SuncrestReef

No more long waits and international postage required for Triton ICP tests. They have a new facility in Los Angeles offering 48 hour results and free USPS shipping. See https://www.reef2reef.com/ams/triton-applied-reef-bioscience-us-lab-officially-opens-with-free-return-shipping-on-icp-oes-water-analysis.752/

One year ago I posted a thread about planning an addition on our house including a fish room and larger new aquarium: It's been a long negotiation process, but I finally convinced my wife to agree to this project! I have made several revisions to my original plans, but here's the latest design. The addition will add a large 35'x20' room (700 sq feet) onto the back of the house with a large triangular multi-level deck, a built-in BBQ, and a hot tub. Inside the addition will be a 6-seat bar, a full 9' pool table, a half bathroom, a dedicated fish room, and a 8'x3' 360 gallon display tank! The fish room will be roughly 70 sq feet. I need to finalize a few design details, then contract with a builder. I have no idea on the timeframe for construction yet, but I hope to have things in place for the next summer BBQ party! Here are some renderings:

@obrien.david.j How many square feet of space will this fish room give you?

This one? It's a WWC Yellow Tips. Growing like a weed!

I turned on the lights at night for this shot, so all the fish are sleeping and some of the LPS corals are retracted.

I like the 2" thick tree core on the left in the photo. Will that be part of your aquarium build?

So what is the process each member should follow to see if their membership is current, or if they are overdue to subscribe?

Sorry for your loss. I'm glad I keep a mesh cover on my tank. Last week I heard a big splash and it was one of my fish trying to jump but the lid kept it inside. No idea why they decide to jump, but glad the lid prevented it.

Good looking setup, and nice rock work! Any equipment under the stand, or is it truly an "all in one"?

Stay tuned for CSI: Reef Tank

Someone needs to invent RFID locator tags for fish so we can scan a tank or room to find them in these situations. 😥

I was worried last year when my kole tang disappeared, but it magically appeared a couple days later. Keeping my fingers crossed for you...

Thanks to @Mandinga for the new fish!

Wow, one hour pumping citric acid and it’s sparkly clean again!

Flushing it with citric acid seems to be working well so far. This is after only 5 minutes:

PM sent.

Well, I hate to take you up on that offer since @pdxmonkeyboy challenged my manhood for not owning an air compressor (though I did own a large compressor in the past when I had a full 2-car-garage-sized woodshop with several air powered tools), but if you don't mind I'd appreciate it. 🤓

I bought that one too when I first started up my tank. I used dry Pukani rock which is known to leach phosphates, so I used the 713 LR to measure PO4 as the rock was curing. Using GFO I was able to get PO4 down low enough that I could start measuring it with the ULR. Not sure what your excuse was. 🤣

I use the Hanna ULR HI-736 and it's worked great for me. My typical readings range from 3 - 20, which calculates to 0.01 ppm to 0.06 ppm.

It's not completely clogged; it just has a lot of buildup inside the tube walls. Water still flows through, just not at the same rate as the drain water so it throws off the auto water change volumes, which then messes with salinity as the ATO makes up the difference.

Pulling a new tube through the conduit will not be possible. I crammed 3 x 1/4" tubes, an Ethernet cable, and an AquaBus cable through 3/4" conduit with 5 curves. The fit was so tight that I had to pull the tubes and cables through each segment of conduit first, then dry fit the conduit segments together later and attach it to the wall. The conduit comes through the wall behind my tank, so there's absolutely no way to get to it. It's too tight to pull a single tube through. If I had used 1" or larger conduit it would be possible. Below are photos from when I set it up, before the tank was in place. I'll try compressed air first, then maybe add a long segment of tubing so I can run a loop with a pump in citric acid. If there's still any buildup left after all that, then I'll probably try the string trimmer line last.

The only problem with this plan is that the ends of the tube are 30 feet apart in different rooms, so a loop isn't an option. A PMUP moves 100 gph, so if I used 5 gallon buckets I'd have to babysit it and swap buckets every 3 minutes. I guess I could use some John Guest couplers and extend the tube to create a loop. Thanks for the suggestion.

I have been doing auto water changes with my DOS and Apex for almost 2 years. Over the past couple of weeks, I've started noticing a steady decline in salinity, so I assumed my DOS heads were wearing out and ready for replacement. But after replacing the heads and running the calibration, I saw the Fill head was only pumping about 75% as much as the Drain head. Closer examination of the tube revealed it's caked on the inside with sediment, similar to the gunk that builds up in my mixing station tank over time. Any ideas on how to clean or flush 30 feet of 1/4" tubing? Replacing it is not an option due to the challenge of getting this tubing along with 2 other tubes, an AquaBus cable, and Ethernet cable through the same 3/4" conduit. My first thought was using string trimmer line with a small brush head attached to shove it through the tube. Any other ideas? It's funny, for all the complaints I hear from people about the Apex salinity probe being worthless, it alerted me about this issue right away!

I'm not certain if this will work for everyone, but here's how I looked up my membership: