Diving The World's 80g Acro Wonderland!

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DivingTheWorld

DivingTheWorld

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So the first year I started this sps tank I was collecting all kinds of very easy sps, birdsnest, montis, stylos, etc. I placed montis in several sections around my tank hoping they would grow out and cover my rock work. Well...they did. So the time has come for me to remove yet another of my encrusting montis, a really nice Sunset Monti. The color is really hard to capture in a picture. It's super deep orange with bright green polyps. Anyways, it was finally closing in on my "The Vinh" colony and while I think the Vinh would have won, I just didn't want to gamble. I could trim it back some, but it would eventually grow out again and be a problem so I'm removing it entirely, a few inches a week. Here's where I'm at after the second week of removal. I do the removal right before my water change so I can just suck out the remnants. It's sad to see it go, but looking forward to an acro or two taking its place!

Can an encrusting monti be removed from Pukani rock? Yes, if you have the will!

28.JPG
 
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DivingTheWorld

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I was reading another thread today where some (haters, cough cough ;)) folks were badmouthing rimless tanks. I was looking down into my tank this afternoon and I really am thankful I went rimless with this one. The trend was still a little new when I ordered my tank and I was originally planning to go euro brace. Looking down into a rimless tank is like looking into a tidepool at the ocean. It's a view that has sent my heart racing since I was a little kid.

29.JPG
 

Geebs19

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I was reading another thread today where some (haters, cough cough ;)) folks were badmouthing rimless tanks. I was looking down into my tank this afternoon and I really am thankful I went rimless with this one. The trend was still a little new when I ordered my tank and I was originally planning to go euro brace. Looking down into a rimless tank is like looking into a tidepool at the ocean. It's a view that has sent my heart racing since I was a little kid.

29.JPG

Great looking tank! I love the look of rimless!
 

lbacha

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I was reading another thread today where some (haters, cough cough ;)) folks were badmouthing rimless tanks. I was looking down into my tank this afternoon and I really am thankful I went rimless with this one. The trend was still a little new when I ordered my tank and I was originally planning to go euro brace. Looking down into a rimless tank is like looking into a tidepool at the ocean. It's a view that has sent my heart racing since I was a little kid.

29.JPG

I completely agree the top down view is the best view of a reef tank. I’ve been hooked on that view since The cover of Julian sprungs first book.

2d223dc312a476c9b59b344386143518.jpg
 
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DivingTheWorld

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It definitely looks cool in "for fun" photos like this, but the corals look so different than reality. A glaring example would be my WD in the bottom center of the second photo. It's green and blue under normal lighting, yet yellow and blue and a little pink under Reef Brites. I can tell you I will never display a picture of a coral I'm selling under Reef Brite/Blue lighting!
 

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Did u start out with all dry rock? How long did u wait before sps was introduced? And that’s some impressive coralline algae on the bottom!!
 
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Clearly I've got a bit lazy with this build thread! I'll see about taking some more pics tonight of the tank, but I'll leave you with this update:

Last Black Friday (I buy most of my years supplies on BF!) I picked up a CO2 Scrubber from BRS, inspired by bubbaque. If for some reason you haven't found his thread yet, you're missing out:

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/bubbas-sps-journey.353245/

Anyways, my reason for setting one up is that my pH was dropping significantly due to the house being all closed up. Yes we get a bit of rain here in Cali and it causes us to close the windows. ;) My pH that was running around 8.1 for most of the summer, but now was dropping down below 7.65 at night. I honestly believe it was not only slowing down my growth, but not making my acros happy. I thought about drilling a hole in the side of my house and running a line outside but I was too nervous about what might be in the air out there that I felt a scrubber was a safer option.

So I hooked up my scubber the same way bubba did. I ran a hose from my skimmer collection cup to the input of the scrubber, then the output line to the input of my skimmer silencer/airline.

If you decide to try this, a word of caution. Check your Alk/Cal daily for at least the first couple weeks! I kid you not, my Alk/Cal consumption doubled and it took a couple weeks to level out and get stable again. My pH hits highs of 8.4 now and doesn't get below 8.1 at night. Here's a couple comparison charts for you from my Apex:

Pre-Scrubber:

Pre Scrubber pH.png


Post-Scrubber:

Post Scrubber pH.png


So how did my tank respond? I'll sum it up with one of my difficult corals in particular. I had a nice chunky frag of Battlecorals Snipers Blue that started to encrust when I first got it, then sort of browned out and did nothing for months...and months. Since raising my pH, it colored up nicely and is not only encrusting, but noticeably growing. All of my acros have increased growth and I can notice growth in days now vs weeks/months before.

So I would guess your first question would be, how long does the media last? Good question and the one I was most concerned with before hooking it up. Since my last media change, I've been running about a month and I would say my media is about half used. If you have a bigger tank or are concerned with running out of media and having your pH drop, you can daisy chain two scrubbers together like bubba did.
 
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Did u start out with all dry rock? How long did u wait before sps was introduced? And that’s some impressive coralline algae on the bottom!!
I did start with all dry rock. After having reef tanks before, I wanted to start this one with as few pests as possible. I went with 100% Pukani rock and cycled it in tubs with Lanthanum Chloride for a month or two before starting the tank to make sure it didn't have any Phosphates. Since this was my first acro tank, I started introducing them at around 3 months and between then and about 13 months I killed A LOT! After about 13 months my tank leveled out and acros started surviving.
 

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I had the same issues when it came to growth. I could never get consistent growth with all my acros. When I finally raised my ph above 8 all that changed. I noticed my corals seemed much healthier and growth in all the corals that never seemed to budge.

Awesome tank btw! I’ll be following along
 
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