R2R Reef of the Month: Joe's 270-gallon SPS Reef - March 2018

Bob Lauson

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Fantastic tank. I really love the approach to feeding and maintenance - keeping it simple. The tank appears to be open on top. If so, what is the secret to keep the wrasses from jumping out?
 

JBNY

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Many thanks for the kinds words everyone. I was on vacation last week so please excuse the late responses.

Congrats Joe!!! I'm going to have to find a way out to see your tank when I'm out for RAP NY.

Thank you my friend! You are more than welcome to come visit (anytime). I am about 2 hours from RAP NY (NJ!!), on Long Island, I can probably hook you up with some other tours as well.

Stunning system. Definitely inspired me. I have been struggling for 6 years. You say you use just the 2 gyres in there.

2 Gyres, that's it. The key is not that you need crazy flow, you just need flow that makes it to all the corals. Putting the gyres on either side of the tank really helps to get flow in all areas it need to be.

Beautifully stunning tank, with a well deserved spotlight. Maybe one day. I've only just started basic sps as in monti digi. Grown from frags over 9 months and had one rtn.I was gutted. Reading that you had sps rtn can i ask what you did to try and save them? I fragged mine and just reglued the frags back on to the dead skeleton.

SPS will RTN from time to time it's a fact of keeping these kinds of corals. In all honesty when a coral starts to RTN I just leave the coral as is. If I lose the while thing it probably would have happened anyway. I have found most times if I just leave it alone, only part of it will die, then after a week or two I'll go back and clip out the area that have died back. Busting up the coral when it is in the middle of losing tissue seem to stress the coral more, so I leave them be now. I know hard to do if you paid big bucks for the coral.

Fantastic tank. I really love the approach to feeding and maintenance - keeping it simple. The tank appears to be open on top. If so, what is the secret to keep the wrasses from jumping out?

lol, don't keep a lot of wrasses that jump. I don't have a lot of wrasses in the tank.
 

Vinoy Thomas

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What a beautiful reef tank!

Very informative write-up and I’m sure anyone who has taken the time to read it is very appreciative of your efforts. Thank you!

Your message to struggling reefers was very inspiring to read. I think we can all appreciate support from others and in combination with your extensive write-up that short message shows us that success is not too far out of our reach.

Thank you again for sharing your journey!
 

JBNY

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What a beautiful reef tank!

Very informative write-up and I’m sure anyone who has taken the time to read it is very appreciative of your efforts. Thank you!

Your message to struggling reefers was very inspiring to read. I think we can all appreciate support from others and in combination with your extensive write-up that short message shows us that success is not too far out of our reach.

Thank you again for sharing your journey!

I am glad you enjoyed it. I definitely do not have any magic mojo when it comes to SPS, but I try to be observant and don't make a lot of changes often. My message to stay with it when things don't seem to be going your way is from someone who had very good success for almost a decade before really experiencing the effects of a crash that seemed to go on and on. Coming back from such problems (and not breaking down my tank) is probably the most satisfying feeling I've had in reef keeping.
 

Roggio

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How long has your NO3 been at 20? It’s a constant struggle for me to keep mine below 5. I have to carbon dose which I’d prefer never to do. My PO4 stays really low however .02-.05
 

JBNY

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How long has your NO3 been at 20? It’s a constant struggle for me to keep mine below 5. I have to carbon dose which I’d prefer never to do. My PO4 stays really low however .02-.05

Not that long, maybe a few months it is normally around 10ppm. It is back to that right now, I think I was just being a little vit lazy and not keeping up with the maintenance on my algae reactor.

Personally I would never work to keep my nitrate that low. I dosed potassium nitrate for years to keep my nitrates between 5-10. I stopped carbon doing about 4 years ago.
 

JBNY

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@JBNY how deep and old is your sandbed and do you stir/siphon/vacuum or just let clean up crew handle it?

Thanks
It is pretty deep in the back of the tank due to the sand being blow around from the pumps, so probably 4-5 inches in the back and hardly anything to 2 inches in the front. It's 10 years old. I really just let a clean up crew handle it, mostly using cucumbers. It gets stirred up here and there, the wrasses sleep in it and I do move it around once in while if the sand piles up on places.

But I do not clean, vacuum or siphon the sand. I've been keeping SPS tanks with sand for 18 years and never had any problem with the sand beds.
 

extremetang

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Absolutely beautiful tank. I’m surprised to only found one gyre pump. There’s got to be much more than this.
 

ckrausnc

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Do you have JF kamakazi?
Also what's your gyre settings? I have 2 250s on my 75g on alternating reverse.
 

extremetang

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@JBNY
I just bought two gyres and can’t seem to have my flow dialed in. Can you share your settings like what you have on your controllers vs on apex? Is it a cycling of all the modes from random to extended pulse? Thanks
 

A worm with high fashion and practical utility: Have you ever kept feather dusters in your reef aquarium?

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  • I have no plans to have feather dusters in my tank.

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