Phillips Family 120g Build

[fishguy242]

which skimmer do you have? aquamaxx is a good skimmer at good price,have seen pump failures w them i would look into octopus as far as garage weigh the ups and downs and $$$

 

[Reefingmama]

which skimmer do you have? aquamaxx is a good skimmer at good price,have seen pump failures w them i would look into octopus as far as garage weigh the ups and downs and $$$

I would have to check the brand. But it’s nearly a decade old and struggling to keep up with the tank. Which octopus do you like?

 

[fishguy242]

well first consider "future upgrade" as mentioned earlier as far as sizing,all are good ,love the dc regal line ,pump is so quiet cannot hear runningcan you snap a pic of current one?

 

[jeffrey750750]

Yep! That was quite a shock! Haha pun intended! Good thing it was a tiny pump. We are adding measures of protection. We already kid proofed it and grounding is high on the list. Then replacing anything that looks like it would fail soon. We are excited to get this thing fixed up!

I installed a new cgfi wall socket, power strip unit is protected and a ground probe in tank. I don't wanna get zapped, ever!

 

[coolrazor]

So we’re getting new lights huh? Lol, we’ll talk about it. As for the sump in the garage idea I go back and forth. My main reason for it was to be able to do bigger automated water changes. Empty 20%-30% and then dump in 20%-30%. However, I’m hearing more and more that people doing auto water changes are doing teeny tiny changes much more frequently. Like less than 1% multiple times a day. Or even taking water out and putting water in at the same time. Kinda blows my mind because I would have thought that would reduce the effectiveness of the water changes. Because the small water change new water get redistributed throughout the tank. So you aren’t removing the same amount of “bad water” per percentage you would be on a larger water change of the same weekly volume. I’m pretty sure I learned that in Chem101 back in college. But if I’m reading that a lot of people are seeing great success with tiny frequent water changes who am I to argue?

 

[Reefingmama]

So we’re getting new lights huh? Lol, we’ll talk about it. As for the sump in the garage idea I go back and forth. My main reason for it was to be able to do bigger automated water changes. Empty 20%-30% and then dump in 20%-30%. However, I’m hearing more and more that people doing auto water changes are doing teeny tiny changes much more frequently. Like less than 1% multiple times a day. Or even taking water out and putting water in at the same time. Kinda blows my mind because I would have thought that would reduce the effectiveness of the water changes. Because the small water change new water get redistributed throughout the tank. So you aren’t removing the same amount of “bad water” per percentage you would be on a larger water change of the same weekly volume. I’m pretty sure I learned that in Chem101 back in college. But if I’m reading that a lot of people are seeing great success with tiny frequent water changes who am I to argue?

;Hilarious;Hilarious;Hilarious I mean. I had to tell you somehow! Haha

 

[fishguy242]

lol..guess i have met the team here

 

[Reefingmama]

lol..guess i have met the team here

Haha yep!

 

[fishguy242]

his pic ,is so fitting ,so we're getting new lights huh?,,love it

 

[Reefingmama]

his pic ,is so fitting ,so we're getting new lights huh?,,love it

Haha yeah, it’s easier to break bad news this way. Especially when I’m spending gobs of money! Hehe

 

[fishguy242]

a family that reefs together,stays together

 

[Reefingmama]

Whoa! It’s been a LONG time since posting. Life got in the way and I haven’t had much time to post. Here’s an update:
We were doing quite well until we added the powder blue. He brought velvet, which we originally thought was Ich... needless to say we lost some fish which in turn caused nutrient spikes and we lost coral. We had a bad algae bloom which was pretty gross and eventually, we got things back on track. dang fish.

we ended up feeding a medicated food and adding a UV sterilizer which stopped the spread. But we lost our clowns, PBT and starry blenny. Everyone else survived and I would say, that’s a win. Thank God for healthy fat fish with good immune systems. We have added quite a few fish and our stocking looks like this:

fox face
Yellow tang
Purple tang
Exquisite leopard wrasse
Melanarius wrasse
McCoskers fairy wrasse
Blue head wrasse
Scotts
Purple fire fish
Flame angel
Splendid dottyback
Sand sifting goby
1 male lyretail anthia
3 female lyretail anthias
Copperband butterfly
2 mocha storm clown fish

Inverts:
2 cleaner shrimp
1 ******* coral banded shrimp that if I catch him I’m flushing him
Sand sifting sea star
Brittle star that we never see unless I bribe him with food
Variation of snails
10 nasarrious snails
Blue and red leg hermits

feeding:
Fish are fed 4 times a day pellets
1 time a day they are fed a combo of mysis, frozen copepods, rods food, algae, calanus frozen, emrald entree, and marine cuisine
1 time a day they get a full sheet of Nori
2 times a week we spot feed the LPS with reefroids

supplements:
daily dose of NoPox on auto doser using Apex (we are still dialing this in to find what our tank needs)
Auto dosing Red Sea 2 part using Apex based on Trident readings

we also do auto water changes. We tried doing 1% daily water changes and didn’t like the results. We instead do 20% every two weeks or as needed if the tank isn’t looking awesome. We have found having a water change at the push of a button LIFE CHANGING. It takes 2 seconds to do and has been a huge part of our success. We have a 300 gallon tank outside that houses water. We have it plumbed to drain out of our washing machine drain. My husband understands more, but it’s pretty epic.
We are still running our T5/LED combo using VERY old original hydras and, so far, things look great! Our hope is to upgrade to G5 radions, but, we are saving for those.

We have added a LOT to the sump and cleaned it up a lot. We switched out our skimmer to an Aqumaxx. We added a hang on refugium that is growing macro algae and pods. We also switched out the old/dying return pump with an apex return pump. We drilled our fresh and salt containers and our RODI system got set up to auto fill. We moved our GFO and Carbon reactors to the garage to clear up space under the tank and set up our whole Apex system. We hired a LFS to help us with the heavy lifting/drilling/plumbing etc and he helped a ton with our Apex configurations. But, we have really wanted to stay hands on and try to do things our self as much as we can.

Testing:

Our trident tests Alk, Calcium, Mag
Our apex monitors PH, ORP, Temp (we have three things monitoring temp), and salinity.
I manually test Phospates and Nitrates

parameters:
Salinity: 1.026
Temp: 77.5-79
Nitrate 30 (working on getting these down)
Phosphate .18-.22 (again, working on getting these down)
PH 7.9 - 8.1 this is the biggest swing we get and I am considering dosing Kalk to bring this up closer to 8.3
Alk 8.8-9.5 we tend to hover closer to 9.1 or so.
Calcium 430-460
Mag 1370

 

[fishguy242]

hi,looking great,lots of color ,i love it

 

[Reefingmama]

 

[Reefingmama]

 

[Reefingmama]

 

[Reefingmama]

Posting some video updates. Tank is looking good. We got phosphates more stable at .05 and nitrates between 12-16. We are still SLOWLY acclimating our tank to NOPOX and so far, we have seen nothing but good results from it but we have gone very very slow with it. We started at 1/8 dose for a week, went to 1/4 and then sat there for about 2 weeks. Then we went to 1/2 dose for 2 more weeks and have gone up by 1-2 ml every couple days depending on NO3 and PO4 test results.
We are still feeding 5 times a day. 4 of those are a small amount of pellets on an auto feeder. Once a day I do frozen food and Nori. We have also started using Mastic and our fish LOVE it. We do that about 1-2 times a week. We do plan to add one to two fish and we are considering several options. Blue throat trigger and powder Blue/brown tang and copperband are all high on the list. We had a copperband but unfortunately our anemone ate him... he is missed and we are considering doing another.
Our corals are doing well but our SPS isn’t as vibrant as we would prefer. I think it’s due to elevated nitrates and phosphates. We would love your thoughts on the tank.

 

[fishguy242]

hi,absolutely gorgeous ,love the colors,corals looking great!! the fish ,the color splash of movement is stunning!! very nice

 

[Reefingmama]

hi,absolutely gorgeous ,love the colors,corals looking great!! the fish ,the color splash of movement is stunning!! very nice

Thanks so much! We are really happy with it! Now we need time to let it settle in and GROW!

 

[Reefingmama]

We are still chugging along!

Parameters are very stable now

Calcium: 430
Alkalinity: 8.4
Magnesium: 1400
Nitrates: 2-5
Phosphates: 0.07

Our corals have really settled in and we have some nice coloration and growth with good sized colonies.