My 30g breeder mixed reef

[aquarius77]

That makes me feel better. I did add a filter sock but i did it to help with microbubbles. I dont think i need to worry about much settling in the sump because i have a 1000 gph pump to the skimmer and a mag 3 return on the tank so thats about 1000gph rollin through the 20g after head loss. Nothing settles in the 30g display due to the 3x maxi 1200 on a wave timer 3x on full time along side a korrila 4 on full time. The skimmer is huge for the system so i am hoping i can pull it off bare bottom. What worries me is keeping the alk and salinity as stable as possible, i hand dose everything except kalk, thats why i had such a large sump on a smaller display in the first place.. I appreciate the input, and yes all the rock has been in the system for at least a year already.

 

[aquarius77]

They dont seem to mind the sump blow out do they?

 

[aquarius77]

Pic update for the new year.

Top Downs:

 

[aquarius77]

Through the dirty glass:

All taken this evening and they are straight off of the camera.

 

[Mr.Firemouth]

Wow! Kev this stuff looks fantastic! It is hard to believe it is all in a 30 breeder!

 

[tater11]

man kevin the tank looks awesome!!!great job

 

[aquarius77]

Yip shes all shoved in a 30 breder. Just realized last night that i had non color changing resin in one of my DI stages... I thought it had been lasting a real long time, needless to say both stages were completely exhausted. My inline tds was telling me 0ppm but the handheld says 1 wich is also what my plain ro is. So i guess its not that bad but id rather have 0tds esp the way ive been trying to fight alge. Thanks for the kind words.

 

[michealprater]

Top downs are sweet looking. I still cant believe how blue it shows up. The tank really isnt that blue in person.

Recognize this dude??

 

[aquarius77]

Im glad hes got a good home! Lookin good too, im sure he loves it.

This was my fav fish of all time, NO i did not keep him in my 30g display but he was housed in the 55g sump before i broke it.

 

[aquarius77]

I just thought i would share an interesting pic i took tonight before removing this from the bird colony.
This is an Acropora Nana that i had (got to big on me and i gave it away) that reached out and killed a small section of this bird. Once i removed the Nana colony i noticed it left a little something behind. Out of just wanting to see who would win the war, i waited and let things go for a while. The Nana actually killed and took over(encrusted) the birdsnest skeleton and was continuing to go up the branch and was laying down a base as well lol.

you can see on the tip of the one branch there is still a tiny bit of birdsnest trying to hang on =-)

Also would like to update on the sump breakage. I decided to stay with the 20 gallon sump, bare bottom all the way. I set up an alk drip on top of my Kalkwasser drip to help keep things more stable with losing half my system volume. I am still manually dosing cal and topping off because i have a ton of evaporation with halides over such a small system, i have to run fans or the temp skyockets fast. The AquaC EV 150 i have skimming the tank is a burtal monster, took forever to break in and fine tune but it is a beast! Ya gotta figure though, is designed to skim 150g lightly stocked tank and i have it skimming 40 gallons(max) with a light load.. So far losing that sump has been a pretty good experience for my tank, i think alot of slop, detrius and nutrient were trapped down there in areas i could not reach and in the sand bed.