FarmerTy's 215-gallon SPS Tank

[FarmerTy]

Some pics I took for fun last night.

That RCA Baton Rouge Tort is coloring up nicely!

Can anybody spot the ice fire echinata? [emoji12]

No idea what this is but the subtle colors are mesmerizing to me.

What better backdrop than a Colorado Sunburst anemone behind a Pearlberry colony?

You got me. It's just pretty.

FarmerTy Ectoplasm

 

[hotnickz07]

Omg man your tank is so freaking nice. Im so envious. No way mine will get like that. The reef gods just dont like me lol

 

[FarmerTy]

Omg man your tank is so freaking nice. Im so envious. No way mine will get like that. The reef gods just dont like me lol

The reef gods didn't like me for a long time when I first started. Just keep at it and keep learning! Thanks for the compliment. [emoji106]

 

[Tahoe61]

Sigh Ectoplasm, dang.

 

[FarmerTy]

Sigh Ectoplasm, dang.

Yeah, I'm in love with that one. Seems like something out of the Abyss or something. [emoji33]

 

[FarmerTy]

Video I shot the other day showing all my fish.

 

[FarmerTy]

So just to catch everyone up since its been a bit since I last posted.

I decided since my acro collection was finalized, I would do one last grand dip for all acros before gluing them to their final spots.

My plan was to dip 3 times in 3 weeks with 3 different dips of interceptor, Bayer, and potassium.

Step 1, dislodge all corals from rock and prep them for easy dipping. Put small frags on plugs so they don't roll around and burn each other.

Step 2, let the dipping begin!

Dip 1
Bayer dip - pour until its milky white in container of tankwater (never been able to overdose it), leave for 10 mins, then shake each coral really hard in solution to dislodge any pests. Use gloves!

Dip 2
Interceptor dip - 1/2 tablet (exact dosage not important for dip, can be up to 100x recommended dose with ill effect). Crush up tablet, combine with hot RO/DI water to mix and dissolve thoroughly, then add to tankwater in container. Dip acros for 30-60 mins.

Dip 3
Potassium dip - 2 teaspoons of KCl (potassium chloride... Can be found as water softener pellets at Home Depot) per gallon of water. Will raise solution roughly 1200 ppm of Potassium to a total of 1600 ppm (most teef tanks are at 400 ppm already), causing flatworms to fly off coral and all animals to die. Dip for 30 mins. This one is the harshest dip out of the 3 as the other two hardly even bother the acros.

 

[FarmerTy]

 

[FarmerTy]

The good:
Everything made it through the dip just fine.

The bad:
It took me 4hrs to complete and I used 28 gals of freshly made saltwater, 1/2 a tablet of interceptor, 24 teaspoons of KCl, and about 1/6 a bottle of Bayer insecticide... Not to mention 5 pairs of nitrile gloves.

The ugly:
I had one casualty...

RIP my little grabber. [emoji30]

I later combined the interceptor and potassium dip to save time/money.

 

[FarmerTy]

The only thing I saw of note were some white pods on about 3-5 select colonies. They didn't seem to be affecting polyp extension or attacking the corals but it was interesting to observe. They all got nuked in the dip either way.

I moved all my acros by the 2nd week and relocated them to a tub that was setup inline to my DT with a giant UV on the return port to kill anything going back to the DT. Kind of a QT but taking advantage of the stability of my main tank.

Here they all are, living happily in the tub. I plan to leave them there for 1.5 months just to starve out anything in the main DT.

 

[FarmerTy]

I actually just finished the last of the 3 dips yesterday and decided that since they'll be all sitting there for the next month in the easily accessible tub, that I was going to at least continue to dip them in a combined interceptor/potassium dip weekly. Why not I say?

 

[FarmerTy]

Now, on an entirely different note, I'm a big employer of ich management. I know it's in my system, I just keep my fish healthy and happy and run a giant UV to keep the full scale tank outbreaks to a minimum. It has worked for me for many years now with me seeing only an occasional spot once in a blue moon.

That was until I decided to add an acantharus tang, the powder blue. Ich purveyor of the world! Once he was added to the system, he bogged down with ich so fast (not even was picked on in the tank!) and promptly allowed the ich population to explode in my tank and caused an epidemic. Needless to say, I realized if I was going to keep a powder blue or even an achilles, it'd have to be in an ich free system.

I made the decision to run fallow for 76 days and to treat my fish with the tank transfer method (TTM) during this time.

The most interesting observation was that the powder blue actually lived in my sump for 3 months without a spot of ich. Once he was moved to the DT with the rest of the fish was when he was exposed to enough ich parasites to overwhelm him and then also pass it along to all his new friends.

 

[FarmerTy]

It took me less than 2 hours to grab out all the fish, except for the leopard wrasse. She took me an extra day since she darted off in the sand somewhere and never seen again that day.

I actually just finished my second transfer yesterday and just have 2 more to go. After that, I'll leave them in that tub for the remainder of the 76 day fallow period and then reintroduce them to the tank at that time.

Here's my acro-less and fishless system.

This is what I'm asking for for Christmas... my old tank back! [emoji4]

 

[reefwiser]

Man you are having to thru a lot on the tank. I think coral QT tank is as important due to how hard it is to treat a whole tank of SPS once flat worms are introduced. It is easier to do them one at a time thru a Coral QT tank system.

 

[FarmerTy]

Man you are having to thru a lot on the tank. I think coral QT tank is as important due to how hard it is to treat a whole tank of SPS once flat worms are introduced. It is easier to do them one at a time thru a Coral QT tank system.

Agreed! I know I've been lax on actually QT'ing and I've always just dipped, examined for AEFW eggs, and then placed in the tank.

Once I reached critical mass of livestock and corals and realized how much money I had in them, it was a no-brainer to make the decision to go ahead and prophylactically dip all acros before gluing them down permanently. All fish and corals will have to go through at least one month QT from this point on. The borders have been closed on my tank and all fish and coral with have to go through a long immigration process before being allowed in!

 

[FarmerTy]

In all honesty, I could have left the tank alone and everything would have been fine. The acros were all healthy and happy but I just wanted to make sure. The fish had an ich breakout but removing the powder blue would have probably allowed them to recover and I'd just go back running with an ich managed system and not keep a powder blue.

I think in the end, it'll be worth all the work though and implementing a strict QT from this point was something that needed to happen anyways.

 

[Sahin]

Awesome tank. Can't wait to see the corals back in the tank. I have a few questions, hope you don't mind.

What is the filtration on the tank?
What do you feed the corals and fish?
With the LEDs do you find the sps have less colour from the front?

Thanks and look forward to more photos.

 

[FarmerTy]

Awesome tank. Can't wait to see the corals back in the tank. I have a few questions, hope you don't mind.

What is the filtration on the tank?
What do you feed the corals and fish?
With the LEDs do you find the sps have less colour from the front?

Thanks and look forward to more photos.

Thank you sir! I'm looking forward to that day too!

To answer your questions:

Filtration:
-Reef Octopus 5000 skimmer
-GFO
-biopellets
-carbon

Food:
-tons of mysis, LRS, live blackworms, NLS pellets, nori, and flakes (I feed a ton!)
-I occasionally put in oyster eggs or some other type of micro food such as coral frenzy 1-2x week
-aminos 2x/week

Lights:
Ocean Revive T247s
-I do find that my tank being 24" deep is a little too much to ask the fixtures to light the front of my corals so I was planning to put a T5s up front but then found a cheap 14k LED fixture so I put that there instead. Sadly, I found the fixture after I took my acros out so the true test of lighting up the fronts will have to wait until my acros return next month.

 

[sawdonkey]

Very nice tank! You and I have pretty similar systems. Regarding the T247s and being dark up front, I found a pretty easy solution to this. I run four T247s, but I rotated them so they cover 16 inches rather than 10. It's also nice because the light controls face you when looking at the tank and makes them easy to adjust. I used to run black boxes the long way, and by changing to the ORs oriented sideways improved my coverage in a huge way.

Good luck with the acros in QT.

 

[FarmerTy]

Very nice tank! You and I have pretty similar systems. Regarding the T247s and being dark up front, I found a pretty easy solution to this. I run four T247s, but I rotated them so they cover 16 inches rather than 10. It's also nice because the light controls face you when looking at the tank and makes them easy to adjust. I used to run black boxes the long way, and by changing to the ORs oriented sideways improved my coverage in a huge way.

Good luck with the acros in QT.

Thanks Sawdonkey. That was my first idea was to turn them... then I wanted T5s because I was afraid of an all LED system and thought keeping some T5s would be ideal. Then I ran across a 48" reefbrite strip with whites and blues super cheap so I got lazy and just grabbed that instead of having to retrofit a T5 setup. I only need it to be a supplemental light anyways and just needed something to light the fronts of my acros and this fit the bill and made me do the least work. Lazy reefing... I'm a subscriber to that method.