75 Gallon technology heavy tank with DIY

[ilyad]

Battle 7 (January 2024): The penultimate battle! At this point, the condition of the tank has been wearing on me, from the constant need to pull algae, the slew of CUC purchased, every type of attack attempted, possible. Except one... it was time to try the hydrogen peroxide attack. Reading a ton about the success of battling algae with hydrogen peroxide (but not wanting to shock the system with doing all of it at once), I decided to give it a shot with a few rocks, and see if it worked.

Before photos of the two rocks I was going to try: one was the same rocks the rest of the scape used, and then the barnicle structure that was much smoother in texture.

Rocks pulled into a bucket and heavily sprayed with hydrogen peroxide, after which a good scrub and rinse was done.

A lot came off the rocks with this process, and I felt hopeful. There might just be light at the end of the tunnel.

Rocks once back in the tank

You can still see some algae on the rocks, but it seemed much shorter and weaker. Hopeful that the CUC would take care of the rest, I let the rocks run for a bit to see how it progressed. Unfortunately, after about a few weeks, the algae was back to full length. Perhaps I should have tried to do all the rocks, that way everything would be short and could be attacked by the CUC, but it was too late now.

Still facing algae back in my face, and having been about a year now, I decided to give up on the dang rock. Big change coming in the next update.

 

[ilyad]

After all these previous battles, it was time for a nuclear option. Although I was very fond of the rocks that I had in my tank and genuinely tried everything I could to try and keep them, at this point, I just wanted to enjoy the hobby again.

Right around the same time my LFS was taking down a large tank they were cycling rocks in for months. I had a chance to pick through the rock structures and create a scape in the shop that I would like and then buy them.

Final battle (February 2024): Replace all rocks

While at the LFS, I measured out the footprint of what my tank was like, and then proceeded to create a scape, while taking some photos in the process to be able to recreate it back home.

It was hard to make it out, so we put a black trashbag to get the background. Please excuse the massive reflections

This looked nice in the shop, so I was once again stoked to get it home and get it in the tank. Moving the old rocks out and putting new ones in, created a bit of cloudiness, but here was the first look at the new scape.

Even cloudy, it was looking very promising!

The next day, everything was starting to clear up and I was in love with the reef once more. Corals were ticked, but I knew it would only be temporary.

And in more white light

Then a few days later, the corals all opened up. Happy to report that no livestock died in the rock replacement.

 

[ilyad]

Now that the algae situation was taken care of, one of the issues that my tank has is a chronically low ph. Not able to add an outdoor air intake to the skimmer, I decided to add a CO2 scrubber. That being said, since the ph was just slightly lower and to preserve the media use, I decided to add a solenoid valve which will be controlled by my GHL.

I purchased a US Solid solenoid valve with default state as open. With the wide opening, the skimmer would automatically draw from here, and once closed, it would draw from the scubber.

I also had a bunch of spare pieces in my parts bin to add a way to mount it using tube hodlers and then attaching some plumbing pieces to the valve. A bit of a test fit.

Since these dont need to be watertight, I just attached without any gluing.

A little preview how it can be mounted to the stand.

The valve comes with just cables that need to attach to a power supply. So I purchased a universal power supply and crated a pin connector.

Once the power supply was added, it was time to mount the clips to the stand.

And this is with the valve clipped in

Added the actual CO2 scrubber

And hooked it up to the skimmer

Lastly to keep the media lasting longer I created a little water bubbler. Again, digging in the parts bin, I got a small container and some fittings, drilled the cap, and put everything together.

After testing this for a while, I noticed that the skimmer setting was fluctuating too much going between the unrestricted air supply to the one through the CO2 scrubber with the media and bubbler in front. So I removed the piping in the bubbler and had the air draw from the container without going through the water, although not as efficient, it would still moisten the water somewhat, and at least it wouldnt mess with the skimmer as much.

 

[ilyad]

For a long time, I've been pretty lazy at changing water in my tanks. Especially as I got this larger one. Knowing that trace elements deplete in a tank, I often added trace elements back, but not very accurately. Having known about the Reef Moonshiner method, I finally decided to break into that realm.

All the goodies that will be either corrected based on ICP test results and daily supplements.

Mixing up two some of the chemicals is also required.

Full tank shot (Mid February 2024) prior to starting RMS.

After all the algae battles, and replacing rocks, the coral are generally healthy, but many were pretty faded in color. Some close up shots at the start of RMS.

 

[ilyad]

As the tank was mostly reestablishing from the rock change and corals slowly growing in, there wasnt much to update. However, in June 2024, I started to get some GHA popping back up. Most was on the sand, but some patches were also on the rock structure itself. Panic ensued as I feared that the new rocks would get overrun by the algae as well. So before the problem got out of hand, I tried to manually remove as much algae as I could.

Another thing I noticed is that my Nitrate and Phosphates were frequently bottoming out, and this time I suspected that maybe the algae is caused in fact by too little nutrients. At this time the Skimmer was turned off to raise those.

 

[ilyad]

However, over the next two months the algae began to subside and corals really started to take off in growth (although they were still a bit pale to the look).

Cool little photo of the @GoldenStateCorals Yeti leather and the starry blenny who often hid around it.

By September 2024, I got a few more corals (mostly hammers) and the Yeti has grown so much, it was time to frag it.

And a few coral close ups

 

[ilyad]

By October 2024, the algae was finally gone... and I think the system is finally mature, evidenced by a lot of coraline algae starting to grow.

 

[ilyad]

While the skimmer was offline, I was still experiencing low nitrates and phosphates so I decided to try my hand on Ammonium Bicarbonate dosing. On November 10th, I added a small Voss bottle with that stuff to auto dose a few a ml a day during the light period.

Also, I was getting a bit tired of my sandbed being too cluttered, so some of the frags were moved around out of the way, and the clams were raised from the sandbed to the rockwork.

Then the smaller clam was moved a bit more to allow for a small torch "island."

 

[ilyad]

By late November a few more corals were added! And finally... we are caught up on my journey.

Most recent FTS (late November 2024)

Also, enjoy these photos of some of the critters, and corals under heavy blue lights (at the end of the day)

 

[NanoJHB]

Sheesh well done on all that perseverance!

It's really paid off, your tank is looking stunning

 

[KingAlee]

Is this a leather?? I put a devils hand in my tank and could use some help on placement as I feel I made a mistake on mine, it’s posted on my tank thread!

 

[ilyad]

Sheesh well done on all that perseverance!

It's really paid off, your tank is looking stunning

Thank you! Ive been reefing since 2011, so you learn patience with this hobby. But sometimes I get complacent too much, and have to remind myself to get back on the process.

The GHA battle was definitely a rough period especially towards the end. Tank looked horrible (and what made it worse is that I already saw the potential it could have been). Also was busy with life and a new kid, so the battles were spaced out probably a bit too far apart to be very useful.

BUT all that said, I really like the new scape and now that Im filling in coral, I stand and stare at it quite often.

Hopefully all future updates are related to new additions and growth progress!

 

[ilyad]

Is this a leather?? I put a devils hand in my tank and could use some help on placement as I feel I made a mistake on mine, it’s posted on my tank thread!

The one in the picture is a leather, its a green weeping willow. It not quite like a devil's hand but close enough.

I find leathers can do well in almost any kind of lighting from low to high and in the wild they're found in shaded places or even amongst the sps getting a ton of light. Just have to acclimate to the light slowly if they came from a darker spot before. So if your lights are strong, start low and move it up if you want over time.

For flow, I think leathers like gentle flow but strong enough that it keeps any debris or junk from settling on the coral. If there isnt enough flow and stuff builds up, it'll close up more often to shed the skin to clean itself. Leathers will do that anyways occasionally even if the flow is perfect, but if you find it closing way too often, it may need a bit more flow.

Other than that, I like to keep my softies on large plugs or on its own little island, once they take hold, they can be very fast growers, so I want to be able to move/frag it easily

 

[KingAlee]

The one in the picture is a leather, its a green weeping willow. It not quite like a devil's hand but close enough.

I find leathers can do well in almost any kind of lighting from low to high and in the wild they're found in shaded places or even amongst the sps getting a ton of light. Just have to acclimate to the light slowly if they came from a darker spot before. So if your lights are strong, start low and move it up if you want over time.

For flow, I think leathers like gentle flow but strong enough that it keeps any debris or junk from settling on the coral. If there isnt enough flow and stuff builds up, it'll close up more often to shed the skin to clean itself. Leathers will do that anyways occasionally even if the flow is perfect, but if you find it closing way too often, it may need a bit more flow.

Other than that, I like to keep my softies on large plugs or on its own little island, once they take hold, they can be very fast growers, so I want to be able to move/frag it easily

This is mine it doesn’t really open much but is still brand new. (Only had for a week) I have a gyre, mp10 and another jabeo like the mp10 in a 6ft tank. Would you think it needs more flow? Also would you recommend placing it lower while it’s still new and not attached or growing yet?

 

[ilyad]

This is mine it doesn’t really open much but is still brand new. (Only had for a week) I have a gyre, mp10 and another jabeo like the mp10 in a 6ft tank. Would you think it needs more flow? Also would you recommend placing it lower while it’s still new and not attached or growing yet?

Typically you should see it open within a week, thats enough time for it to adjust for new conditions (although sometimes leathers are weird... I've had some that would stay closed for months). You can try moving it to another spot to see if it likes it better... but if you move it, give it a few days to try to adjust before moving again.

Also, sometimes, you have to see if any coral upflow is causing the issue. Corals have sweepers and stingers that you can physically see, but they can also release chemicals (chemical warfare) to make sure nothing grows around them and those can follow the flow and bug corals down flow.

The placement is always a personal preference, just by looking at the pic, it seems like it could be happy there, so long as you like it. Leathers eventually get big, so you should consider the shade they will cause and limit what can grow under it, if its a leather that can get sprawling and huge, I tend to stick it off to a side where it wouldnt have much growing under it anyways. Alternatively, stick it to a bigger rock/frag disk so you can move it around as it gets bigger. It'll attach to the bigger rock/disk and you move the disk around as needed.

As for the flow, not sure how much water the gyre you have pushes, but I would guess that 2 MP10s and one gyre might not be enough to get good turn over. It should be fine for now while its mostly rocks, but as coral grow in, you'll need more flow to get around it all. I have a 3 foot tank and 2 MP40s (running at about 50%), once its grown in, I expect to increase mine to about 60-65%.

BRS has a video series called "52 weeks of reefing" which follows a tank build from start to finish with a different topic for each week. Although specific equipment recommendations may be different now as its a few years old, the information on the topics themselves is very relevant. I would watch through those as you have time, and you can even pick and choose the specific topics you're trying to address. Also, read read read on here... many good topics are discussed in their respective sections of the forum. When I was first starting out, I just read many posts and comments even if I didnt think they applied, got a bunch of info stored in the noggin as a result, which I was able to use, if that issue did come up.

 

[ilyad]

Small update today. The tank seems to be responding favorably to the ammonia bi-carb dosing. Nitrates are finally detectable, and alkalinity consumption is rising.

As the old adage goes when it comes to reefing - feed heavy, skim heavy. So since the nitrates are starting to appear, I wanted to brink the skimmer back online. And after a nice cleaning (since it was just sitting in the sump for months), its back up and running. I will adjust the nitrate dosing accordingly now.

Heres a photo of how my sump/stand looks on a daily basis, when its not prettied up for photos.

 

[Tahoe61]

I think your tank is beautiful, love the rock structure. It was almost painful reading about the persistent alage issues that plagued the system for so long.
When all is said and done do you think it was a combination of the original rock structure and insufficient nutrients? What was the root cause?

 

[ilyad]

I think your tank is beautiful, love the rock structure. It was almost painful reading about the persistent alage issues that plagued the system for so long.
When all is said and done do you think it was a combination of the original rock structure and insufficient nutrients? What was the root cause?

Oh man, it was painful dealing with all of that for so long... for sure was a low point of reef keeping (especially since Ive had really good success with previous tanks).

Hard to know for sure, but I suspect that the rock became bound with something... most likely phosphates, but maybe some sort of silicates, or a combination. I moved houses and was expecting to put up the tank much sooner, so I didnt bother doing much in terms of storing the rock. It was almost entirely free of algae, so I figured whatever was on it, would, at worse, cause a longer than usual ugly stage and a new cycle. But I think a lot of beneficial bacteria and phosphates and possibly anything else on it bound to the rock. By the time we were done with the renovation, moving, settling in, and I had time to set everything back up it was about a year gap.

What was confusing me at the time, was that for about 6 months it was looking mostly normal, until it exploded with the algae. My final guess was that rocks became bound, it was leaching into the water, and then the GHA was introduced into the tank via CUC or frag and it feasted on whatever was coming out of the rocks. Then I think that GHA outcompeted the beneficial bacteria and it slowly spiraled downwards. The water tested low nitrate and phosphate, but it was likely because the algae absorbed it really quickly. I thought about adding nitrates and phosphates to the system to let bacteria take a foothold, but I was worried that the algae would just blow up even more, so I never tried that.

In the future, if I ever have to move tanks, I think I'll make sure that the rocks are moved to some sort temp holding tanks where the biome wont die off and lock itself into the rocks, or just start with new rock to begin with.

 

[ilyad]

Nothing too exciting to update on the tank, but after a parameters test, seems like everything is holding steady. Took advantage of some of the Black Friday sales, so a few small upgrades coming down the line!

In the meantime, heres a cool photo I took today of one of my Jawbreakers that is starting to look stunning... tons of reds and even a bit of green popping through!

 

[Gumbies R Us]

By late November a few more corals were added! And finally... we are caught up on my journey.

Most recent FTS (late November 2024)

Also, enjoy these photos of some of the critters, and corals under heavy blue lights (at the end of the day)

Your pictures look great! Nice looking new corals!