125 Gallon Office Tank

[bluecheese]

Corals are still alive and doing well. I don’t want to jinx myself, but maybe the curse has been lifted

I also picked up two rock flower nems the other day. I already had two, but they’re fun corals. I may have to check online for other colors.

 

[bluecheese]

Got a German Blue Monti Digitata the other day.

 

[bluecheese]

Some good polyp extension on this birdsnest

 

[bluecheese]

Ever since installing the T5 fixtures, just about every coral has blown up.

Tank as seen from my office

Tank from the conference room side

I thought this Monti Cap was a goner, but it’s making a comeback

Monti digitata has stayed the same.

Favia? He’s taking over this rock

Zoa garden doing well. The green and purplish one at the top left was the first coral in the tank

Duncan has doubled in size

As had this birdsnest

I added this Monti not too long after installing the T5s to see if I could keep one alive. It’s starting to show growth.

And this Yaya coral is twice the size as it was a month ago. Plus the Torch is still alive and fully extended.

 

[bluecheese]

I added an arch to make a swim-through for the fish. I wanted some additional real estate up top to put sps on. I think it came out pretty good. I have it glued right now. If it holds in place over night, I'll put some reef putty on there to lock it in.

Before:

After:

 

[bluecheese]

Got some new corals for the new arch

Forest Fire Montipora

Yellow birdsnest

Pink birdsnest

Shot of the arch from the conference room side of the tank

 

[bluecheese]

installed a BRS mini reactor to run carbon through.

My original plan was to have the pump in the sock chamber or the return chamber, and to have it drain into the refugium. Unfortunately putting it into the sock chamber pulled so much water out - even with the pump at the lowest setting - that all the water was being pushed into the refugium. No water was making it from the sock chamber into the biological media chamber. And putting it into the return chamber brought the water level down too low.

So, I have the pump in the ‘fuge and I have it draining back into the ‘fuge.

 

[bluecheese]

Two of the wave makers are Sicce XStream SDC pumps. I bought them for a few reasons, one of which was the promised battery backup.

Unfortunately, Sicce never came out with a battery. I emailed them last week to see if they had any recommendations. They suggested this back up Amazon along with this adapter Amazon

I finally got the the batteries Friday evening. I went tot the office last night to install them.

To test them, I unplugged the Sicce control boxes. The batteries kicked on and started powering the pumps a few seconds afterwards.

I may do a test later in the week to see how long these batteries will keep the pumps running.

 

[bluecheese]

Picked up a branching hammer today.

 

[bluecheese]

Put two pom pom crabs in the tank last week. Haven’t seen a sign of them until 5 minutes ago

 

[Mickey]

Two of the wave makers are Sicce XStream SDC pumps. I bought them for a few reasons, one of which was the promised battery backup.

Unfortunately, Sicce never came out with a battery. I emailed them last week to see if they had any recommendations. They suggested this back up Amazon along with this adapter Amazon

I finally got the the batteries Friday evening. I went tot the office last night to install them.

To test them, I unplugged the Sicce control boxes. The batteries kicked on and started powering the pumps a few seconds afterwards.

I may do a test later in the week to see how long these batteries will keep the pumps running.

Tank is looking good.

Did you ever test to see how long the suggested backup from Amazon would last? I wonder if that backup will work with the Neptune WAV pumps as well? I have WAVs currently, 3 of them, but thinking of switching to the Sicce next time one fails.

 

[bluecheese]

Tank is looking good.

Did you ever test to see how long the suggested backup from Amazon would last? I wonder if that backup will work with the Neptune WAV pumps as well? I have WAVs currently, 3 of them, but thinking of switching to the Sicce next time one fails.

Thanks.

I didn't test the battery backups yet. Not sure if they'd work on the WAV pumps.

 

[bluecheese]

Added a yellow sleeper goby and a firefish. I also added two zoa frags, but they’re currently closed. I’ll try to remember to post pics tomorrow

 

[RazorbackReefer]

Great looking tank! It's hard to trust an LSU fan, but I'm willing to take my chances here. I'm looking at starting a 5x2x2 125ish build myself and came across this looking at American Aquariums. A few years in, what are your thoughts? Thanks and please pray for my Razorbacks.

 

[bluecheese]

Great looking tank! It's hard to trust an LSU fan, but I'm willing to take my chances here. I'm looking at starting a 5x2x2 125ish build myself and came across this looking at American Aquariums. A few years in, what are your thoughts? Thanks and please pray for my Razorbacks.

That Ar-Kansas game was always one of my favorites during the Saban and Miles eras at LSU. We made a road trip to Fayetteville in 2018 and had a blast.

That said, I hope yall never even sniff a victory over LSU again.

Now, to your question. No major problems with the tank. The only real issue is how easily acrylic scratches. So I have to be careful when scraping algae. And I can’t get anything like an urchin. But other than that, it’s been problem free.

 

[bluecheese]

Having some algae issues in the tank. Been dealing with bubble algae and some sort of turf algae for months now. I'm also dealing with a recent cyano bloom. Also, the rocks which were previously covered with coralline algae are now more green than purple. Not sure what is going on as my parameters have been fairly steady.

As a fix, I am going to do a regimen of Mircobacter Clean and Marine Razor.

Clean is to be used for 2 weeks.
Razor for 6 days.

I'm hoping this will help serve as a beneficial reset to the microbiome of the tank.

I plan on taking daily pictures to track the impact on the problem algae.

Cyano Day 1

Turf Algae Day 1

Bubble Algae Day 1

Tank Day 1

 

[mmodo]

The corals are looking great!

Any plans to add more fish? I think you have room to add more.

Did all 6 of the green chromis survive? The ones I see in the picture look big!

Have you added more CUC recently? I've heard that sometimes you have to add a few more in periodically. It might help with the algae issue? Not really a CUC member, but I think a clam would look great in here!

 

[rhizotron]

Looking good!

 

[bluecheese]

The corals are looking great!

Any plans to add more fish? I think you have room to add more.

Did all 6 of the green chromis survive? The ones I see in the picture look big!

Have you added more CUC recently? I've heard that sometimes you have to add a few more in periodically. It might help with the algae issue? Not really a CUC member, but I think a clam would look great in here!

Thanks!

Once I get this algae issue under control, I plan on adding some more fish. I was thinking of adding a Royal Gramma and maybe a Banggai Cardinal. Not sure yet though. I want to add a toadstool leather once things settle down in the tank. I think my clownfish will appreciate it.

I started out with 8 Chromis. Now I'm down to 5.

I haven't added any new clean up crew members other than replacing a cleaner shrimp that died. When I discussed the algae issues with my LFS, they believed adding more snails wouldn't help with the turf algae I'm dealing with. I really don't want an emerald crab in the tank for the bubble algae.

 

[bluecheese]

Looking good!

Thanks. It's still a work in progress - which I suppose most reef tanks are.

Since I added the T5HO fixtures, the corals have really taken off.