Chris' 60 Gallon Hex Reef

[Chris Baker]

Hello!

I am going to be using this thread to document my first reef tank, an old 60-gallon hex tank that I got through my job. I am a full-time, year-round sailing instructor for an educational nonprofit in Connecticut that uses marine adventure sports and marine field expeditions to increase academic engagement and provide experiential learning opportunities in S.T.E.M. and marine science.

This Fall, I began taking care of several brackish tanks in one of our classrooms. The tanks are stocked with wild caught fish and invertebrates from a brackish cove where we bring students for seining, snorkeling, and kayaking. The tanks are then used year-round to teach about water quality, marine biology, and ecosystems. The tanks are mostly run with donated equipment, often undersized and underpowered for the tanks we have but it works and our species are hardy. I will include more of these tanks in subsequent posts.

I got into reefing while researching ways to keep some Northern Pipefish we collected. We were doing daily plankton tows in the cove to feed their tank and I was looking for a less labor-intensive method in the colder shoulder seasons. Researching copepods brought me to Mandarin Dragonets which have captured my interest. The idea to start a reef tank came during a field trip to the Credabel Coral Gallery in New London, CT where the students had a chance to study some corals and frag some colonies.

My goal for this tank will be to have a mix of Soft and LPS corals and eventually a pair of mandarin dragonets. (No small undertaking, I know) I am moving in the next month and I will start the tank then. In the meantime here are some pictures of my tank and dry-scape.

This is the front view of the tank. I ordered 40 lbs. of CaribSea Life Rock and their "Shapes" package which I loved. I also ordered 25 lbs. of Shelf Rock The Shapes package came with several circle pieces that formed the central tower. The central tower is completely hollow and filled with swim throughs and bolt holes. The shelf pieces at various heights are intended provide good locations to display corals and to break up the "verticality" of the rock tower. The challenge as I saw it of scaping a tall hex tank is that you have to build up because of the limited footprint, and you have to do it without making it look like a pile of rocks. This is all free stacked for now but I will bond select pieces with epoxy when it is finalized.

This is the view from the right side of the tank which will be immediately visible as someone enters the condo. I want to create a unique look from each side of the tank. I think I have achieved that with the scape and will try to continue it with my coral selections (Feel free to give suggestions for species and placements/groupings).

This is the left side of the tank, which will be most visible when sitting on the couch in the living room. The island on the bottom will be for some Pulsing Xenia which I love but don't want running away with the whole tank.

The next post will outline my plans for the lighting, circulation, and sumps.

 

[hybridazn]

I really like the aquascape, good job with that.

 

[Chris Baker]

Well several months have passed and things moved much slower than I initially planned. I think that has probably been for the best as I have done a great deal of research between now and my last post. Anyway here is an update.

The tank is on a custom built cedar stand. I am no great carpenter so credit has to go to my father who assisted tremendously. The stand sits in a dryer pan and needed quite a bit of convincing to get it to sit flush and level. The stand is just a table and on each side of it I have attached a waterproof canvas curtain panel. The curtain panels are held on by Velcro and can be easily removed to gain access to the sump. I’ve been very pleased with them so far and have no complaints about noise.

The sump is a custom 40 breeder sump that I picked up used. It has spots for two 4” filter socks. Right now I am running one sock and I plan to covert them both to media baskets soon. The first chamber is my refugium. Currently I am growing Chaeto and Red Gracilaria under a Kessil-H380 that is mounted 10” above the water. The Gracilaria is new but I have had excellent growth with the chaeto.

The next chamber will eventually be for my SCA-180 skimmer but I haven’t felt the need to install it yet. For a return pump I am using a Synchra Silent 3.5 and I would estimate I have it tuned to approximately 5-6x turnover per hour. I did my own PVC return plumbing and learned a few lessons. It will probably get it’s own shorter post at some point.

The return is on the side of the tank that is visible immediately when you enter the condo. I attached a random flow nozzle I found on BRS. It fits perfectly on to 1” PVC and has been doing its job well.

As you can see from the picture the tank is undergoing a diatom bloom and I believe a little cyano as well. I stocked a cleanup crew of 8 Blue Legged hermits, 12 dwarf cerith, 5 Florida Cerith, 5 Nassarius, and 5 Nerite snails from Reef Cleaners two days ago. I also got a lot of 20 empty shells to reduce aggression by the hermits. So far the Blue Legged Hermits have been very active cleaning the sandbed.

For substrate I used a 2 inch layer of fine sugar sand from Ocean Beach in New London, Connecticut. It’s the same sand we use for the tanks at work and I haven’t had any issues with it there or in the tank so far. Then I covered that in about two inches of small grain aragonite to prevent sandstorms and cap off the deep sand bed.

For flow I am using a XF-130 Gyre that alternates directions every 4 hours. For lighting I am using a Radion Gen 4 Pro with a diffuser. I am also running the Apex Lunar LED’s. Everything is run off of an Apex Classic including the ATO. My big challenge over the coming weeks will be shifting and organizing all of equipment in the tank and building a lid/hood for the tank. While I was setting the tank up I threw the Apex and equipment together haphazardly as it was needed.

Over the next week I will be receiving copepods from Algae Barn. Amphipods, spaghetti worms, bristle worms, and a live sand activator from IPSF, and a package of 200 live mysid shrimp from Sachs Aquaculture. My strategy is to build the ecosystem from the base up as much as possible. I will try to document the additions here.

I am sure I have forgotten to touch on something but in closing here are my three Full Tank Shots

 

[Chris Baker]

I’m still working out my plan for fish stocking but here is my rough idea of order and the species. I have a lot of habitat in the vertical rock work but not a lot of habitat in the water column.

2 Cleaner Shrimp
1 Purple Firefish
1 Yasha Goby/Pistol Shrimp
3 barnacle Blennies
1 Midas Blenny
1 Green Mandarin Dragonet after a year
1 Flasher Wrasse of some kind
1 Long Nose Hawkfish

I’ve ordered the Cleaner Shrimp and Purple Firefish through my LFS. They should be in at the end of the next week and the store will hold them for an additional week to make sure they are eating before I pick them up.

 

[Chris Baker]

Work tank spotlight: Tank 3

Tank 3 is one of the 5 Long Island Sound Biotope Tanks that I help keep. Everything in the the tank was caught in or around Alewife Cove which runs between New London and Waterford Connecticut. This tank is focused on our more delicate/finicky fish and inverts.

The tank and most of the equipment was donated and if you are in CT and think this is cool and want New London students to have the opportunity to see it please consider donating. It is also one of our two tanks with lights and like all but one our tanks it is run with a Marineland HOB filter. The filter is undersized but does pretty well for the tank. I run a strong air stone on the tank for flow as much as anything. We don’t have a power head for this tank so I try to stimulate water movement however I can.

The first thing most students and visitors notice in this tank is our bright green Northern Pipefish. He is very curious and active. More so than the three other darker pipefish who linger towards the bottom of the tank. He usually hangs out near our eel grass.

We have had a lot of difficulty keeping Northern Pipefish in the past. This summer I have been supplementing them with brine shrimp napili and amphipods from Alewife Cove. I am planning to set up an Amphipod breeding tank to keep them going through the winter.

Our Common Seastar is the next thing most people are drawn to. We try to add Mussels from the cove to the tank for him to pry open but sometimes they die before he gets to him and cloud up the tank. It’s hard to get him anything that’s not in a shell because of strong competition from our hermits, minnows, and snails. If anyone sees this who has kept a similar starfish and has a better idea for feeding one let me know.

This is one of our two Fourspine Sticklebacks in the tank. They are always picking at algae and appreciate the daily brine shrimp dumps. This is the first time we have kept them so time will tell how they do.

We also have a purple sea urchin we took from a colony of them on the piling of a bridge that crosses the cove. There are two Sheepshead Minnows in the foreground who have beautiful mating colors in the spring. Here is a not so great picture taken in May.

We also have some Striped Killifish and Mummichog minnows in that tank that we raised from a very small size, but they are featured more heavily in some of our other tanks so I will talk more about them in another post.

Anyway I hope that was interesting. I have a couple of packages coming tomorrow for my reef tank and I will post an update when they arrive.

 

[Chris Baker]

Time for an update!

Since I last posted I have added a purple fire fish, Aurora Goby, Tiger Pistol Shrimp, two Skunk Cleaner shrimp, and two peppermint shrimp to head off two aptasia that I recently spotted.

Purple Firefish and Goby/Shrimp

The cleaner shrimp under their favorite ledge

I also added a hammer and frogspawn from the Credabel Coral Gallery in New London

I also got some assorted zoas. I think I rushed moving them from their frag plugs to the rock as some of them melted away but the ones that made it are doing fine.

Before I added my livestock I seeded the tank with copepods from Algae Barn and amphipods, bristle worms, spaghetti worms, and mini bristle stars from IPSF. You can see one of the ministars here.

Full tanks shots!
Front:

Left Side:

Right Side:

The projects that are in the works.
1. Building a canopy and lid for the tank
2. Cord management and organization
3. Setting up my Neptune Dos and fully programming my Apex.

 

[Chris Baker]

I’m picking up some more coral and a Bangai Cardinal this weekend but right now I’m pretty excited about a fish in the work tanks that we caught on a school program.

Today we had the kids go down to the beach and look for fishing bait. The tide was very low and we were in waiters so parts of the cove that aren’t normally exposed were easily accessible. Anyway we caught this guy in a clump of seaweed.

He’s a juvenile Black Sea Bass. I’ve never seen one in the cove before and I love the markings.

Aside from the Black Sea Bass the catch of the month in the cove has been what I am pretty sure are Little Sculpin aka Grubbies. They could also be juvenile Long Horn Sculpin but they are popping up in all the kids nets. I will leave you with a picture of one.

 

[12gallonsofhex]

How is the gyre working for your flow? I have a smaller (11.25 actual gallon) hex with a small jabao pump that technically should be enough flow, but I believe the hex shape and my rock work are cancelling out the waves. I am left thinking that I need a second power head or a gyre.

 

[Chris Baker]

Love the gyre. I would think you could probably have success running it at lower power levels.I’ve been playing around with what the level of flow and how high in the tank I place it but it provides plenty of flow all the way around. I’ve never had it run more than 60% and never had it kick up a sandstorm like some have. I run it in 6 hour alternating cycles. When it is running the same direction as the return I get a strong gyre effect and when it runs against the return I get a more chaotic turbulent flow throughout the tank. It’s the perfect choice for this shape of tank.

 

[12gallonsofhex]

Love the gyre. I would think you could probably have success running it at lower power levels.I’ve been playing around with what the level of flow and how high in the tank I place it but it provides plenty of flow all the way around. I’ve never had it run more than 60% and never had it kick up a sandstorm like some have. I run it in 6 hour alternating cycles. When it is running the same direction as the return I get a strong gyre effect and when it runs against the return I get a more chaotic turbulent flow throughout the tank. It’s the perfect choice for this shape of tank.

Thank you so much for the expertise. I was thinking about adding a second propeller style wave pump, but it makes sense that a gyre would create a more uniform propulsion than a directed jet. I see that icecap has the gyre 3k that is a smaller package and would probably be perfect. Thank you again!

 

[VSVP bet]

Love the long island sound tank. I'm from Stamford, CT. I kept many fish in a 75. Harvested sand from sand bars, rocks from jettys, inverts at low tide. Kept flounder, sea robins, and many more. Really fun collecting your own species.

 

[12gallonsofhex]

That's very cool. I am on the opposite coast. The water here is too cold for most of the colorful stuff I want to keep. I am a coral first, fish second guy.

 

[Fishwife]

How is your tank doing now? I have a 35 gallon Hex that I am converting to SW. Just cleaned it out and thinking about aquascape and inhabitants. Will have some fish, but I wanted to mostly grow taller corals. I am limited in what I can have in my pico 5 gallon tank. Any recommendations?