House on a Hill Red Sea 750 XXL
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I think the back wall of my aquarium was acting as a turf scrubber. Or my dry rocks finally became fully saturated with PO4. Since scrapping the back wall my PO4 levels have come up and have been hovering between .20-.29ppm via the Hanna ULR. They are staying there even with reduced feedings.
The other changes I have done over the last month in a half is I lowered my Aquatic Life T5 Hybrid fixture. It was 11" off the water line. I lowered it 1" per week to 8". BRS has been recommending this fixture with Kessil's work best at 8" off the water line. After lowering the fixture I started to increase the intensity of the Kessils. I was at 50% and have been increasing 10% a week. I am currently at 80% but plan on going to 100%. I am starting to wonder if I was losing acros due to lack of light over a period of time? I really do not know abut I am ready to stop tinkering an let thing stabilize where they are.
This weekend I added Cheato to my sump and I am lighting it with an AI fuge light. I am running the light 12 hours reverse of the display. I am hoping I can keep my phosphates in the .08-.15 range.
The other changes I have done over the last month in a half is I lowered my Aquatic Life T5 Hybrid fixture. It was 11" off the water line. I lowered it 1" per week to 8". BRS has been recommending this fixture with Kessil's work best at 8" off the water line. After lowering the fixture I started to increase the intensity of the Kessils. I was at 50% and have been increasing 10% a week. I am currently at 80% but plan on going to 100%. I am starting to wonder if I was losing acros due to lack of light over a period of time? I really do not know abut I am ready to stop tinkering an let thing stabilize where they are.
This weekend I added Cheato to my sump and I am lighting it with an AI fuge light. I am running the light 12 hours reverse of the display. I am hoping I can keep my phosphates in the .08-.15 range.
So far the Cheato has not really helped with PO4. I am getting a lot of cyano in the sump due to the light down there now. I still seem to average right around .25ppm via the hanna ULR. Not super concerned with that. This past week I switched from BRS 2 part to Kalkwasser. Just trying something different and attempting to get my PH up.
So far my corals are looking good after my lighting changes. I had a PC rainbow frag I bought from a local reefer I thought burned to a crisp during a water change. It was showing its filaments and several tips turned white and looked pretty bad. I cracked off the top and over the course of a month the entire coral healed up. Pretty happy it did that. I also ordered a couple sps frags from WWC, they went into the tank 3/12. They were mounted to the rocks last week and are still looking good.
It really seems like the tank has turned the corner and I am excited to add more corals and watch them thrive. It has taken 2 years to get to this point. Never would I have though it would take this long.
So far my corals are looking good after my lighting changes. I had a PC rainbow frag I bought from a local reefer I thought burned to a crisp during a water change. It was showing its filaments and several tips turned white and looked pretty bad. I cracked off the top and over the course of a month the entire coral healed up. Pretty happy it did that. I also ordered a couple sps frags from WWC, they went into the tank 3/12. They were mounted to the rocks last week and are still looking good.
It really seems like the tank has turned the corner and I am excited to add more corals and watch them thrive. It has taken 2 years to get to this point. Never would I have though it would take this long.
I definitely need to post some update pictures. Things still seem to be going well. I have purchased maybe 15-20 acro frags from various vendors. I have only lost one of those frags and it was a day after I received it. I removed the cheato from my system as it seemed to be causing more of a mess than anything. The only filtration I am running at the moment is a skimmer and carbon from time to time.
P04 ranges from .1 - .14 ppm via Hanna ULR
NO3 around 1-5ppm via Hanna HR N03 Tester
I added one of my MP60s back to the tank. I now run one MP60 on once side and 2 - MP40s on the other. Once side runs constant and the other runs reef crest. These switch back and fourth every 6 hours.
I get a little cyano in the crevices of the rocks but nothing major. Overall things have been going great.
P04 ranges from .1 - .14 ppm via Hanna ULR
NO3 around 1-5ppm via Hanna HR N03 Tester
I added one of my MP60s back to the tank. I now run one MP60 on once side and 2 - MP40s on the other. Once side runs constant and the other runs reef crest. These switch back and fourth every 6 hours.
I get a little cyano in the crevices of the rocks but nothing major. Overall things have been going great.
Get a lens kit for your phone. I use the IceCap macro lens kit. Night and day difference. Check my build for examples.Some Updated pictures. Taking pictures of Reef Tanks is hard. Slowly but surely the tank continues to grow...
Nice system by the way.
Firstreef20
Community Member
Nice build. I started a 750 xxl too, about 2 months ago. It was tank transfer but sadly my fish started to get velvet, so I had to remove all my fish, well almost all of my fish, one of the anthias keeps getting into a crevice and it is so hard to catch. I lost my blue, gold rim, yellow tang, royal gramma, 6 out of 7 lyretail anthias, a year old engineer goby(my wife's favorite) pintail wrasse, and lawnmower blenny. Fish that survived, purple, yellow tang, cleaner wrasse, purple firefish, 2 clowns, yellow coris wrasse, midas blenny and the anthia i am still not able to catch. All the fish besides the anthia is in a qt with 1.5 ppm copper right now I will be raising it up once I catch the anthia. So much loss I was ready to just give up but I have been pushing through and going strong, I do also started running a 40w uv, and leaving it there through the fallow period. This is my first time QING myself so I am a little nervous about it. Again great build
Fish disease sucks! I purchased all QT'd fish from marine collectors and still had something wipe out 80% of my fish. I cannot QT all inverts / corals, just not realistic. I drained my tank to catch the remaining survivors, treated them with copper and let my tank go fallow for 78 days. Fish looked great in QT, put them in the main tank and I swear 7 days later I saw small ich spots on my purple tang. At that point I just hooked up a good UV and called it a day. I know it does not eradicate but it seems to be keeping everything to a manageable level. I have not lost a fish due to a fish disease since. I think it also helps that the tank matured. There must be something to a new biome vs a mature biome that helps with fish disease as well.
Just a tank update. I added back my second MP60 to the tank. Both MP60s are at the front of the tank running reefcrest 40-50%. I also have 2 mp40s on each side of the tank. They are in the back middle. Reef crest mode as well, running 85% or so.
I lost the SCOP acro that was in the middle a day after I took the picture up top. I fragged it up but it they did not make it either. Not really sure what it was but nothing else was effected. All I can chalk it up to is acros!
I sold off the torch I had to make room for more acros on the right hand side of the tank.
Several Battle Coral Battle Boxes have been ordered. At this point I think there is no more room in the inn. Time to let them grow. I have several acros that are close to touching now that they have grown in some. Probably time to do some trimming.
I am completely running on Kalk at this time. I add just over 1.2 gallons through out the day through the Avast Marine Kalk stirrer with a Neptune Dos. I have been doing this for almost a year now. Alk has been right around 8.5dkh.
My last PO4 reading was .14ppm and NO3 was 7ppm.
I have been bumping my light intensity up over the last few months. I plan doing it 7% more yet. This should put most of the top of the rocks at 300+ par for at least 6 hours a day. Current Sky schedule goes from 0 to 75% for an hour. Then it takes 2 hours to get to 91% right now for 6 hours. Then it goes back to 75% for 2 hours and then back to 0% for an hour. Most of this is using the preset sky setting, switching to ab+ to blue for the last 4-5 hours.
I lost the SCOP acro that was in the middle a day after I took the picture up top. I fragged it up but it they did not make it either. Not really sure what it was but nothing else was effected. All I can chalk it up to is acros!
I sold off the torch I had to make room for more acros on the right hand side of the tank.
Several Battle Coral Battle Boxes have been ordered. At this point I think there is no more room in the inn. Time to let them grow. I have several acros that are close to touching now that they have grown in some. Probably time to do some trimming.
I am completely running on Kalk at this time. I add just over 1.2 gallons through out the day through the Avast Marine Kalk stirrer with a Neptune Dos. I have been doing this for almost a year now. Alk has been right around 8.5dkh.
My last PO4 reading was .14ppm and NO3 was 7ppm.
I have been bumping my light intensity up over the last few months. I plan doing it 7% more yet. This should put most of the top of the rocks at 300+ par for at least 6 hours a day. Current Sky schedule goes from 0 to 75% for an hour. Then it takes 2 hours to get to 91% right now for 6 hours. Then it goes back to 75% for 2 hours and then back to 0% for an hour. Most of this is using the preset sky setting, switching to ab+ to blue for the last 4-5 hours.
Latest quick pics from my phone. Some corals grow way faster than others. Still dosing Kalk and 2 part. My nutrients are pretty low now. Starting to up my feedings. Going to add some reef roids once a week. Colors look better than the picture shows. Just running a skimmer and filter roller.
Last edited:
DarkReefer
Well-Known Member
Wow this looks awesome and appears everything is growing out well too!Latest quick pics from my phone. Some corals grow way faster than others. Still dosing Kalk and 2 part. My nutrients are pretty low now. Starting to up my feedings. Going to add some reef roids once a week. Colors look better than the picture shows. Just running a skimmer and filter roller.
Are your phosphates still at the 0.1-0.14 mark or have they adjusted?
Itching to get a large tank but I think I'm going to have to wait until I potentially buy my own place.
My Nitrates and phosphates slowly went down. Nitrates went down to 0-1. And phosphates went down to .02-.05. Can test kits really be this accurate? Not sure but it all trended down. I left it for a good 6 months there. I want to say my colors got a bit lighter but without picture's its hard to tell. As I said above I added my AFS back and plan on feeding the fish more. We will see what that does to these numbers and corals.
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