medicw131
Community Member
Hey R2R! I've been working on my build since September 2017.
Wait... Back up.. My name is Clay and I live in Iowa. That means there is no access to oceans, minimal access to significant bodies of water (I guess the Mississippi runs along the eastern border, but that's about a 3 hour drive from me), and no public aquariums less than 2 hours away. Despite all of these factors, there is a fairly booming reef population here in the midwest. See below.
This is just one of many pretty nice reefs near me! No, although this is a 75, it's not mine. Anyway, I digress. I've been fascinated with aquatic life for as long as I can remember. I've had multiple aquariums since I was about 5 years old, but none of which were very serious. Up until I was 21, I fully believed that in order to clean an aquarium, you had to net up the fish and put them in a bowl, rinse out the gravel in a collander, put it all back, fill it with tap water, then turn on the air stones. Yep, cringy. However, I've since grown up, bought a house, got married, and decided to build me a "big boy" reef tank. My reefing experience is about 7 years old, so I'm still learning A LOT! Anyway, I'll stop boring you with text and show off pics!
I used the grid method to guide my scape using a combination of the golden ratio and the rule of thirds. This seemed to work fairly well and will hopefully allow me to make tweaks in coral placement as the tank matures.
The scape used a combination of BRS Reef Saver rock, some VERY well cycled LR, IO epoxy putty, superglue, acrylic rods, and multiple vulgarities!
Filling her up! Took a solid day and a half, because the practicality of me mixing up 75 gallons of water while keeping my wife sane just wasn't in the cards. So I split it up in to two rounds of 40 gallons.
POW! Just like that, we had water and fish. The tank was born on March 18, 2018! That island on the right is purple because that was they VERY cycled rock I mentioned above. Not artificial rock that's been dyed. Nothing against that rock, I just didn't buy any!
First few frags were a handful of zoanthids, a purple digi, and a couple acros. (See what happened below).
I initially had AI Hydra 26 HD on this tank, but decided I wanted some super lights. On went two Ecotech Radion XR30 Gen 4. Then I noticed my acros started to bleach. So I turned the lights down, grabbed some PAR readings, and decided to slowly bring the lights up. Everything else looked just fine. Well, I apparently didn't look close enough.....
I had acro eating flatworms.. So all the acros got pulled out and placed in QT. Sadly, none made it. They all had flatworm damage on their tissue and most RTN'd within a couple days. Shoot... My tank still does not have any acropora in it two months later. Long story short, DIP YOUR CORALS!
However, this does have a happy edge, as all my remaining corals are growing, I've added another clown, a midas blenny, and a leopard wrasse. All inhabitants eat as though they'll never eat again. So here's a few more pictures!
The midas blenny likes to act scared, but as soon as I put my phone or camera away, he swims out and begs to be fed. What a weirdo! Anyway, thanks for looking and suffering through my nonesense! I know it's only a 75, but I'm super excited about it and am having a blast! I'll keep posting more as the tank grows up! Later!
Wait... Back up.. My name is Clay and I live in Iowa. That means there is no access to oceans, minimal access to significant bodies of water (I guess the Mississippi runs along the eastern border, but that's about a 3 hour drive from me), and no public aquariums less than 2 hours away. Despite all of these factors, there is a fairly booming reef population here in the midwest. See below.
This is just one of many pretty nice reefs near me! No, although this is a 75, it's not mine. Anyway, I digress. I've been fascinated with aquatic life for as long as I can remember. I've had multiple aquariums since I was about 5 years old, but none of which were very serious. Up until I was 21, I fully believed that in order to clean an aquarium, you had to net up the fish and put them in a bowl, rinse out the gravel in a collander, put it all back, fill it with tap water, then turn on the air stones. Yep, cringy. However, I've since grown up, bought a house, got married, and decided to build me a "big boy" reef tank. My reefing experience is about 7 years old, so I'm still learning A LOT! Anyway, I'll stop boring you with text and show off pics!
I used the grid method to guide my scape using a combination of the golden ratio and the rule of thirds. This seemed to work fairly well and will hopefully allow me to make tweaks in coral placement as the tank matures.
The scape used a combination of BRS Reef Saver rock, some VERY well cycled LR, IO epoxy putty, superglue, acrylic rods, and multiple vulgarities!
Filling her up! Took a solid day and a half, because the practicality of me mixing up 75 gallons of water while keeping my wife sane just wasn't in the cards. So I split it up in to two rounds of 40 gallons.
POW! Just like that, we had water and fish. The tank was born on March 18, 2018! That island on the right is purple because that was they VERY cycled rock I mentioned above. Not artificial rock that's been dyed. Nothing against that rock, I just didn't buy any!
First few frags were a handful of zoanthids, a purple digi, and a couple acros. (See what happened below).
I initially had AI Hydra 26 HD on this tank, but decided I wanted some super lights. On went two Ecotech Radion XR30 Gen 4. Then I noticed my acros started to bleach. So I turned the lights down, grabbed some PAR readings, and decided to slowly bring the lights up. Everything else looked just fine. Well, I apparently didn't look close enough.....
I had acro eating flatworms.. So all the acros got pulled out and placed in QT. Sadly, none made it. They all had flatworm damage on their tissue and most RTN'd within a couple days. Shoot... My tank still does not have any acropora in it two months later. Long story short, DIP YOUR CORALS!
However, this does have a happy edge, as all my remaining corals are growing, I've added another clown, a midas blenny, and a leopard wrasse. All inhabitants eat as though they'll never eat again. So here's a few more pictures!
The midas blenny likes to act scared, but as soon as I put my phone or camera away, he swims out and begs to be fed. What a weirdo! Anyway, thanks for looking and suffering through my nonesense! I know it's only a 75, but I'm super excited about it and am having a blast! I'll keep posting more as the tank grows up! Later!
