Barney And Lyn's 5Ft Reef Tank (150G(Uk) System)

[xxBarneyxx]

Been ages since I last updated and unfortunately this update isn't a good one.

Long story short there was an issue with the RO topup (load of RO water got dumped in too quickly) and we have lost pretty much everything. We have only two fish left (which where in our cube tank). Lost my clown fish which I have had for years now and was the first marine fish I had got. Lost most of the corals (though a few of the softies seem to be bouncing back now).

Stripped the tank down to remove all the bodies (was one of the most horrible things I have ever had to do) and just dumped all the rock back in there. Tanks still running at the moment (just with the LR and what softies that have survived). Going to have to cycle the tank again as the amount of die off in the rockwork was unbelievable

Skint as #71### with christmas coming up and still recovering from having to pay out to move unexpectedly so its probably going to be a long time before we start putting things back together again

Livestock lost:
1 Coral beauty,
1 cleaner wrasse,
1 iridescent wrasse,
1 pair of lyretail anthias,
1 apotted mandarin,
1 pair of clown fish,
1 algae blenny
1 sun coral
1 bubble coral
About half the softies in the tank.
Most of the critters in the LR.

Important lesson for everyone to learn from this is that when adjusting your SG (for whatever reason) do it over the course of WEEKS, days is not enough. I had been using a dosing pump over the course of 3 days to drop the SG by 0.002 I had been testing regularly and everything seemed to be fine. Seems however that it took awhile for things to settle as after I had tested it and turned everything off the SG dropped by loads overnight.

If anyone else ever needs to drop the SG in their tank using a dosing pump running for a very short time. Then give the tank at least 6 hours to settle before testing and doing again. Take the time to adjust the SG over a couple of weeks.

 

[seffieuk]

Oh Barney, i'm so sorry to hear of your difficulties - you must have been so upset.

Seffie x

 

[xxBarneyxx]

Its been a LONG time since I made any kind of update here.

Long story short after the move and everything that went wrong I completely lost interest in keeping a marine tank. I still had the cube tank which we never really added too and just kept ticking over and I still had the 4ft tank which has spent almost a year just holding the liverock and the few soft corals I had left.

More than once I considered selling everything up but I knew given our finical situation that if I sold everything up now I wouldn't be buying new stuff again anytime soon so I held on to everything (though our front room has looked like crap for the last year with an empty 5 ft tank a 4ft tank full of rock and a cube tank that is basically empty.

Recently my mother in law wanted a cichlid tank so I spent a day setting it all up for her, moving fish around her tanks and doing generally fish maintenance kinda stuff and I kind of got back that spark of enjoyment that had been missing previously.

After talking to the other half (who has spent the last year moaning at me to get my #14### in gear and sort the tanks out ) we are now moving forward with rebuilding our 5ft'er.

What we have:

• Liverock
• T5 lighting*
• Suitable Skimmer
• 2 Koralia 4 powerheads
• 1 Polario 22ML (just bought this at a ridiculusly cheap price)
• RO Unit (needs to filter sections)
• TC10 temp control, fans and heater.
• UV filter
• Test kits, salt, etc, etc.
• Return pump for sump.

What I still need:

• RO filter parts.
• A suitable sump tank (my current one is too deep and very difficult to work with).
• MH lighting - I have always wanted to keep more light demanding critters so we have decided to go for a twin 250w MH fixture, supplemental with X4 54w t5 tubes if needed. Looking for one of these second hand right now.
• Plumbing bits to connect to sump.

The plan is:
Reinforce and repaint cabinet and trim on tank.
Replace all the sump pipes with a different type of overflow (it was always very loud) and PVC pipes.
Get everything in place and setup with fresh salt water.
Give all the liverock a good scrub and blast with high power water pump before putting back in the 5ft'er.

And that's pretty much it. main jobs at the moment are to sort out the RO unit bits to start stocking up on RO water and getting the cabinet out to repaint, reinforce and put back (easier said than done when it takes 4 people to life the tank).

I will update this again as I go. It's not going to be easy but I'm hoping to have a decent start to the tank and beginning to slowly start restocking it by Christmas.

 

[lljdma06]

Well, I wish you all the luck. It's hard to maintain motivation. I lost motivation in my planted tanks and just let it sit. With the SW systems, I have a new spark for the hobby as you put it.

Hahaha, gotta go. Got burgers in the grill, but I look forward to updates. I remembered your tanks well.

L

 

[SaltNoob]

We are excited to see what you get going again! My tank is still young and I still stare into it for no less than an hour every day! =). I followed your posts for a bit, and would hate to see you throw in the tower altogether. Good luck and hope to see an update soon!

-Tyler

 

[xxBarneyxx]

Just a quick post to say I haven't completely dropped off the planet again. The polario pump that I got such a good deal on turned out to be completely dead. It powered on but the motor seemed to be seized up and the impeller didn't spin up at all. Trying to get it sorted out now but it kind of put a hold on the rest for the moment. Also I think I'm going to have to get a new tank stand as the one the tank is on at the moment doesn't seem overly stable. I would like to get a custom built one so I have a bit more space for the sump but it's going to depend on the cost.

 

[lljdma06]

Just a quick post to say I haven't completely dropped off the planet again. The polario pump that I got such a good deal on turned out to be completely dead. It powered on but the motor seemed to be seized up and the impeller didn't spin up at all. Trying to get it sorted out now but it kind of put a hold on the rest for the moment. Also I think I'm going to have to get a new tank stand as the one the tank is on at the moment doesn't seem overly stable. I would like to get a custom built one so I have a bit more space for the sump but it's going to depend on the cost.

Ok, nice to know you've not dropped off the planet. Keep us posted, unstable tank stand VERY, VERY bad. Fixy, fixy! All the best.

L