My SPS Frankentank

[mshonk]

I figure the best way to introduce myself and my tank is a little background.
My name is Matt, I an a .net developer, I love reeftanks, coral more than fish, I was on thereeftank for years and pretty sure I had an account here just never set it up.

I used to have a 55g gallon mixed reef years ago then stopped when I had no time[life, family, two jobs and school]. Then I started a fluval edge reef tank. Both of these tanks I did a DIY Retro LED setup. The 55g worked very well but the close proximity and high moisture content in the tiny lillte hood in the fluval edge made it difficult to use the LEDs. Then I bought a home and remodeled its 1st floor, exterior, put up privacy fence, a patio,deck addition, and an above ground pool.

This is not my forever home so I have been holding out on a large saltwater tank. I wanted a tank in my home office and had a setup for an unconventional 29 gallon where the tank is on the bottom of the stand and the top of the stand was open for things other than fish. It was fresh water to start then I moved it to a reef tank and did DIY leds and put a HOB sump and small Skimmer in.
I then plumbed in a 20g satellite tank to increase volume and use it as a frag tank.
The Point of this was to set up the cheap generic brand items and see how it went. Only issue[knock on wood] was the uv sterilizer.

Then I found a great deal on craigslist.
I found a 40g Breeder with a stand, Current 130w PC Light, Vector 130 Skimmer, BRS standard Media filter w/ Maxi Jet Pump, RIO 2100 for the return pump, almost all of the plumbing[All The Valves and BulkHead] and stainless shears for $200. The Vector Skimmer looked brand new!

I turned my 20g Long into the DIY sump and picked up another power head and dosing pump. My params were steady through the swap and have been steady for about 3 months. I haven't lost a single coral since I started. Fish are another story.

Only down sides are:
The cheap UV sterilizer I bought was kicking out stray current and some of my sps bleached and one lps did. They have full polyp extensions and my lights are adjustable.
Literally lost my clown fish.

EQUIPMENT/TANKINFO:

Jebao dcs 5000
VECTOR 130 Skimmer
Media Filter MaxiJet pump running Carbon.
2 Jecod DP-3 dosing pumps [Alk/Cal/Mag/Topoffs][Randys reef recipe 1]
BloomSpect 165w LED Light
[blues on for 11 hrs @ 100% and whites on for 7.5 hrs at 100%]
3 550 gph Sunsun JVP 110s[ 1 in sump to prevent settling in hard to maintain chamber. 2 in center frag chamber always on to stop settling.]
Jebao TW-10 PowerHead with wavemaker controller. Slowest sine pattern set at 7 out of 8 strength.
Jebao ow-10 PowerHead with wavemaker controller slowest sine pattern set at 5 out of 8 strength. Max is 1000 + gph
Nero 5
Uv sterilizer
100w Heater
65w Chinese LED over sump. 450par
Reef Keeper Power supply with temp sensor
Seneye reef
Two little fishes phosban reactor with a 110gph pump, red dragons breath macro, red blue led grow strip wrapped around it for a algae reactor 12 hours on.

30 lbs LR
20 lbs fine LS
20 lbs small coarse sand

water changes about 2-4 g weekly
Red Sea [red bucket]
FISH/INVERTS:

Yellow Coris Wrasse
2 Picaso Clowns
Lawnmower Blenny
Purple Firefish
Cleaner Shrimp

CUC:
20 blue leg hermits
20 astrea snails
12 cerith snails
1Turbo Snails

POLYPS/SOFT:
Lucious Teal Zoas
Watermelon Zoas
Combo Zoas???
Fire and Ice Zoas
Some Blue Fancy Can't Remember Their Name Zoas
Finger Leather
GSP
Toxic Lantern rhodactis
Fireworks Zoas

LPS:
Blue Grean Acan
Aussie Ultra Acan Lord
Blastos
Elegance
Duncans
Frogspawn
Branching Hammer
Cyphastrea Meteor Shower
Laptastrea Orange
Krytonite Candy Cane
War Coral
Green Lobo
Unknown Favia
Merletti Blasto
LA Lakers Scroll

SPS:
Green Stylo
ORA Green Gecko
Silver Bullet Acro
PearlBerry Acro
Aqua SD Teal Pika Pika Acro
Unkown Acro
Cali Tort Acro
Pink Lemonade BirdsNest
ORA Borealis
Aqua SD Toxic Millie
Rainbow Pocillipora
Waynes Reef Acro
Raspberry Delight Millie
Purple Stylo
Spongodes Monti
Tricolor Granulosa Acro
Aqua SD Aussie Wolverine 3 Acro
ORA Red Planet
Garf Bonsai
Miyagi Tort
IC Raspberry Limeade
RN Teal Granulosa
Unkown Deep Green wooly looking acro Now one of my favorites
Scripps Acro
Green Pocillopora
Ponape Birdsnest
ASD Blue Whale [Pretty sure its a mille]
ASD Yellow Jacket
ASD Rainbow Millie
ASD MorningGlory Tenius
ASD Ice Queen Enchinata
ASD Toxic PlatingMonti



PARAMS:
Salifert test Kits
Alk 7.3 dkh
Cal 420 ppm
Mag 1300 ppm

Salinity 1.026
Temp 79.5

API test Kits
Ph 8.3
Amm [NH3/NH4] 0ppm

Seneye
NH3 .003ppm
NH4 7.72- 10.14 ppb
PH 8.18-8.32
o2 8

Hanna
Phosphorus .03022 ppm

Red Sea
Fe .03
I .06
K 420ppm
NO3 1-2ppm favoring 1ppm

 

[NY_Caveman]

Very nice! Where did you get your live rock? Or did that come with the used tank?

EDIT: And welcome to R2R!

 

[reacclimating 2 the hobby]

Welcome! Looks like a great deal on a good setup.

 

[mshonk]

Very nice! Where did you get your live rock? Or did that come with the used tank?

EDIT: And welcome to R2R!

LFS.

 

[mshonk]

I will put some new pics up later. No major changes just some recent coral placement changes.

 

[dylana407]

I like it.

 

[mshonk]

Thanks!

 

[hart24601]

Looking great!

 

[SPR1968]

Very nice tank and pictures Matt and thanks for sharing them with us

And welcome to R2R!

 

[mshonk]

I cant get my phones settings quite right but not too shabby.

 

[Retro Reefer]

Nice looking breeder.. how long has it been running?

 

[mshonk]

Nice looking breeder.. how long has it been running?

7ish months

 

[Retro Reefer]

7ish months

I’m working on one also it’s little over 3 months old.. love the dimensions of these tanks!

 

[mshonk]

I’m working on one also it’s little over 3 months old.. love the dimensions of these tanks!

Agreed! I have always had narrow reef tanks. Never again!

 

[Ruben's Reef]

!!! Welcome to R2R !!! Nice looking tank.

 

[mshonk]

I havent posted anything in a bit. For the most part everything is stable. I have moved some of my powerheads around to make things happy and bought a 3 part dosing container. I lost my nem. It looked as though something in the tank cut the flesh of the body. So I moved it to the sump with less flow it looked promising for about a week agin no luck.

 

[mshonk]

I did notice my sps were bleaching. I realized that it was the gfo I was running. I have noticed some color coming back since I pulled it and my Phosphates are pretty much in check. Though, I am a little concerned with my hanna low phosphorous checker. It seems that sometimes when loading the c1 vial, if it takes a while to prompt for the next step it will always give me a 200ppb reading. I know you shouldn't wait longer than the 2 minutes to run the test on the second vial but I reran it on the same vials last time this happened and got a 8 ppb reading. I also wipe the vials with a paper towel the microfiber cloth an rinse with rodi before and after use. I may contact hanna today to see if I can find some insight.

I also purchased Lugol Solution, AquaForest AF Amino Mix and AF Energy. I dose a drop of lugols about every two weeks and I was doing a drop of each the Amino and Energy but noticed my sps will look worse than they had the day prior, being that I dose those when the lights are out. I dose the lugols in an effort to bring my blues back into my cali tort. Its as brown as brown can be.

Which leads to the next issue. Not all sps are brown or pale but a good majority are. My params are fairly steady. All but two sps have good polyp extension [I will point them out in the list], and I have 5 powerheads with wavemaker/alternating currents. placement on most of these are mid to high and in high flow.

The ones that look good are:
-Green Gecko
-Green Stylo
-Purple Stylo
-Spongodes Monti
-Birdsnest

Looking fair are:
-ORA Borealis
-Silver bullet
-Wolverine from aqua sd [no polyp extension good color]
-tricolor granulosa [ bit brown]
-rainbow pocci [ little pale]

Brown and pale:
-red millie [brown]
-lime raspberry [pale flesh but purple polyps]
-bonsai acro[some purple but turning brown polyps are barely green]
-ora red planet[bleached]
-Waynes Reef Acro [bleached but coloring back up. I think this was from the gfo. poor polyp extension]

there are a few more but this should give a good idea.

Params:
From 10/5
alk 9.7
cal 410
mag 1400
ph 8.3
temp 79.5 +- .2
No3 0ppm(Api) haven't picked up a better test kit yet
Po4 .009ppm
Amm 0

my alk rose from 10/5 - 10/21

10/21
alk 10.9
cal 410
mag 1400
ph 8.3
temp 79.5 +- .2
No3 0ppm(Api) haven't picked up a better test kit yet
Po4 .021ppm
Amm 0

11/15
alk 10.7
cal 410
mag 1400
ph 8.3
temp 79.5 +- .2
No3 0ppm(Api) haven't picked up a better test kit yet
Po4 .024ppm
Amm 0

There was one day that the po4 rose to .046ppm but I don't this that would be an issue.

 

[mshonk]

Some progress. Tired of looking at my 5g topoff bucket in my office so i am making a stand. I will finish the door and stain it when its not raining. Plus some tank pics.[emoji1]

 

[count krunk]

can you give some more detail on your drain?

From the pics, it looks like it would be noisy

 

[mshonk]

can you give some more detail on your drain?

From the pics, it looks like it would be noisy

It was a used setup and came with it. The guy before me made it. I didnt feel like waiting to put something else in so I used it. It can get loud I guess. It never really bothered me.