DJ's Mixed Reef - bacteria driven system

[Donovan Joannes]

Hello fellow reefers!.

I'm from Sabah, Malaysia. I have been keeping saltwater for more than 3 years. The first 1.5 years was tough with all the new tank ugliness and fish diseases worth nothing to mentioned here. When the tank was stabilized, my next problems was getting nutrients under control. I have tried so many method with no luck (possibly my own fault) until I designed my own denitrator. Since then, I have been able to keep acroporas without any major issues since last year. As for now, I have more than 60 SPS's in my 75G tank, the oldest is 10 months and the latest addition are two "near death" sticks for free. Enough about my tank, here are some details...

 

[Donovan Joannes]

Equipment:

Standard 48" x 18" x 19" (75G) - used
1 x Jebao return pump
1 x Jebao RW8 wavemaker
1 x Jebao RW4 wavemaker
1 x DIY denitrator (bacteria driven)
1 x 270W full spectrum DIY LED light
1 x DIY Arduino light controller
1 x RESUN 450 chiller
1 x 10G sump (Max level at 5G mark)
3-stage DIY RODI filter (for top up only)
Big 3 element DIY dosing (IV drip method)

Inhabitants:

More than 60 species of SPS
Montiporas
Brain corals
Local zoas
Bubble coral
Plate corals
Christmas tree worms
Favites corals
Hammer corals
Chalices corals
Golden clove coral
Green star polyp
Sun coral
Donought corals
Red Micromussa (Acan Lord)
Pink Kenya tree
Devil finger coral
Green cap pink polyp toadstool coral
Galaxea (tooth) corals
Green & Purple Gonioporas
Candy coral
Various mushrooms
1 x brown saddleback clownfish
1 x pink anthias
1 x mandarin fish
1 x lawnmower blenny
1 x yellow tail blenny
1 x blue hippo tang
1 x dragon wrasse
Turbo snails, various other snails
Cowrie tiger snails (sump cleaner)
Hermit crabs
Blue tuxedo urchin
Longspine urchin
2 x starfishes

Parameters:

27.5 degree celcius water temperature
7.8 - 8.2 PH
420ppm calcium / 8dkh (kalk)
1350ppm magnesium (magnesium sulfate/chloride)
400ppm potassium (potassium chloride)
1ppm - 5ppm nitrate (API/NYOS)
Less than 0.1ppm phosphate (API/sera)
1.026 salinity (ATC refractometer)

Supplement:

AF amino
AF energy
Iodide/trace elements/strontium/iron

Foods:

Mysis/copepods/artic shrimp/bloodworm (once a week/alternate)
Hikari pellets (2 times daily)
Fresh shrimp/fish meat (urchins, acropora crabs & hermits)
Goniopora powder (once a week - broadcast)

 

[Donovan Joannes]

My tiny sump, the white thingy is my home made denitrator. I used to run a skimmer (cheap china made but performing quite good) but now I replaced the skimmer with an air pump as an aerator (5 hours daily from midnight).

 

[Donovan Joannes]

A few pictures of my rockscape. They are all fresh live rocks from south china sea. I have a few hitchhiked corals all over the rocks but so far no "home wrecker" or other premium corals. As a room divider, tank is viewable from my dining and family room, double the amount of glass to clean too...

 

[Donovan Joannes]

Some of my LPS... mostly collected during low tide, some are rescued from LFS. They are not so hot looking, waiting patiently at LFS to die slowly.

 

[Donovan Joannes]

NPS and gonioporas... The purple eyed was a tiny little guy I found covered with sand. He is now a happy man in my tank.

 

[Donovan Joannes]

Tube worms and feather dusters are everywhere. Green, white, red, black & purple tube worms helps filtering. Christmas Tree are growing nicely.

 

[Donovan Joannes]

Encrusting and plating stony corals. No name, no problem. Just enjoy watching them growing. Some might not fit the criteria. Oh well...

 

[Donovan Joannes]

A little bit of softies I had as my first corals. These are the second generation of those I didn't manage to kill when I first started.

 

[Donovan Joannes]

South china sea zoas. These are commonly found at medium depth coastal area. There might be hundreds of species scattered around but finding one is very difficult. If you have a foxface or similar species, keep an eye on it as they are more likely to "snack" on zoas for no apparent reason.

 

[Donovan Joannes]

Clean up crews. You need quite a number of these "janitors". Hermit crabs loves to kill some snails, fortunately I can replace those "KIA" anytime as they are readily available in the wild.

 

[Donovan Joannes]

And finally... the SMALL POLYPS STONIES aka SPS, the crown jewels of any reef tank. I waited patiently for two years, trying very hard to keep nutrients at SPS's friendly level. At one time, I almost call it a quit when GHA was waving at me for few months. I won the battle thanks to my microscopic friends.

Please bear with me, 95% of my SPSes are wild collected specimen (frag size of course), commonly found at tidal line whilst some are bought at LFS. Not as colorful, hopefully you won't get bored looking at these sticks...

 

[Donovan Joannes]

A bit more...

 

[Donovan Joannes]

Another ten "no name" sticks. My friend called them "ugly"

 

[Donovan Joannes]

A few more. It should be nicer from top view...

 

[Donovan Joannes]

Last but not least...

 

[Donovan Joannes]

Forgot to add my mushrooms... they all start from a single head. I'm not sure how many species I have, but I think I have more than 5 different species with varying colors. I will try to get some decent pictures soon for the other shrooms not listed here...

 

[Donovan Joannes]

Out of nowhere coral growth. Possibly hitch hiker but I discovered at least 5 new gonioporas colony at my highest rock and 2 pociloporas at my zoas garden...

 

[Donovan Joannes]

Plate corals. Initially I couldn't keep a specimen for more than a month. They all melted for no apparent reason. Could be due to bacterial infection. I have two at the sandbed at this moment.

 

[Jberge]

That's a really nice tank! I think it's awesome how you can go out to the ocean and pick whatever you want. I'm definitely jealous!