A Busy Guy's Reef

[Aaron Stone]

I've had a number of reef tanks over the years, from 20g with a 4" DSB and a homemade HOB skimmer in 2002 to my last tank, a 75g SPS dedicated system. These days I travel a fair amount for work (writing this on the plane to Houston), have kids and all the related kid activities, and we are building an off grid mountain cabin about 1.5 hours from our house. In short, time is at a premium.

After the unfortunate demise of my last tank during a move (thanks movers) I took a little break from the hobby. Now the kids and I are hopping back in. The goal is to build a tank that is simple in operational philosophy, not dosing from 20 different bottles, not requiring overly involved methods like zeovit reactors and such. However the system will be heavily reliant on automation as my wife has zero interest in doing anything on the tank while I am out of town for work and the kids are still little.

The goal is a mixed reef tank, heavy on SPS and some more forgiving LPS in lower flow/light areas. Also, new to me, it will have a heavier focus on fish (kids). I have little interest in the fish side of the hobby and have mainly only ever kept utilitarian fish, so we are setting up a QT system and researching fish to a much greater degree.

Alright, enough blah blah blah. Here are the details:

Tank: IM 150 EXT
I love this form factor. The depth of view that it gives, front to back is very appealing to me. I wish it was a little taller, but not a big deal to me. The stand is their inhouse stand with the new leveling frame. It does raise the tank up by about 5 or 6 inches from stock without the leveling frame, but that is very welcome for us tall folk. Sump is also the standard IM sump for this tank size. I did wind up modifying the plumbing slightly so that the sump would be moved to the side instead of of dead center. This aloud me to put my ATO reservoir next to the sump.

Lighting: 2 x Kessil A500 with 2 x AI Blade Grow supplementation
This is the closest I figure I am going to get to MH with T5 supplements with LEDs. I enjoy a more natural light as opposed to the heavy blue and a love the Kessil shimmer.

Flow: 2 x Tunze Stream 3
We'll see. I got a good deal on the Streams and this will probably evolve some along the way as the acro colonies fill out. I still have a couple MP40s sitting around, but I hate them. Still wish I could get back the money I spent on those things. Worthless hunks of...

Substrate: Dry Rock and TBS Live Rock with Dry Sand and TBS Live Sand.
I wanted to be able to take my time building a rock structure that I liked, hence the dry rock. I will be adding live rock to the sump as well as some in the DT. 40# of TBS Live Sand will be added to the 40# of dry sand in the DT. I felt this was a happy medium between the benefits of live rock and the ability to aquascape with the dry rock.

The wall behind the tank backs to the laundry room with utility sink, so I am putting as much in there as I can, especially electrical equipment and controls.

And... Here is where we stand today.

It's been a slow process. Right now my weekends are taken up by teaching skiing and snowboarding, and doing the same with the family, but I've got a scheduled shipment from TBS coming in a couple weeks, so the end of this week is going to see water in the tank.

More to come on automation...

 

[Gumbies R Us]

I love the aquascape for your tank! TBS Rock is what we use in our pico tank, and we love ours!

 

[Tahoe61]

That's a beautiful system.

 

[Aaron Stone]

I love the aquascape for your tank! TBS Rock is what we use in our pico tank, and we love ours!

Thank you. I am really excited about the aquascape. Took me forever, but I think it will be a great environment for the fish and still provide lots of coral placement options.

The live rock should be pretty cool. I still remember the first live rock I ever bought. Came from Fiji, smelled like the ocean, had tons of critters, and unfortunately a lot of dead stuff as well. This should be much "fresher" and more life.

 

[Aaron Stone]

That's a beautiful system.

Thank you, I hope it continues to be beautiful!

 

[Aaron Stone]

So... Automation.

So when I had my last tank and I traveled for work, no matter if I topped off my ATO before I left or not, inevitably it would go dry in the middle of the night. I would get a decidedly unpleasant call from my wife saying "how do shut the **** thing up"! I still use a Tom's Aqua Lifter as my ATO pump, and it sucking air and gurgling in the middle of the night while I was out of town has nearly resulted in divorce multiple times.

As a cure to marital strife the ATO reservoir on the new system will be automatically topped off from the ro/di using a solenoid. High and low optical sensors are in the ATO reservoir. When the bottom sensor goes dry the solenoid will open until the high level sensor goes wet. As a back up, the ro/di feed has a float valve that will shut off the water if the solenoid fails. I had thought to feed the ro/di from the solenoid straight to the sump as topoff, but I wanted the ATO reservoir as buffer for when I am using the ro/di for making saltwater and so that if something went wrong I didn't find myself with a freshwater tank and a living room saltwater swimming pool overnight.

I am using the Red Sea ReefCan as my ATO reservoir. With the sump moved to the left from stock configuration it fits perfectly just to the right. On the upper right you can see the float valve ro/di input that I installed.

My saltwater mixing station (Brute) is setup much the same way with sensors and float valves. In this case the lower sensor is just to alert me when the saltwater is getting low while the upper sensor is to turn off the solenoid once I have triggered it to fill.

The saltwater mixing tank will feed an AWC system that uses two doser heads, one a Kamoer 500ml/min and one an Intlab 250ml/min off Amazon that I soldered GX-12 cables to for connection to the drive ports of my Hydros. In AWC mode the system will pull out 2 gallons daily, disabling the ATO while in operation, and return 2 gallons of new saltwater. Nothing fancy, but still getting those water changes done. Something that I always saw benefit from, but wasn't always the best at getting done.

Excuse the mess of wires and tubes, I'll get it cleaned up once I am done commissioning the system... I swear.

Auto feed will be done with an Avast Marine Plank setup in the sump feeding to the return pump. Not my ideal location for the auto feeder, but I haven't found a good solution for modifying the stock tank cover to accommodate the feeder, and I really hate to sell my kidney to fund a custom top. I am going to try it and see what I think. Auto feeders have always disappointed me, so I hope this one works.

Alk/Cal strategy next...

 

[Aaron Stone]

It's wet. And...

We have Live Sand and Rock! This stuff is awesome. In the true sense of the word.

Now I need to finish the lights.

 

[mjszos]

These IM tanks are stunners. Congratulations on the re-introduction to the hobby, looking forward to following along!

 

[Featherweight]

That glass is amazing

 

[Aaron Stone]

That glass is amazing

Agreed! I am really impressed by the quality and construction of this tank and stand.

 

[Aaron Stone]

Obligatory clowns in QT

 

[Aaron Stone]

Day three with the gulf live rock in the system and all the little fun wiggly bits are starting to pop their heads up, mostly for food. Because this is such a young tank with about 80% dry rock and about 40lbs of live sand and no other life and lights still off, I figure most the little filter feeders, pods, and other critters aren't going to be getting the food they need.

What are y'all's thoughts on dosing phyto or other to feed the micro-fauna and filter feeders at such an early stage? And please define your "other" and experience if you don't mind.

 

[carri10]

Looks great and I love the aqua scape. Some advice from my recent build is don’t turn the lights on for a long time. Allow all the non photosynthetic life to get a firm foothold before allow the algae to get in. I would definitely feed a little. Keep an eye on nitrates / PO4 and feed accordingly. Drop a shrimp in once a week and some phyto out if a bottle.

 

[Aaron Stone]

Looks great and I love the aqua scape. Some advice from my recent build is don’t turn the lights on for a long time. Allow all the non photosynthetic life to get a firm foothold before allow the algae to get in. I would definitely feed a little. Keep an eye on nitrates / PO4 and feed accordingly. Drop a shrimp in once a week and some phyto out if a bottle.

Thanks for the input. I was not planning on turning the lights on for another month minimum (gotta build the hood first), but also for the reason you described.

I am trying to build the biology from the base up thoughtfully and patiently. I do a lot of trail and ultra running as well as backcountry skiing, and those sports are all about a lot of patient, slow base building before you can get to the more exciting stuff. Trying to take that same philosophy here.

 

[JFC1005]

Great aquascape! I'm eyeing the same tank and the height definitely makes for a challenge. May I ask if you think an IM 15g ATO reservoir will fit in front of the stock sump? Even if it needs to be adjusted a bit to the back? The IM 15g has a 12.2” x 18.2” footprint. Thanks!

 

[Aaron Stone]

Great aquascape! I'm eyeing the same tank and the height definitely makes for a challenge. May I ask if you think an IM 15g ATO reservoir will fit in front of the stock sump? Even if it needs to be adjusted a bit to the back? The IM 15g has a 12.2” x 18.2” footprint. Thanks!

Thank you. The aquascape took a while!

There is about 13.75 inches of space in front of the sump, so you should be fine. I currently have a 5 gallon bucket of kalk in front.