Martin’s ELOS 200XL build in Japan

[MartinM]

Thanks @mattgsa and @revhtree!

I might add a few more SPS colonies but I’m going to let it do it’s thing now. My favorite part of a marine aquarium is usually the live rock! I feed heavily to keep the diversity alive. I’m blessed to have spent a significant amount of time on five different reefs, so I really prefer the ‘wild reef’ look, which is what I was trying to capture here.

I’ve ordered new ballasts and bulbs, swapping the 250w halides for 400w! I’m not getting enough PAR to the clams as I’d like.

I’m also running one PowerVEG t5 bulb in each fixture, it provides mainly UV between 310nm and 390nm. It’s a lot of UV but a fairly weak (24w) bulb. After two days I’ve already noticed the mag’s tentacles are significantly more yellow, but I don’t know if that’s due to the halide+t5 combo (it was under LEDs before I got the Spectras suspended) or because of the extra UV, or what.

I’ve also decided a ‘warmer’ look works so much better with all of the red macroalgae in the tank, so I’m going to swap out an actinic bulb for a PowerVeg 660nm red bulb for a warmer look. I wish Phoenix made a 400w SE MH bulb!

Anyway, it’s turning out a lot better than I expected!

Here’s what’s left to do:
- Plumb in the Teco chiller
- Drill the mini-fridge and get liquid food dosing on auto
- Tidy the cables from the new fuge lights
- Figure out why feed mode shuts my pumps off permanently rather than going into feed mode (now I see that all the complaints about Mobius are justified...)

 

[PanchoG]

How is the tank doing?
Are the new ballast mounted?

 

[Paleozoic_reefer]

@MartinM absolutely beautiful tank!! Would love an update (with a lot of pics!)

 

[afrokobe]

Your rock looks amazing! so does the entire build!

 

[pop.reef]

Hi. How are you doing? Any updates on the tank?

 

[MartinM]

Hey, thanks for the interest. There’s been tons of upgrades to the tank and lots of fish and they’ve grown a lot, but I haven’t updated this thread! Right now I’m away in my other home, but when I get back I’ll update. I get a lot of videos from my housekeeper, but they don’t work when I try to attach them here, but here’s a vimeo link to the clams in the sump (the big green maxima is ~30cm for scale!) Sump clams are under 5500k LED shop lights and one Kessil A360x



and a quick video of the fish being fed:



Stock list:

- A large queen angel which has gotten larger
- Yellow Mappa puffer
- 7 green chromis
- Pair of okinawan clowns in the purple/yellow mag
- Large (was a baby) domino damsel in the other mag
- 9 clams (2 croceas, 7 maximas), 6 are in the sump, 3 in the display
- Various SPS (lost some due to a dosing pump failure and alk swing, sadness)
- Two blue/yellow damsels from Okinawa, not sure the species

Equipment added:

- 2x Geisemann Spectra 24” 400w halides + T5s
- Teco chiller/heater
- External skimmer rated for a system like 10x the size of this one
- Several hundred watts of UV (ich + puffers= no good)
- I dose 150ml of H202 a day going on nearly a year now for clarity + disease prevention
- Mastertronic, Alkatronic, Dosetronic
- Red Sea backup dosing pumps/system
- MP40

And some videos of my Red Sea cube (all housekeeper cell phone videos, pardon!)

 

[Miami Reef]

Thanks @mattgsa and @revhtree!

I might add a few more SPS colonies but I’m going to let it do it’s thing now. My favorite part of a marine aquarium is usually the live rock! I feed heavily to keep the diversity alive. I’m blessed to have spent a significant amount of time on five different reefs, so I really prefer the ‘wild reef’ look, which is what I was trying to capture here.

I’ve ordered new ballasts and bulbs, swapping the 250w halides for 400w! I’m not getting enough PAR to the clams as I’d like.

I’m also running one PowerVEG t5 bulb in each fixture, it provides mainly UV between 310nm and 390nm. It’s a lot of UV but a fairly weak (24w) bulb. After two days I’ve already noticed the mag’s tentacles are significantly more yellow, but I don’t know if that’s due to the halide+t5 combo (it was under LEDs before I got the Spectras suspended) or because of the extra UV, or what.

I’ve also decided a ‘warmer’ look works so much better with all of the red macroalgae in the tank, so I’m going to swap out an actinic bulb for a PowerVeg 660nm red bulb for a warmer look. I wish Phoenix made a 400w SE MH bulb!

Anyway, it’s turning out a lot better than I expected!

Here’s what’s left to do:
- Plumb in the Teco chiller
- Drill the mini-fridge and get liquid food dosing on auto
- Tidy the cables from the new fuge lights
- Figure out why feed mode shuts my pumps off permanently rather than going into feed mode (now I see that all the complaints about Mobius are justified...)

@MartinM
How did you get your rocks to look so rich with sponge?
What do you dose?
Usually some sponges require silica to build their frustrules. Do you dose silica/have silica make it through the RO/DI?