75 Gallon HOB mixed reef build

[mrwalkway]

Hi all! Long time lurker, finally decided I should post up my tank.

Not my first tank, I dabbled in the hobby years ago with a 10 gallon, then went to a 20, then went to a 40 breeder, was riddled with failures and ultimately took the tank down. All of these years later, I’d been itching to start a new tank and in a better place in life and able to actually commit to doing it right this time around.

I still had a lot of the equipment from my other tanks, so although I wanted to do something with a sump, I figure I can still get away with hang on stuff, full intentions of saving up for a dream larger build in the future.

Anyways.
Marineland 75 gallon. Designed and 3d printed a lid for it as well.
Aquaclear 110 hang on back running carbon, filter block, and a ton of ceramic bio balls
70lbs of dry rock
Nero 3 to start
Two Red Sea reef LED 50 that I had lying around from the previous tank. I fabbed and printed some shades for them and some mounts to allow them to slide onto the shelf I mounted above the tank.

Got the tank cycling with Dr Tim’s + Ammonium Chloride, and Microbacter 7 dosed daily for the first two weeks. Once the tank was done cycling, added in the first two clowns.

Here are photos when the tank was first started.

 

[mrwalkway]

Fast forward to today, not only is the wife completely on board with the tank, she wants to replace the freshwater we have in the house with a salt of her own… of course I get the pleasure of maintaining it :)

She’s hooked after going to reefapalooza!

Tank has had some good successes this time around in comparison to the last times I tried. I added in pods monthly early from the start which I feel like kept some of the initial algae issues away.

Current stock list
2 clowns
2 firefish
2 cardinals
Tail spot blenny
Yellow watchman goby
Diamond goby
McCoskers wrasse
Juvenile Yellow tang
Juvenile hippo blue
Pistol shrimp
Fire shrimp
Cleaner shrimp
Sand sifting star

Tang police be warned - I know I’ll take some flack for having these tangs in this tank. They are well fed, nobody fights, and there was full disclosure to “we have to get a bigger tank in the somewhat near future for dory and bubbles” which was agreed on by my lovely wife :)

Some equipment upgrades happened over time as well. With the fish load I knew I would need some more filtration, so I added in a Aquaready 1.5 HOB Skimmer. Currently dosing alk, calcium, and mag from Red Sea daily with a dosing pump. Entire system is running on an apex. I also designed some attachments for the Aquaclear 110 to turn it into more of an overflow style flow rather than raining down and blasting corals. Also upgraded the reef led 50s to a pair of used XR30 G6 pro with a mount that were being sold for an absolute steal!

We’ve added in quite a few coral, hammers, a holy grail torch, two rock flowers, some montipora, a ton of zoas, clove polyps, goniopora, galaxea, bubble coral, toadstool leather. Everything seems to be doing well so far. Patience is working well this time, and actually doing some research, interacting with the tank daily, and testing are leading to a little bit of success.

The good can’t come with the bad, and I knew I would deal with some kind of ugly stage. I would contribute it to feeding too heavily, and not utilizing the acclimation settings on the new lights properly. Currently battling hair algae, but I’m trying to be patient with it, continuing biweekly water 10 gallon water changes, and manually exporting as much as possible by hand every week. I added a tuxedo urchin and a pincushion urchin in hopes of that helping as well. I’m sure it will battle itself and will eventually the tank will fight it off as long as I continue to do the water changes, and manually get as much out as possible.

Other regimen shhhtuff…
Dosing Microbacter 7 twice a week
Dosing Microbacter clean once a week
Dosing Restor 5ml once a week
Dosing Coral color
Dosing replenish
Red Sea reef ab+ 20ml once e a week.

Some of the more recent additions/upgrades…

• Changed over the 20 gallon brute in the dining room with RO water and mason jar for top off to a *super upgraded* apex pump and a 5 gallon homer bucket so I can flip a switch and top off rather than do the mason jar technique. ATO in the future!
• swapped out the Fluval 300w electronic heater to an Ehiem 200w. Much more consistent temperatures now
• External airline for the skimmer
• Changed over single Nero 3 for a single orbit 2

 

[Gumbies R Us]

Fast forward to today, not only is the wife completely on board with the tank, she wants to replace the freshwater we have in the house with a salt of her own… of course I get the pleasure of maintaining it :)

She’s hooked after going to reefapalooza!

Tank has had some good successes this time around in comparison to the last times I tried. I added in pods monthly early from the start which I feel like kept some of the initial algae issues away.

Current stock list
2 clowns
2 firefish
2 cardinals
Tail spot blenny
Yellow watchman goby
Diamond goby
McCoskers wrasse
Juvenile Yellow tang
Juvenile hippo blue
Pistol shrimp
Fire shrimp
Cleaner shrimp
Sand sifting star

Tang police be warned - I know I’ll take some flack for having these tangs in this tank. They are well fed, nobody fights, and there was full disclosure to “we have to get a bigger tank in the somewhat near future for dory and bubbles” which was agreed on by my lovely wife :)

Some equipment upgrades happened over time as well. With the fish load I knew I would need some more filtration, so I added in a Aquaready 1.5 HOB Skimmer. Currently dosing alk, calcium, and mag from Red Sea daily with a dosing pump. Entire system is running on an apex. I also designed some attachments for the Aquaclear 110 to turn it into more of an overflow style flow rather than raining down and blasting corals. Also upgraded the reef led 50s to a pair of used XR30 G6 pro with a mount that were being sold for an absolute steal!

We’ve added in quite a few coral, hammers, a holy grail torch, two rock flowers, some montipora, a ton of zoas, clove polyps, goniopora, galaxea, bubble coral, toadstool leather. Everything seems to be doing well so far. Patience is working well this time, and actually doing some research, interacting with the tank daily, and testing are leading to a little bit of success.

The good can’t come with the bad, and I knew I would deal with some kind of ugly stage. I would contribute it to feeding too heavily, and not utilizing the acclimation settings on the new lights properly. Currently battling hair algae, but I’m trying to be patient with it, continuing biweekly water 10 gallon water changes, and manually exporting as much as possible by hand every week. I added a tuxedo urchin and a pincushion urchin in hopes of that helping as well. I’m sure it will battle itself and will eventually the tank will fight it off as long as I continue to do the water changes, and manually get as much out as possible.

Other regimen shhhtuff…
Dosing Microbacter 7 twice a week
Dosing Microbacter clean once a week
Dosing Restor 5ml once a week
Dosing Coral color
Dosing replenish
Red Sea reef ab+ 20ml once e a week.

Some of the more recent additions/upgrades…

• Changed over the 20 gallon brute in the dining room with RO water and mason jar for top off to a *super upgraded* apex pump and a 5 gallon homer bucket so I can flip a switch and top off rather than do the mason jar technique. ATO in the future!
• swapped out the Fluval 300w electronic heater to an Ehiem 200w. Much more consistent temperatures now
• External airline for the skimmer
• Changed over single Nero 3 for a single orbit 2

Nice looking RFAs! What else are you hoping to add to your tank?

 

[mrwalkway]

Nice looking RFAs! What else are you hoping to add to your tank?

Thanks! I have another octospawn/frogspawn in mind, ny knicks torch, another goni (something more red or purple), and plenty more zoas in mind. Looking for the one that I “have to have” at this point and waiting for that. Also would like to attempt some acro on the top right high portion of the tank since it’s higher flow and higher light but I think the tank is still not mature enough to support it well.