180 Mixed Reef - Rebuild and Progress

InkedReefLady

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Howdy!

Herewith is the documentation of the re-build of our 180 gallon reef system. I hope everyone enjoys the back story as well as the future progress of things. Cheer!

Overview:
My husband and I combined our aquariums when we met and I moved from NY to MI back in 2005; so needless to say, we had a lot of 'stuff'. :) I had a 90 gallon and he had a 58 gal. and a 120 gal. These were in various forms over the years, until we finally sold all of them and upgraded to our 180 gallon in about 2006. The tank went from reef to FOWLR back to reef since then.

As a part of our 'marriage' of reef things, we also combined our rock and sand. This stuff is OLD now. :) The sand bed alone is close if not older than 15 years old! Our denitrator takes care of NO3, but PO4 has been a bit of an issue (x> 0.5ppm). We also have had issues with some nasty palys and what we believe to be a sp. of sympodium. So, back in January 2017, we decided to remove ALL of the old sand bed, rinse the rock out and rebuild to better suit the needs of our garden eels. My husband made an acrylic sand barrier to section off the garden eels deeper sand bed. We rinsed all of the rock in new/aged saltwater and selected the rocks for the re-do. This took an entire weekend. We did have some minimal fish loss. All corals made it except the orange cap which was growing on the right overflow box.

Current system specs:
180 gallon RR - 72x24x24
Custom wood canopy
Basic wood stand
Apex Controller (pH, ORP, Conductivity, Temp)
DOS with DOS containers (I use BRS 2 (3) part)
Neptune autofeeder (spectrum pellets)
Tunze ATO
Mag 9.5 return
ASM Skimmer (don't ask model -- it's old and works and I don't remember! LOL!)
Theiling Rollermat
BRS 2 Stage Reactor (only using carbon as needed now)
(1) Gyre XF250
Denitrator (rated for up to 300 gal - it's not made anymore, but I got it from Premium Aquatics years ago)
(1) 300 watt hearer
(3) Kessil Tuna Blue Wide Angle LED's

Testing Equipment:
Hanna Alk Checker
Sailfert Ca and Mg
API pH (as back up to Apex)
Refractometer (as back up to Apex and for water changes)
SeaChem PO4

Current Water Params:
Conductivity: 30-31 ppt
pH: 8.05-8.2
Alk: 8-10 dkh
Temp: 78.8-80
Ca: 420-470
Nitrate: 0-<5
PO4: 0-0.2 (been using Phosphate Rx as needed to get down to 0)
Mg: 1200-1250

Biofiltration:
Total Sand: About 400 lbs
24x24 of 7" sand bed for garden eels
48x24 of 3-4" sand bed for the remainder of the reef
Live rock - I honestly have no idea, but a few hundred pounds with more we will cure to add/replace as needed. Fiji/Vanuatu or whatever name it was being called years ago. Like I said earlier, this rock is OLD!

Maintenance:
HW Marine Reef Salt Mix - 10-20% water changes every other week (we try!)
Testing every week or as I make a change to dosing and need to follow up on that change.
4 stage RO/DI

Inhabitants:
Fish
Hippo tang - probably + 10 years old, we've had for about 8 years.
Powder blue tang
x6 green chromis
x2 carberryi anthias
Clownfish (x8):
Standard model occy (6 years old)
Darwin Misbar
Chocolate
Snowflake
Wyoming White
Snow/Onyx
Midnight
x2 spotted garden eels
Hectors goby
Ranfordi goby

Inverts
x2 cleaner shrimp
royal urchin
blue legs
astreas
ceriths
serpent stars
LOTS of pods/worms

Corals
Monticap
birds nests
unk acro
various encrusting montis
green nepthia
various euphilids
mosalea
anthellia
gorgonian
welsos
T. Maxima

Other
Mangroves

Below are some photos of the tank in it's current form. We're currently battling some diatoms on the sandbed and some on the glass. So pardon the brown on parts of the sandbed.

I plan to post some photos as things grow/are added since it's a lot of fun to see the progress over the years.

We plan on adding more garden eels when my garden eel guy can get more in and I would also like to add in a pygmy wrasse. I don't follow the whole name crazy of corals. I buy what I like as long as it's reasonable.

Thanks for looking!


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dbl

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Another welcome to the community. Tank looks great...nice reboot.
 

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