180 reboot Predator/Reef

[soflmuddin]

This is my 25 year old 180 gallon that has been mostly a predator tank. About 8 months ago I decided to go predator/reef tank. I collected all my own fish with the exception of my 2 triggers and my dog face puffer.

As of now I have...
1 black edge moray eel
1 purple mouth moray eel
1 chain link moray eel
2 spotted moray eels
3 pork fish
3 sergeant majors
3 damsels (bugregory,coco,3-spot)
3 flame fish
3 wrasses (blue headed, slippery dick, yellow)
1 parrot fish
1 squirrel fish
1 porcine puffer
10+blennies
2 trigger fish (store bought)
1 dog face puffer (store bought)

corals collected

Various zoes and palys
Purple gorgorian
Entrusting gorgorian
Ricordia
RFA

Corals sourced from fellow reefers

Gps
Xenia
Frog spawn
Hammer
Duncan
Toadstool
Candycane
Sun coral
Birdsnest
Green Lettuce
Kenya


Bad pics from my phone.

 

[soflmuddin]

With only blues on.

 

[soflmuddin]

A few of the inhabitants..

 

[soflmuddin]

More pics of fishes.

 

[Subsea]

Far out. Love the tank. What source of lighting on the first post? How do you manage nutrients?

PS: 25 years with predator tanks. That is impressive.

 

[Subsea]

During those 25 years of feeding predators, did you worry about getting nipped by hungry carnivores?

 

[soflmuddin]

5-100watt 450nm leds

 

[soflmuddin]

Nutrient export is done by wet skimming, cryptic zone, 1 litter matrix, large chaeto refugium, sulfer denitrator and I just restarted carbon dosing with vodka last week. Never saw any results with the matrix but when I recently redid the refugium I figured at least it was more hidding for pods so I incorporated it in the new sump. It's all very low tech.

 

[soflmuddin]

During those 25 years of feeding predators, did you worry about getting nipped by hungry carnivores?

Once they are established the eels are pretty gentle.

 

[Subsea]

5-100watt 450nm leds

That’s blue. What I saw looked combined to 6500 kelvin.

 

[Subsea]

Nutrient export is done by wet skimming, cryptic zone, 1 litter matrix, large chaeto refugium, sulfer denitrator and I just restarted carbon dosing with vodka last week. Never saw any results with the matrix but when I recently redid the refugium I figured at least it was more hidding for pods so I incorporated it in the new sump. It's all very low tech.

Why do you carbon dose? Food is a carbon source. The feces from your marine predators are coral food particularly for your LPS. Vodka as an organic carbon source will grow bacteria, but so will uneaten fish food. Actually, bacteria acting on proteins produce amino acids which enhance coral matabalism. As you might guess, I am not a big fan of organic carbon dosing and neither is BRS TV. This weeks release was on coral nutrition and it was quite in depth. Randy even referred to Dana Riddle 6 part article series about Coral Nutrition on Advanced Aquaria.

Why the cryptic refugium and how long have you used it? One year ago I converted a 30G 24 year old mud/macro refugium into a cryptic refugium. I am very pleased with the results and have not used activated carbon in 14 months. To look at your water, I think activated carbon would help you memove some of the dissolved organic carbon in exchess from fish, coral & algae. Does your cryptic sponge population help with water clarity. With a 25 year mature tank with a large biofilter of coral, I did not miss the nutrient export of macro refugium. From my little experience with cryptic sponges and what I have read from Steve Tyree books, I feel cryptic sponges are second class nutrient export and first class nutrient recycling.

With your heavy fish load, which do you find more useful as nutrient export, skimmer or algae refugium?

 

[soflmuddin]

Why do you carbon dose? Food is a carbon source. The feces from your marine predators are coral food particularly for your LPS. Vodka as an organic carbon source will grow bacteria, but do will uneaten fish food. Actually, bacteria acting on proteins produce amino acids which enhance coral matabalism. As you might guess, I am not a big fan of organic carbon dosing and neither is BRS TV. This weeks release was on coral nutrition and it was quite in depth. Randy even referred to Dana Riddle 6 part article series about Coral Nutrition on Advanced Aquaria.

Why the cryptic refugium and how long have you used it?

The tank is an ever progressing experiment. My chaeto has never grown fast enough to amount to much of a nutrient export. I tried dosing iron with no noticeable results. Tried a huge algae turf scrubber and while I produced great amounts of algae there was no real substantial decrease in nitrate or phosphates and it was a lot of maintenance. The sulfer denitrator works great but nitrates still over 50ppm and denitrators do nothing for phosphates. I just started dosing lanthanum chloride for phosphates and I know a lot with say how dangerous it is/was but I dropped the phosphates from 10.2ppm to 3.4ppm in a week. No corals closed up and I didn't loose any tangs. I will slow down the rate at which I lower them till I get to 0.6 ppm and hopefully then I can maintain it without LC. I can't explain it but the chaeto seems to have taken off in the last week so I'm wondering if somehow too high of phosphates somehow limits chaetos growth. The only other thing I did was increase the light period on the fuge from 12 to 14 hrs.
I use to carbon doses couple of years ago and stopped as my skimmer wasn't keeping up with the amount of bacteria needed for the amount of nitrates I was producing. Only started last week to see if I could get the nitrates a little lower. Like I said this tank is an experiment.
Cryptic zone is new when I replace the refugium a few months ago. It is another place for pods and the home of my 8 very large brittle starfish who eat detritus and any food that gets into the sump.

 

[soflmuddin]

With your heavy fish load, which do you find more useful as nutrient export, skimmer or algae refugium?

Easily the skimmer.

 

[Subsea]

I like your vision and your success. There are several documented reef tanks on this forum with nitrates every bit as high as yours with immaculate water clarity and thriving corals. Yes, SPS dominant tanks with 50ppm nitrates. Check out the on going PaulB thread on the other way to run a reef tank. With respect to high inorganic nitrates & phosphates, I suspect your substrate is maxed out with detritus and you are getting nutrient feedback. Do you use activated carbon? Activated carbon will remove 300% more dissolved organic carbon than your protein skimmer. The cloudy water in your tank is bacteria feeding on dissolved organic carbon. If you want clear water, I suggest you discontinue dosing organic carbon and that you use activated carbon to further remove undesirable dissolved organic carbon.

Who can argue with the success of your tank. Your fish are magnificent and the corals are all healthy.

I also have a 25 year old tank that has made drastic changes in the last two years which involved replacing mud/macro refugium with cryptic refugium. Cryptic sponges need silica to proliferate. The biggest change to my tank hapoened two weeks ago with removal of all substrate & installation of pump manifold under Jaubert Plenum. I have not measured tank parameters in 10 years so I can’t tell you what the nutrients are in my 25 year old system.. I have been haphazardly fighting Cynobacteria for 2 years and fighting it seriously for 3 months. Today is in the middle of the second treatmen with Chemi Clean. It’s the third time I have used it in 48 years of reefing. The tank water is stellar and Cynobacteria has regressed everywhere. A friend made a video to music 5 years ago of the tank I just discussed. Good fortune on your journey.



Hers a picture of same tank 24 hours after second treatment with ChemiClean.

 

[soflmuddin]

I like your vision and your success. There are several documented reef tanks on this forum with nitrates every bit as high as yours with immaculate water clarity and thriving corals. Yes, SPS dominant tanks with 50ppm nitrates. Check out the on going PaulB thread on the other way to run a reef tank. With respect to high inorganic nitrates & phosphates, I suspect your substrate is maxed out with detritus and you are getting nutrient feedback. Do you use activated carbon? Activated carbon will remove 300% more dissolved organic carbon than your protein skimmer. The cloudy water in your tank is bacteria feeding on dissolved organic carbon. If you want clear water, I suggest you discontinue dosing organic carbon and that you use activated carbon to further remove undesirable dissolved organic carbon.

Who can argue with the success of your tank. Your fish are magnificent and the corals are all healthy.

I also have a 25 year old tank that has made drastic changes in the last two years which involved replacing mud/macro refugium with cryptic refugium. Cryptic sponges need silica to proliferate. The biggest change to my tank hapoened two weeks ago with removal of all substrate & installation of pump manifold under Jaubert Plenum. I have not measured tank parameters in 10 years so I can’t tell you what the nutrients are in my 25 year old system.. I have been haphazardly fighting Cynobacteria for 2 years and fighting it seriously for 3 months. Today is in the middle of the second treatmen with Chemi Clean. It’s the third time I have used it in 48 years of reefing. The tank water is stellar and Cynobacteria has regressed everywhere. A friend made a video to music 5 years ago of the tank I just discussed. Good fortune on your journey.



Hers a picture of same tank 24 hours after second treatment with ChemiClean.

Im not as worried about my nitrates so much as I am my phosphates. Didn't know you needed silicates for sponges. I didn't have any detectable silicate when I tested a while back, something to look into. Every time I had cyano in the past it went away on its own, until 5 months ago. It was a bad outbreak and I could see even the gps effected. So I treated with chemi-clean. That stuff absolutely works. In an industry that has so many snake oil treatments, it is nice to know atleast one really works.