IM SR-60 - 1st Build!

[Res_Ipsa]

It’s been a busy couple of days of tinkering in the tank!

As for the good: Found a spaghetti worm and a pineapple sponge!

As for the meh: found a small bristle worm on a frag plug and tossed it. Nitrates still around 10;feeding frozen more often.

As for the bad: found a Majano Anemone which I covered in superglue; my blue tenuis acro started showing some tissue loss, likely due to low light. Edit: I also found two vermetid snails which I covered with superglue.

I moved all my acros up from the sandbed to the top 1/3 and 1/2 of the tank. XR15s still at 30% intensity so I’ll give them a few days and then slowly raise the intensity t0 35-40% to see if things stabilize.

 

[neoGeorge]

It’s been a busy couple of days of tinkering in the tank!

As for the good: Found a spaghetti worm and a pineapple sponge!

As for the meh: found a small bristle worm on a frag plug and tossed it. Nitrates still around 10;feeding frozen more often.

As for the bad: found a Majano Anemone which I covered in superglue; my blue tenuis acro started showing some tissue loss, likely due to low light.

I moved all my acros up from the sandbed to the top 1/3 and 1/2 of the tank. XR15s still at 30% intensity so I’ll give them a few days and then slowly raise the intensity t0 35-40% to see if things stabilize.

Nice pics @Res_Ipsa

 

[Res_Ipsa]

Thanks @neoGeorge! Adding to the biodiversity list today we have...{drumroll}...vermetid snails and some kind of hydroids!

Plus about a dozen more pineapple sponges in the bottom of my sump I hadn’t noticed.

 

[neoGeorge]

Thanks @neoGeorge! Adding to the biodiversity list today we have...{drumroll}...vermetid snails and some kind of hydroids!

Plus about a dozen more pineapple sponges in the bottom of my sump I hadn’t noticed.

Good finds - "an ounce of prevention"...

 

[Res_Ipsa]

New livestock in the tank! Prometheus Montipora, meteor shower cyphastrea, and one unknown frag in the tank!

 

[Res_Ipsa]

Tank update time!

Tank is maturing nicely and I’m posting less frequent updates as things seem to stabilize. I’m testing now only 1-2x per week and usually just for nitrates, phosphates, and alkalinity. Making my weekly water changes 10 gallons instead of 5 seems to be doing a good job of keeping everything in nominal ranges.

Phosphates are still ~0.15 which is a bit higher than I’d like, but I’m hesitant to do anything about it because everything in the tank is looking happy, the diatoms are present but manageable, and the other algae seems to be managed as well.

I also bought an Innovative Marine minimax reactor and dropped that into my heater chamber. That’s loaded up with rox carbon and I plan to only use it sporadically to polish the water when it gets too cloudy. Also handy if I need to run some gfo in the future.

Corals were superglued to the rocks and all seem to be doing well except for the blue tenuis acro which had bleached out some from low light. He’s up top and time will tell if he recovers.

 

[neoGeorge]

Tank update time!

Tank is maturing nicely and I’m posting less frequent updates as things seem to stabilize. I’m testing now only 1-2x per week and usually just for nitrates, phosphates, and alkalinity. Making my weekly water changes 10 gallons instead of 5 seems to be doing a good job of keeping everything in nominal ranges.

Phosphates are still ~0.15 which is a bit higher than I’d like, but I’m hesitant to do anything about it because everything in the tank is looking happy, the diatoms are present but manageable, and the other algae seems to be managed as well.

I also bought an Innovative Marine minimax reactor and dropped that into my heater chamber. That’s loaded up with rox carbon and I plan to only use it sporadically to polish the water when it gets too cloudy. Also handy if I need to run some gfo in the future.

Corals were superglued to the rocks and all seem to be doing well except for the blue tenuis acro which had bleached out some from low light. He’s up top and time will tell if he recovers.

Tank is looking great @Res_Ipsa ! Your rockscape will offer some great opportunities for coral placement and fish hideaways.

 

[Res_Ipsa]

Its been a couple weeks so I figure now would be a good time for a quick update.

First, the bad news: my midas blenny jumped and did not survive. I'm very sad as he was one of my favorite fish. But, I am putting together a Red Sea DIY screen kit this weekend to prevent any further losses.

My phosphates have also been struggling to get lower even with some reduced pellet feedings and larger weekly water changes. It seems they're always hovering around 0.15 and up to 0.2 by the end of the week. I started running a small amount of RowaPhos in my reactor and it has slowly been bring the PO4 down; currently is is down to 0.1 after about a week of running. I'm aiming for about 0.05 and then plan on shutting off the reactor to measure how fast it builds back up.

Water changes are also getting more routine. I find that rather than trying to mix all the saltwater quickly the morning of a water change it is much easier to spend a day making the water (usually 10-15 gallons), spend a day adding in/mixing the salt, and then making small tweaks to the salinity the night before a water change. Doing it this way gives a much more stable salinity reading as I had issues with the salt not being completely dissolved and then finding slightly elevated salinity levels in the tank. Now it's spot on 35ppt all the time.

I'll be looking to get another midas blenny in the tank and then maybe one more fish. I'm also looking for more coral to add and plan to try and find some cool torches as I love to see the movement.

I've been target feeding Benepets' reef food to the coral and they really seem to have a good feeding response. My inverts and damsels also go nuts for that stuff. I've still got one acro (blue tenuis) that is about 1/2 bleached from having too low light but the tissue recession appears to have stopped and it is showing good polyp extension. Hopefully it'll come back. I've also picked up some LRS reef frenzy to supplement the Hikari mega marine frozen foods. Some of the scallop pieces are huge! when they land on the sand my crabs all run at them and tear them to pieces!

The XR15s are now running at 50% overall intensity on the AB+ program. With the diffusers on there's 10% reduction in par so I believe I'm fairly conservative on the lighting. Of course I need a par meter to really check the lights now that I'm done messing with them.

So far just enjoying watching the tank mature!

 

[Res_Ipsa]

Added a few frags to the tank - mostly montipora and chalices although there’s a Duncan and some cyphastrea there as well.

Alk is being consumed faster as my saltwater mixes up at 8.5 dKH but my tank is reading 7.3. A larger 15g water change today only raised it to 7.6 dKH so I am implementing some Kalkwasser to my ATO to try and keep my levels from dropping. I’m also now dosing Brightwell’s Coral amino acids daily.

Eventually I’ll find a good dosing solution but am not sure about going to Neptune/Apex or GHL. Now that Trident is out and can control dosing via a DOS, it seems pretty even between that and something like the GHL KH Director and Ion director which also actively monitors and controls Alkalinity, calcium and magnesium.

 

[NY_Caveman]

Very nice specimens! I have been looking at both Chalices and Montipora myself. I have some spots to fill. That blue Cyphastrea on the left is really catching my eye, though.

 

[Res_Ipsa]

That blue Cyphastrea on the left is really catching my eye, though.

Thanks! That blue is a meteor shower cyphastrea and it’s growing fast!

 

[André Brasil]

Hello,

Any updates to share?

 

[JCRove06]

It’s been a busy couple of days of tinkering in the tank!

As for the good: Found a spaghetti worm and a pineapple sponge!

As for the meh: found a small bristle worm on a frag plug and tossed it. Nitrates still around 10;feeding frozen more often.

As for the bad: found a Majano Anemone which I covered in superglue; my blue tenuis acro started showing some tissue loss, likely due to low light. Edit: I also found two vermetid snails which I covered with superglue.

I moved all my acros up from the sandbed to the top 1/3 and 1/2 of the tank. XR15s still at 30% intensity so I’ll give them a few days and then slowly raise the intensity t0 35-40% to see if things stabilize.

What is this in the last photo which is circled in red? I think I have this in my tank as well.

 

[Res_Ipsa]

What is this in the last photo which is circled in red? I think I have this in my tank as well.

@JCRove06 -it's a harmless pineapple sponge. They're filter feeders and don't seem to have any effect on the tank or inhabitants.

 

[JCRove06]

Phew...thanks

 

[Res_Ipsa]

Hello,

Any updates to share?

I've been slacking on updates the last several months but it sure has been eventful! Here's a quick summary of the things I've done which have (and haven't worked out)

• Added a Neptune DOS to the kalk in my ATO as I was having issues maintaining alkalinity
• Dosed out of balance using BRS 2-part trying to correct the alkalinity imbalance
• Experienced adverse chemistry/precipitation issues between the unbalanced dosing and high (8.3-8.6) pH
• Relocated marinepure spheres from return section of sump to an overflow, leading to massive sponge dieoffs and a mini tank crash in addition to the alkalinity swings.

The past month or so I have been focused on fine tuning my automated tank controllers and systems to be as "hands off" as possible to let me tank recover from my mini crash which killed quite a few high end SPS and euphyllia. I've watched my tank struggle back to where I am now finally seeing some polyp extension where there was none. I watched many coral polyps bail out and bleach - extremely disheartening.

But, I have only myself to blame for either being too impatient or not having enough knowledge to do what I needed to do properly.

Moving forward I will try and find a solution to the GHA growing on my tank's rear wall as well as transitioning from BRS 2-part to the Tropic Marin DIY all-for-reef recipe. My hope is that I can use a single DOS unit to add the all-for-reef recipe maintaining major,minor,and trace elements (except magnesium) with a single solution and then maybe using the other head to dose brightwell aminos. This would just leave magnesium to be supplemented on an as-needed basis.

In more good news, I've finally had a helfrichi firefish survive for more than a day (chose a better LFS to source) and the tiger conch is my CUC MVP! I can literally leave frag plugs which are growing some algae on my sand and in a day or two, they are spotless!

 

[Espino963]

Bump for a great build

 

[GK3]

Not thrilled about finding this bubble algae on my frag. Manually removed and used a stiff bristle brush to get what I could see off. Anything else to do?

Get a green emerald crab or two.

 

[GK3]

Just read your whole thread, couple of thoughts:

1. those hermits dying is fairly normal. What likely happened is you kept adding them to get algae under control, then they did, and ran out of food. I’d only be concerned if they all died together.

2. I have an IM30L with 3 XR15s above it. I run them at 50% with no diffusers. Your tank is deeper than mine. So my guess is you need to turn up the intensity, but a PAR meter is the best way to tell. Your DIY screen top will also lower your PAR.

3. you don’t have a ton of livestock for a 60 gallon. With your phosphates being that high, my guess is you are over feeding. It might help to post your fish and coral feed routine to get some feedback.

4. Does anything you are dosing have magnesium in it? If not, id suggest testing mag and consider dosing that. I found that helps with the Alk swings (there are write ups on the chemistry here).

5. couldn’t help but notice the kids in the pictures slowly decreased as your overall progress increased. Did you buy your kids a Christmas present for you? Genius. Forget the build, +10 for excellent parenting. Lol

 

[DibsOnMcRibs]

UPDATE: Sicce pumps were plumbed in and tested tonight. The stock pumps used a 1/2” ID hose to a double 1/2” Y-split. The larger Sicce pumps utilize a 1” to 3/4” step down outlet so I found a couple 3/4” to double 1/2” Y-splits to install. Hopefully this will decrease some of the flow restriction to better utilize the higher flow rates of the pumps.

The custom stand is nearly done from a local woodworker and being stained tomorrow.

RODI production has been good and I’ve managed to store 25gal to prep for cycling next week. I need to grab some ammonia, but also bought some nitrifying bacteria in a bottle to populate the tank. The plan is to do a fishless cycle inside my house.

I also snagged a Tunze osmolator ATO from the R2R forum and will be getting that set up once the tank is on solid ground.

The gear list and supplies keeps growing but after dozens of hours on R2R and YouTube, I’m feeling pretty optimistic that this tank will be up and beautiful real soon.

Santa and his elves will be moving and installing this tank Xmas night to surprise our kiddos (they have been sending letters to Santa everyday asking for a fish tank ❤ ). Then, we’ll aquascape, mix up some salt, and start dosing ammonia.

More pictures and updates to come!

I also have an SR 60 and am looking to upgrade the return pumps. Where did you find the new tubing? Great thread. You haven’t been active for a while but following along just in case