Phillygeeks 57g mixed reef

[phillygeeks]

My wife and I have certainly learned a ton over the past year. There has been plenty of trial and error and just over the past month or 2 we have finally established a stable tank with growing corals. Hopefully some of you can learn from our misadventures.

The stand, however, was not a mistake and we had a great time building it. It's AMAZING what you can learn to do on youtube!

 

[Ljaus]

If that's what the stand looks like I can't wait to see the rest!

 

[iReefer]

Very nice craftsmanship guys

 

[Gbrum]

That side panel is pretty cool

 

[tdhnry]

Nice setup. I just moved to Philly from Miami and is good to see interest in the hobby up here too

 

[kschweer]

Great work on the stand!!! Can't wait to see the rest come together!

 

[phillygeeks]

Nice setup. I just moved to Philly from Miami and is good to see interest in the hobby up here too

Welcome! It took a couple years for the city to grow on me, but finally it feels like home. No shortage of character for sure. The only thing I miss is a nice waterfront. I had the Chesapeake Bay and Potomac as a kid and then Lake Michigan in Chicago. Nothing close here

 

[phillygeeks]

Thanks for the compliments!

I have definitely changed the setup over the year. I started with 2 Kessile a360w's, Apex classic, 2 tunze power heads, Nextreef medial reactor and ReefOctopus classic 150 skimmer. Below is the initial sump being set up

 

[phillygeeks]

We used the Walt Smith manufactured rock 2.0 or 2.1, whichever is the dry stuff. That was a great choice and would do it again

For sand we used CaribSea Arag-alive. Unfortunately we have had ongoing issues with sand clumping and are not sure if a different substrate would be less prone to clump into calcified masses

 

[phillygeeks]

Over the year I had 2 episodes where a group of the frags I had bought died quickly within about a week, the first episode my carbon/gfo reactor plugged and the water clearly fouled. It happened slowly and I didn't realize how yellow the water was until I fixed the issue.

Until recently I had used LED's only but then switched to T5 as the primary light source and began adding nitrates. Prior to this nothing grew quickly and a lot of the frags slowly bleached and died. Finally over the past 2 months everything has started to keep color, encrust and grow with the current setup. The tank is still fairly bare at this point after my earlier trials and tribulations, but I plan on filling it out a bit more in the next couple months and then letting things grow out.

Current FTS embarrassingly empty, but I'm finally happy with how things are going

 

[phillygeeks]

Current setup:
ATI sunpower 6 bulb with Kessil a360w's supplementing mostly blue
Tunze apex controlled powerhead and Maxspect Gyre on opposite end
RO classic 150 skimmer
Avast spyglass reactor with gfo only, ROX carbon separately in a bag
Neptune DOS w BRS 2-part
Waveline DC 4000 return
Tunze ATO

 

[Daniel@R2R]

Great-looking build! I love the cabinetry!