150G SPS Home Office Upgrade Build

[JPK]

I hope everyone had a enjoyable weekend, I had a great time hanging out with my family .

This is what I have going on in my garage. I have my salt mixing station and my frag tank. I used to have a 75 gallon display in the house, which was plumbed into the garage. However, we did some major home renovations, and I had to take the display down about a year ago. The 150 was the replacement for the 75 gallon display, but is now too far away to plumb in into the garage again.

 

[JPK]

This is my salt mixing station. Our drinking water in So Cal is pretty horrible (TDS exceeding 700), so I took some extra precautions.

I am using a booster pump that pushes water through a sediment filter, a chloramine monster, three carbon filters, a RO filter, Cation resin, Anion resin and then two Mixed Bed resin cartridges. I put a three way valve immediately after my last carbon filter and another after my last Mixed Bed resin filter cartridge, that way I can divert water to the utility sink after I change carbon filters or resin to get rid of any fines/contaminants. Another quality of life addition is I can flip a valve to divert salt water to the frag tank's sump from the mixing station for quick water changes. The container up high fills with filtered fresh water and then gravity feeds to the the mixing container and ATO reservoir below.

I have had issues in the past determining how much water is in each of the water storage containers, so I put an LED light under each one, which makes it easier to see the water line. I have it set on a motion sensor, so when I walk in the garage the light turns on, and then turns off when there is no motion for a few mins.

Thanks for looking

Jason

 

[JPK]

Here are a few shots of the frag tank setup (48" X 24" X 12") . The tank isn't very happy with me right now since I stole two MP40s and the light (three radions XR30s/aquaticlife t5 hybrid fixture) which used to be on it for my 150. But it seems to be adjusting to the Nanobox T5 hybrid I put over it as a replacement. The Nanobox hybrid fixture used to power my smaller display.

I apologize for the iPhone 7 picture quality. Most frags are on 3" X 3" plates.

Monster WWC Slimeball anacropora colony

WWC Grizzly adams

WWC Diesel Blueberry

BC Glowstick

BC Bonsai humulis (Had a little too much light, usually darker blue/purple)

WWC Yellow tip

Pink lemonade from BC X 2

 

[SneakyTortuga]

awesome set up! any updates?

 

[JPK]

awesome set up! any updates?

Thanks Sneaky!
Tank has been running for four months now and is doing well, I added a few fish a month or so ago, and I am QTing my third batch of fish now. I clipped a bunch of SPS/LPS frags from my frag tank and mounted them on small flakes of the shelf rock (so i could move them easily if needed). So far they have been surviving with some polyp extension. I think the tank just needs to mature for another 6 - 8 months or so before things start to take off.
I just ordered a Geo Carx and an Avast Marine Kalk stirrer, I'll do a better update when those arrive and are set up.
Here are a few shots

This is my QT setup, I have two 40 gallons and QT for about 15 days in each. I'll add water to the 2nd 40g when my fish are closer to being transferred. I am cooking a Maculiceps tang, Tomini Tang, Copperband butterfly, Midas blenny, Bi-color foxface and a long nose hawkfish right now.
I have lost a few fish through QT which sucks. However, I purchased them through Live Aquaria and have to say their customer service is great. They have refunded my money on each of the losses with pretty much no questions asked.

 

[Mhart032]

Ha, when I was setting it up the cats were all about the tank. Now that there is water in it they don’t seem to care

Thats a good looking cat fish you got there.. Nice setup. very clean.

 

[JPK]

Thats a good looking cat fish you got there.. Nice setup. very clean.

Thank you,
Ya its a pretty cool fish. I wish it didn't eat so much though. The 30+ Mysis cubes a day are throwing my nitrates waaaaaay off...

 

[JPK]

It took a while to come, but I finally received and set-up my Geo calcium reactor, it is pretty sweet! I can't believe how easy it was to set up. I also had a lid made by Octo Lids a while back which also came out very nice. If you guys are looking for a aquarium cover I highly recommend Matt's work.

My tester SPS have all survived and are starting to encrust, and the system has been pretty stable. I think its time to make a few orders from Adam @Battlecorals to get some color into the tank. I've started to do consistent weekly water changes on the frag tank and things seem to me much happier as well.

Jason

 

[P-Dub]

Looking slicker' than snot on a doorknob...

 

[JPK]

Looking slicker' than snot on a doorknob...

Thanks P-Dub! I’m excited to get this thing stocked!

 

[JPK]

Hi, I can not believe it is August already... I am getting married in October which is coming up fast..I really need to get my act together , Anyways I have a few updates.

I was having an weird issue with my skimmer where the bubbles weren't popping causing this weird skimmate foam from hell. The pic below was less than 24 hours of skimmate. I then left for a 4 day work trip and came home to a substantial bacteria bloom in the tank, where i couldn't even see through the tank from front to back.

I ended up installing a UV sterilizer and a Clairsea fleece filter roller and things cleaned up quickly I attached both of them my independent manifold Varios 6 pump.

 

[JPK]

I was finally able to get my hands on a Trident which is such a cool piece of equipment. Additionally I added a Avast barrel tender tho my ATO reservoir in my closet which is also pretty cool.

 

[JPK]

I took advantage of the cherry corals and TCK/ARC live sales and the TSA father's day sale and scored some sweet acros and a few zoas. I also made an order with Adam @Battlecorals. Adam is so cool to deal with, he does a great job of making you feel like you are his #1 customer. He is so generous with his frags, prices and freebies.

A few of my favorite frags are the Vivid confetti, BC bubblebath unicorn, TGC cherry bomb, TSA optimus prime, SC orange passion, 2 rad unnamed tenius frags that adam included and many many more. Everything is looking great and encrusting, minus a yellow tang and my TSA bill murray frag that were assimilated by the bacteria borg bloom.

Sorry about the phone pics, we are looking into getting a real camera. I take some better pics of the frags in a few weeks when they are a little more settled.

Thanks for looking

Jason

 

[cFloor]

Impressive build! I really love your scape, there's so much room for coral. Very nice!

 

[JPK]

Thanks Cfloor that was the plan. Also congratulations on your rocking tank, I have been following your builds for a while. your have always impressed me with you skills in both growing corals and taking great pictures!

 

[cFloor]

Ahh, much appreciated! Thank you

 

[mcwhng]

I took advantage of the cherry corals and TCK/ARC live sales and the TSA father's day sale and scored some sweet acros and a few zoas. I also made an order with Adam @Battlecorals. Adam is so cool to deal with, he does a great job of making you feel like you are his #1 customer. He is so generous with his frags, prices and freebies.

A few of my favorite frags are the Vivid confetti, BC bubblebath unicorn, TGC cherry bomb, TSA optimus prime, SC orange passion, 2 rad unnamed tenius frags that adam included and many many more. Everything is looking great and encrusting, minus a yellow tang and my TSA bill murray frag that were assimilated by the bacteria borg bloom.

Sorry about the phone pics, we are looking into getting a real camera. I take some better pics of the frags in a few weeks when they are a little more settled.

Thanks for looking

Jason

Your setup looks like you can farm your own frags soon! Nicely done!

 

[JPK]

Your setup looks like you can farm your own frags soon! Nicely done!

Thanks mcwhng! I am looking forward for things to start taking off. I was having the hardest time keeping detectable levels of NO3 and PO4, even though I was feeding my DIY fish/coral frozen food 4+ times a day. I don't run any carbon or GFO. I do plan to add some more fish, but due to my work schedule (travel) I haven't had time to QT more. I want to add some fairy wrasses, a pair of clowns and some other misc fish.

I made solutions of Sodium Nitrite and Trisodium phosphate and have been auto dosing both to the tank daily over a 24 hour period (55 ml NO3 and 150 ml PO4 per day). Doing so I have been able to keep my NO3 right at 10 and my PO4 at .03, it is hard to believe how much of each the tank is consuming daily. Hopefully I will only have to dose for a while before things stabilize and I can stop.

Happy Friday!

 

[AiKkz]

This set up is extremely inspirational!!! Everything is amazing!!! Keep up the good work and updates... following along for sure.

 

[JPK]

This set up is extremely inspirational!!! Everything is amazing!!! Keep up the good work and updates... following along for sure.

I really appreciate the kind words AiKkz. I just checked out your build, not too shabby yourself, nice work! I will definitely try to keep the updates coming more frequently since the tank is moving away from the rocks and water stage