New Red Sea Reefer XXL750 build

Viner87 · Jan 21, 2018

Some great looking frags there mate - top job [emoji1303]

JonJ · Feb 24, 2018

I knew adding angels into a reef was a gamble and it looks like I lost. It started with lack of polyp extension and has progressed into some flesh missing from the tips of my corals. I could not determine who was responsible for the nipping- the Regal or the Emperor? In watching the tank this morning I saw the Emperor go from coral to coral, nipping away as he moved across the tank. Time to put the fish trap into action. I’m more attached to the Regal angel so I’m glad he is not the culprit. Hopefully catching him won’t take too long.

CWR24 · Mar 13, 2018

JonJ said:
Installed a low shelf to hide all of the power supplies and wiring. I also hooked up the GHL Doser 2.1 to get my 2 part dosing all set up. I went with the 4 head model as I plan on buying the GHL Alkalinty Director as soon as it is available. The tank has fully cycled and clean up crew has been added.

I really like the small shelf that you have your GHL Doser sitting on. Might you be able to tell me the approx dimensions of it and where you bought it?
Build looks great and as others mentioned SOLID job on the rock work!!

Thanks......Craig

Daltrey · Mar 13, 2018

I may have missed it but what heater controller are you running? Thanks

JonJ · Mar 13, 2018

CWR24 said:
I really like the small shelf that you have your GHL Doser sitting on. Might you be able to tell me the approx dimensions of it and where you bought it?
Build looks great and as others mentioned SOLID job on the rock work!!

Thanks......Craig

It’s just a small ikea shelf 8x16. Thx for the compliment!

JonJ · Mar 13, 2018

Daltrey said:
I may have missed it but what heater controller are you running? Thanks

I just use the inkbird ones off of amazon. I use them on both my tanks as a failsafe and they work great. They kick on a fan if things get too hot as well.

[URL]https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d...keywords=inkbird+temperature+controller&psc=1[/url]

CWR24 · Mar 14, 2018

JonJ said:
It’s just a small ikea shelf 8x16. Thx for the compliment!

Ok.....thanks much!!

JonJ · Jul 1, 2018

I haven’t posted in a bit so I thought I would post an update. This tank has not been without its problems, some self induced, others just bad luck. I overcame my dinoflagellates only for hair algae to take its place. I still have the two angels who leave most of my corals alone but when they decide there is a piece they like, the destroy it. I feel I am slowly winning the battle with the hair algae and at the 9 month mark, the pieces that the angels leave alone are taking off. Here a couple of shots with my new iPhone X.

jgann · Jul 1, 2018

Love this build, thanks for sharing some cool tricks.

ReefWithCare · Jul 13, 2018

Curious to hear more about how CP saved you from a Velvet outbreak. Was that on this tank?

JonJ · Jul 13, 2018

ReefWithCare said:
Curious to hear more about how CP saved you from a Velvet outbreak. Was that on this tank?

Yes it was on this tank. All of the fish were doing great and I added a magnificent foxface without putting it through QT. I can assure you that I will never make that mistake again! At the time off the addition the stock list was- emperor angel, regal angel, longnosed butterfly, kole tang, regal tang , naso tang and the magnificent foxface. All fish got along great and there were no issues for the 1st few days. My wife called me at work and told me that the butterfly, emperor and kole tang were covered in ich. When I got home, I knew that I was dealing with something else entirely. They were covered in what looked like powdered sugar,were breathing heavy and they would not come out into the light. I immediately set up a 55 gallon qt and sent a message out to the local reef club looking for chloroquine phosphate that got no response. I found and ordered some from an Ebay seller that has tons of other fish meds and gets great reviews. My biggest concern at this point was not being sure if the fish would make it while I waited on shipping. The next day while at work, the kole tang and butterfly died and my regal angel and foxface had started breathing heavy as well. With the 55 gallon QT now set up I proceeded to try and catch the remaining fish but with all of the caves and nooks in this tank, there was no way. Then I remembered an LFS owner telling me about draining a display very quickly to catch all of the fish out of a display and how easy it was. Luckily I have four 55 gallon hdpe barrels that I use for water changes and I ran to my local home improvement store and bought some bilge pump tubing that is close to 2 inches in diameter or so. I was able to drain this tank in a few minutes. I left about 2 inches of water in it and used a spray bottle of tank water to mist the corals while I caught everyone. As I started refilling the display, I fresh water dipped all of the inhabitants for 5 minutes prior to adding them to the QT. I think the freshwater dip helped them or at least bought me some time until the package of CP arrived 2 days later. By this time my poor emperor look to be on death's door, laying on his side colorless and breathing heavy-mouth wide open. the other fish were flashing and the regal angel looked like he was suffering as well. I mixed the amount of CP to get the tank to 40mg per gallon and dumped it in. Over the next few days I continued to monitor ammonia levels and feed small amounts of frozen mysis. The emperor and regal tang would not eat at all while the others took small amounts.The dusted appearance started to diminish and the heavy breathing subsided. As of this morning (5 days into the treatment) the emperor has regained his color and is eating nori again! There are no more signs of velvet on any of the fish. My original plan was to treat them with CP for 30 days and I still might as long as they keep eating. I have read that regal tangs don't take to CP treatment well and with mine not eating, I may set up another small qt tank without CP and observe him to make sure that it doesn't come back. I plan to leave the display fallow for 70 days or so just to be safe. My display was almost empty for about an hour and only 2 pieces did not fair well (completely bleached). Luckily they were not expensive ones! The silver lining is that I now have removed the angels from the tank, so my sps can now flourish and it looks like all of the fish will live to see another day.

Viner87 · Jul 13, 2018

JonJ said:
Yes it was on this tank. All of the fish were doing great and I added a magnificent foxface without putting it through QT. I can assure you that I will never make that mistake again! At the time off the addition the stock list was- emperor angel, regal angel, longnosed butterfly, kole tang, regal tang , naso tang and the magnificent foxface. All fish got along great and there were no issues for the 1st few days. My wife called me at work and told me that the butterfly, emperor and kole tang were covered in ich. When I got home, I knew that I was dealing with something else entirely. They were covered in what looked like powdered sugar,were breathing heavy and they would not come out into the light. I immediately set up a 55 gallon qt and sent a message out to the local reef club looking for chloroquine phosphate that got no response. I found and ordered some from an Ebay seller that has tons of other fish meds and gets great reviews. My biggest concern at this point was not being sure if the fish would make it while I waited on shipping. The next day while at work, the kole tang and butterfly died and my regal angel and foxface had started breathing heavy as well. With the 55 gallon QT now set up I proceeded to try and catch the remaining fish but with all of the caves and nooks in this tank, there was no way. Then I remembered an LFS owner telling me about draining a display very quickly to catch all of the fish out of a display and how easy it was. Luckily I have four 55 gallon hdpe barrels that I use for water changes and I ran to my local home improvement store and bought some bilge pump tubing that is close to 2 inches in diameter or so. I was able to drain this tank in a few minutes. I left about 2 inches of water in it and used a spray bottle of tank water to mist the corals while I caught everyone. As I started refilling the display, I fresh water dipped all of the inhabitants for 5 minutes prior to adding them to the QT. I think the freshwater dip helped them or at least bought me some time until the package of CP arrived 2 days later. By this time my poor emperor look to be on death's door, laying on his side colorless and breathing heavy-mouth wide open. the other fish were flashing and the regal angel looked like he was suffering as well. I mixed the amount of CP to get the tank to 40mg per gallon and dumped it in. Over the next few days I continued to monitor ammonia levels and feed small amounts of frozen mysis. The emperor and regal tang would not eat at all while the others took small amounts.The dusted appearance started to diminish and the heavy breathing subsided. As of this morning (5 days into the treatment) the emperor has regained his color and is eating nori again! There are no more signs of velvet on any of the fish. My original plan was to treat them with CP for 30 days and I still might as long as they keep eating. I have read that regal tangs don't take to CP treatment well and with mine not eating, I may set up another small qt tank without CP and observe him to make sure that it doesn't come back. I plan to leave the display fallow for 70 days or so just to be safe. My display was almost empty for about an hour and only 2 pieces did not fair well (completely bleached). Luckily they were not expensive ones! The silver lining is that I now have removed the angels from the tank, so my sps can now flourish and it looks like all of the fish will live to see another day.

Mate that sounds devastating - how long after introducing the new fish was it before velvet hit you?

ReefWithCare · Jul 13, 2018

JonJ said:
Yes it was on this tank. All of the fish were doing great and I added a magnificent foxface without putting it through QT. I can assure you that I will never make that mistake again! At the time off the addition the stock list was- emperor angel, regal angel, longnosed butterfly, kole tang, regal tang , naso tang and the magnificent foxface. All fish got along great and there were no issues for the 1st few days. My wife called me at work and told me that the butterfly, emperor and kole tang were covered in ich. When I got home, I knew that I was dealing with something else entirely. They were covered in what looked like powdered sugar,were breathing heavy and they would not come out into the light. I immediately set up a 55 gallon qt and sent a message out to the local reef club looking for chloroquine phosphate that got no response. I found and ordered some from an Ebay seller that has tons of other fish meds and gets great reviews. My biggest concern at this point was not being sure if the fish would make it while I waited on shipping. The next day while at work, the kole tang and butterfly died and my regal angel and foxface had started breathing heavy as well. With the 55 gallon QT now set up I proceeded to try and catch the remaining fish but with all of the caves and nooks in this tank, there was no way. Then I remembered an LFS owner telling me about draining a display very quickly to catch all of the fish out of a display and how easy it was. Luckily I have four 55 gallon hdpe barrels that I use for water changes and I ran to my local home improvement store and bought some bilge pump tubing that is close to 2 inches in diameter or so. I was able to drain this tank in a few minutes. I left about 2 inches of water in it and used a spray bottle of tank water to mist the corals while I caught everyone. As I started refilling the display, I fresh water dipped all of the inhabitants for 5 minutes prior to adding them to the QT. I think the freshwater dip helped them or at least bought me some time until the package of CP arrived 2 days later. By this time my poor emperor look to be on death's door, laying on his side colorless and breathing heavy-mouth wide open. the other fish were flashing and the regal angel looked like he was suffering as well. I mixed the amount of CP to get the tank to 40mg per gallon and dumped it in. Over the next few days I continued to monitor ammonia levels and feed small amounts of frozen mysis. The emperor and regal tang would not eat at all while the others took small amounts.The dusted appearance started to diminish and the heavy breathing subsided. As of this morning (5 days into the treatment) the emperor has regained his color and is eating nori again! There are no more signs of velvet on any of the fish. My original plan was to treat them with CP for 30 days and I still might as long as they keep eating. I have read that regal tangs don't take to CP treatment well and with mine not eating, I may set up another small qt tank without CP and observe him to make sure that it doesn't come back. I plan to leave the display fallow for 70 days or so just to be safe. My display was almost empty for about an hour and only 2 pieces did not fair well (completely bleached). Luckily they were not expensive ones! The silver lining is that I now have removed the angels from the tank, so my sps can now flourish and it looks like all of the fish will live to see another day.

Wow, I'm going to load up on that seller lol. Amazing the power of this stuff and the resiliency of your fish. Most fish I've seen with Velvet barely last 24 hours. You acted quickly and decisively. You made a mistake, but you turned around quickly to save what you could. I don't hear many stories of success with Velvet --- usually the entire tank is wiped because the hobbyist is trying to figure out what is going on and doesn't have the proper meds or a QT to set up.

JonJ · Jul 13, 2018

Viner87 said:
Mate that sounds devastating - how long after introducing the new fish was it before velvet hit you?

The 1st signs were a week or so. Really sucks about the kole tang and the butterfly-they were 2 favorites. This hobby can be VERY frustrating and with this tank I have had my share in the 1st year. I knew what I was signing up for when I re-entered the hobby after a 10 year break

JonJ · Jul 13, 2018

ReefWithCare said:
Wow, I'm going to load up on that seller lol. Amazing the power of this stuff and the resiliency of your fish. Most fish I've seen with Velvet barely last 24 hours. You acted quickly and decisively. You made a mistake, but you turned around quickly to save what you could. I don't hear many stories of success with Velvet --- usually the entire tank is wiped because the hobbyist is trying to figure out what is going on and doesn't have the proper meds or a QT to set up.

I always keep a HOB Penguin filter set in my display tank's sump just in case. All of these fish are super fat and eat frozen LRS and PE mysis soaked in vitamins twice a day-so maybe that helped with resilience. What's weird is the naso tang (my avatar) has not missed a beat. No signs at all throughout this and continues to eat anything and everything I put in front of him. I am reading now about secondary infections killing fish so I am going to treat them with antibiotics next.

CoralWealth · Aug 28, 2018

hope everything is going good.

Any updates on how everything is going, fish wise and coral wise?

JonJ · Aug 28, 2018

Not much to update other than counting the days until I can add fish back to the tank (they are all doing great). 76 days will put me at September 20th, so not too much longer. My nutrient levels have been dropping without fish so I am feeding coral foods like reef roids and a few others to keep them above zero. Things seem to be growing at a decent pace, finally. I’ve added more frags to fill in where the angels nipped some into submission and will take some more updated pics once things are back to normal. I got a new lens for my camera but haven’t had much time to mess with it yet. The photo above is a shot of my MattV Rainbow Envy with it.

CoralWealth · Aug 28, 2018

JonJ said:
Not much to update other than counting the days until I can add fish back to the tank (they are all doing great). 76 days will put me at September 20th, so not too much longer. My nutrient levels have been dropping without fish so I am feeding coral foods like reef roids and a few others to keep them above zero. Things seem to be growing at a decent pace, finally. I’ve added more frags to fill in where the angels nipped some into submission and will take some more updated pics once things are back to normal. I got a new lens for my camera but haven’t had much time to mess with it yet. The photo above is a shot of my MattV Rainbow Envy with it.

Glad to hear the corals are good and soon for the fish!

That MattV Rainbow Envy looks great!! I like mine and mine more all the time, when I got it is was paled out but it is coloring up now.

How high do you have it in your tank?

JonJ · Aug 28, 2018

codydemmel4 said:
Glad to hear the corals are good and soon for the fish!

That MattV Rainbow Envy looks great!! I like mine and mine more all the time, when I got it is was paled out but it is coloring up now.

How high do you have it in your tank?

It’s pretty high up getting 300-350 par. It was a little darker and nicer looking at higher nutrient levels (around 5-7 ppm No3). I barely register any color on my salifert No3 test kit right now without fish.