Cali Kid Corals

Fiesta Vallarta Restaurant Tank

It’s great you are helping with their setup! I haven’t been to this restaurant yet, will have to stop by in the future. Do you know if it is owned by the same folks as Fiesta del Mar in downtown Mountain View (that’s one of our favs)?
I miss when fiesta Del Mar was on terra Bella. They have the best mole ever!
 
It’s great you are helping with their setup! I haven’t been to this restaurant yet, will have to stop by in the future. Do you know if it is owned by the same folks as Fiesta del Mar in downtown Mountain View (that’s one of our favs)?
Thank you, it is likely a different family as the brother and sister who own it are there pretty much every day.
 
I would love to help however I can’t even get through my own do it yourself projects. Little known fact for those of you that don’t know… I am father of a special needs kid and I spend a lot of my time on his enrichment so he will have the best chance of being a functional member of society. So yeah I can be a dick but it’s cause I am stretched so thin constantly.

Randy
 
I just texted with the owner and his brother is getting two Radions (not sure which gen, but any will grow softies) and I will likely need to figure out mounting. The anemone is happy in the rockwork and the tank is looking clean and happy! Now we let the pods and bacteria do their thing for a while. Next step is rock scaping. We talked about doing a couple islands to give some visual breaks as well as maybe stacking arches, but needing epoxy for them.
 
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The owner sent me this today. Super clean water! All the bacteria and flow is doing the trick.



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The nem found a spot in a rock crevice far away from powerheads.
 
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Full Tank Shot after rescaping and adding fish, rocks, a couple inverts and a lot of nems from @svreef 's 55 gallon. I think we got a good setup going and it should be easy to get some growth with all these soft corals.



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One from the back. The plan is to finish this side out and have customers on both sides of the tank.


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Clean up crew! Lots of dwarf ceriths, hermit crabs and got some bumblebee snails to deal with the vermitid snails that are in the tank.

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Aptasia eating File fish! Not pictured is the lawnmower blenny. Hopefully a couple tangs or rabbitfish are coming soon.


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The urchin didn't make it, but the hawk fish is looking good.

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The file fish colored up nicely


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The clown fish have their nems

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Added a small two bar rabbit fish and a baby orange shoulder tang to help with algae control

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The nems are looking happy but a little pale, I gave them some frozen food and hopefully they color up more.

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Better hawk fish picture

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Decorator crab all covered!


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Damsel in their cave


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The herbivores like each other and have started picking algae from the power head.
 
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Nice meeting you at the swap today.
Hope the pumps work good.
One has the Deco Rock so it can be hidden and add some flow from the bottom up. Although they are older, the 6100's move a lot of water.
 
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Yesterday we added a fox face rabbitfish. He found a cave and seemed be be doing fine.



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The owner had a couple gen 5 XR30 Radion lights and hanging kit, so we got them over the tank. They are really bright and make the tank pop. Now the little bits of gsp and zoas can be seen.


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Happy clowns and some cool zoas

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Full Tank from the rear

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The mushrooms on the left are the longest surviving coral in their tank from before the fire.
 
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The tank has had an eventful couple days. I went up to sf to get the clownfish and damsel pair from @Corallus . Thank you for them. The first hours were touchy, but they have mellowed out a bit and found their hiding places. Then tonight, I went to check on the fish to see how they were doing, and noticed the main pump wasn't running. I wiggled and jiggled everything, took the pump apart, and still couldn't get flow up to the tank. The pump would spin out of the water, but I am assuming that something burned out on the pump that was likely designed for freshwater. Luckily at home, I keep a backup main pump. What I will tomorrow do is swap my Ecotech L1 with their Jaebo, and install the backup L2 into my system at home. It looks like I am in the market for another backup pump now.

Also, the check valve gave way while I was eating dinner there and started a small flood. It was their first, so I congratulated them and welcomed them to the real reefers club. I have maybe 5 floods at this point under by belt at home. This means I will need to figure out the flow while getting the outlets higher in order to create an air break on the syphon sooner so we don't flood again. I will likely look for 2x 45 deg threaded pieces so I can raise the location of the outlet up, and maybe get a short threaded piece on the end for a better nozzle. All this to not buy the expensive plumbing we all use in our tanks.

While the tank is running without the main pump, I hooked up the large Jaebo wavemaker that I had taken out previously to get good oxygenation for the fish. I am not too worried about temp since it is 125 gallons and summer.
 
The sump is not big enough to hold the water that drains when the pumps are off?

Drill a hole on the side of the return pipe that extends into the tank. Close to where it enters the tank. This will be your siphon break. Once the water drains to that point, air will enter and break the siphon. Doesn't have to be a big hole.
 
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