Alice L's 180 g Mixed Reef

[GoAskAlice]

My display tank is a Red Sea Reefer S 850 G2. Here it is today, so obviously this is an “already built” build thread.

Equipment—ReefMat 1200, Red Sea skimmer, Vectra M2 return pump, 4-head dosing pump, Tunze ATO with an IM 15 gallon ATO reservoir, four MP40 pumps, and two BRS 600 watt heaters with an Inkbird controller. My opinion on most aquarium equipment is that if you look at it too long it stops working, usually the night before you’re leaving on vacation, so I don’t intend to add anything unless I absolutely have to.

The lights you see in the pic are 3 Radion XR 15 G6 blues and 2 Radion XR 30 G6 blues.

There is a refugium that holds reef rubble—no macroalgae. I started out growing chaeto there but after the third time I had to pull out the skimmer and take it apart to clean chaeto out of the pump, I drained the sump and got rid of the chaeto. That stuff is like pieces of a Brillo pad getting sucked into your pumps. Right now I’m trying to get a population of pods going in the refugium.

I don’t have many photos between when I filled the tank in April 2023 and now. None that I care to post anyway because the tank went through every nuisance algae blight known to man (or woman) for almost two years. At one point I had dinos growing on top of gha. Nice.

I won’t go into my algae battles here. Lots of good information on this site on that subject. I will say during the past two+ years Reef2Reef quickly became the second most visited site on my laptop, surpassed only by Amazon. I’ve always taken the approach of letting the tank reach a balance rather than experimenting with any algae reducing additives, even though at times that approach took more patience than I knew I had.

If someone starting a reef tank were to ask me for just one piece of advice it would be do not start a tank with 100% dry rock. Based on my experiences and the experiences others have posted on this forum, dry rock soaks up and in turn releases the nutrients algae love and use oh so efficiently for a very long time. I’m still battling this crazy situation of no detectable phosphates or nitrates…so dose aforementioned…get algae…get rid of algae…get dinos…get algae and dinos--and so on and so forth.

I also believe that while starting with dry rock and bacteria in a bottle allows us to add fish to our tanks quickly, it neglects other biological processes we may not fully understand but need.

A few months ago, I removed some of the Marco rock I started with and added about 60 pounds of live rock to the display and some live rock rubble to the refugium. The results weren’t miraculous, but I think I’m gaining ground in the algae battle. And the tank is maturing so I have that in my corner. The current challenge is maintaining levels of phosphates and nitrates that work for my tank.

Enough of the narrative. The “mostly pictures” I mentioned appear below. I’ve hit pause on adding any more fish or coral for now, focusing instead on stability. Currently I have 16 fish--
--7 Lyretail Anthias
--Yellow Tang
--Potters Angel
--Swissguard Basslet
--Fridmani Dottyback
--Leopard Wrasse
--Yellow Wrasse
--2 Marine Bettas (very camera shy)
--Goldheaded Goby (a mistake and the reason I keep a turkey baster next to the tank)

That’s it, for now anyway. Ask me any questions about the tank or its inhabitants. And, yes, I maintain it myself.
Happy Reefing!

 

[tharbin]

Very nice tank.

 

[Tahoe61]

OMG! Your fish are gorgeous. I am more of a coral person myself but you have some of my dream fish. The Anthias, Potters Angel, Basslet all my favorites.

 

[GoAskAlice]

OMG! Your fish are gorgeous. I am more of a coral person myself but you have some of my dream fish. The Anthias, Potters Angel, Basslet all my favorites.

Thank you!

 

[GoAskAlice]

Very nice tank.

Thanks!

 

[GoAskAlice]

OMG! Your fish are gorgeous. I am more of a coral person myself but you have some of my dream fish. The Anthias, Potters Angel, Basslet all my favorites.

I'm going to try and take some better pics of my corals. The fish just make such great photo subjects, hard to resist taking lots of them.

 

[Red_Beard]

Love it, good luck in your journey!

 

[GoAskAlice]

Love it, good luck in your journey!

Thank you!

 

[Tahoe61]

I'm going to try and take some better pics of my corals. The fish just make such great photo subjects, hard to resist taking lots of them.

Well alrighty than, went back and looked at the corals. You have some nice big colonies of sps. There's a lot going on in that tank. The Betta are too cool. I bet it's great to just sit in front of the tank and watch all the activity, I would never get anything done.

 

[GoAskAlice]

Well alrighty than, went back and looked at the corals. You have some nice big colonies of sps. There's a lot going on in that tank. The Betta are too cool. I bet it's great to just sit in front of the tank and watch all the activity, I would never get anything done.

I know. I put the tank in my office. Big mistake.

 

[Bartanto]

Office tanks are the best. You’re tank is awesome! I started w/ 100% dry rock - will never again! I’m 1 year in and I swear it’s the rocks bottoming out N/P. I dose to keep phos detectable but am concerned a big blast of nutrient subsequently stokes any algae around…

 

[Bohemian Waxwing]

Really impressive acro growth for a 2 year old tank!

 

[Gumbies R Us]

My display tank is a Red Sea Reefer S 850 G2. Here it is today, so obviously this is an “already built” build thread.

Equipment—ReefMat 1200, Red Sea skimmer, Vectra M2 return pump, 4-head dosing pump, Tunze ATO with an IM 15 gallon ATO reservoir, and four MP40 pumps. My opinion on most aquarium equipment is that if you look at it too long it stops working, usually the night before you’re leaving on vacation, so I don’t intend to add anything unless I absolutely have to.

The lights you see in the pic are 3 Radion XR 15 G6 blues and 2 Radion XR 30 G6 blues.

There is a refugium that holds reef rubble—no macroalgae. I started out growing chaeto there but after the third time I had to pull out the skimmer and take it apart to clean chaeto out of the pump, I drained the sump and got rid of the chaeto. That stuff is like pieces of a Brillo pad getting sucked into your pumps. Right now I’m trying to get a population of pods going in the refugium.

I don’t have many photos between when I filled the tank in April 2023 and now. None that I care to post anyway because the tank went through every nuisance algae blight known to man (or woman) for almost two years. At one point I had dinos growing on top of gha. Nice.

I won’t go into my algae battles here. Lots of good information on this site on that subject. I will say during the past two+ years Reef2Reef quickly became the second most visited site on my laptop, surpassed only by Amazon. I’ve always taken the approach of letting the tank reach a balance rather than experimenting with any algae reducing additives, even though at times that approach took more patience than I knew I had.

If someone starting a reef tank were to ask me for just one piece of advice it would be do not start a tank with 100% dry rock. Based on my experiences and the experiences others have posted on this forum, dry rock soaks up and in turn releases the nutrients algae love and use oh so efficiently for a very long time. I’m still battling this crazy situation of no detectable phosphates or nitrates…so dose aforementioned…get algae…get rid of algae…get dinos…get algae and dinos--and so on and so forth.

I also believe that while starting with dry rock and bacteria in a bottle allows us to add fish to our tanks quickly, it neglects other biological processes we may not fully understand but need.

A few months ago, I removed some of the Marco rock I started with and added about 60 pounds of live rock to the display and some live rock rubble to the refugium. The results weren’t miraculous, but I think I’m gaining ground in the algae battle. And the tank is maturing so I have that in my corner. The current challenge is maintaining levels of phosphates and nitrates that work for my tank.

Enough of the narrative. The “mostly pictures” I mentioned appear below. I’ve hit pause on adding any more fish or coral for now, focusing instead on stability. Currently I have 16 fish--
--7 Lyretail Anthias
--Yellow Tang
--Potters Angel
--Swissguard Basslet
--Fridmani Dottyback
--Leopard Wrasse
--Yellow Wrasse
--2 Marine Bettas (very camera shy)
--Goldheaded Goby (a mistake and the reason I keep a turkey baster next to the tank)

That’s it, for now anyway. Ask me any questions about the tank or its inhabitants. And, yes, I maintain it myself.
Happy Reefing!

Great looking tank! Thanks for sharing!

Few questions

Any particular fish you are still wanting to add to your tank, or are you done with adding fish.
Anything difficult you have had to overcome with your tank?

 

[GoAskAlice]

Office tanks are the best. You’re tank is awesome! I started w/ 100% dry rock - will never again! I’m 1 year in and I swear it’s the rocks bottoming out N/P. I dose to keep phos detectable but am concerned a big blast of nutrient subsequently stokes any algae around…

Thank you! But looked at your tank thread and showcase and, wow, you are doing so much better at one year than I was. Your tank is beautiful! At one year mine looked as though I must have discovered a commercial market for nuisance algae. Nitrates and phosphates are still usually testing 0, but apparently they're being quickly gobbled up by the ever present algae. Thankfully dinos are gone for now.

One piece of equipment I am going to look into is a controller of some kind, as long as it doesn't have to go inside the cabinet underneath the tank. No more equipment there! I'm not a contortionist! I envy your fish room.

 

[GoAskAlice]

Really impressive acro growth for a 2 year old tank!

Some of the larger acros are from Biota. So they were colonies rather than frags when I got them, and they don't have fancy names. What I learned with them is that they need adequate light right away or they will fade fast, presumably because they are maricultured and used to that beautiful tropical sun. The two acros in the center of the picture below I ordered from LiveAquaria, at a time when I was so frustrated with the tiny frags I was receiving from some coral vendors, violating my rule when I started the tank that I wouldn't add any sps taken directly from the ocean. Again, no fancy names just "Acropora from Australia" but they've grown like weeds.

But the ones from frags are finally taking off as well, and that's very gratifying. Too I've learned which coral vendors I can trust.

And, wow, you have an impressive collection of corals!

 

[GoAskAlice]

Great looking tank! Thanks for sharing!

Few questions

Any particular fish you are still wanting to add to your tank, or are you done with adding fish.
Anything difficult you have had to overcome with your tank?

Thank you!

I do want to add a few more fish to the tank, but I need to choose wisely. I have a peaceful community and don't want to upset that. I love tangs but don't think my Yellow Tang would tolerate another tang of any kind. He's been the self appointed tank boss for too long. By absolute top choice for another fish would be a Biota Regal angel or Goldflake angel but then there's the risk one might not be compatible with a reef tank. So still thinking.

Biggest difficulty was disease in the tank during the first year. Uronema early on brought in from a group of blue green chromis when I didn't even know what uronema was. Got all but one of the fish out of the tank and dosed hydrogen peroxide religiously according to posts on Humblefish. No evidence of it since but my understanding is it may never go completely away.

A few months later I added a supposedly quarantined tang to the tank. The result was prazi resistant flukes that killed that fish and several others. I treated that with hyposalinity. I mean lowering and then raising the salinity in a 180 gallon tank...ask me anything about water changing.

After all that I feel like my tank finally got started a year after I set it up. Needless to say nothing goes in the tank now that hasn't been quarantined by me first.

 

[GoAskAlice]

Now I need to add more pictures...either that or change the title of this thread.

 

[kingranch2003]

My display tank is a Red Sea Reefer S 850 G2. Here it is today, so obviously this is an “already built” build thread.

Equipment—ReefMat 1200, Red Sea skimmer, Vectra M2 return pump, 4-head dosing pump, Tunze ATO with an IM 15 gallon ATO reservoir, and four MP40 pumps. My opinion on most aquarium equipment is that if you look at it too long it stops working, usually the night before you’re leaving on vacation, so I don’t intend to add anything unless I absolutely have to.

The lights you see in the pic are 3 Radion XR 15 G6 blues and 2 Radion XR 30 G6 blues.

There is a refugium that holds reef rubble—no macroalgae. I started out growing chaeto there but after the third time I had to pull out the skimmer and take it apart to clean chaeto out of the pump, I drained the sump and got rid of the chaeto. That stuff is like pieces of a Brillo pad getting sucked into your pumps. Right now I’m trying to get a population of pods going in the refugium.

I don’t have many photos between when I filled the tank in April 2023 and now. None that I care to post anyway because the tank went through every nuisance algae blight known to man (or woman) for almost two years. At one point I had dinos growing on top of gha. Nice.

I won’t go into my algae battles here. Lots of good information on this site on that subject. I will say during the past two+ years Reef2Reef quickly became the second most visited site on my laptop, surpassed only by Amazon. I’ve always taken the approach of letting the tank reach a balance rather than experimenting with any algae reducing additives, even though at times that approach took more patience than I knew I had.

If someone starting a reef tank were to ask me for just one piece of advice it would be do not start a tank with 100% dry rock. Based on my experiences and the experiences others have posted on this forum, dry rock soaks up and in turn releases the nutrients algae love and use oh so efficiently for a very long time. I’m still battling this crazy situation of no detectable phosphates or nitrates…so dose aforementioned…get algae…get rid of algae…get dinos…get algae and dinos--and so on and so forth.

I also believe that while starting with dry rock and bacteria in a bottle allows us to add fish to our tanks quickly, it neglects other biological processes we may not fully understand but need.

A few months ago, I removed some of the Marco rock I started with and added about 60 pounds of live rock to the display and some live rock rubble to the refugium. The results weren’t miraculous, but I think I’m gaining ground in the algae battle. And the tank is maturing so I have that in my corner. The current challenge is maintaining levels of phosphates and nitrates that work for my tank.

Enough of the narrative. The “mostly pictures” I mentioned appear below. I’ve hit pause on adding any more fish or coral for now, focusing instead on stability. Currently I have 16 fish--
--7 Lyretail Anthias
--Yellow Tang
--Potters Angel
--Swissguard Basslet
--Fridmani Dottyback
--Leopard Wrasse
--Yellow Wrasse
--2 Marine Bettas (very camera shy)
--Goldheaded Goby (a mistake and the reason I keep a turkey baster next to the tank)

That’s it, for now anyway. Ask me any questions about the tank or its inhabitants. And, yes, I maintain it myself.
Happy Reefing!

Beautiful, chromatic, and whimsical fish! Here's a song for them.

 

[JonoH]

Awesome looking tank, love all the wrasses!

 

[GoAskAlice]

Beautiful, chromatic, and whimsical fish! Here's a song for them.

Thank you! That was nice! With a start like that, think I'm going to have a beautiful day!