Planet Aquariums Custom 280 Gallon Office SPS Dominant Build

[robby2782]

I finally had a chance to get all my established live rock moved over this weekend, and I am very happy with how it turned out. The photos don't capture the caves between all the rocks as well as they really look, and but the 4" gap off the back panel was intentional, as was the valley between the two islands to allow for water flow and open space for fish and branching coral. One big caveat with using seasoned live rock is using acrylic dowels or epoxy to create the structure is far more difficult, so I built this underwater to preserve as much existing life as possible.

I mounted at least 40 remaining Acropora fragments/mini colonies of the 150+ that I had at my prime several years ago, and as you can see I have ample space for dozens more pieces. I really miss all of Wet Thumbs pieces I lost over the years, and will be looking for several of these pieces to add back to the collection. I also moved the odantanthias fuscipinnis, Dejongi basslet, squirei fairy wrasse, hooded fairy wrasse, and candy basslet over to the display today, and the conspicuous is staying in quarantine for the time being until the coral stabilizes and resumes growing again. I also plan to add a personatus angel that is about 1/3 the size, and would prefer to add this first.

I also swapped out the newer Apex head unit with built in wifi with my older unit from 2010, and have the calcium reactor running independent of the controller as I get it dialed in.

 

[ShepherdReefer]

So this will be the first actual build I've ever done on this forum, but wanted to document this build to hopefully help/inspire newcomers getting into this hobby. Like most hobbyists, I've suffered excruciating losses over the years that has made me want to quit the hobby more than once, and this build is essentially a manifestation of everything I've learned so far from my mistakes over the years.

Planet Aquariums built my first custom 180 gallon tank in 2011 when I upgraded from my 140 gallon Oceanic tank, and I've had 2 other systems since that one going into this build. I actually used to have an office next door to them before I split from my previous business partners and starting my own company about a year and a half ago, so I had the pleasure of touring their facility to see how they are able to build high quality tanks at a high volume that allows them to keep their costs down. I also chose the custom dimensions to manageable enough for me to relocate in a couple years since I am already starting to outgrow my current facility, and may actually have a 360-400 gallon built to move everything into once that happens. Most of my equipment is oversized for this reason with exception to my sump, and upgrading will be relatively simple.

Nice, thanks for sharing.

 

[robby2782]

Here are some older pictures before mounting all of the coral, including a top down photo of the maxima that I moved over, and some of the sponge covered rubble rock I moved into the cryptic zone

 

[Ashish Patel]

Nice looking tank and build thread!

 

[robby2782]

So I finally got the Reef Brite Supra fixtures in to supplement my lights with 6500k bulbs, and they did not disappoint! I love the crisp white light, and brings a tremendous boost to overall par ranging from 450 at the top of the rocks, and 150 par along the bottom.

 

[robby2782]

It hasn't even been 2 weeks since mounting all of my coral, and I'm already seeing growth on several the acropora pieces, and the coloration is phenomenal. I also added 2 tunze 6085 streams behind the rock islands with to alternate waves, while keeping the 2 gyre xf280's on anti sync random mode to maintain indirect, alternating flow patterns to eliminate any and all dead spots in the tank. I recently purchased the Apex cable to connect both drivers to set up multiple patters. The only thing visible with those pumps are the cables coming up from behind the rock.

Here are some addition photos of the current fish in the tank, and I'm leaving the conspicuous angel out until I can add the personatus angel beforehand to prevent any aggression.

 

[kenchilada]

How’s it going?

 

[robby2782]

It's been a crazy busy year so far between my business doing really well, dealing with to power outages from the freeze here, and then finding out I had AEFW in my system, but everything is doing great all things considering. The AEFW probably was the biggest setback, and I had to take everything out that I could to dip and scrub off all of the eggs, and now I've been using the Flatwork Stop the past couple months. Everything has started coloring back up again and is growing, but I still blow all of the colonies with a strong powerhead just in case of any leftovers I missed. I haven't seen anything in about a month now.

This photo is how I discovered I had them, and it was because I got lazy last year and didn't dip the corals I got from Cornbred, Cherry Corals, and hobbyist on here. Honestly I can't believe anyone would ever sell corals to anyone if they knew they had this, so it was very disappointing.

 

[robby2782]

Here are some photos I took today

 

[robby2782]

I also added the Avast Plank, and this has been worth every penny. I programmed it to feed my fish every hour between 8 am to 6 pm, and it turns for 60 seconds ever hour. I have seen amazing grown from several of my fish, and the goal is also to minimize nipping from what I think is a hybrid Flavocoronatus/Burgessi, as well as the Conspicuous and Goldflake. The Regal and Personatus don't nip at anything. It also helps with aggression I believe, and there is very minimal chasing I have see.

 

[robby2782]

The "Shu" from Octo Aquatics has also been worth every penny, and has allowed me to safely introduce tangs, angels, and wrasses to the existing stock, and has been way better than any of the cheap boxes I've used that fall apart over time. What I really like about this box is that I can pace it toward the bottom of the tank where most of the fish like to swim instead of at the very top of the tank, and the magnet allows me to easily bring the box up to the top so I can feed the fish while they're still in there. I waited to release the Personatus until the Conspicuous lost interest in her.

 

[robby2782]

Here are several frags I ordered from reputable hobbyists on here, and they include the RR Jaw Dropper, RR Rainbow Splice, Vivid Insanity, RR Wolverine, Matt V Pacific Wave, Red Matrix, and Blue Flame

 

[robby2782]

Here was my original Jaw Dropper colony I had before I lost it from a clam spawn back in 2018.

 

[robby2782]

As a follow up to the algae scrubber, here is a recent photo I took of the growth over the past few months. I'm starting to think a traditional refugium would be more effective than this at this point, but I'm going to keep running this for awhile to see if the nitrates stay at the 10 ppm since I've increased the feeding. If it continues creeping up then I'll likely go back to running a refugium again.

 

[mattgsa]

I'm loving the build. I have never heard of those lights but they look really nice, I'm interested to see how well they grow coral. I also noticed you have a roller mate, a high-end Skimmer, and an algae scrubber. I'm just wondering how are you going to keep from bottoming out your nutrients? Are you going to dose?

 

[robby2782]

I'm loving the build. I have never heard of those lights but they look really nice, I'm interested to see how well they grow coral. I also noticed you have a roller mate, a high-end Skimmer, and an algae scrubber. I'm just wondering how are you going to keep from bottoming out your nutrients? Are you going to dose?

Thank you! These lights are used by Cairns Marine in Australia, one of the largest wholesalers in the world, and they have more UV diodes than most fixtures out there, and they put out great PAR without the hot spots from the cheaper fixtures. I probably could've purchased G5's for the same price, so I don't know if these would be considered better or the same. My Gigas clam has doubled size just in the last 3 months, and I'm seeing nice growth so far from the chalices, acans, zoas, and acroprora. I also added the 6500k t5's just to boost the par and overall growth as well.

I also dose phosphorus to maintain a .08 reading since I do have good filtration, but the algae scrubber probably doesn't do much from what I have seen so far.

 

[robby2782]

Just got this cool little hybrid in. It's a cross between an Apolemichthys Species Xanthotis and Griffis Angelfish, and they call it a Nebula Angel. It was way smaller than I realized, but it should grow quickly. I'm very interested what coloration pattern it grows into.

My Earlie Wrasse is maybe 1.5", and he's probably 3x the size of this fish. lol

 

[Chase_Reefs]

Any updates on the personatus?