A New Year, a new start.

[RUNAS]

Hi Guys and gals, been a while that I’ve updated anything on my 300 litre Local marine, so with a little time on my hands these days I thought I had better.

Well it hasn’t all been good I’m afraid, but it ends well, promise.

For some time I have not been happy with my sump or skimmer, so I updated my skimmer to a Bubble Magnus Curve 7 from Deep Blue Aquarium and while that was on its way I um’d and er’d over sump design, as we do,

I like the KISS attitude “keep it simple stupid” I did just that ,My design as follows , my 3 ft glass tank (my original FW tank) was divided down the middle with a piece of 6mm acrylic, That’s it two sections.

First section holds protein skimmer and the two pumps for chillier unit and algae scrubber and some live rock

Section two, in the divider bottom corner is a 90mm hole to hold a filter sock, it does two things, first off it filters the water before it gets to the main return pump and two, acts as a brilliant bubble trap, in there too is a big bit of live rock and the return pump.

Sitting on top is my algae scrubber which is growing sea lettuce.

So I set to and got it done I reckoned it would work, just in time for the skimmer to turn up.

About now I should tell you my sump is under my deck, so to man handle a 3 ft glass tank which has been insulated in poly and then covered in ply was no mean feat! but I got there.

The new sump doubles the size of the old one so in went another 60 litres of water and flicked the switch!

WOW! the skimmer instantly starting producing skimate, it shouldn’t have but I think the water was in that bad shape it had no choice, how was the filter sock working , I could see shumts being sucked into filter sock, oh yes!!GENIUS it was working perfectly, zero micro bubbles in display tank.

Job done! aaah no, this is where things go BAD! to sum it up quick, I didn’t get my spray bar for my algae scrubber right so it flooded in to light section ruining my LEDs and blowing fuses in my house GRRR ! the down side of that was it damaged the power strip which ran the chiller, scrubber and skimmer so some time on Christmas Eve the strip failed without me noticing and with being a busy time I never checked anything until I noticed a blenny upside down on the bottom, Awh bugger was my first reaction then the whole story unfolded! Everything was dead, everything .

It was a NZ coldwater tank, no skimmer =Bad, no chillier in summer =27 degrees= DEAD!

I was gutted really really gutted! I stood staring at the tank for a bit looking at the temperature desplay 27 degrees TWENTY SEVEN DEGREES!!! with no heater, not to sounds heartless but dam, I could go tropical marine. I set to removing and flushing my little friends not feeling too great about it and quite dejected. I went and got a new power board and started it all back up again empty.

I was still feeling real bad about it, wiping out all my little mates but I couldn’t get that temp out of my head, so after a few days made the decision to go tropical marine.

I got the RO unit cranking and set to making up 300 litres of new salt water, I had enough containers to make and store 200 litres of water, so when I got that amount I drained the main tank empty and filled it with the new water, then drained the sump and filled the sump as I got the water made up.

I ran it for a week with no stock, checking parameters it all looked good, time for fish, JUST ONE, hate to say it but I was a little worried so I didn’t want to throw in a heap for it to go bad so I got one tiny clown from my LFS and in he went, I watched it like a hawk for a week, and he was doing sweet, so off to get him a mate, in it went and still watched them like a hawk but they were doing sweet as.

I noticed I was having a algae bloom, hmmm nice and warm!!!! time for snails, do you think I could get any !nup, nobody had any, so in desperation I called a guy, who turned out to be RAH1 off this forum! he’s the best fella. he sorted me out with snails and whole heap of advise. Thanks RAH1.

So it’s been a three week wait but finally the wholesalers got in fish and we stocked the new tank.

So now we have

2 sleeper gobys paired up

2 Clowns (ocelaris)

2 Anthias paired up

1 Lawnmower blenny

1 Powder Brown Tang

2 Boxer shrimp

1 red hairy legged lobster

10 snails

2 Brown torch coral (stunning)

Various Zoo frags

Male Anthia

Female Anthia

Torch Coral

Best mates

Lawnmower Bleny

Chiller unit on deck outside.

It may seem a lot at once but the tank was well cycled with a good skimmer, a week in now water parameters are great, with the biggies Nitrates sitting around 3 ppm and phosphates 0.5 ppm.

So it’s been a rollercoaster but so far so good, really enjoying the new stock.

[Mirio]

Super nice Anthias