Thanks for checking out my build thread! I'll be checking out yours as well. I haven't updated in awhile because life and work has been really hectic. There have been several things done with the system since my last update so a refresh is coming up shortly. Everything is going great so far and I am very happy I went with the 120 instead of bigger. The maintenance is not bad and the size is a perfect in between size tank. Not too big that it becomes a pain but big enough to have space for fish and coral!
So the tank has just been chugging along nicely. Finally turned on the lights after a few months. I had a little algea popping up as expected so I added a uv and some Caribbean top snails and a longspine urchin baby and they really took care of the algea pretty quickly! I was going to setup the uv along the back side of the sump for good access but once I had built a stand out of 2x4s it was taking up too much room for my liking. I ended up putting it between the tank and the wall. I had left some space to be able to clean the glass properly and im glad I did! The uv fit perfectly in the space! I have the feed pump for the uv in the first chamber of the sump that the overflow feeds into and the output of the uv in the second, filter floss section, to avoid just recycling any water through the uv. After passing through the filter floss the water Then flows through the refugium section and then to the return section and back into the dt.
Thanks for following! I'm currently going through a bit of an algea battle and I'm trying to fight it using natural methods. I added some more cerith snails and between them and scrubbing the rocks every 2 weeks i am slowly winning the battle! I went with caribsea liferock so that I could build a good aqua scape and that is my only regret. I definitely should have gone with live rock. My last build using live rock was much quicker to establish and I miss the experience of constantly discovering new creatures on the live rock! The benefits and overall experience with live rock far outweighs any negatives in my opinion! I added a few pieces of live rock in the sump and one piece in the display so hopefully the caribsea liferock will eventually populate with the beneficial life. I also found a cool mantis in the sump that came in on the live rock! When I'm feeding, it comes to the surface to eat! Cool stuff! I'm also in the process of setting up an aquatic life hybrid t5 light. I am waiting for the bulbs to get here as the recent blizzard delayed the shipment. I am currently trying to sell my redsea LEDs. They are great lights but a little too blue. My wife can't go anywhere near the tank as the lights make her nauseous. I kinda prefer a more white look as well. Hopefully I get everything together soon.
Quick update. So I added an aquatic life t5 hybrid to supplement my redsea led 90s last week. To say that I am happy with the results is an understatement!
So I cleaned out my skimmer today! Good ole lifereef, I believe in not fixing something that ain't broke! They really are a great no frills skimmer that just work! I also setup a bucket chaeto refugium awhile back and it works amazingly!