaster. My 50gallon sump developed a rather quick leak. I lost maybe 50 gallons today in the basement down the drain. One of the seams split on the plastic trash can. I ended up having to shovel out every bit of sand which, took around 2 hours to fix this ordeal. I put in a new trash can, this one is round with no seams and is much thicker. I think this one will stand the test much better. I had to cobble in the old bulkhead, but it'll be fine with the low flow. Plenty of silicone fixes it all.

nitrates are 0ppm, but the hair algae is insane in my display now, going on 1" and growing! no phosphates or anything else either. I'm guessing I just started the cycle all over again messing w/ the DSB. We'll see huh?

WOW I was reading the begining of you thread and I was thinking to myself I used thst kind of can once it seam leaked on me, I was going to suggest the Brut can but looks like you already got er done, Nice deal my buddy also from up in that area Clare MT plesant, shepard. Very nice!

zachtos · Jun 14, 2007

Home Made Fish Food:

I made this just like the recipe in the prior post. I estimate that I have bought enough ingredients to make 2 bags of this stuff 10-14 more times (minus $10-$15 in seafood each time). It cost me around $300 for all the ingredients I think. But that should last me hopefully atleast 2-3 years.

Thawing in a bowl...

A lovely medley of seafood goodness - scratch the screen, it smells like vomit and salmon

Sneaky trick to make the food easy to break without a chisel

Frozen in POWER BAR FORM!

I let the tank lick the bowl! A nice hearty overfeeding for the display should help me restart my hair algae bloom right?

*Feedings will consist of a small chunk of my frozen food twice daily
*Nori as needed daily (500sheets of this in the mail still)
*Freshly hatched brine shrimp once per week or so
*Nano/Tetra home cultured phytoplankton dosings 3-4 times a week

Stocking List Phases:
(*** I am adding phase 1 this weekend***)

Phase 1
20 green chromis, 2 percula clowns, copperband butterfly, foxface rabbitfish
Phase 2
hippo, yellow, purple tang, 2 bangaii cardinals
Phase 3
sailfin tang
Phase 4
achilles tang
Phase 5
2 mandarins eventually

*Coral additions will start ramping up after I see more corraline and have very stable paramaters in a few more months

Next Projects:
-Setup my Ca Reactor WHEN IT SHOWS UP!
-Install my return pump spa timer for feedings
-Drill and Install my 75G aggressive tank

GrandSysad · Jun 14, 2007

Sup Zachtos.. well i must say this.. if you think you are moving within the next 4 years i will beat the ever loving ........ out of ya.. your project (and also all the rest of the stuff in your house we did) was a pain in the .... but the tank is still cool.. and we know how to do home plumming know... lol.. later bro.

zachtos · Jun 17, 2007

DIY Feeder Timer

Twist the Knob during feeding time to shutoff the return pump and keep food in your display longer!!!

Basically, It's a relay that inverts what a spa timer does, instead of turning something on, it turns it off when you twist the dial. The relay is 120VAC rated for up to 1/2hp motors

New Fish

-added a foxface rabbitfish, copperband butterfly (hiding because the kole tang and angel are attacking him (not my fishes, need to get them out evenutually)), 20 green chromis, 2 false clownfish
New Coral

Yellow Porites

Green Slimer

Pink Pocillopora

Purple tip acropora

Blue Tort

Next Projects/Plans
-STILL waiting on my Ca Reactor, planning to start a small claims case against this dick hole in georgia. Send PMs to reeferman75 at reefcentral if you want to help harass him to get my stuff, it's been 3 months now since I paid him in full!
-adding yellow, purple and hippo tang in about a month
-adding 8" sailfin and juvenille achilles tang in around 2-3 months
-more SPS to come after Ca Reactor
-upgrade my refugium lighting
-setup my brine shrimp hatchery

Paramaters
nitrate: 0.1ppm!!!
calc:460ppm <--need the rest of my Ca reactor
dkh: 12dkh
mg: 1575 (high)
nite/amm/phos:0
sg: 1.0265

hatfielj · Jun 17, 2007

Yuck! That fish food looks like skimmate-devil
I'm sure the fish and corals will love it though

Micdevero · Jun 17, 2007

Yeah, you deffinatley need to get on that guy from Georgia. If we have to we can always take a trip down there and remove the item from his possesion lol. After all he did get paid for a job he hasn't done yet.

All that work to set this thing up has taken ALOT of man-hours lol. Thank god you got the tank up to at least Charlotte before the gas prices went up alot more.

Between this and where i work at, i've deffinatley lost alot of weight lol. Not only do we work on this huge project, but the outside of his house looks pretty nice too lol.

It's going to be awesome to check this tank out next time i'm up, there is usually something new each week thats happened in the tank. Last time was checking for it to have the right levels of everything, which you can tell was alot to add into the tank lol.

The key to having a large system like his is to have people who are willing to help you work lol. And of course being single lol.

Spanko · Jun 18, 2007

Tagging along for future updates.

zachtos · Jun 24, 2007

Originally posted by reeferman75
Zack
This is the DICK Hole in GA. just to let every one know when all this started out . Zack was in no hurry for the equipment. He new I travle alot for my job and had no problem and never set a time frame. He new I was doing it as my time permitted. After a few weeks he was wanting everything right then and there. The only thing he is missing is the pump, media co2 bottle. I told him the company had these thing on back order. But he is not saying anything about this now is he. Zack before you start bashing someone and telling other people to harrass me tell everyone the whole story.

Yes, I apologize for that. I am very satisfied with the equipment Brad built for me. It's the last 10% of the equipment that got held up and never delivered. My paramaters for Ca/Alk are very hard to control without that now and I took it out on him. I understand how busy we all are in life and got too personal. It is a hobby, and I should remember that. I would like to edit my old post, but am unable. I arranged a refund with Brad for the rest of the missing equipment and ordered the rest from myreefcreations.com and should have it up and running shortly. The skimmer he built works quite well.

Fish are doing well, no losses. I added another fuge light and am planning to pick up some zoathids possibly this Thursday from a fellow reefer in Lansing, MI after a meeting for work. My 75G should be plumbed up shortly. I have built the overflow and will post photos later.

zachtos · Jun 26, 2007

DIY feeder timer directions
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=10217836#post10217836 - Do to popular demand and many PMs, I decided to post more directions on how to make a DIY feeder timer. I'm sure this has been done somewhere before in the world. I know you can do this with a DPST spa timer, but they were around $50 and special order only, I built my setup out of pocket for $20 or so.

*Ca reactor parts have arrived. I filled the CO2 tank this morning and plan to hook that bad boy up tonight or tomorrow!

*Also, punched holes in the drywall and started working on plumbing my 75G into the system, more to come on that later.

-Still growing corraline slowly. All SPS seem to be doing OK and have polyps extended most of the day. No fish deaths or noticable algae blooms since I started feeding my home made food. I may be adding some zoa's soon around the base of my tank unless someone thinks those are a bad idea in an SPS tank?

zachtos · Jun 29, 2007

new 75G tank online!!!

recent tank shot

Calcium reactor is finally online. The custom reactor leaked and sprayed water like crazy out of the 'gasket' made by Brad. I had a very very hard time tightening it to the point to get it to stop leaking. I don't know what I'm going to do at the moment. I've read that neoprene makes a good gasket. I know for **** sure that I'm not going to deal with this every single time I change the media in the reactor. I'm missing the needlevalve currently, so the relay turns on and off quite freqently right now. It's currently running at a PH of 6.6 in the chamber 1 and effluent discharge around 100ml/min.

I added another light to the fuge. The chaetomorpha has probably grown to 25x it's original size since I started. Maybe from a softball to a 3/4' cube in 2 months

I finally made my own overflow and drilled the dining room 75 gallon glass tank.

DIY plumbing - 1.5" dursos that drop down to 1.25" drain and a 1" return opened halfway at around 400gph. runs very silently too.

HULK SMASH !!! yay for destroying my drywall... I opted for flexible PVC to save time/agitation overall. I angled the tank so I can crawl behind it and disconnect the system w/ couplings if I ever wanna remove it or isolate the system permanently.

Here's a shot of the new empty 75G tank running and being nice and empty. I already have the hood, just haven't bought replacement T8 bulbs of a higher kelvin yet, 2700K is yucky.

Suggestion box is now open for what to do with this tank. No, I can't afford to light it for high light corals. Try T8 standard bulbs. Think fish only.

Here is where I tied them into the manifolds that I built with expansion end caps in place.

Nitrates - 0.2ppm since yesterday, pretty low considering the giant spike in life/feeding I added to a new tank. Still no really noticable algae growth.

I picked up 8 new frags, mostly zoanthids from a local reefkeeper. No photos since they are so tiny and unimpressive at the moment. Maybe later.

zachtos · Jul 2, 2007

new additions:
-phase 2:
purple tang, yellow tang, hippo tang.
3 more fighting conches
8 more frags

*nitrates 0ppm now!!!

full tank shot

new hippo

new purple tang

new yellow tang

old- foxface rabbitfish

old - copperband butterfly

some type of encrusting monti pora

a yellow sps

frogspawn

random zoanthids

zachtos · Jul 2, 2007

various sps

this one's on the wall

next additions:
1 achilles tang!
2 bangaii cardinals
1 maxima clam
2 cleaner shrimp
10-20 various SPS

other phase: 1 - 8" sailfin tang

75G tank: unknown, sohal tang? lionfish?

BigDReefer · Jul 2, 2007

I think your tanks getting crowded... maybe you should add some more filtration...

Maybe you could drain an inground pool and use that!!!

lol, jk man its really lookn nice
-BDR

zachtos · Jul 3, 2007

Here are some shots of the secondary 75 gallon tank plumbed into the system with the DIY hood, stand, overflow and lighting/fans/electrical all in action. I made the hood/stand nearly 8 years ago I believe. I angled the tank enough so I could crawl behind it if necessary to disconnect it from the manifolds to segregate the system. I can temporarily segregate the system by shutting off the ball vavle of course, but if I turn it on, it dumps into the sump, which could be bad if I had meds or other 'issues' with the system.

tank w/ lights on - stocking suggestions welcome

standard T8 bulbs, 2x 48" -32W 6500K

-dkh under control, down from 16 to 12 today (turned it off for 24 hours to allow it to drop)w/ the Ca reactor set at chamber 1 ph of 6.8 and 90ml/min effluent flow.

*I called pruess' pets to ask kirby/steve to be on the lookout for an achilles tang - unless someone knows of one locally that wants to give one a good home. I can pay of course.

BigDReefer · Jul 3, 2007

You could always use the 75 for a pred tank... I couldn't bring myself to do a pred tank becuase I'm only running one tank right now... I love the small fish and preds + small fish = lunch..

But since you have your main display... an eel, puffers, or an octo would be fun...

If could always act as a remote refuge... grow some nice grasses and pods etc...

you have lots of options man, just use it!

Tim! · Jul 3, 2007

Very nice job documenting things. I, of course, documented nothing of my tank setup...

Thanks for sharing.

HOLLYWOOD · Jul 9, 2007

Ditto to that scooby LOL I wish I had the gumption to do all that documenting Nice job on everthing you have done seems to be IMO very well thought out and nice planing!

Great job nice set-up!!

The captain · Jul 9, 2007

i havent commented here yet i just wanted to say very nice!
are you worried about the achilles in the system? ich? agression? GL!

The captain · Jul 9, 2007

also slap me for being lazy, but how did you get totally rid of all the hair algae?

zachtos · Jul 10, 2007

I still really want an achilles. But I get lots of naysayers still. Mostly I hear they are agressive, need a great diet, prone to ich like all tangs, and need large amounts of current. I still feel that I feed very well, which will help keep ich at bay hopefully. And he should not have any agression problems. Lots of hiding spaces. I may need more current flow though. I only have around 35X per hour now.

As in PC repair, I can't determine what fixed the problem because I performed multiple fixes at once. I added a cleanup crew, shut off the lights for a week (pretty sure the lighting was the problem!!!) and stopped feeding flake food. Like I mentioned, once the lights went off for a week, it all died out. Of course that's a temporary fix. By cutting out the phosphate riddled flake food and adding a clean up crew, I believe that kept the wastes in check now that the algae foods are used up. OH, and I started growing chaetomorpha in the sump. Good luck figuring out what really worked.

*My first batch of brine shrimp eggs didn't hatch. I don't know why. I followed melev's recipe, 2 cup tank water, 0.5 cup ro/di, 1 tsp eggs, tumble in a 2L bottle w/ air, and keep at 82F. The only thing I can think of is I'm using a water bath to keep temp up as opposed to a light bulb? maybe they need light? but why would an animal (no not coral) need light?

* I also keep losing chromis in my sump somewhere through the overflow teeth. I need a solution.

Zachtos’ unique 240G reef w/ 375G sump/fuge-growout/RDSB/aggro tank

HOLLYWOOD

zachtos

GrandSysad

zachtos

hatfielj

Micdevero

Spanko

zachtos

zachtos

zachtos

zachtos

zachtos

BigDReefer

zachtos

BigDReefer

Tim!

HOLLYWOOD

The captain

The captain

zachtos

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