First Marine Aquarium (75G Display w 29gallon sump)

[Court_Appointed_Hypeman]

Build: 75G display 48" hard plumbed to a sump made from a 29g. With the ugliest silicone job anyone has ever seen that functions.

I have some unbranded return pump at 2.4k liters.
Reef octopus 110int skimmer
A cheap amazon filter sock holder
An aquabiomocs media brick
Ocean direct carib sea sand
Media bag of charcoal
Refugium with chaeto that is evidently working since my ph drops consistantly, if barely, when the sump light is one
A $20 amazon grow light in the sump
BRS 300W titanium heater in sump
Marineland 300w heater in overflow
Temperature probes in overflow and refugium
Ph probe in refugium

2 jabao pumps, 1 powerhead and one gyre style
Plenty of liverock that was dark cured in sump and display

Hard plumbed the overflow into sump and installed a ball valve

Hydros XP8, x2, and x3 and a wifi power strip

Finally a 12 year old T5 ficture with 4 fancy coral bulbs, which are so bright i only have 2 on for viewing.

I also have a 6 PC bulb 2 channel light, but it looked like they fell out of style so hard that i can't find bulbs so its in storage.

I have the master bundle for test kits for when i actually start the reef up.


This is my first marine tank. Set up 2 weeks ago, finally verified cycle was completed, for a while, 2 days ago but was getting false ammonia positives.

My wife mostly designed the aquascape, whichI absolutely love. I was worried after setting it up that the fish would feel too exposed, but 1 day in and the clowns (who of course hosted the overflow) are exploring all of the rock work. I gave 2 mysis shrimp and they almost ate it but left it alone, not to my sirpsise.

Sump pics to follow shortly

Short Video. 1st Tank

 

[Court_Appointed_Hypeman]

Did 10 1/2 inch height, would have done higher but i miss calculated back siphon vollume. The fuge is 6.8 Gallons

I accidently made the controll board too big to pull out but everything is drip looped

 

[BlingityBling]

Tank looks good! Aquascape is really nice!

 

[Court_Appointed_Hypeman]

Update:

The 2 clowns are doing great, they feed like sharks and roam most of the tank when not hosting the iverflow.

I've added:
2 astrea snails
1 Hermit
1 Coral banded shrimp
1 huge Trochus
1 Turno Snail

Chaeto is finally getting a little bigger after getting denser and denser since its addition.

Diatom bloom starting the last 3 days but it diappears every morning.

You can actually see the 5 minute window i turn off the sump light when the ph starts to drop off from photo synthesis haulting.

PH baseline climbing from diatoms.
Pods seem to be reproducing.

have been dosing 1ML of Chaeto grow every other day.

things going good so far, just worked up to 12 on display, 12 on sump today.

 

[Court_Appointed_Hypeman]

Haven't updated in a while, plan to put up the story tonight, in the meantime I gotta get me that hannah contest entry


Hydros:
Temp 78.2
PH 8.02

Hannah
NO3: 1
Phosphate: 0.1
Alk: 11.2

Redsea
Calc: 410

Aquafirest
Mag: 1370

 

[Court_Appointed_Hypeman]

Have been leaving my algae to do what it will without manual removal, has been slowly receding on its own. The coral are growing waay faster than I thought they would.

Currently using ATO with 98% saturationg of kalkwasser, and dosing 20ml calc and alk, with 12ml of trace A and K from Tropic Marin added to 1500ml resivours of each the soda ash and calcium chloride. This along with 40ml balling part C, and 3ml Plus NP. My parameters are super stable. Have not done water changes in months due to dino break out and have decided to just continue not doing them due to how well everything is going and having to dose phos and nitrates to keep them up over 0.

 

[Court_Appointed_Hypeman]

I haven't updated in a while, mostly becaye it was a pain to find my thread having only just now realized I had to manually link it to my profile.

I wanted to come here to post some questions and didn't want to clutter the forums with something that probably isn't much of a contribution to ideas and is mostly a just for me.


1 Having been in a fight with dinos the last 7 months, I am switching up my strategy. I recently identified the dinos as ostreopsis, refreshed my UV, and started manual removal and dosing bacteria. My last fight with dinos ended when I added a 5lb chunk of ocean rock that was in a fish only system for a half year prior. So I suspected since my chaeto melted, the nutrients were there and I still had the diversity so I thought this would go away on its own... it has not. I ordered the Dr tims dino treatment kit, or waste away and refresh, and his system entails a 3 day blackout and aggressive dosing. However I would like to be a little lite on the dosage and skip the blackout, my corals are happy and (well everything except the 100s of kenya trees I have pulling the only coral affected by the dinos) I would like to keep them on their light cycle. Is this a good idea?

2. I have recently learned the hannah salinity temp stick isn't that great, so I recalibrate it, and checked against a hydrometer I won from BRS recently, to find out hannah reads 33ppt and the tm hydrometer reads 1.0257. I should trust the hydrometer right? And is it okay to measure in tank flow off? I have a graduated cylinder coming Sunday, but figured I would ask.

3. I have 4 chromis blue, 2 ocelaris clowns, 1 firefish, 1 engineer goby, and a mandarin in my display. I have a bristletooth tang, a halichorus wrasse (green) and algae blenny in my QT who finished copper in February, but didn't want to move them into a tank with dinos. After I move these 3 fish, I was kind of thinking of adding the small fox face with a spot, or one more colorful fish or 2 that is small. Should I stop at what I have in QT?

4 I am going to turn my QT once I am done with fish into a rock and invert only system so I can order ocean rock and any inverts/coral I want and do a full 70-80 days QT from now on. As currently, supposedly I have QTd 100% all rock and fish, except my mandarin, and a cleaner shrimp. Is this a good idea? Copper reads 0 the system has sand and rock that grow algae already. Is it safe that copper was in this system, the rocks have been through it a couple times, and all I did to remove it was seachem's product (I forget the name off the top of my head) or should I rip the system down and restart it?

Thanks for any of yall's input, I plan to update this more regularly and show everything my tank goes through, the good and the bad. At least for the people that click my profile.