Rahul's Reef

[Rshahnyc]

Hey everyone just wanna share my progress and ask advice here and there

I started a 90 gallon reef tank with a 30 gallon sump in March 2023.

The learning curve has been steep but I think I finally have a plan to get to a point where I stop tinkering haha

The tank has gone through many iterations including no/minimal coral, and then a nem proliferation (now all removed) and then torches/LPS and now SPS dominant mixed reef. I got rid of some corals and some rocks to create some room to better allow flow and swimming spaces for my fish. I have to still get rid of the Space Invader Pectinae (or at least flip the rock so that its facing the back and away from my SPS) and that will be the last of my aggressive corals (I had a mean Bernardiopora and a mean master torch that I had to get rid of).


Tank Stats
pH 8.1-8.3
Alk 10
Ca 450
Mg 1400
Nitrate 6-8
Phos 0.15-0.2

Maintenance Schedule
- 30G Water change q2 weeks (sometimes more frequently if I'm doing stuff in the tank)

Filtration
- 3 4inch filter socks with carbon media bags in them
- TUNZE MAR 3181 (algae reactor on 16H/day)
- TUNZE DC 3410 skimmer with CO2 scrubber attached
- Small GFO reactor that I don't regularly use but once I hit >0.2 Phos I'll run it
- Aqua UV Light on 12H/day

Lights
- AI Hydra 64 x2 + Reefbrites x2 on one side

Dosing
- Not a Feesh 2 part (NaOH for pH boost)

Additives
- KZ Coral 4 part weekly
- Coral Snow plus biweekly for binding/filtration enhancement
- Benereef the day before I'm planning a water change

Food
- PE Mysis via an AF4 frozen autofeeder (filled weekly) + Reef frenzy/Herbivore frency/Fish frenzy 2-3x/week

Stock List (heavy I know)
- Yellow tang (wild, appx 4 inch)
- Hippo tang (appx 4 inch)
- x2 Clowns
- x2 Bangai Cardinals
- Royal Gramma
- Melanarus Wrasse
- Angler Wrasse (meanie, largest wrasse)
- Yellow Flanked Wrasse
- Scotts Blue Throat Wrasse (just started flashing)
- 8 line Flasher Wrasse
- Purple Firefish
- Foxface

Coral List (In order of noteable with sizes)
SPS
- Homewrecker, medium mini colony
- WD, large frag (color looks good, polyp extension there)
- TGC Acrolandia, recent frag (color looks good, polyp extension there)
- POTO Flamethrower, recent frag (color looks low, polyp extension there)
- Zombieland, large frag (color isn't as pretty as others)
- RRC Rainbow splice, large frag
- Solar Flare, medium mini colony (colored up like woah)
- Princess Peach, medium mini colony (colored up like woah)
- JF Jolt, recent frag (color looks good, polyp extension there)
- Red Robin, medium mini colony
- WWC Yellow tips, large colony
- Bali Slimer, large frag
- PC Rainbow, medium mini colony and x2 large frags
- RRC Goldenrod, large colony
- Black Sabbath, large frag
- Malifecent, x2 small frags
- POTO Afterburner, large frag
- TNT Anacoropora, medium mini colony
- Sunset Monti
Mushrooms
- OG Bounce, TCK Powerball, x2 Magic Carpets, bouncing Yuma (orange x4)

LPS
- FCA 24K HG (4H), ASD HG (1H), ASD HG (3H)
- TCK Fireball Goni, Amazeball goni, Glitter goni, other goni
- Blue/Green Hammer (large), Big Bird Hammer (4H), x2 other hammers/frogspawn of diff color

Other
- Rainbow Acantho + Golden Acantho
- TCK Master plate, Insane Rainbow diaseries x2 (first one split)
- Zoas (Esosphere, Strats, GMK, Godbeasts, Bloodshots, LSOH) AND THE DREADED AND PERVASIVE BROWN ZOA

 

[Gumbies R Us]

Following along! You have some great looking corals in there!

 

[Rshahnyc]

Thank you, I'm adding a final round of pieces (unfortunately delayed, although I guess perspective is needed in light of the tragedy). My hope is that I can avoid putting my hands in the tank for the next 3 months haha and hopefully it will allow these pieces to take off like my stupid WWC Yellow Tips

 

[Rshahnyc]

Tank
Aquascape

 

[Rshahnyc]

11/17/25 day after a water change and looking yummy


Also my firefish found a home
Under the acantho

 

[Rshahnyc]

Did a 30 gallon water change today. While I was doing it I removed all of my sand dwellers, added a bunch of substrate and reorganized my sand dwellers. Loving the look now.

I got one large sps frag coming from @CCK_8814 that should complete coral purchases for a while.

 

[Rshahnyc]

12.2.25 Reef

 

[Rshahnyc]

12.2.25 Reef

 

[Rshahnyc]

I have a couple of floating frag rocks in the back and in my beginner phase when I was patching the back wall with GSP I put some too close to the rock and it's growing onto the rock.

The rock has a solar flare, red robin and homewrecker colony so I want to figure out how to keep it off and cut it back. The rock is hard to remove and Im hesitant to kalkwasser the GSP so close to the SPS.

Any thoughts? Remove from tank and try? Just frag off the colonies and remove it?

 

[Rshahnyc]

Seems like glue and joes juice treatment 1 was about 80% effective at killing/pushing back the gap. Gonna do another round on next water change and hopefully nothing dies.

Added a versa pump and dosing 5mL of bactobalance daily over 30 mins. Seemingly I need it for nutrient management due to fish overload?

Now balancing the pH again -_-

Things look good tho

 

[ChrisfromBrick]

Beautiful reef

 

[Rshahnyc]

Thank you

Have cleaned up significantly and adjusted the flow. My Gonis aren't looking to happy.

I also recently started dosing PNS from Hydrospace. Not sure if that's why things aren't happy or the flow or the effect the PNS is having on the nutrient swings.

Gonna try to setup another versa to autodose the PNS in addition to the bactobalance.

 

[Rshahnyc]

Couple of changes

1) Turned off my Apex Gro and removed the chaeto that was in the middle chamber of my sump. Also I’m going to take my Tunze MAR off line.
- That will mean to more macroalgae nutrient control, nor the ???negligent pH benefit.
- less secretion of organics that may inhibit coral growth
- less yellowing of water which brings me to #2

2) take off filter socks. Was using 200 micron socks. Im gonna put in 3D printed media filters for running some carbon through the cups.
- I MAY put filter floss above it but it will depend on noise and floaties.

3) removed rubble that was in my sump.
- it was Carib sea rubble which is not very porous and may be leaching phos?

4) whenever my polyp lab bioblocks come in, I’m gonna soak in Deep Cycle by PNS and put that in the low flow areas in my sump. Hopefully this will add a home for PNS bacteria.

5) adjust the Bactobalance dosing for nutrient control instead of the macroalgae (mostly phos issues)

6) replace nitrate dosing with ammonia dosing. Gonna start with 5mL morning and evenings for the first week. Then 10mL morning and evenings for week 2. Then maybe I’ll throw it on a doser into the sump after the skimmer.

7) bring up my temp from 75 to 77.

Thoughts?

 

[Rshahnyc]

TLDR

No more macroalgae
No more filter socks
Increases bactobalance
Ammonia dosing

 

[Rshahnyc]

Did a talk with Dong from Acrogardens and got some advice. Still working on implementing it all and honestly I probably would’ve tinkered with this already but I’m on vacation and can’t do anything about it.

For the past week
- turned off Bactobalance dosing
- stopped PNS bacteria from hydrospace
- set ammonium bicarbonate at 15mL/day
- increased my flow through on my return pump
- switched to AF CO2 scrubber
Nutrients
Phos 0.25 —> climbing daily now at 0.5
Nitrate 7 —> 10
pH 8.0-8.2 —> pH 8.25-8.45
Alk 8.8 —> 8.1 —> had to increased NaOH from 52 —> 62 to keep it from falling
Ca 440 —> 420 —> increased ca part as above
Mg 1420

Partially think nutrients riding cuz my skimmer is prolly full and overflowing (forgot to empty before I left and with higher return turnover it was filling quicker)
Let’s see what these corals look like when I get home :/

 

[Rshahnyc]

So my phos went as high as 0.65 but all my high end pieces made it somehow.

We also plumbed in a small frag system connected to the entire system. I have the return line going directly into the polyp lab genesis block holder (which I soaked in pns bacteria from Hydrospace). After doing a water change and setting that up my phosphates are actually falling day to day. The only times it stays the same the following day is if I feed my corals.

New numbers

Dosing requirement went from 46 —> 62

8.2-8.4
Alk 8
Mg 1400
Ca 440
Nitrate 10
Phos 0.18

 

[Rshahnyc]

Umm so now I am having trouble keeping phos up. What is going on.

Also my alk demands are nearly 60-70% up from prior.

BUT some of my sps not looking as good. I was overdo for a water change, now things are starting to pick back up. My WD has never looked this good before.

PH 8.1-8.3
Alk 8.5
Ca 440
Mg 1375

Nitrate 13
Phos 0.12


Getting appx 1 skimmer cup full every 5 days of thin brown water. Maybe I should reduce?

No more pns, won’t be buying more unless it looks like things change negatively

 

[sqm01]

The tank looks solid man

Did you notice any difference when you added PNS?

 

[Rshahnyc]

Honestly no. I’ll let you know if the nutrient management was affected. I just ran out of pns so we will see.

I did notice growth tips and increased alk consumption with ammonium bicarb.

I’m also at a nice ratio now at 14 and 0.14

 

[Rshahnyc]

I think honestly I’m worried that there was too much doc once I kept dosing pns. I wanna see if things look better without it.

Also I did really like deep cycle. I soaked polyplab bioblocks in it and I think that really affected my nutrient management.