monkiboy's 265g build thread

monkiboy said:

yep, a t.maxima. good eye!

i picked her out as soon as i saw her coloration. it's unique in that she has that golden peach skirt with the otherwise typical, albeit stunningly vibrant, blue which i just had to have. she's also a nice size around 6 inches.

i thought i posted a photo of her so pardon the redundancy if i did. here's a better photo of her in QT.

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It is indeed pretty odd to have the dual coloration going on. A great find in my book. I've sold a lot of Maxima, Crocea, and Deresa Clams over the past year or so and haven't once came across one that had this kind of coloration! You lucked out :)

someone asked me about my AWC system and utilizing the growing popular dual head pumps and thought my reply (which ended up being a bit of a rant, sorry) was worth posting here too as i love giving these guys credit where credit is due:

i really value a completed, tested, supported, well-designed, clean/sexy, and simple solution with multiple levels of redundancies. the genesis reef system is not only my automatic water change system but it's also my automatic top-off, and also my automatic RO/DI fill for my water storage container. it manages all this easy peezy without any input from me, not one valve needs to be closed or opened and it's completely adaptable and comes with triple redundancies. i input how many gallons i want it to change and how often and set it to repeat and i never have to do anything again until it alerts me that there is no salt water and it will add fresh to my salt water bin and wait for me to add salt for it to recommence.

for me, i don't mind spending the money on a system like that and can only find flaw in that it doesn't dispense the salt for me too, haha it's probably one of my most favorite toys with the tank so i'm definitely a bit of a "fanboi" but not only is their product exceptional, the customer service is equally impressive.

ah, another flaw i would say is because of the multiple redundancies and goal to keep the cost as low as possible there are up to six float switches. even as a thin-gauge wire...it's wire and it's in the way and the brackets are kind of cumbersome that hold the floats on your water storage containers and in your sump.

thankfully, in working closely with reef genesis and justin and dan from avast we've come up with a terrific solution. i bought a bunch of their pressure switches and newly designed nano magnet mounts and will be reversing the logic on them. it just so happens that the reef keeper connection is the same as the existing connections for the float switches to the main controller of the genesis reef! so now i'll have pressure switches which arguably more reliable and have slim black magnet mounts for mounting beautifully and cleanly and it's all PnP and looks OEM to the original. we're all pretty excited to see it executed!

AnthonyTheNewbie said:

It is indeed pretty odd to have the dual coloration going on. A great find in my book. I've sold a lot of Maxima, Crocea, and Deresa Clams over the past year or so and haven't once came across one that had this kind of coloration! You lucked out :)

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thanks - if interested in one, there is at least one or two more available as of last week. i bought it from ERC (exoticreefcreations.com). they just upgraded their site so inventory is up yet with the clams but they are an amazing group of folks and incredible livestock at very affordable prices.

it's been a while and i don't remember if i mentioned it here or not but i am putting together an 80 rimless (48x24x16) frag show-tank that will be right outside the fish room on the left side of the 265 display beyond the entry to the fish room. i dont know what i was thinking that the 40g shallow frag i set up was going to be sufficient in the fish room. in a matter of three weeks i have it pretty well packed with frags an colonies growing out before putting them in the display.



the 48x24 footprint will provide some much needed surface area for more frags and colonies so that i can start adding coral to the display tank. yes, there still isn't a single polyp in the tank but i'm taking it slow! i want every addition to be deliberate and well planned and hopefully the result will be grand.



i need something to put those frags on so i reached out to vanessa and rick again at synergy. i request to have made two identical sweet custom frag racks for me to my specs for the 80. these would take up a majority of the space but leave six inches front to back and a nice chunk of space on the sides for very large colonies.



not only are they multi-tiered to allow for a variety of light intensities but they are completely modular in that any tier can be removed. the green columns slide through openings in the next tier leaving the tier below it allowed to stand on it's own. so the options are many and i'll keep things very clean and organized and looking great - especially if it's going to essentially be a secondary display outside the fish room, you gotta look the part ;)















they arrive tomorrow. i filled it up with salt water tonight. i plumbed it a few days ago and was tempted to run it tonight but didn't want to go to bed with a newly running system so opted to wait til morning. pretty darn excited to get it also packed with some gorgeous pieces for grow out.



i have tons of photos of the plumbing and the set up that i need to upload and share and will try to get to that in the next few days. thanks for following along!

Gonna be a sweet frag tank! Can't wait to see the pics. Nice work as always. :thumbsup:

monkiboy said:

never did post up the details of the tank-less water heater so since i'm in posting flow tonight let's get that done!

so the heating/utility room that is shared with the fish room is a real mess, the floor looked like poo, and i just couldn't take it anymore. not only that but the dang water heater was taking up valuable real estate where an excellent water change station set up could go...

...see where i'm going with this?!

so out went the water heater...

installed the tank-less water heater at the end of the fish room where it can be easily accessed but is completely out of the way of my future water change/storage station:

then to focus on that disturbing floor

... time for a clean make over after vacuuming and mopping and scraping...

and ahhhh....much better!

and how it currently looks with the two 165g water storage containers waiting to be plumbed:

i'm still trying to figure out the most efficient way to design the plumbing but am in the home stretch and should be able to get this done in the next few days. it'll be great to have my genesis reef systems AWC/ATO installed again for automatic water changes and have a lot more water on hand for the expanded QT system's water changes and for emergency purposes. keep an eye out for more updates!

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I wish I seen this earlier and talked you out of the tank less hot water heaters. I get cold water sandwiches form mine if seen under .65g of draw. I invested now 1800 bucks in the system to get it to work....kinda work... The rest of your sump room looks great! Nice work.

Those frag racks look great! :thumbsup:

monkiboy said:

thanks - if interested in one, there is at least one or two more available as of last week. i bought it from ERC (exoticreefcreations.com). they just upgraded their site so inventory is up yet with the clams but they are an amazing group of folks and incredible livestock at very affordable prices.

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Yeah, I checked out their site. 250$ for two heads of a Aussie Yellow Hammer lol.... I have a piece in my 55. My cost on it.... a whopping 40$. My 6" Red Sea Blue Maxima was a whopping 60$. I don't order stuf online anymore lol. Wholesalers/Breeders/Transshipping nowadays :)

Washburn82 said:

Gonna be a sweet frag tank! Can't wait to see the pics. Nice work as always. :thumbsup:

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thanks - they arrived today and came out fantastic!

mariobrothersleeve said:

I wish I seen this earlier and talked you out of the tank less hot water heaters. I get cold water sandwiches form mine if seen under .65g of draw. I invested now 1800 bucks in the system to get it to work....kinda work... The rest of your sump room looks great! Nice work.

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thanks for the heads up. i did my research and everything worked out well with my install. i also had to get a tankless in order to create room for the water storage containers. no other way about it, haha. plus now i have unlimited hot water instantly which is great when you want to soak or take a long shower. the rinnai's are a bit more affordable at around 900-1100 and have an excellent track record and perhaps worth checking out if you're looking for a different unit.

Sakura2282 said:

Those frag racks look great! :thumbsup:

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thanks, i'll have some photos of them in the new tank soon. they are really making things look like they are coming together in the new frag tank despite the tedious slow steps, haha.

AnthonyTheNewbie said:

Yeah, I checked out their site. 250$ for two heads of a Aussie Yellow Hammer lol.... I have a piece in my 55. My cost on it.... a whopping 40$. My 6" Red Sea Blue Maxima was a whopping 60$. I don't order stuf online anymore lol. Wholesalers/Breeders/Transshipping nowadays :)

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so why even bother comparing? i mean of course wholesale and especially trans-shipping is going to be significantly cheaper. go look on cherry corals or sexy corals and see how much they want for a single head, haha. now that's laughable but they'll get it ... all day long. i hear yea, man.

Yeah. They have such a HUGE mark up on them. It's crazy. I use places like that for my customers who complain about stuff being pricey haha. They are like "Damn! 60$ a head?! That's crazy!" and then I point out sites like that. It usually shuts them up pretty quickly :p

AnthonyTheNewbie said:

Yeah, I checked out their site. 250$ for two heads of a Aussie Yellow Hammer lol.... I have a piece in my 55. My cost on it.... a whopping 40$. My 6" Red Sea Blue Maxima was a whopping 60$. I don't order stuf online anymore lol. Wholesalers/Breeders/Transshipping nowadays :)

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wish i could have that option only one decent lfs around where i live but they hardly have any mushrooms or ricordeas or zoas i have to order online costing me 15 pound for delivery yet a mushroom costs half of that so i wait and save up more and buy 2 or 3 corals at a time just to justify the £15 pound charge

Here is a picture of my tank less tanked hot water heater.... hahahahahahaha, jokes on me..... I'm not sure where you live, I installed this in 08 and not alot of features, the newer ones offer dual purpose and you can use it for in floor heat and warm water source. Sorry for jumping your post I just hate my water heater..

stuff has been growing pretty darn fast and it was time to make some frags. the first of which for the new frag show-tank. unfortunately, a failed timer led to an overextended bayer dip and the frag's colors washed out and you can see the flesh coming off two frags. thankfully two days later, i only lost one frag completely and colors are returning but you can see the washed out colors and damaged in the video below from immediately after the dip

Those are some great looking frag racks! Bet you could fit a ton on there. Unfortunately it won't let me watch your video says it's private. :censored:

Same

thanks for the heads up guys, i fixed it. refresh the page and let me know if it works now por favor. thanks!

Those all come out of your big Display ?? If so can we get a bideo of the DT ??

Civicdemon said:

Those all come out of your big Display ?? If so can we get a bideo of the DT ??

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howdy! i don't have any coral in the display right now. i'm growing everything out to a colony size before placing in display. these frags were from frags in the 50g frag tank that was too full in the fish room. video a few pages back of that one i think.

really like this piece. the polyp extension is seen in light blue and the body purple - the contrast is exquisite. kind of can tell what i'm talking about in the video.