CVZ's 300DD

[crvz]

I've had large build threads before, but I'm relatively new here and I'm not building anything, so I thought instead I could put together a thread for tank sustaining. I'll post coral growth pics, new additions, and various maintenance/upgrades as they happen. The tank in question is a marineland 300DD that I have as a built in, the tank itself sits in its own room (part of the garage). The tank has been running since December of 2010, and we've had our ups and downs. About two years ago I was "upgrading" the refugium, which really resulted in a pretty good nutrient purge/mini crash. Long story short I lost 2 large mangrove trees (probably about 6 square feet canopy in total) when trying to move them to a new refugium, and the very abrupt shift in biological filtration gave a green light to hair algae issues in the display. I fought the good fight patiently, and now I feel I'm back to a good place with the system. I've started to focus more on SPS corals, adding about 50 new frags since last fall, and hopefully they'll grow out well in the coming months/years to make this an SPS dominated system.

Overall this system is modest compared to some huge tanks you'll see, including hardware selection and operation. I built as much as I could because I really enjoy that side of the hobby, including the acrylic work for sump and refugium tank, the stand, I built the walls up in the garage to house the tank, installed the AC, built the light rack, plumbed and wired it all, etc. Things have evolved over the years for sure, but in general the main tank and intent have stayed the same. Here's a couple shots of the display today. Tank dimension: 72" length by 36" width and 27" high.

A few system details.

- APEX controller
- Three (3) 250W Metal Halides (Radium 20kK)
- Six Reefbrite XHO 50/50 fixtures (24" running front to back)
- Reef Octopus 5000SSS skimmer. Had it since day 1, so more than 10 years run time, but still gets the job done.
- Recently removed the calcium reactor and started using BRS 2 part dosing on an APEX DOS. I did this to boost pH, and I've been pleased with the results.
- Mag-drive 12 return pump
- Mag-drive 12 refugium return pump
- 4x Jaebo gyre style powerheads
- CO2 scrubber (which isn't being used as much anymore)
- Custom ATO

Refugium/frag system
- 2 PAR 38 bulbs for magroves (current mangroves are about 18 months old, the ones I lost where over 5 years old).
- 2 Kessil 360 lights for frags

Fish list
- 2 yellow canary wrasses
- Pair of clowns
- 10 yellow tail damsels
- Midas blenny
- Achilles tang
- Powder blue tang
- Naso tang
- Tomini tang
- Hippo tang
- Purple tang
- Masked swallowtail angel

Refugium, about 110 gallons, a couple clown fish and a sail fin tang make their home here.

Sump, about 100 gallon volume if full.



Lighting rack and ballasts.


Long term thoughts:
- Lighting. I love the idea of going LED, or a T5/LED hybrid, but the up front costs for a tank this size are a good deterrent. I've been shopping for a lot of years, but having found anything I love yet. More pressing; the back 6-12" of the tank isn't lit effectively, so I might add something to bolster light output in those areas.
- Display tank. When I bought it, it was perfect. It's still very good. But it's over 10 years old, I have some concerns about age life of the seals, I'd love to get the overflow boxes out of the tank, and honestly I'd love to stretch it to 7 feet by 4 feet instead of 6 feet by 3 feet. I didnt do that originally because a custom tank was 4x the cost of the tank I got, but if I have to replace it I'm sure I'd go that direction. That's a huge undertaking though, so it's not on the horizon unless there's a failure.
- Aquascape. This has evolved too. I like canyons and open space, which I started with in a lot of ways, but because of the lighting and 2 tank braces running front to back, I've filled in a lot of the space to maximize coral placement under the lighting. It's a bit too jammed up with rock now, but I'm not eager to redo it.
- Inhabitants: grow out the stony corals. Before I had kids I had a really successful 150 gallon with loads of stony corals, now that the kids are both north of 10 years old I've had way more hands-on time for the tank. Hoping it pays off.

 

[SaracensRugby]

Awesome setup! I am looking to set up a mangrove refugium similar to what you have, with a 50 gallon rubbermaid stock tank, off of a 150 gallon rubbermaid stock tank sump.

 

[crvz]

Thanks! I've really enjoyed growing mangrove trees for the last many years, but they're slow going. This is a shot from 2 years back right before I tried to move the trees to the new tank (above). It took me about 5 years to grow these three trees from propagules. When I did move them, I uncovered some pretty gnarly eunicid worms in that refugium, which explained my inability to keep inverts and smaller fish in that tank. I decided to filter out the sand bed to find any remaining undesirables. I wanted to transport the root ball of the trees as undisturbed as possible, but I wasn't able to do that AND clear out those worms. That proved too much for the mangroves, and they died within a few weeks.

Quick shot of the worms, I found at least 4 (some of them broke while searching so I'm not sure how many in total), and they were between 12" - 18" long. We called them nightmare worms. Haven't seen any evidence of them since, so I'm pretty confident I capture them all.

 

[SaracensRugby]

Gnarly! What type of lights are those above the mangroves? And just a deep sand bed for them to grow roots in?

 

[crvz]

Gnarly! What type of lights are those above the mangroves? And just a deep sand bed for them to grow roots in?

They are an LED grow bulb. Cheap and practical for the application. And yes, I’m using a deep sand bed for them, about 6”, but they will grow in rocks as well. Sand is not required for mangroves.

 

[crvz]

took a shot from the side. Looking forward to these frags growing in.

 

[crvz]

Made a few changes over the last many months. I siphoned out the sand bed in the display over a few months, and I changed the metal halides for Neptune sky LEDs. I cut out some scrap acrylic I had with my CNC router to use as a light rack.

so far I’ve been really happy with the change. Corals have really been growing well in the last many months. Here’s a shot of the display without and sand. I suspect I’ll run with that for a while if not indefinitely. I had done so about 15 years ago with success, so hopefully this goes well too.