Downsize on the Prairies

[Ryan Doolittle]

This build thread is off to a terrible start. Nearly completed is about the time my phone took a 4 story tumble and the screen is toast. Alot of the photos and videos are on that old phone.

This tank is a downsize from a 150 gallon that crashed on me for the second time. It took me 2 years of feeding fish and filling the ATO for me to be mentally ready to restart. I started building the current tank from scratch.

I built the stand in my livingroom while my wife was on holidays, the tank was built in my family room along with the sump. When I tore down the 159 gallon I staged the fish in a 150 gallon trough. They were in there for about a month before the last kick in the gut happened. I set the new tank up and went away for the weekend with the idea of when I got home I would add bacteria and slowly start adding the fish. Well that didn't happen, when I got home I had a trough full of dead fish for reasons I have no clue why. So this new tank is literally started from scratch.

However here are the specs.
75 Gallon Aquarium (36" x 24 w x 20)
30 Gallon Sump
Jebao DCP-8000 return
Bubble Magus Curve 7 Skimmer
Orphek Atlantik iCon full-size

Right now the tank runs the Fauna Marin Bolus method. I am currently on the tail end of a dino battle from no nutrients.

Here is one of the early photos of the tank. I will try to update as often as I can remember.

 

[smitten with ocean life]

wow. youve had a rough time of it. looking good now! hope the worst is behind you!

 

[Ryan Doolittle]

wow. youve had a rough time of it. looking good now! hope the worst is behind you!

Fingers crossed on this one. I am a little worried with the dry rock start. I would like to find some raw live rock, however it's hard to source in Canada.

The 150 crashed twice over 5 years with brown jelly sort of infection on my acropora. It was terrible and hard to watch your Acro collection RTN over 6 months.

Im hoping by running an established system I can have better luck. I miss the good old days of real live rock!

 

[ReefQuestCorals]

Fingers crossed on this one. I am a little worried with the dry rock start. I would like to find some raw live rock, however it's hard to source in Canada.

The 150 crashed twice over 5 years with brown jelly sort of infection on my acropora. It was terrible and hard to watch your Acro collection RTN over 6 months.

Im hoping by running an established system I can have better luck. I miss the good old days of real live rock!

I used AF Live Source if you are able to get it to assist maturing the tank. Its great stuff if you are able to use it.

Also Cipro and Coral Infection Elimination keep on hand for bacteria issues if your able to source that as well!

I hope of the best on the new system! Sucks to hear others go through back to back rough times, If your only using dry rock I would increase the amount (even if in sump) unless your planning a lite bio load. What you currently have in the tank doesnt look like much.

 

[Ryan Doolittle]

I used AF Live Source if you are able to get it to assist maturing the tank. Its great stuff if you are able to use it.

Also Cipro and Coral Infection Elimination keep on hand for bacteria issues if your able to source that as well!

I hope of the best on the new system! Sucks to hear others go through back to back rough times, If your only using dry rock I would increase the amount (even if in sump) unless your planning a lite bio load. What you currently have in the tank doesnt look like much.

Right now rock is pretty minimal, I wanted to leave room for some chunks of live rock to fill in the space.

Fish load right now is pretty high for a new tank,
2x Onyx Clowns
3x Dispar Anthias
1x Randall's Assessor
1x Small Pyramid Butterfly
1x Small Purple Tang

Coral load is lowish.
18 Yuma Mushrooms from the old tank. Dough Bounce and these really nice Green with red tenticals. Both of these multiple like crazy.

I will probably leave it as this for a while.

Right now I am having to dose Fauna Marin Elements N and Elements P every day to keep Nitrate and Phosphate Levels. Nitrate sits between 5 and 7ppm, Phosphate is 0.01-0.03ppm I am trying to settle it about 0.05-.1 with nitrate 5-10ppm.

The tank is about 2 months old and yesterday I added the first 3 acropora from a local hobbiest. It was probably too early but let's see what happens.

 

[ReefQuestCorals]

Right now rock is pretty minimal, I wanted to leave room for some chunks of live rock to fill in the space.

Fish load right now is pretty high for a new tank,
2x Onyx Clowns
3x Dispar Anthias
1x Randall's Assessor
1x Small Pyramid Butterfly
1x Small Purple Tang

Coral load is lowish.
18 Yuma Mushrooms from the old tank. Dough Bounce and these really nice Green with red tenticals. Both of these multiple like crazy.

I will probably leave it as this for a while.

Right now I am having to dose Fauna Marin Elements N and Elements P every day to keep Nitrate and Phosphate Levels. Nitrate sits between 5 and 7ppm, Phosphate is 0.01-0.03ppm I am trying to settle it about 0.05-.1 with nitrate 5-10ppm.

The tank is about 2 months old and yesterday I added the first 3 acropora from a local hobbiest. It was probably too early but let's see what happens.

I run a new tank that started out all dry rock, its very doable if its hard for you to source. I would just suggest using AF Live Source to kick start it, this is my first system using it on and crazy the difference its made vs all the other dry rock tanks iv cycled.

But stock sounds good Im sure you will have success and continue doing well

The nutrient demand is real lol My new system is right over 3 months old and until the last week iv been dosing phosphate and nitrate as well. Finally got the tang gang in there and all that poo really helps. I wouldnt say its to early, check out my build. Im currently sitting on about 18 acros, several torches, chalice, monitpora, etc.. With good growth already starting. So sounds like your on the right track! Dry rock tanks arent that bad if you know how to get them started

 

[Ryan Doolittle]

Orphek Atlantik iCon is the main light source on this tank.

I considered the other brands but I haven't heard good things about the new radios compared to previous versions (they are also crazy expensive) and I wanted more of a blanket of light.

It also helped a local reefer had a stunning SPS dominated tank using the Atlantik V4 fixtures. I was able to source this one for a big savings from a local reefer who had used this fixture for 4 months and decided they wanted something different.

I am running a pretty basic light cycle. Now that there are corals in the tank I will play around with it a little more.

 

[Gumbies R Us]

Orphek Atlantik iCon is the main light source on this tank.

I considered the other brands but I haven't heard good things about the new radios compared to previous versions (they are also crazy expensive) and I wanted more of a blanket of light.

It also helped a local reefer had a stunning SPS dominated tank using the Atlantik V4 fixtures. I was able to source this one for a big savings from a local reefer who had used this fixture for 4 months and decided they wanted something different.

I am running a pretty basic light cycle. Now that there are corals in the tank I will play around with it a little more.

Glad you are enjoying those lights!

 

[Ryan Doolittle]

A little Fauna Marin restock from Big Show Frags.

I was a little nervous shipping salt across Canada, busted buckets seem to happen. But Big Show Frags packaged all the products so they were protected and arrived in one piece.

RIght now the biggest complaint I have with Fauna Marin is the lack of local availability. I live in a city of 120,000 people and there are maybe 20 saltwater tanks, maybe. We don't even have a saltwater shop, so I understand not having it available here. However we live 2 hours south of a city of 1.6 million people with half a dozen saltwater stores and none of them carry it either. So everything I use is order in, which means I am always watching how much product I have, cycling out old product and ordering early.

This pail of salt will be a backup pail and I will run out of mixed Magnesium in about a week.

 

[Ryan Doolittle]

I love it when retailers update when online orders are completed. But love text messaging is even better!
Aqua Integrated double checked the order with me and made sure they had the gender ratios correct for some Anthias I ordered. Now that's top notch service

 

[Ryan Doolittle]

Got out my PAR meter and started playing around to see where the levels were.



I write the measurements on the glass even when taken with different settings and intensities then sit back for a few days and look at it.



Do I like the way it looks?

Adjust & remeasure until I am happy.

 

[Ryan Doolittle]

The first sticks are in. The tank didn't feel right, it felt empty and missing something.
It's not whole or complete, but these 3 acropora are a pretty good start.

 

[Ryan Doolittle]

This thread is dieing for an update.

- I'm up to about 16 pieces of SPS
- Probably 24-30 total pieces of coral.
- I have a rock that kills SPS, don't ask me how but they RTN if placed there.
- I purchased some amazing fish, got them settled in for a month or 6 weeks and some free hermit crabs that were included in an order brought in ich and killed them all. This is purely anecdotal but they were healthy with no illness, went through a 2 week copper treatment and a week after these stupid crabs were added they got ich. That's the excuse I am using to make it right with myself.
- now I am back to fish shopping.
- I beat the dyno cyano algae outbreak using Fauna Marin BacoTherapy and BactoClean.
- SPS took off and starting using Nitrate & Phos. I'm trying to keep up using Fauna Marin Elements P and Elements N. Nitrate I can control but the Phosphate I am up to 1.5ml/day and still 0. Cyano is coming back.
- Purchased an Apex AFS, WXM, and Trident, all preowned. I have the WXM installed and synced with my MP40s. Still trying to figure out how to mount the AFS. I am also thinking I might buy a rebuild kit for the Trident.

In the meantime here is the newest piece I purchased and I am already looking forward to seeing it change as it grows.
The RR Shazam

 

[Ryan Doolittle]

UCA Cherry Blossom showing a strange blue color after a flucanazole treatment.

 

[Ryan Doolittle]

RR Wildfire under blue LED.

 

[Ryan Doolittle]

I added a Princess Peach. There are so many option for red & green table Acros, I honestly though I was going to hold out for the Red Planet. I think every tank I have had since 2010 has had a Red Planet in it at some point.

I kept seeing photos of colony size prices of Princess Peach and they always made me stop to look. Well I may as well add one to see if I like just as much in person.

 

[Gumbies R Us]

I added a Princess Peach. There are so many option for red & green table Acros, I honestly though I was going to hold out for the Red Planet. I think every tank I have had since 2010 has had a Red Planet in it at some point.

I kept seeing photos of colony size prices of Princess Peach and they always made me stop to look. Well I may as well add one to see if I like just as much in person.

Those are some awesome looking acros you added!

 

[Ryan Doolittle]

I added a Princess Peach. There are so many option for red & green table Acros, I honestly though I was going to hold out for the Red Planet. I think every tank I have had since 2010 has had a Red Planet in it at some point.

I kept seeing photos of colony size prices of Princess Peach and they always made me stop to look. Well I may as well add one to see if I like just as much in person.

Those are some awesome looking acros you added!

Thank you.

It is starting to come together.

 

[Ryan Doolittle]

TSA Daydream

 

[Ryan Doolittle]

I have had back luck with Emerald Crabs in this tank. I think out of 4 or 5 I've added, this red is the only one to survive.

I'm not sure how I can get the valonia cleaned up if the Emeralds don't survive.