Dany's frag tank build

[DanyL]

Following this masterpiece! Thank you for sharing your story from a whopping 16 year span! This aquarium is outstanding, and we need more update photos.

It’s ROTM worthy!

Thank you, I appreciate it :)

I guess now I have no other choice but to continue updating my abandoned build thread lol

 

[Miami Reef]

Can you please post new photos of your aquarium? :)

 

[DanyL]

I mean, I feel like it’ll be weird to post the current state now if I plan to retro-actively post updates (at least of the build part) according to their chronological timeline, but IDK..

Should I just blast with some photos? :thinking-face:

 

[Miami Reef]

Follow your heart. I will patiently wait. :)

 

[Miami Reef]

Should I just blast with some photos? :thinking-face:

Yes please!! We need to resurrect this thread with new updates. I don’t think there’s a current photo in this thread. I have some photos in PM, but I think we are overdue. lol

 

[DanyL]

Alright alright. I feel like I’m being pressed here lol :rolling-on-the-floor-laughing:

Just as a heads up for those who followed the build thread from the beginning - while the plan was to build a frag tank, and it still is a frag tank, during the time I was designing the best over engineered frag racks ever made I already had tons of frags in the system (pretty much since week two), and as the time went on I kinda loved the idea of having a more dynamic show tank, and I also realized that it is practical to manage this many frags on a rockwork without ever using glue to secure them, and also - a good looking tank sells well.
So when I already had figured out the design of the racks, I realized I didn’t want them and I ended up making the call and officially turning this frag tank to what I now call a show frag tank.

Everything in it is for sale (not a plug, and I’m not in the US guys), but I also like to keep some pieces for longer to grow out, so that I could “shape” the look and feel of the tank - that being said, I still clear about 1/3-1/2 of it every few months when I actually advertise in local groups (rather than a bit here and there).

Now when it’s all said and done, let’s proceed to some pics from last month or so:

 

[Miami Reef]

Talent! I’m out of words to say. I love this tank so much. The plugs you have to mount your acropora and corals look like perfect little cupcakes.

Thank you for sharing these photos. Do you feed your corals anything?

 

[DanyL]

Talent! I’m out of words to say. I love this tank so much.

Thank you, I appreciate it :)

The plugs you have to mount your acropora and corals look like perfect little cupcakes.

lol Why do I have a feeling your consistency keep showing up haha

These are called AquaForest Coral rocks and I love them just as much as you do :grinning-face-with-sweat:

In fact, I love them so much that when I heard that the local supplier stopped importing them last year, I went on and bought all the stock that I could find in the country.

I still have around 100 left, and already figured out how to import them myself.

Do you feed your corals anything?

It’s dynamic, it changes according to my nutrient levels and the amount and type of coral I have in the frag tank at that moment.

But generally, I try to feed at least twice a week and usually it’s a combination of 3 or 4 of the following:
- Frozen Krill/mysis/Artemia for Ricordea Florida, and various LPS (spot feeding)
- Frozen Rotifers / Frozen Red Plankton (broadcast)
- Fauna Marine liquid Red Plankton (broadcast)
- Reef roids/Spirulina (sometimes together, broadcast and spot feeding)
- Hikari - I have no idea what’s the name of it, but it can be used both like reef roids as well as a gel/paste for spot feeding. I use it exclusively for spot feeding and it’s one of the best foods I’ve ever used to feed mushrooms in particular.

A few months ago I also switched my Sodium Nitrate to Ammonium Bicarbonate, as well as my Amino Acids from AcroPower to a DIY of my own.

 

[DanyL]

Played with the camera and UVA-only channel :grinning-face-with-sweat:

 

[Miami Reef]

Holy smokes! Fantastic.

 

[Bohemian Waxwing]

That channel really helps crisp up the textures of the coral.

 

[DanyL]

That channel really helps crisp up the textures of the coral.

Yes, it does add quite a bit of contrast when enabled alone, or with just a tiny bit of violets/blues.

Even though the shots turned out looking good, it honestly looks far more impressive in real life - the whole thing quite literally glows, and has visible halos around certain corals. The camera really struggled to capture it properly, about 99% of the shots turned out to be blurry, and those that did fine were those taken with low exposure, so they look darker that it really was.

I believe the reason for this is that on one hand the tank overall dark, however the UVA only applies to certain proteins that react with it, and this add “sparks” of bright light scattered across a dark background, I guess it’s somewhat similar to capturing a very bright fireworks in a dark sky.

 

[DanyL]

Few shots from this week

 

[Science/G]

Absolutely amazing from build to final product. That reef is magnificent. Vertical Ricordea wall! Love it. I saw a vertical wall of multicolor Ricordea on a snorkel in Jamaica years ago.

 

[Bohemian Waxwing]

Ya this is one of the nicest builds on the site right now. I generally don’t love tanks that have a lot of frags rather than colonies but you’ve got a great mix of variety and growth.

I want to turn my empty 25 lagoon into a little acro SPS focused build and this is one of the inspirations.

 

[LPS_guy]

Few shots from this week

NICE

 

[Miami Reef]

Do you use a UV sterilizer? Activated carbon? Ozone? Coral Snow?

Your water is crisp.

 

[DanyL]

Do you use a UV sterilizer? Activated carbon? Ozone? Coral Snow?

Your water is crisp.

Thank you :)

Honestly it’s mostly just a roller mat, activated carbon and a great water turbulence.

I do use Calcium Carbonate as a flocculent from time to time, but very rarely.

The red/purple light you see coming out of the sump is an improvised Upflow algae scrubber I added recently (~4 months or so), though I haven’t noticed any change in water clarity since then (but it also wasn’t the goal with it either).

 

[Miami Reef]

Thank you! My system uses very similar filtration methods.

How do you manage the coralline algae? Mine keeps growing back so fast. Your tank looks spotless.

 

[DanyL]

Coralline in this tank is actually an interesting story, because it doesn’t behave the same as in a normal display tank.

Since this is a frag tank, every few months corals get replaced with new frags - meaning I take some out, and in the following weeks make new frags to replace them from my main system and fill the new space back in.

Now given that it is fully packed most of the time, the Coralline on the rocks is growing mostly in between the coral bases, when moving, rearranging or replacing frags - it looks very similar to a tanned skin where you can see the tan lines.

After rearrangement, some of the old coralline algae dies off because there are new coral bases on top of it, while the new bare areas that were exposed are then beginning their normal lifecycle - first nuisance algae appears, and than over 2-3 months I see the coralline slowly taking over and coming back.

Coralline also tries to take over the bottom, back and overflow sides - but I scrape them regularly using a magnet (I take the magnet in my hand and use it as a manual scraper to reach the areas where I can’t use it normally) - usually I do this every 2 to 4 weeks, and I often see small specks of Coralline showing up, which I then remove to prevent it from growing.

If I leave my frag racks and pumps for too long without cleaning, they too will grow Coralline on it - which I try to avoid by cleaning them once a month, because once it takes foot I need to use citric acid to remove it and it makes the process unnecessary longer.