It has been a bit of time since my last update and there is a reason. With heavy heart I say that I have truly been through the dreaded right of passage for all reef keepers. A near total system crash.
Everything seemed to be going great and all were happy. I can home from a two day business trip to find an outbreak of velvet had taken over the aquarium. I jumped to with treatment, but it was too late. Within two days I lost everything, well almost, a few survivors gave me hope as well as the energy to bounce back and rebuild.
In the time since, I decided to redouble my effort and get back on the horse, as it were, to come back stronger.
The system got a full reset. Pulled out the egg crate base, removed about 4 gallons of sand, reset the rock work, and gave it all a deep cleaning. I also took the opportunity to upgrade the lighting to and ATI SunPower High output T5 set and the skimmer to a Monzter SM201.
The surviving stock is a yellow watchman goby (seriously this guy refuses to die!), a pair of rose bubble tip anemones, and a few various toadstools, leathers, and zoas.
I also took the weekend to correct a design flaw in the sump modification. the way i mounted the filter socks did not allow for overflow if the socks got clogged (which they managed to do on one long weekend). I added an acrylic lip around the opening and decided to polish off the look with a nice acrylic cap. It accomplishes the need and I think really improves the look of the sump too. I will be adding acrylic lids ot the other sections as time allows.