300gal+ Reefkeeping in KC, MO, USA

[R.Weller]

We need a build thead, so here we go!

This is our 4th reef system having upgraded from a 60gal to 220gal to the current 300gal display. With the 60gal we learned the importance of stability but fought nitrates like it was going out of style. With the 220 we learned about planning & redundancy. We purchased the tank used, & it leaked on the bottom seal & it created a big mess...lesson learned. We also had to tear out the carefully planned aquascape when we brought the 300gal online in January.

This photo is about 1 month old. Everything is about the same although we have seen some good coral growth.

Here's the display under the whites (the bubble blast on the top is from a modified Carlson Surge Device...more later):

The tank is a feature in our finished basement with all filtration installed in the fish room (stairwell) behind the wall:

Here's a current view of the fish closet:

The DT is supported by a custom 75gal 3 chamber sump (intake / live rock, skimmer & return chamber...no filter socks or removable media), 50gal refugium with DSB, live rock, DIY algae scrubber & chaeto factory). A 20gal Brute with a gatevalve is used for a gravity top-off of Kalk.

Aside from the livestock, my favorite feature is the surge device using an 18gal bucket from the farm supply store:

Every three minutes this dumps about 12 gallons of water into the DT though 1 1/2" piping in 30 seconds. This is a great way to broadcast feed phyto, & trace elements.

This is pretty much where the journey stands today. Next steps are:

• Rebuild the aquascape
• Paint the surge pipe (white is hard on the eyes)
• Improve nutrition
• Add livestock
• Tie in a frag tank
• Find something else to DIY
• Refuse to stop improving in whatever form that might be

 

[Chefwheredyougo]

That's awesome, thank you for sharing!

 

[R.Weller]

Here's the writeup & history of the DIY algae turf scrubber that's helping to destroy nutrients in our system. There were many resources that were leveraged across these forums as well as YouTube that helped us decide on the waterfall method, but I failed to write them down.

I'm loving the biological filter that we have created & looking forward to watching it develop.

DIY Waterfall ATS - 1 yr later

There are several great DIY algae turf scrubbers here on the forum, so I figured I would share what has worked for our system. An important note at the start...we have a large system that is lightly stocked, but I do expect this to scale as the system matures. Our sump is located behind the...

www.reef2reef.com

 

[olaggie01]

Sweet. Not many tanks with a CSD. Can you post a video of how it works on your system?

 

[R.Weller]

Sweet. Not many tanks with a CSD. Can you post a video of how it works on your system?

I'm actually working on that post now, & I will add to this thread when it's available. Thanks for asking! It's mesmerizing.

 

[R.Weller]

Here's the writeup & build of our 'Modified' Carlson Surge Device that is improving coral health by increasing irregular flow, promoting gas exchange, is a bit of a novelity & is generally a joy to watch. The pump was $60, & the surge tank was $19. Adding the cost of PVC, the total project was less than $100 & uses only 23 watts of power.

Modified Carlson Surge Device (CSD) for improved health

The first time I saw a surge device in practice, I knew this was something that I wanted to add to our system. My earliest plans including the device began 2 years ago, & we realized the goal last January when we upgraded our display to the 300gal. Now after 3+ months of operation, this device...

www.reef2reef.com

 

[R.Weller]

Aquascape rebuild complete. I like it

Plenty of space on the front for more corals.

 

[R.Weller]

I've read that live food is the best food, so we started outdoor cultures for phyto & zooplankton. I'm hoping this brings additional nutrution to our ecosystem.

Here's the DIY thread for that project:

Outdoor Phyto & Zooplankton Culturing

After spending $$$ on phytoplankton over the years, I decided it was time to grow this at home. I've attempted indoor culturing using incorrect source materials (so I learned), but I prefer to use as many natural elements as possible. Rather than using an air-pump & borrowed lighting from my...

www.reef2reef.com

 

[RichtheReefer21]

Awesome. Saw the sump build thread and had to snoop

Looking beautiful. The rescape is a winner!

Ill be following along

 

[R.Weller]

Here's the writeup & build of our sump. We started with a standard 75gal & evolved as the system upgraded. Give me a flashlight, & I can easily burn 30 minutes chasing pods around as they scurry about like aquatic ants.

DIY evolving sump for large system

Our journey with a sump started years ago with a 20gal tall supporting a non-drilled 60gal display. That provided some interesting learning, so when we upgraded to a large system, we had a jumpstart on a design that would work for our new system. After a few months of reading & discussing with...

www.reef2reef.com

 

[R.Weller]

We've been busy over the last 6 - 8 weeks with livestock additions and growing our own food.

We found a pair of mated diamond gobies from our favorite LFS. These are some of the most entertaining fish to watch. They quickly went to work destorying our sandbed & built a nest under a 8" x 8" mat of green star polyp. We had sand particles suspended in the water column for a week after they were first added but that eventually found it's way to our refugium or sump. We keep very few corals on the sandbed, & we probably won't be adding anymore with these two around. The results are incredible. Between these two, our sand-sifting starfish & snails, the sandbed is clean.

For corals, we've added tiny frags of the following:

• Blue Polyp Digi
• Candy Button
• Frogspawn (single head)
• Tooth Coral
• Green Flourescent Horn
• Green Chalice
• Two more varities of Zoa's
• Black/Green Sun Coral

Our other corals continue to thrive. The two nems continue to enjoy their spot in the reef & the birds nest is filling the space. We might have to figure out how to frag that ourselves, but for now, the blue damsel that we have had forever has recently started sleeping inside the branches, which is great, as we read that is what they do in the wild.

The black sun coral is an great addition. It is not photosynthetic (no zooxanthellae), so we have to feed this one manually. The polyps extend at night when zooplankton are most active, so keeping a healthy population of Pods is more important now.

We figured out how to grow phytoplankton (post #8 above), & we have converted to dosing 100ml of live phyto per day. This represents the bottom of the oceanic food chain, & while we have a few filter feeders that consume this directly (flame scallop, candy cane & candy button corals), we primarily do this to promote growth in our zooplankton cultures.

Finally, we added 20 nerite snails & 10 sprial trochus snails to our CUC. They do an amzing job on the glass & require no maintenance (they can right themselves). There are so many resources here on R2R to help guide the selection of livestock when we take the time to investigate. For CUC, check the sticky thread here.

 

[RichtheReefer21]

Sounds like as is well so far. Congrats on the new additions. 2 gobies must be entertainment sunrise to set. The sand clouds in the column steuggle is real.

 

[R.Weller]

The time has come to add the culturing tank to our counter of tanks that comprise our reef ecosystem. So in addition to the display (1 - 300gal), we have a refugium (2 - 50gal), sump (3 - 75gal), surge (4 - 18gal) & now live food culture (5 - 10gal).

We place high confidence in biology & much of what we do in this hobby is designed to replicate the natural environment of our livestock on a much smaller scale. Now that we have the means to develop large volumes of phytoplankton, the next step is to produce zooplankton, mainly copepods (Pods), that will continiously feed the corals & fish in the display. Our previous attempts to culture zooplankton involved using source rocks from our refugium, which might have contained some Pods already in the reef. After doing this for a few months, it became apparent that our system lacked a viable culture of Pods to reproduce as a seed, so much like the lessons learned in producing phyto, we decided to buy one.

Five days ago, we purchased two 16oz bottles of mixed Pods from another local hobbiest. The culture was advertised to contain three different types of Pods, but it's likely there is only 1 remaining species as that's how nature goes in a small, closed system. One of the bottles we added directly to the refugium. We split the other bottle across two different culturing methods.

One culture follows the same method we used for indoor harvesting of phyto. We are using a very slow bubbler & adding 5ml of phyto to the culture 1 - 2 times per day. The Pods are difficult to photograph, but they can be seen swimming in the bottle. The lifecycle varies by species, but publications seem to suggest 28 days from egg to adult. As the density increases, they will also be released into the refugium & the process will start over again.

The other culture that is a little more fun to watch is in our 5th tank. This is about 3 gallons of phyto that sat outside in the sun for almost 1 month with a few rocks from our refugium. The rocks have been returned to the refugium, & there is an airstone in the corner of the tank. It might not be necessary, but considering this is indoors under our display & we are already using an airpump for phyto, it can only help infuse oxygen into the tank & keep pH stable. The Pods are barely visible from the top, but using a flashlight & shining from the side of the tank, they swim toward the light. They will stay in this breeder long enough to consume all the phyto, then they will be added to our system using our surge tank.

 

[Reefer of Oz]

Watching. As a new aquarist, in the middle of my first build, your thread is very informative. I am a carpenter with serious DIY drive and you have some great stuff going on that I may try to implement. Your progress is awesome, keep the updates coming!

 

[R.Weller]

So how do you know if culturing live food works? Here's one way to tell...

On 08-June, we added a Neon Dottyback. The fish was eating well & joined the others at feeding every night. After about 1 week, the fish vanished. We have a fair amount of rock in the display, so we speculated that the fish was hiding & would come out eventually. Weeks past & no sight of the fish.

Two days ago (4+ weeks later), while doing some work on the sump, the fish was found in the return chamber. As you can see below, our return chamber is pretty busy, so there are lots of places for fish to hide. Needless to say, we do not add food in the return chamber. However, the two pipes on the left with the down arrows are drains from our refugium that sits above the sump.

And here's an updated pic of the refugium. We have added another 15lbs of pukani rock from our curing tank, & on the top-left of the pic is the manifold for the air pump that provides air to the copepod & phyto cultures. We've added cultured copepods to the refugium twice, & there is an abundance of other larger pods & worms that were already present in the refug. This live food is draining into the return chamber where the Neon Dottyback was being sustained, & from there sent up into the display via either of the dual return pumps or by the surge device.

There seems to be an growing interest in live foods here on R2R, which is fantastic, & I'm planning on putting together a few packages to give away to other hobbiests with systems that are just starting out.

Here's a pic of the culture bottles from a few days ago before our last phyto harvest:

And finally, we grabbed a frag tank during the latest #1 / gallon sale from Petco. It's going to take awhile before this is ready to go, but we will be drafting a design plan & updating the build process here on this thread as we tie this tank into the system. It will probably be a peninsula style with a dump bucket on one end & two 1 1/2" drains on the other.

 

[RichtheReefer21]

Following the culturing part of your build closely. As a phyto station will be at play in the dream build. Ive managed without phyro for 2 years, but i imagine my reaulta would be better if i had it all along.

The peninsula idea for a frag tanm sounds sweet. Any cool shapes on the pukani? U planning to bring them up top eventually?

 

[R.Weller]

Would it help to summarize our culturing method here? I have a link to it above in a much longer thread, but at the risk of repeating myself, it would probably be easier to include inline here on the build thread.

 

[R.Weller]

How has live food impacted corals?

We started dosing phyto regularly on 02-March. It is recommended to ramp up the dose & build to full concentration (5ml / 10gal). We started slow at 60ml / week for 2 months. In May, we increased the frequency of dosing to 60ml every 4 - 5 days. On 01-June, with our live cultures established & reliably producing, we started dosing the full 100ml / day & we have remaind on this schedule for 7 weeks.

On 27-June, we added a full 16oz bottle of zooplankton (copepods) to the refugium. On 12-July, we added another 1.5 gallons of cultured zooplankton to the refugium. The Pods are now clearly visible in the water column using a flashlight during the 5 hour dark period in the afternoon.

Here are two SPS corals that we added to our DT in June '19 (13 months ago). After an extended period of little to no growth, here are a few pictures that highlight the changes that we are now starting to see.

And a green acro:

The display is 72" x 36" wide x 24" deep. We are using 'inexpensive' reef lights (x4 Ocean Revives) that are 3-5 years old. The only variable that has changed for our system over these last few months is live food. Proper nutrition is clearly having a positive impact not only on our SPS corals, but the Zoa's are reproducing along with other polyp's & mushrooms.

 

[revhtree]

Very nice and looking great!

 

[RichtheReefer21]

Would it help to summarize our culturing method here? I have a link to it above in a much longer thread, but at the risk of repeating myself, it would probably be easier to include inline here on the build thread.

Thats totally up to you, ill check in on the linked thread for details.

Really appreciate all the information regarding your dosing and the results thereafter for the reef overall. Zoo and phyto are one thing i never pursued long term. Even though i knew i should have.

Any fts's lately? Looking for drool material.