Finally - Reef tank started after 6 years

Abhishek · Dec 5, 2016

Hi friends,

Well it has 6 years since I owned a small nano 20 gallon reef tank back in India. Then moved over to the States , new job , got married and almost forgot I had a hobby or rather a passion called "Reefing" for 6 years until May 2016 when I luckily came across reef2reef .. It sparkled my passion for reefing again !!
Made wife agree by showing some of the great , amazing tanks here promising that someday I can have something remotely close to one of the great sps reef tanks . Can't believe she fell for it

..

So here we are - after collecting equipments for 6 - 8 months :-

Tank - 30 in x 30 in x 18 in undrilled with Lifereef overflow (Found the back glass to be tempered after buying it

)
Sump - 20 in x 20 in x 12 in acrylic cube sump with self built baffles of acrylic
Skimmer - Deltec SC1350
Bio Filteration - 2 liters of Siporax + 2 liters of Seachem Matrix + Brightwell aquatics dimpled bio block
Reactors - 1 Bahsea reactor filled with siporax and matrix + 1 MRC reactor for Aquaforest Carbon .. will later add phosminus and zeomix if needed.
Return pump - Jebao DCP 6500 pump . The pump is so quiet I could hardly hear it.
Wavemaker - 1 gyre xf 130 + 2 Tunze 6055 on 7095 controller + 1 inch seaswirl (Love it !!!)
Auto top off - Tunze 3155
Rocks - Reefcleaners dry rocks
Sand - Tropic Eden Mini and Reef Flakes (Amazing sand !!! Wayyyy better than Caribsea since I used it 6 years back )
Doser - GHL doser 1 with self made dosing containers from Menards bottles
Controller - Reef Angel Plus (Loved the Open Source !!!)
Light - Hamilton Cayman sun reflector with Radium 250 run on M80 (The one thing I always had a dream to own - A radium MH run on magnetic ballast)..

Going all Aquaforest . Started with Aquaforest Prodibiotic salt with Bio S for cycling .
As of now, in day 5 of cycling .

Plan to go for full blown sps with mostly montipora species , stylophora, seriatopora and Poccilopora ..
No ACROS planned yet but plan always changes!!!

Time for some crappy pics .. Will definitely try and get better pics ..

Regards,
Abhishek

Abhishek · Dec 5, 2016

Currently in the 5 th day of cycling and experiencing cloudy water. Pretty much sure its bacterial bloom with me not being able to tune the skimmer yet and dosing of Aquaforest Bio S and clear Ammonia ..

What do you guys say ? Let it run its course and continue with lower dosage of Aquaforest Bio S or get a UV sterilizer ?

Regards,
Abhishek

Daniel@R2R · Dec 6, 2016

Looks like you're off to a good start! I like those dosing containers. Very cool!

Shep · Dec 6, 2016

great looking tank, stocking plans?

Abhishek · Dec 6, 2016

mdbannister said:
Looks like you're off to a good start! I like those dosing containers. Very cool!

Thanks for the reply .. the spring containers are just 2$ on sale from Menards .. made them fancy with John guest fittings lying around ..

Shep said:
great looking tank, stocking plans?

Stocking plans - Randall's anthias and may be a pair of hawks and a kole/yellow tang ..
All sps with seriatopora ,stylophora ,montipora and poccilopora ..
NO ACROS or that's what I keep telling myself anyways

Regards,
ABHISHEK

Abhishek · Dec 14, 2016

I picked up a PAR meter on rent to test my 5 month old Radium on M 80 ballast.
Its a single hamilton Bali Sun fixture over the 30 in x 30 in tank. Ofcourse I know its not gonna cover the entire footprint but still wanted to see the PAR distribution.
I will be keeping the sps only on rocks in the middle section of the tank .

The readings varied from 300 on the top of the highest rock on the left side to 130-150 on the bottom rocks ..
Do you guys feel its not enough PAR to start with ? Or should I consider new radium bulbs or change the reflector ?

Regards,
Abhishek

Abhishek · Dec 23, 2016

So the Hamilton fixture with a single radium bulb was not giving enough PAR and nice coverage for 30in x30 in tank . Had a friend selling his double halides and jumped on them .
So now it may be wayyy overkill for some but the coverage is amazing from 550+ PAR at the top of the biggest rock to 200+ on the sand bed ..

2 250 watt radium running on sunlight blue wave magnetic ballast inside lumenarc reflectors ...
It's "MH ****"

Regards,
ABHISHEK

Rob.D · Dec 23, 2016

Nice, looks like it's cleared up a lot. Following along!

Abhishek · Dec 23, 2016

Rob.D said:
Nice, looks like it's cleared up a lot. Following along!

Yeah it was bacterial bloom .. ran carbon , changes socks everyday for a couple of days and 15 gallons water change at the end of cycling ..

All cloudiness gone !!!

Now waiting for a tester pack to arrive from Adam @Battlecorals ..

Amazing person to simply talk .. if anyone haven't dealt with Adam ,try once and see ..the experience is priceless ..

Regards,
ABHISHEK

Denali08 · Dec 23, 2016

Par isn't an issue now.

Abhishek · Dec 30, 2016

This is what Christmas looks like at my house ..

Aquaforest balling salts , carbon , Reef mineral salts , trace elements ,
Amino acids , BRS Reef chili , LRS food , V2O zooplankton and phytoplankton ,NLS Thera A and NLS nutri cell for sps and Coral Frenzy ....

All set for my dream wrasses ,anthias and of course sps !!!!

Regards,
Abhishek

lifesbetterunderwater · Dec 30, 2016

Hi Abhishek,

Exciting times ahead! Can't wait to see it being filled up with corals. People usually are going for led lighting these days or the tried and tested T5s but you went straight back to MHs. I am sure the colors are going to be awesome. Following this for sure.

Riz.

Abhishek · Dec 30, 2016

lifesbetterunderwater said:
Hi Abhishek,

Exciting times ahead! Can't wait to see it being filled up with corals. People usually are going for led lighting these days or the tried and tested T5s but you went straight back to MHs. I am sure the colors are going to be awesome. Following this for sure.

Riz.

Thanks Riz !!! Well I was in 2 mind to try leds and T5s but the cost for leds to cover every inch of my 30 x 30 tank was too much for me to cover ..
And I was lucky to show my wife side by side comparison with Radion G4 lit tank and a radium lit tank .. She immediately said - "If we do sps , its got to be the God's beams from MH " ..

There it was !!!! Heat isn't an issue in Minnesota . Infact the 2 250 watt halides switch my heaters off for the 4 hour period and still maintains tank temp at 77.6 ..
And the color from Radium without any supplement ran on a magnetic ballast .. Its PRICELESS !!!

Regards,
Abhishek

Abhishek · Jan 7, 2017

Well wanted to test out how the water is and hence got a tester pack from Adam ..

BC Secale, Goldilocks , PC Rainbow , Forest Fire digitata , grape juice and neon green Birdsnest .
The Goldilocks came in pretty beaten up and I was hoping it would make it fine.
But today morning woke up to finding it RTNing .. I used a turkey baster and could see the tissue coming off .
So I fragged it to save the last bit of it . Am sure the RTN is because I have wayy too low ALK at around 6.5 with calcium high as 575 and Mg at 1600.
Slowly brining ALK and will get to 7.5 over a week.

Anyways here is whats left of the Goldilocks :-

Abhishek · Jan 8, 2017

Well the Goldilocks was a toast .

But the rest are doing good . From left PC Rainbow , Grape Juice and BC Secale

And here's the forest fire digitata - still orange .. hope it gets red once it settles

Let me know what you guys think ..

Regards,
Abhishek

Abhishek · Jan 26, 2017

Well tank has been coming along good. Haven't had a chance to take a FTS but things are moving slowly.
Had an alkalinity spike which caused one of the wild frags to start STN. But quickly brought it back and things looking better now.

Here's a few teasers of feeding time with NLS Nutricell

PC Rainbow :-

BC Secale :-

Grape Juice :-

Wild Tortusa which was STNing badly when I got it . Now its slowly healing :-

Got wayyy more but need to spend time to photoshoot .

Regards,
Abhishek

Maritimer · Jan 27, 2017

Pretty sharp aquascaping, and very promising corals!

What was that you were saying about acros?! (~_^)

~Bruce

Abhishek · Jan 27, 2017

Maritimer said:
Pretty sharp aquascaping, and very promising corals!

What was that you were saying about acros?! (~_^)

~Bruce

Thanks for the reply and feedback .
Well the idea was to have a sps tank without acros but I made the mistake of buying the tester pack from Adam in @Battlecorals

You can't say no to acros once you have some from Adam

Regards,
Abhishek

Chrisfish · Jan 27, 2017

Welcome back to the addiction,looks like your off to a good start.

Maritimer · Jan 27, 2017

Abhishek said:
Thanks for the reply and feedback .
Well the idea was to have a sps tank without acros but I made the mistake of buying the tester pack from Adam in @Battlecorals

You can't say no to acros once you have some from Adam

Regards,
Abhishek