1st Acro tank Reefer 300. (Retired)

[exnisstech]

8/14/26 update
I decided to replace this tank rather than wait until the seams fail.
I decided to go with a mariner MP100. Its my first peninsula and we really like it. The tangs are appreciating the longer swim lanes that have them swimming in the flow from two orca 6075s and two MP40s.
Still have some work to do.

Managed to get a couple of shots if the tangs. These two get along great.

It wasn't a total loss, I used the stand and sump to start a 40g breeder that will serve as an observation/ grow out tank. I scored the tank new for $75.00 and bought a hob overflow and had everything else needed here so it's a nice cash budget friendly build.

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I'm trying to document my tanks so I can watch the progress and maybe share some info. I've been poor at keeping track of things and doing so here just works for me.

This is my first attempt at an acro dominant tank. Its a Reefer 300 and has been running for 2 years.

This is the earliest image I can find. I'm guessing I was just a few months in. I started the tank March 2023.

And a recent image. Around Feb 2025

12/12/25

I'll come back and fill in the blanks later.

EDIT 4/7/25 I forgot to mention I run IO purple salt.

It's a simple system with a reefmat 500 as my only filtration. The tanks is pretty much a ULNS on its own.
Lighting is two Reef breeder photon 32 V2 pros
Flow is a jebao DCP 5000 return and currently two MP40s on the back wall.
AFR is dosed via a reefdose 2. I dosed manually for several months then decided to start with the doser since I already had it. I currently dosing 30ml a day.
I do a 2g water change every 7-10 day and occasionally I'll bump it to 4g. Much of my detritus gathers in one corner so it's easy to vacuum.

It was started with all dry rock in the display and bare bottom. I added a lot of old live rock I had in the sump which I'm sure gave me a big jump start. I also added some Fritz turbo 900. I never got much of an ugly stage.
I started AFR at the 1yr mark and things started to grow some base. Not sure if it was the AFR, tank maturity, or a combo of both but I'll take a win anyway I can get it. I added a lot of frags early and lost a lot. RTN STN? Give me RTN so I don't have to fret over it. Just go to bed at night and wake up to single a white skeleton, chuck it and move on.

I increased my lighting at the begining of the month and I'm really starting to see more color so I took a video so I can compare how things look in a few months.

 

[tsharpe291]

looks awesome, I love the GSP on the back overflow, gives great movement

 

[exnisstech]

looks awesome, I love the GSP on the back overflow, gives great movement

Thanks. The lack of movement was one thing that I missed with this tank when I started It having LPS and softies in other tanks. The GSP lets me know if I've left the power heads off :face-with-hand-over-mouth:

 

[exnisstech]

I like the lighting on this one

 

[Nor'easter Reefer]

I like the lighting on this one

Your tank is beautiful! Definitely following along. I'm finally starting to see my first real growth in my tank and it's a great feeling! Im contemplating getting my first acro soon but just contemplating lol. You have a really good mix of colors so far. I've seen a few people where they only have 1 color or shade of it. Your ls isn't like a full blown rainbow of colors, but it feels like you have green to purple and absolutely every shade in between which, idk why, but I really really like.

 

[exnisstech]

Your tank is beautiful! Definitely following along. I'm finally starting to see my first real growth in my tank and it's a great feeling! Im contemplating getting my first acro soon but just contemplating lol. You have a really good mix of colors so far. I've seen a few people where they only have 1 color or shade of it. Your ls isn't like a full blown rainbow of colors, but it feels like you have green to purple and absolutely every shade in between which, idk why, but I really really like.

Thank you for the kind words. I lack creativity and I tried to mix the colors but did not buy any supper expensive pieces just for a certain color. Some @Battlecorals battle boxes were my first pieces in but I've bought from other places mostly local since I don't really trust most vendor photos.
It's been two years now and I think the tank is really coming onto its own. It's not a show case that looks like neon lights but I'm fine with that as I prefer a more natural look. I run enough blues so the corals pop for viewing but the tank still looks real to me. Some are just too over the top for my taste.
I'm still pretty amazed at how much color I was able to bring out of some pieces after increasing my lighting a month ago so I think I'm going to increase it another 5% this month and see how it goes.
Thanks for stopping by.

 

[Nor'easter Reefer]

Thank you for the kind words. I lack creativity and I tried to mix the colors but did not buy any supper expensive pieces just for a certain color. Some @Battlecorals battle boxes were my first pieces in but I've bought from other places mostly local since I don't really trust most vendor photos.
It's been two years now and I think the tank is really coming onto its own. It's not a show case that looks like neon lights but I'm fine with that as I prefer a more natural look. I run enough blues so the corals pop for viewing but the tank still looks real to me. Some are just too over the top for my taste.
I'm still pretty amazed at how much color I was able to bring out of some pieces after increasing my lighting a month ago so I think I'm going to increase it another 5% this month and see how it goes.
Thanks for stopping by.

Do you use a par meter or just do a seat of the pants kinda way and adjust lights and see how they react to it? I've been contemplating turning my lights up some recently

 

[exnisstech]

Do you use a par meter or just do a seat of the pants kinda way and adjust lights and see how they react to it? I've been contemplating turning my lights up some recently

I do have a par meter, an apogee 510 but often when I'm increasing a small percentage I don't always measure. I bought the meter a few years ago when I was trying to figure out why I couldn't keep clams. It turns out I was light starving them even tho the lights looked plenty bright. I'll probably measure this time before and after increasing the lights and add my readings to this thread so I can find them since I have no idea what I did with my original readings lol. Trying to keep stuff organized and accessible is one thing really like about having a thread for each tank here on R2R because I'm really bad at keeping track of things.

 

[strep]

Awesome.

 

[exnisstech]

Mapped the par of the tank today. I may go another 5% since everything seemed to respond well to the last 5% increase a month ago. Readings were taken with an apogee 510 during peak. Photons are set at
Red & green 0%
White 2 5 2%
All blues and violet 50 60 50%
Time 1:50pm - 9:10pm not counting ramp up and down with a peak in the middle.
Apologies for using red text but I'm not up to doing it over since adding text to images is not my forte. It's an old guy thing.

I found this early image and wanted to post it for people new to the hobby that have read all the hype that green algae is evil and needs to be destroyed which just disrupts the natural progression of things in a new tank. Green algae is a natural part of the tanks progression and not something to panic over. Turn off the white light and it can't be seen ;)

 

[exnisstech]

This is from today. Its been a while since I had only whites on and I was surprised how much green algae there is. I guess it just shows all that is green is not evil regardless of what you read online. ;)

PS; taken under photons with whites set at 100% all others at 0%

 

[tsharpe291]

wow, that really looks GREEN.

 

[exnisstech]

wow, that really looks GREEN.

I was actually surprised at how much more green it was vs the earlier images under the same whites. I have a hunch many tanks may be like this but people normally don't turn all the blues off.

 

[Lavey29]

I was actually surprised at how much more green it was vs the earlier images under the same whites. I have a hunch many tanks may be like this but people normally don't turn all the blues off.

I see the green when the lights are off at night and I'm flashlight snooping.

I like the way you incorporated the frag racks on the back wall.

 

[exnisstech]

Just an update.
Tank is plugging along smoothly. I started dosing ammonium to combat the constant low N and P and it seems to be working as far as not testing zeros. I have it on a doser so its much easier than mixing and dosing them both sperate. Other than that I'm dosing AFR currently at 27ml daily, doing 2g weekly water changes along with cleaning the glass every other day.
A few pics from this eve. I can't quite catch the color as it looks to my eyes.

 

[Merge_595]

Looks great

 

[Lavey29]

Just an update.
Tank is plugging along smoothly. I started dosing ammonium to combat the constant low N and P and it seems to be working as far as not testing zeros. I have it on a doser so its much easier than mixing and dosing them both sperate. Other than that I'm dosing AFR currently at 27ml daily, doing 2g weekly water changes along with cleaning the glass every other day.
A few pics from this eve. I can't quite catch the color as it looks to my eyes.

Dig the encrusting on the bare bottom.

 

[exnisstech]

Dig the encrusting on the bare bottom.

I'm digging it too even tho It wasn't my original intention. I bought a large $20 frag from a bargain bin and just stuck it down there until i decided where to place it and it started encrusting before I made my mind up so I left it. It sure is happy there. This was shortly after I bought it.

 

[exnisstech]

Update 4/7/25

Well so far I'm happy with the results I'm seeing from ammonium dosing. I mentioned it earlier but this tank has always ran low N and P often zero when I would dose. I started dosing ammonium bicarb 2/1/25 and paused it on 3/23/25. My dosing schedule is below. I dosed a bit randomly as a precaution. The gap between 2/1 and 2/10 was because I got nervous about making a change so I had to think on it some more.
Apologies for images its just easier for me to screen shot.



This was my roller coaster ride with NO3. The line is when it seems the dosing may have started to kick in?


PO4 was a little better. Change looks to have started the same time as NO3. A large spike then a settling back to normal while the NO3 stayed elevated to a nice level even after 2 weeks of no ammonium dosing. I've only had to dose PO4 3 times since starting the ammonium.


N and P test results since the ammonium dosing was stopped.




I'm hoping a dose of ammonia now and then will let me be able to stop having to dose N and P but time will tell. I have a bottle hooked up to a doser so I can give it a quick shot now and then. I'd rather do that than try to figure out some type of daily dose.

I'm seeing quite a bit of new growth on several pieces. This is really cool because I've never seen this many pieces show growth at the same time. I'm happy when stuff doesn't die so when it grows I'm really happy.
i increased my AFR from 27ml to 30ml in anticipation of more consumption. I'm feeling optimistic lol.

A few more images for future reference.

Leaders of my cuc

 

[Tahoe61]

I can see a huge difference, the sps are taking off. Once they hit that perfect chemistry ratio you can see growth every day. Just beautiful.
How many hours are your lights on?