Goodbye AIO, Hello 38gal Peninsula Upgrade

[Denisk]

A nice clean looking tank! I love it!

Thank you!

 

[Denisk]

“或许你可以试试狐面兔鱼 （ Siganus vulpinus），它对去除气泡藻非常有效。不过，要非常小心，不要弄破气泡藻，因为孢子会在你的水族箱里扩散和繁殖。”

Thank you for the tip! I’m most likely going to try a pihto crab first since inverts are small and don’t have to worry about rehoming another fish as it grows but thank you for the tip!!

 

[Denisk]

2 weeks of updates that have gone on:

Picked up some sps frags and realized my refractometer was out of wack since I always check the salinity of the water from anything incoming into the my tank. Ended up buying some calibration fluid for my refractometer and a Hanna salinity checker as well which honestly is just a must have now that I got my hands on one. We will see how it performs over time.

Also noticed some Dino’s in the tank nothing to bad but just the start. I’ve been here plenty of times so I figured my nutrients were low. As I went and checked my nutrients and lo and behold my nitrates were showing zero and phosphates were .003 So I am currently dosing sodium nitrates and sodium phosphates daily to keep them elevated and on top of all of that, I realized my PH probe needed to be recalibrated and now sitting around a ph of 7.7 at night to 8.04 mid day with the lights at full intensity. Debating on on whether I should do anything about that or just let it be. Tried opening windows yet that didn’t do much. I also have a lot of construction going on so that solution wouldn’t have been ideal regardless.

Current parameters as of today:

Salinity - 1.025
Alk - 7.2
Cal - 420
Mag - 1320
No3 - 7.6
P04 - .06

 

[Denisk]

No idea who released all this white film that’s floating around in the tank but hopefully it’s nothing to worry about. I think it was conch snail since I saw him being terrorized by my Halloween hermit crab. I look away for a few minutes and boom all of that is floating around in the tank… nothing seemed harmed from it but I saw the Halloween hermit crab immediately go the opposite way.

 

[Denisk]

Lots of good things have been going on with the tank from adding new equipment to tons of new frags. But what I’m most excited for is….

 

[MushroomMan101]

Tank is looking great! What made you pick the aquawiz? I just went with the trident as I get a killer deal on a local unit.

 

[X-37B]

Hey everyone!

After 4 years of running my 22 gallon Mr. Aqua sumpless dream build, it’s finally time to bring it down by upgrading the tank and bringing back a sump. Nothing against sumpless systems (they can be beautiful and simple), but I’ve always hated seeing wires, heaters, and equipment inside the display. With that, I decided to upgrade to a 38 gallon Fiji Peninsula something a little bigger, a little cleaner, but still manageable and fun.

A little history:​

I’ve been through a many tanks over the decade with a 40 gallon breeder, 60 gallon cube, a Red Sea 350, a 200 gallon Planet Aquarium (originally designed by Mr. Saltwater Tank), and my most recently a 22 gallon Mr. Aqua. Out of all of them, the smaller tanks have always been the most rewarding. There’s just something about managing a compact system that feels right to me.

The new plan:​

My original idea was to reuse the custom stand I built for the 22 gallon as it’s become a conversation piece whenever people visit (“wait, you built that yourself?” as well as the boss of the home said "the stand isn't going anywhere haha") So I wanted an open concept build with a sump offset to the side with the equipment being visible but organized. Since tanks for this stand were limited and I didn’t want to wait months/years for a custom tank, I landed on a Fiji cube 38 gallon aquarium. I went ahead and drilled it with to be a peninsula tank with the idea of it becoming SPS-dominated. Of course, keeping behind the BTA’s that my clowns have hosted and laid eggs next to it for years.

My approach hasn’t changed: keep it simple, keep it consistent, and let the corals do the talking.

Current Equipment​

• Tank: Fiji 38 gallon drilled (36x15.5x15.5)
• Overflow: Eshopps Prodigy M Slimline
• Sump: Fiji 20 2nd Gen
• Stand: Custom-built by me
• Lighting: 2x Ecotech Radion XR30w G4 Pro (overkill, but love them )
• ATO: None (for now)
• Mechanical Filter: Filter pad cut to size
• Heater: Eheim Jager 125 watt
• Powerheads: 2x Ecotech MP10
• Skimmer: None but may add at some point
• Return Pump: Ecotech Vectra S2
• UV: Aqua Ultraviolet 15w (plumbed into return)
• Controller: Neptune Apex (2016)
• Rock: Reused from old system (originally bought live rock)
• Sand: Aquaforest Bio Sand
• Lid: DIY Mesh Top

Current look:

Love the stand! Very unique.

 

[X-37B]

Decided to clean up some bubble/macro algae from the display.

Nice welcome to the bubble algae club, lol.

 

[X-37B]

Lots of good things have been going on with the tank from adding new equipment to tons of new frags. But what I’m most excited for is….

Nice. Keep us updated on this!

 

[Denisk]

Tank is looking great! What made you pick the aquawiz? I just went with the trident as I get a killer deal on a local unit.

Honestly I was on the fence with the trident but this one doesn't require reagents while monitoring dkh every hour and dosing all for reef with its built in doser. Its probably going to take a while to list all the pros but the con unfortunately is its fairly new with not too many reviews which is the part Im taking a chance on. I did however get to see it in person from a local reefer and he swears by it.

 

[Denisk]

Love the stand! Very unique.

Thank you!

 

[Denisk]

Nice welcome to the bubble algae club, lol.

Yeah thankfully my crabs have been slowly picking at it but I definitely need to get in there manually and help out from time to time haha.

 

[reefpanda]

Very nice looking setup, great job

 

[Denisk]

Nice. Keep us updated on this!

Will do

 

[MushroomMan101]

Any tank updates?

 

[Denisk]

Sorry for the lighter posting lately. Early SPS tanks are a little funny because sometimes you’re like… what do I even post when everything is just behaving? Frags are frags at the beginning.

Current tank updates:​

Overall, everything is cruising really well. I am still dosing nitrates and phosphates to keep them elevated after a brief dino scare, but that got resolved pretty quickly. Now I’m mostly just curious if the system will balance out enough that I don’t have to dose N & P daily. For now though, I’m keeping them intentionally on the higher side and the tank seems happy.

A few changes have happened along the way with some removals, some additions:

• The anemone had to go… it was stinging the green slimer. So naturally, the solution was to set up a second tank where my 11-year-old clowns can live their best nem life
• Removed the anemone guards on the MP10s since there was no anemone anymore.
• Ditched the filter pads and now I’ve got trochus snails breeding in the sump (didn’t plan that, but I’ll take it)
• Added a CO₂ scrubber after noticing nighttime pH dipping to ~7.7 however now holds around 7.95 at night and peaks at ~8.26 during the day. Have thought about adding Kalkwasser at night to try and keep it a little more stable.
• Printed and added reflectors to the Radions because my better half is short and kept getting blasted in the eyes by the lights

The Aquawiz has honestly been a great investment. Being able to see alk readings every hour without reagents is awesome. I still cross-check with my Hanna periodically, but drift has been minimal. At this point, it’s mainly a peace-of-mind tool to watch daily alk trends rather than chase numbers.

I’ve also been adding… a lot of acros. Probably more than I should. But hey maybe this is just my excuse to upgrade to a bigger tank sooner

Otherwise all the sps are encrusting fast and showing clear growth signs. That said, the green slimer continues to be the oddball. It’ll push nice new tips, then randomly get this weird bacterial-looking growth that kills the tips off… only to fully overgrow the area a few weeks later. This has happened twice now. No other SPS shows anything even remotely similar, so I’ve just been observing rather than reacting.

Current parameters:​

• Salinity: 1.026
• Alk: 8.5
• Calcium: 440
• Magnesium: 1380
• Nitrate: 19
• Phosphate: 0.196

More updates to come.

 

[Goonsack Steve]

Wow massive update.

Lots of new SPS pieces. Any tips on keeping SPS in a newish tank?

I still have the ugly phase after 6 months... should've waited for it to pass before adding corals haha

 

[Denisk]

Wow massive update.

Lots of new SPS pieces. Any tips on keeping SPS in a newish tank?

I still have the ugly phase after 6 months... should've waited for it to pass before adding corals haha

Thank you! I would say focus on 3 key things. Stability, Flow, and Lighting. I know that sounds like probably everything you've already read but most don't follow it which causes issues. I have a second tank that I set up a month ago and already have sps in there with no probably. (even with the fact that I'm dealing with Dino's)

What kind of ugly phase do you have? Green hair algae, diatoms, Dino's or a mix of everything?

When it comes to stability, I highly recommend you try to not do 5 things at once.

When it comes to nutrients, I typically try to keep my nutrients elevated as I've noticed more issues with Ultra Low Nutrient systems with either starving corals or getting Dino's. I prefer to keep my Nitrates and Phosphates at a 100 to 1 ratio so if I keep my nitrates at 10ppm my phosphates will be .1ppm but again keeping them more stable is much more important than chasing numbers that fluctuate day after day. Small gradual changes is important.

When it comes to lighting, pick a spectrum you like visually. Some light heavy blues and some like more white. Set it and forget it keeping in mind the corals you're keeping. LED's is what I'm use to but every time I mess with the lighting or spectrum or intensity, I end up having a 1 to 3 month period of where my Acro's need to adjust making me believe that I did something wrong rather than understanding that corals just need to acclimate to the new environment. Best thing I've done is rented a par meter to make sure I was within reason for my specific corals. Ive had acro's grow in 150 par and some in 500 par but never had any die in lower par. I think people get too caught up on chasing numbers changing things week after week not realizing how much that stresses corals.

Flow is another thing that I even struggle with since I run a peninsula style reef, it's so important to not blast acro's straight on. Yes, they like flow but they like chaotic non directional flow such as what they encounter in the wild. But since my tank is smaller and I didn't want powerheads on the far end, I struggle with not having them blasted straight on. But again, since stability is so important to me, too many changes at once stops me from seeing what's working or not.

This is where I believe you will start seeing success with your acro's/sps. Once you do those things, thats when I started messing with perfection whether it's chasing PH stability or dosing trace elements for certain colors to pop, etc. But none of that was my priority in the beginning.

Hope that helps but happy to answer any other questions you may have. Im sure others might chime in with what works for them and would love to hear their opinions.

 

[Denisk]

I really have to take the time and pull out the dslr but here are some of the acros/corals encrusting and growing.