75 gallon GlassCages build

[Llorgon]

Whelp not a whole lot going on, other than my Knicks cashed out on me. Bummer since it was a frag off my buddy’s system that’s thriving, that came from another buddy’s system originally. Would have been cool to carry the torch but that’s my luck. My red Goni I thought was about to check out. Decided to start spot feeding it Coral Frenzy daily and looks like it’s making a nice comeback, and starting to extend nicely again and growing new polyps. Good stuff.

Right side of the tank needs some more life now, may get a couple pieces in the next couple weeks but I want to add some more rock structure before I do that, since I plan on adding a few acros to the right side of the tank too. Also plan on adding a different LED bar. The Orphek blue plus, is, well, too blue. Thinking about switching it for the Reef Day or the Sky Blue. Have 2 float switches on order to incorporate into Hydros. I’ll put 1 on my kalk vessel and the other in my ATO res. Other than that, happy reefing

Tank is looking awesome! Great job. What powerheads do you have in the tank? still the 2 octo pulse 2's? How do you like them on the back wall?

Gave my chaeto a nice trimming and rinse off the other day. Was crazy but it tanked my PH, which is thankfully on the upswing again to normal levels. I did notice my algae was a bit brittle and left a lot of small pieces floating around, so I’m now dosing Chaetogrow. Something like 4 capfuls twice a week. Also sent another ICP out to see how the strontium, potassium, iodine, and bromide individual dosing has been doing. I’ve been dosing iodine 3 times a week and the others twice. I’m going to start doing a daily dose off those elements and the chartogrow, it will be easier to keep track instead of wondering what day it is. Seeing nice results in my corals so far. I’m also thinking about bumping my lights up a tick as well to appease the sticks up top. We will see on that though. I found a good design for a recirculating CO2 scrubber attachment. It’s always made me nervous that it will suck in skimmate and end up saturation the media and pushing it right back into the tank, but this way has an inline collection cup, and that in conjunction with the level sensor on my skimmer cup should be a safe way to do it. Hopefully I don’t have a disaster about to happen… anyways, happy reefing.

I'm jealous of how quickly the turn around time for a ICP test is!

 

[Mikey-D]

Already had to call an audible on the skimmer situation. The BM Curve 5 Elite I originally wanted was on backorder, so I went with the Reef Octopus Classic 150INT. Should be a stronger skimmer, I just didn’t want to go too undersized with the 110INT. Also going to take up a bit too much space in the sump, so I’ll need to modify my plans for what carbon and GFO reactors I’ll be using. The 2 Little Fishies reactors look fairly narrow and will be able to hang on the inside of the sump wall even with the lip, and I’ve seen people running them in series so running them both off of 1 manifold output will be doable. Not even too sure if I’ll need a GFO reactor with the size of the fuge that I’ll be running with the bigger skimmer, PO4/NO3 should easily be kept in check, in theory anyways, but carbon will definitely be running.

I have the 110int with a 75g and the same sump. Is the 150 all that much better?? Mine skims well but I have a small bio load for now.

What was your deciding factor?

 

[BAMatter]

Tank is looking awesome! Great job. What powerheads do you have in the tank? still the 2 octo pulse 2's? How do you like them on the back wall?

I'm jealous of how quickly the turn around time for a ICP test is!

Yep, still the pulse 2’s! They work well on the back wall. I tweaked the schedules a bit to get some more flow. Pumps on the tiles max speed is still 100% and run 1) a 75% LPS max speed during the day 2) every half hour do a square wave for 5 mins that’s 30 seconds forward 70% and 30 seconds backwards at 80% to flush the back of the tank and then 3) an anti-sync sine wave on the hour for 5 mins that goes 45-90% to really stir up detritus so my overflow can catch it. Seems to be keeping the system nice and fresh and then just run 65% LPS mode at night time paired with the sine wave… get a nice flow pattern and no dead spots, the SPS get what they need and the euphyllia get (a little more) than what they need but are fluffy and extended.

 

[BAMatter]

I have the 110int with a 75g and the same sump. Is the 150 all that much better?? Mine skims well but I have a small bio load for now.

What was your deciding factor?

Just didn’t think the 110 was going to be enough long term. I ran a 110 on a 40 breeder years ago, and it was matched well for that volume. I actually ended up with the 152S for the smaller footprint. I also rely on a fuge and a skimmer for nutrient removal, and that’s about it. No mechanical filtration. Plus I feed heavily, and have adopted the “heavy in heavy out” mentality for feeding. 4 rounds of pellets, nightly frozen, and live phyto daily, plus target feed gonis 2-3 times a week with enough leftover to broadcast the rest of the tank. It does work for sure and if my fuge wasn’t as big as it was I would have gone bigger to be honest…

 

[Mikey-D]

Jesus that's a lot of head. I know the fuge is so big on these sumps..I did the 110 cause of the footprint and recommended bioload plus a bio reactor in the same chamber and run the varios-2 with the skimmer. There is zero room, lol

I have a gfo kit on the way to help with phos, it's a bit high and I don't want to just do water changes and keep buying a **** load of salt...I want to practically run no water changes.

I have the triton kit too but honestly don't think I will need that until I have more coral and they start depleting the tank regularly

 

[BAMatter]

Jesus that's a lot of head. I know the fuge is so big on these sumps..I did the 110 cause of the footprint and recommended bioload plus a bio reactor in the same chamber and run the varios-2 with the skimmer. There is zero room, lol

I have a gfo kit on the way to help with phos, it's a bit high and I don't want to just do water changes and keep buying a **** load of salt...I want to practically run no water changes.

I have the triton kit too but honestly don't think I will need that until I have more coral and they start depleting the tank regularly

Yea I had a Bashsea 4x12 reactor as well as the 152S in that middle chamber, plus both my heaters. Pretty tight. Recently took the reactor out though. I hate changing carbon and GFO lol, too dang messy. Hate water changes too. Been relying on ICP tests. Need to dose strontium, bromide, iodine, and potassium individually, plus some other amino acids and transition elements. Just added ChaetoGro into the mix too. These dang tanks. Lol.

 

[Mikey-D]

Well at least we know it's possible to limit water changes and that's not the miracle fix for every problem.

Yea it will be interesting to learn how the gfo reactors work.

I've been dosing purple up for cal and iodine and sodium bicarbonate mix to help stable alk

 

[BAMatter]

Well at least we know it's possible to limit water changes and that's not the miracle fix for every problem.

Yea it will be interesting to learn how the gfo reactors work.

I've been dosing purple up for cal and iodine and sodium bicarbonate mix to help stable alk

Just start with minimum amount of GFO. Stuff works very quick. Stay on top of testing too. Don’t want it dropping too quick or the Dino’s and other nasty stuff can take advantage. What’s your PO4 at now?

 

[Mikey-D]

Yesterday's reading was .65, that's with a hanna ulr. It's a very new tank so I'm not ultra worried and I'm not chasing numbers. Just with coral I want it a lil lower

 

[BAMatter]

Yesterday's reading was .65, that's with a hanna ulr. It's a very new tank so I'm not ultra worried and I'm not chasing numbers. Just with coral I want it a lil lower

.65 or .065? .65 is very high.

 

[Mikey-D]

It says .65

 

[BAMatter]

It says .65

Yowza… my Hanna phosphorous ULR doesn’t even go that high (after the conversion to phosphate)

 

[Mikey-D]

Yea I was feeding frozen twice a day but now I'm every other day. Pellets every day twice rotation

I think it's from the frozen fish food I handmade. I used shrimp plus frozen mysis with selcon and a mixture of other freeze dried food. It may have been too super of a mix

 

[BAMatter]

Yea I was feeding frozen twice a day but now I'm every other day. Pellets every day twice rotation

I think it's from the frozen fish food I handmade. I used shrimp plus frozen mysis with selcon and a mixture of other freeze dried food. It may have been too super of a mix

Gotta get a bigger skimmer

 

[Mikey-D]

Gotta get a bigger skimmer

Well sh**

We'll see what the gfo does. And yes only doing a small % of gfo to start with. I'm not running carbon now. I also am gonna do a DIY coral snow with microbater7. Hopefully that cleans up the water

 

[BAMatter]

Current tank pic. ChaetoGro helping the cause, and algae is helping with PH due to photosynthesis. Rebounded from a decent PH drop. Also twisting my white channel on my Hydra’s up. Instead of a short ramp from 0-22% over 30 mins, I changed it to a longer ramp, but peaks at 40% for 2 hours (2:00-4:00) then back down again. Hoping the increase in full spectrum exposure and a bit of PAR helps the corals a bit.

 

[BAMatter]

Who doses manganese? I’ve been testing 0 on my last 3 ICP’s. ChaetoGro and ESV Transition Elements both contain manganese, but looks like it’s not enough. I’ve purchased a small bottle of Triton manganese, and will dose according to their recommendation on my system. Though I’m not dosing the Triton Method, I’m still using their ICP’s for guidance. They recommend 2 days of 3.5ml’s and a maintenance dose of .5ml. Still deciding if I want to put it on a doser, but will likely skip that and just manually dose along with the other single elements I add daily.

 

[Llorgon]

Current tank pic. ChaetoGro helping the cause, and algae is helping with PH due to photosynthesis. Rebounded from a decent PH drop. Also twisting my white channel on my Hydra’s up. Instead of a short ramp from 0-22% over 30 mins, I changed it to a longer ramp, but peaks at 40% for 2 hours (2:00-4:00) then back down again. Hoping the increase in full spectrum exposure and a bit of PAR helps the corals a bit.

Tank is looking great! Have you seen a big improvement in chaeto growth since using the chaetogrow?

Who doses manganese? I’ve been testing 0 on my last 3 ICP’s. ChaetoGro and ESV Transition Elements both contain manganese, but looks like it’s not enough. I’ve purchased a small bottle of Triton manganese, and will dose according to their recommendation on my system. Though I’m not dosing the Triton Method, I’m still using their ICP’s for guidance. They recommend 2 days of 3.5ml’s and a maintenance dose of .5ml. Still deciding if I want to put it on a doser, but will likely skip that and just manually dose along with the other single elements I add daily.

How many elements are you dosing now? Are most on a doser?

 

[BAMatter]

Tank is looking great! Have you seen a big improvement in chaeto growth since using the chaetogrow?

How many elements are you dosing now? Are most on a doser?

Tough to tell on the long term chaeto results just yet, will be interested to see in about a month when I ship off another ICP and visual on the chaeto. Attached a pic of what I’ve been individually dosing, as a result of my last 2 water labs I sent out. These are daily additions manually added, not on a doser due to how small the amounts are. Aquavitro Fuel gets also manually added daily, but ESV Transition Elements is on a doser so it can be added appropriately within a few hours of lights on daily.

 

[BAMatter]

Forgot to attach whoops