Araziza's Red Sea 200XL build

[araziza]

After about 13 years dipping in and out of this hobby I've decided to dive in again. I'm getting rid of my 13 year old Solana cube (34 gallon) and upgrading to the Red Sea Reefer 200XL. It's not that significant an upgrade in size, but it's as much as I'm going to have room (and energy) for. And unlike the past two times I've set up the tank (first time during University, second time early in my career right around the birth of my first kid), I'm at a point in my career where I can set it up the way I want to, with the equipment I'd like (at least mostly, money is still an object) , to give me the best chance of success and hopefully reduce the struggles I've had with nuisance algae in the past.
My biggest complaint with the solana was lack of proper access to the filter. I've been really frustrated with the lack of space for a proper skimmer (the aquamaxx HOB wasn't terrible, but also wasn't great and dealt with water level issues all the time). I couldn't get my arm all the way into the filter, and at one point a bag of charcoal ripped, spilling into the bottom where I couldnt get at it. It kept clogging the return pump...
The past couple of times I've started with live rock and aquascaped it to the best of my ability, but this time I've gone with dry marco rock and spent a few nights assembling an aquascape I should enjoy significantly more. I put it all together with stone fix. Pictures incoming. I've also replaced my RO/DI filters and am preparing the water for the system

The tank should be at my LFS for pickup on Monday or Tuesday I'm going for a mixed reef (mostly softies and LPS, hopefully with 1 or 2 easier stony corals). I'm starting off with the following equipment, currently sitting ready in my basement:

Kessil A360x + Wifi Dongle Radion xr15 Blue G5
Bubble Magus Curve 5 Elite
2x AI Nero 3 5
Sicce Syncra 2.0 return (debating exchanging for the 3...)
Finnex 300W titanium heater
Inkbird heater controller (for redundancy, plugged into neptune. why not have 3 temperature probes going...)
Neptune Apex (my real indulgence. I've been wanting one of these for monitoring and control for like a decade now... I'm an engineer and really looking forward to tinkering with this)
Apex Display module
25lb Ocean Direct sand
Aquaforest reef salt

Testing and additives:
Salifert Calcium, Nitrate, Nitrite, Ammonia
Hanna checker dKH and ultra low range phosphorus
Sybon Salinity Refractometer (to check/ validate Apex readings, and for redundancy)
Red sea filter media cup (replacing the filter sock to run carbon and filter floss)
Microbacter 7 for start

Still to buy:
All for Reef (instead of 2 part)
Apex leak detection kit
2x apex optical sensor (1 for return pump chamber level, 1 for ATO chamber refill alerts)

I'm a bit unsure of where I want to eventually go with this. I'm planning to start with the included ATO, but I know I'll eventually need to get a dedicated ATO setup when I want to go away. I also REALLY want to do a chaeto refugium, but I don't think I really have space for that. I need to contain the footprint for the tank as much as I can, and I have limited sump space. Plus if I do put in a refugium, I'd want to do it properly with a decent light (probably the kessil 380 flora). Does anyone have any suggestions/ opinions on getting the Baffle kit and dividing the skimmer chamber for the refugium? The other eventual option might be a chaeto reactor, if the prices start to come down.

Eventually I'd also like to add a Trident for testing, but at this point it's remarkably expensive and seems like a pure luxury. I'm thinking maybe a year or two from now...

As far as starting the tank, I'm also not quite sure what direction I want to go. It seems as though startup methods have changed significantly from the last two times I've setup a tank. more and more people seem to insta-tank, but I don't know how comfortable I am with that. I've been reading articles and watching videos from BRS and reefbuilders, as well as looking at startup threads on R2R, I've seen the Lasse method. I've had my eye on the biodiversity testing BRS is currently in the middle of, and everything I'm seeing is steering me towards adding a few corals or frags as soon as the temperature and salinity are stable. However, many still seem to be on the 4 month cycle, or on the one month cycle, and seem to fluctuate between adding fish at a week, two weeks, a month, dosing ammonia to simulate adding a fish...

my current plan is as follows.
Day 1: Add rock, ocean direct sand, setup all equipment and get Apex set up
Day 2-3: Monitor and add Microbacter 7
Day 4-5: add a few coral frags. continue dosing microbacter.
Somwhere between day 14 and day 30: Add clownfish (pair?) and cleanup crew
Day 30: turn on lights, ramping up over 5 days (not sure if I should turn on lights earlier for corals...)
2 weeks post clownfish: if I added a pair, add algae blenny, if not, second clown fish.
Add additional fish every 2 weeks or so. Thinking a royal gramma or orchid dottyback (worried about aggression though), possibly clown goby, possibly firefish. toying with the idea of 6 line wrasse (loved the one I had once), or flasher wrasse. Likely going to top out at 5-6 fish.

Feel free to respond, give advice. I'm looking to maximize my chances of success without killing myself doing it or spending unnecessary quantities of $.

 

[araziza]

Here are some pictures of the aquascape. I've learned I don't love the 'pile of rocks' look, so I ended up using much less rock (about 25lbs) to make up this aquascape. Do I need to add additional biofilter media to the sump to make up for using significantly less rock than the 1.5-2 lbs recommended?


The structure consists of one main arch approximately 14 inches in total height (approximately 66% of total tank height, leaving 7 inches open above), along with 2 smaller isolated islands (one composed of 3 smaller rocks with a swim through, and ones small individual rock). The isolated islands will be for corals like Xenia or GSP that need to be contained. There are a few caves and overhangs on the main structure for fish to swim through to limit aggression, but lots of open space and plenty of surface area for corals. The cardboard is cut to the footprint of the tank.

 

[Adrift]

You are off to a great start. Like the aquascaping.

 

[araziza]

Well, still haven’t gotten the tank. I was told they should have it in Monday or Tuesday this week, and yesterday (Monday) I called and they told me it wasn’t going to be until the end of the week. This is so frustrating, I specifically timed this so I would have the whole week off to get the tank and all the equipment up and running. Now I’m going to have to do it in spurts between work and parenting. I also have my first batch of saltwater sitting in the brute with nowhere to go and I’m going to have to manage evaporation…

 

[araziza]

Got the tank in on Thursday and been hard at work since. All the hardware is in and running, water is finished and tank is up!

Lid is ordered from ClearView lids. Apex is running, all the probes installed. I managed to get them all calibrated (I think), but very soon afterwards the salinity probe jumped up and now has shown a salinity of above 56.6 ever since. No amount of reorientation, shaking, or bubble release seems to help and I don’t have any more calibration solution. Yay.

Here is a shot of the tank this past Saturday night, mostly cleared up, plus one of the sump with the new skimmer (still working on my cable management. I'll post ones of the fully clear tank when I make the cut for the light and have it mounted.

 

[araziza]

Added a few starter corals a little while ago to add some biome to the tank, and put my lights on at 20%. The clear view lid has come in and fits nicely, if a bit snugly. I’ve kept up with the microbacter. Going to add a couple of fish soon. Here’s the tank before lights come on.

 

[griffinsreef]

Love the aquascape!

 

[araziza]

Thanks! Things progressing apace. I added another zoa and a hammer, as well as a pair of clowns. I have the beginning of clean up crew to handle the bit of brown I had on the sand, just 2 trochus, one small conch, and a blue leg hermit to break down leftover food (and because I like hermits). I’ll grow the crew as necessary, right now they’re pretty much keeping things in order. Last thing I want is to starve anything.
Still waiting on coralline to show up. I had a scraping done to seed it (plus there is a bit on a couple of frags. I was running my light really low for the first month or so, and now I have it up about half way. In a week or two I’ll crank it up to full. It’s a kessil, so PAR shouldn’t be through the roof at full power except maybe at the very top of the rock work. I’m reserving that spot so I can have a single tabling acro. The rest will be softies with some LPS.

 

[araziza]

Tank is still running well. I added a few Cerith snails, as well as some clove polyps, utter chaos palys, and a rusty gorgonian frag. I also added a new fishy resident. We have a Royal Gramma in the tank!
The clove polyps have already extended a runner out onto the rock, which seems to keep growing and extending daily. I’m starting to see new polyps growing from it.
On the down side, one of my Nero 3s needs to be sent for service, and I’m still trying to figure out how to deal with low PH (between 7.8 and 8.03 most of the time). I can’t run an airline outside, and open windows aren’t really an option most of the year in Canada. I’m probably going to need to add a scrubber, but I hate the idea of constantly paying for expensive scrubbing media. Ideally I’ll eventually just dose Kalk, but I need much more in the way of corals, particularly stony corals before I can do that.

 

[araziza]

Got my Nero fixed and back in the tank! Flow is back to normal. Added a RBTA that I got for a great price. I’ve always wanted one in my tank. I placed it yesterday afternoon, and was thrilled when it was still where I placed it this morning. But when I got back from work it moved to the bottom rear of my tank, right next to my clove polyps. I’m pretty sure the lights are not powerful enough to support the ‘nem down there, and I REALLY don’t want to lose the polyps (or the anemone). The anemone still looks good, color is great and the tips are nice and bubbled, but I can’t help but think this won’t last if it stays where it is. Any suggestions?

 

[araziza]

Early May update.
Gramma didn't survive. It was doing great for a week, then it got spooked, hid in a rock, and died. There were no signs of disease, it was doing great, then it wasn't. Tried it again and the second gramma did the same thing. The clowns are doing just fine and I have no coral or anemone issues. All the parameters are spot on. I decided to give it a few months before I get another fish just in case, and I'm going to buy from another store.

The anemone is doing great. It's nicely colored, the tips are quite round and bubbled. It stung the ever loving crap out of the clove polyps on the frag plug, which all died, but luckily not before they grew out onto the rocks. So I have a good budding colony of the clove polyps and a happy anemone. Guess I'm good until it decides to split.

I also picked up some green nepthea, an australian duncan frag, and a frag of australian hammer, which is a kind of gold/ bluey color. I got a pretty significant discount on the hammer because it has some tissue recession, and I decided that if all my other corals are doing well maybe I'll get lucky and the hammer will rebound. The tank still looks pretty sparse, but the empty spots are getting a bit less empty as time goes on and I buy a few more frags.

I'm thinking of starting to dose Kalk soon, for some reason this tank seems to go through alk at a higher clip than I expected (falls about .17 dKh per day) and I have trouble getting/ keeping calcium over 400. Weird, since I still don't see any coralline algae.

I also now have an annoyingly high population of digitate hydroids. No idea where they came from, but not much I can do about it. At least none of my corals are closing up or melting. I'm hoping it stays that way and they just go away on their own.

 

[araziza]

Added a skunk cleaner shrimp for a bit of extra movement and color. Loving him so far, thinking of putting in a second one. On the flipside, something knocked the new hammer coral and dislodged the glue. I found it in the sand and had to mount it to the rock again. I hope that doesn't set it back.

 

[araziza]

New update. It’s been awhile since the last one so I’ll go through the major events. That hammer that fell off the rock went down fast! Brown jelly, then just gone.
I added a dragon soul torch and another small gold hammer frag. the torch is awesome, my favourite coral right now. My LFS also had a sale where I picked up some pretty tiny frags, a Montipora digitata, a small acro frag, a blasto, and a blue mushroom. I’m a bit frustrated with my progress so far. The acro RTNed in under a half hour, which I chalked up to it being a tiny frag of wild acro in a 6 month old tank. The mushroom decided to move, dislodged itself and for the life of me I can’t find it.checked the power heads, the sump, the overflow, nothing. The blasto is doing ok, but the Monti has been slowly going south, getting progressively overrun by algae. I’ve been doing my best to get on top of my chemistry. I got my calcium in line, up to 440, got my Magnesium back to 1350, got my nitrates up from 0 to 10 and my phosphates to .03, but then my Alk, which had been great the whole time and kinda meandered between 8 and 9 took a nosedive to 6, and despite adding a pump to dose Kalkwasser and continuing to buffer my Alk with reef builder. I should be much higher by now, but I’ve just managed to claw my way back to 7. Hopefully I can get back to 8.8ish without another parameter going haywire.
Even with my nitrates and phosphates close to perfect, I’m starting to see some tufts of hair algae starting, not much yet, and mostly just around my Anemone (which is still doing well, at least) and in some holes and nooks in the rock, but I’ve been down this road before and it’s not pretty, and I feel like I usually lose this fight.
Possibly a bad idea, but another LFS had a sale and I got an Acan Lord frag and a beautiful Millepora for rediculous prices. I know the Millepora is a risk, but it’s the single SPS I was planning for, it was decently sized, aquacultured, and nicely grown over the frag plug, so I figured I’d given myself as good a start as I could. So far it’s been 4 days and it’s still coloured up and has decent polyp extension.
At this point I’m not sure what to do. My chemistry has been as good as I could hope for with the exception of the random Alk dive, and the PH, which still dips to 7.9 unless I keep windows open, even with Kalk dosing. My Anemone is doing fine (despite keeping to the bottom rear of my tank), beautifully red and bubbled. But I’m getting basically no coral growth, I don’t seem to get the results I calculate I should see from my dosing, and despite good parameters I’m starting to see algae. Some of my corals look great, like my torch, and some , like the Monti, just fade away. Even the torch has algae growing up on the parts not covered by tissue. I do the water changes I can manage (10% every 2 weeks, alternating between a full sand vacuuming and a partial sand cleaning with a full sump vacuum). I’m just not seeing much progress, and I’m already starting to see problems I thought I’d prepared enough to avoid. My pods seem to have disappeared, though the digitate hydroids and the little hydroids on the glass do fine. No idea what happened to the pods. I have very little coralline, and none on the glass, back, or pumps. I’m just getting discouraged, even though my tank (to me) still looks nice. If anyone has any ideas, feel free to comment.
Here’s some obligatory pictures.

 

[araziza]

A full tank shot, and one from the side (my usual view from the couch)

 

[araziza]

Well, for the second time in 6 months, the Kessil bit the dust. This time it wasn’t under warranty. Sometimes this hobby really sucks. They actually had the cojones to offer me a discount on a new one. I’m now the (somewhat reluctant) owner of a slightly used radion xr15 blue. I don’t like the look nearly as much, but I just don’t trust the kessils anymore. The blue radion definitely isn’t my first pick, but it was the best one I could get my hands on for the money at this time. Came with the mounting kit, so I’m good to go. I still wish it had a whiter spectrum, and I really miss the shimmer. Plus there’s definitely a bit of disco ball. Hoped it makes up for it all with better growth and coverage, not to mention longevity.

 

[araziza]

Finally have a third fish! I got a yellow watchman goby with a tiger pistol shrimp. The Radion is just far, far too blue.

 

[araziza]

Well, my birthday came and went, and I took the opportunity to make some upgrades as well. I've been having some real issues figuring out what's going on with my chemistry (specifically alkalinity, and to a slightly lesser degree calcium).
You can see my adventures in loony land here:

Help! New tank guzzling nutrients

I’m really not sure what’s going on here. I have a 6 month old tank. A decent number of small-ish frags, no big coral colonies or anything. No coralline growing on the glass or pumps, no real purple patches on my rock, just a general purple/greyish hue, no fuge. I’m dosing 800ml/day saturated...

www.reef2reef.com

For my birthday, I picked up a Fauna Marin Skim Breeze CO2 reactor, a used Hanna Nitrate checker, and a used Trident.

I also picked up a springeri damsel as well as a smaller juvenile fish of a larger variety that I will leave nameless to avoid the ... local forum authorities... who will live with me until he can't.

PH is finally cruising (relatively speaking), and oscillates between 8.15 and 8.3. I find it amazing and more than a little frustrating that it takes a decent amount of kalk and a reactor just to stay in this neighborhood.

Now that I have (i think) a decent window into the behaviour of my tank chemistry- wise, I'm hoping to start to get to a more stable place, see some more growth, and hopefully start to see some coralline growth. My fish and inverts have been doing well, no casualties, no aggression, and everyone seems well fed and happy. Nitrates and phosphates have been as stable as I could possibly hope.

 

[araziza]

The tank turns 1 today! It’s been doing reasonably well, still not getting a lot of growth, but I have some corals growing, and no coral or fish deaths in a decently long while. The anemone is doing well, Alk and calcium are finally reasonably stable, PH ranges between 8.2 and 8.4 with the CO2 scrubber, and I’m finally seeing at least a bit of purple coralline growing.
I have a nice population of limpets cleaning all the surfaces, and my Trochus snails finally spawned, got a bunch of little baby snails cruising the back glass and overflow. Still having trouble keeping SPS, but my Slimer isn’t dead (yet), so hopefully 2023 is my year. Got a couple new corals for Boxing Day, a forest fire rhodactis, frag of pink alveopora, and a small frag of rainbow dynamite chalice that was a fantastic price. I hope all of these work out, especially the chalice.
Here are a few 1 year shots of the tank.

 

[Gumbies R Us]

Love the aquascape design of your tank, and congrats to hitting 1 year with your tank!

 

[araziza]

Love the aquascape design of your tank, and congrats to hitting 1 year with your tank!

Thanks! Im still pretty happy with my aquascape, although I sort of wish I’d gone a bit higher to make a better plateau for SPS.

This past year was about stability and chemistry, I’m targeting growth, hopefully, this coming year.

I’d like to add a doser with a few heads so I can automate the calcium and dose Kalk overnight, and eventually I’d like to add the reefbright add in to my Radion (and turn the Radion down a bit) to spread out the par.

If I can get the Slimer to take off, im hoping to try a Millepora again (now that the flow should be more what the SPS are looking for). I’m mostly good for corals, although I have my sights on a couple of unusual pieces of leather coral from a LFS, and a really nice rainbow Acan with some yellow in it.