Harrison's 75 Gallon Reef

[Harrison Gordon]

Hmmmm.....it appears this thread is a couple years outdated. Maybe I will get around to it sometime. If I do, there will be lots of upgrades to tell of.

Current State of Tank Oct 9, 2018:
I'll start off with my current setup:

-Marineland 75g glass tank, stand, canopy
-Modular Marine 1200gph overflow, bean animal style
-Aqueon Proflex Sump Model 3
-GFO in an Accell Aquatics biopellet reactor
-Reef Octopus 150sss, rated for 210gallons
-Lifegard Quiet One 3000, ~750 GPH
-Aquaticlife 6 lamp T5 w/lunes, 36"
-Bulbs: ATI Blue Plus and Coral Plus; Colormax, 10,000k, 420/460 blue, Actinic

Fish & Corals:
-Royal gramma basslet
-2 oc clowns
-Flame angel
-Scooter blenny
-Yellowfin flasher wrasse (maybe?)
-A astrea snails
-Green hammer coral
-Green Trumpet coral
- 4 Acan corals
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June 16, 2018
Part I:
I'll start off with my current setup and what's ahead:

-Marineland 75g glass tank, stand, canopy
-DIY bean animal HOB overflow --> soon to be a Modular Marine 1200gph
-10g glass aquarium sump w/filter sock
-Media reactor--NP-Active biopellets from Dr Tims
-Reef Octopus 150sss, rated for 210gallons
-Lifegard Quiet One 3000, ~750 GPH
-SOON: 2 gallon fuge with chaeto or something similar
-Aquaticlife 6 lamp T5 w/lunes, 36"
-Bulbs: Colormax, 6700k, 10,000k, 420/460 blue, actinic blue, purple

Fish, Inverts, Corals:
-2 banggai cardinals
-Royal gramma basslet
-2 oc clowns
-Midas blenny
-Yellowfin flasher wrasse
-Firefish goby
-Scarlet cleaner shrimp
-About 30 astreas, turbos, and Mexican something-or-others
-Green hammer coral
-Green Trumpet coral
-Acan coral
-Red Montipora, abt 8"

 

[KJ]

Welcome to R2R! Looking good my friend.

 

[Harrison Gordon]

Part II: From the beginning

So in March, I was given a saltwater reef tank as a gift. That meant there was very little time for me to do all the research, as I couldn't say "you know what, I think I'll go and buy it in a few months", nor could I have an empty tank sit in my bedroom for that amount of time either.

There was so much to learn and so little time, and no one I knew to guide me, but here I am and I am still alive with most of my fish and corals (but not all!).

It started as a 75g tank and stand w/glass canopy, and the marineland standard LED strip. I also went to Petco and picked up some live rock and live sand once the water warmed up.


I was just using spare heaters and filtration I had lying around, and the day before the photo the water was less than 40º because I got it off a hose spigot. don't worry, I dechlorinated the water before putting anything in.

However, about a day after putting the live rock in, I noticed a TON of these guys on it...
And with a few minutes of research had them in a bucket. (Not to mention me, freaking out that I had close to 40 aiptasias in my tank). A quick trip to Petco to yell at the guy and replace the rock, and I was back, praying that it wouldn't come back to haunt me. Spoiler: Boy, was I wrong.

Heres my tank with the new live rock and a new heater and a Fluval C4. I like the Fluval C4, and I love the Aqueon Pro 250w.

However, more research entailed I realized I needed a protein skimmer. I continued research and decided I had to have a sump, because things were getting ugly in the display. Still, my tank was not drilled, and I knew nothing about overflows, so I modified my own version of the King of DIY's PVC overflow so that mine wouldn't ever break siphon. Can you figure it out from the pic?

Anyways I painted it and the rest of the plumbing with Krylon Fusion in black, and I love that stuff! Definitely recommend. Reef safe, too.


Now here is V1 of my filtration system. You can see the skimmer in there blocking the single drain line, which is spewing water everywhere because of home much air is going down the pipe. and that overflow was LOUD--gurgling horribly. With some airline tube, I made it better, but not good enough.
Anyways you can also see my terrible plumbing job. Lets just say that came back to bite me in the butt....3 AM I wake up to rattling noise, and find its the return pipe, so I smack it and it quiets. 6AM I'm getting up and there it is again, so I touch it and suddenly water is spewing everywhere, into my face, it was bad.
But I quickly stopped it and left the filtration off for the day.
You can also see, since I didn't have a filter sock, that I was running a PennPlax 700 canister filter. No more power filters in the display.

 

[Harrison Gordon]

Welcome to R2R! Looking good my friend.

Thank you! Just in the process of putting up, shall we call it my tale?

Really, I know absolutely NOBODY in real life who has a reef tank, so I have turned to the forums for lots and lots of help.
I do know Ted Krupman, however, who has a 700gallon tank and keeps the rarest angels and triggers in the world.
Here's his thread with a few hundred pages!
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2002370

Thanks!
Harrison

 

[Harrison Gordon]

Part III: My livestock
I'll start with a weird story. Well one night I was feeding the three little guys in the tank: two cardinals and a basslet.
But one of the cardinals just wouldn't come up for food. I wondered why. I put a mirror behind the tank where I could tell he was located, and couldnt believe my eyes! He was trying to eat a hermit crab almost a quarter the size of him! his mouth was bulging, and the little hermy was flailing around just out of his mouth! I figured, no way he's cracking that shell open. But sure enough, the next morning there was my cardinal, and an empty hermit shell on the bottom of the tank.


Soon after, I was gifted two clownfish for my newly setup QT:

Its 30g and you can see I've got the aquatic life T5 on it because I had no way to put it atop my DT since its shorter. The fluval aqua clear 70 is now the pennplax 700.


Well, a few days later I went and picked up my first corals. It was a Green hammer, green trumpet, an acan, and a huge Monti. the prices were insane--I got the Monti, about 8 to 10 inches across, for $40. Well, here are the pictures of them all in my quarantine

So.....the Monti completely RTNed, and so did on of the two trumpet heads. Very sad, couldn't figure out why. All of my params were ok, although my alk was 11dkh, and the LFS I later found out was at 8dkh. could've been the jump? I have another thread on reef central all about that. I also gave them a dip in Bayer insecticide, but followed multiple source's instructions completely. Anyways, glad to report the rest of the corals are happy and now in my DT.


Well that's great and all, but I was looking at my glass one day and found these:

Picture 2: great! rotifers I think.
Picture 1 : CRAAAAAAPPPPP! Aiptasia again!!! Long story short they keep popping up everywhere, and the Aiptasia-X I got is only sort-of working. Ugh! Petco!!!!

that aside, I got some new fish from liveaquaria. First I moved the clowns that I had gotten month earlier into the DT from the QT:

I got a Midas blend from diver's den, a firefish goby, a yellowfin flasher wrasse, and a scarlet shrimp.


Love these guys! Except, a few days later, both the wrasse and shrimp were dead. I think they were just sick. The shrimp actually molted during acclimation so could've been sensitive to change in water. Good thing for the two week warranty!

By this time I was finally able to get a good pic of my basslet. And, the corals are looking great! Just had to change out the bulbs because the corals were looking quite dull.

 

[KJ]

Looking good

 

[Travis Stewart]

Keep up the good work!!!

 

[Harrison Gordon]

My gosh has it been a long time!
Well....in short, things are going well. The tank went from a bunch of things thrown together to something that I now feel like is well manicured in most regards.

Since my last post, I've gotten new ATI bulbs, new sand, lots of new live rock, GFO instead of biopellets, a whole new sump and filtration setup, a modular marine 1200gph overflow--bean animal style, and a different set of inhabitants, unfortunately.

In all, coral growth has been close to zero, so I have increased my lighting schedule to around 8 hrs. Algae growth is still an issue, mainly cyano and some other weird algae that encrusts on the glass, plastic, and rocks.

I might consider putting in an RODI system, which will lower the risks and current issues and save time with water changes. The only problem is how to connect everything together without breaking the bank.

Warning Sadness ahead!
Here's what happened with my livestock (only inclusive of survivors of first few days in QT):
Corals--Still have hammer, trumpet, and acan, but got 3 more acans.
RIP--Got a Ricordea colony but it died a couple months after (mostly). Maybe too much light?

Fish--Still have basslet and two cardinals, got a flame angel and a scooter blenny.
RIP--2 Cardinals died because they wouldn't eat. Blenny killed firefish. Blenny died while I was on vacation, reason unknown. Scarlet shrimp died, reason unknown. Flasher wrasse disappeared....maybe still alive somewhere? Second blenny jumped out of tank while I was cleaning lids!

 

[Harrison Gordon]

 

[Harrison Gordon]

Ugh....the Algae is getting worse. Now there is bubble algae, some hair algae, along with all the others and the cyano is still spreading. I think I either have to do more GFO or try biopellets again.