reef-rc WB 190.5 SPS

[Jminasalli]

A year and it's good. It's a nice tank. Outside of a few items I around the sump, I do not regret buying the tank.

Like many things in life, there are improvements that I think could make it better. If your setup has not already gone too far, maybe the following sump improvement suggestion may help with your journey.

• Sump a little small
• Sump ATO is a waste of valuable space IMO. I can't imagine how many reefers actually use this for ATO without having to constantly refill their ATO.
• Sump drain could be design to be more flexible. If you wanted to use anything besides socks, you're going to have to put in efforts.

I redid all my plumbing as I went two return pumps and a uv sterilizer. Also I got the klir7 filter roller for it also. And agreed the ato I’m using for the time being but it won’t be for more than the next few weeks it’s just to small for a tank this size.

 

[reef-rc]

I redid all my plumbing as I went two return pumps and a uv sterilizer. Also I got the klir7 filter roller for it also. And agreed the ato I’m using for the time being but it won’t be for more than the next few weeks it’s just to small for a tank this size.

nice. Option for two returns would be nice. I just did not want to mess with it. It does make adding a UV Sterilizer a little more work as I have learned and is why the sump area is just cramp. I was able to stand the Pentair Aquatics Smart High Output UV 50 Watt in the back of the tank along the return line.

 

[reef-rc]

A little eye candy of the tank

At this point, the tank is mostly LPS. I am slowly adding SPS to grow out.

The tank is logically divided into separate areas based on the type of LPS. This should allow me to apply separate flow and lighting requirements as required.

Meat Corals / Cynarina / Goni Area:

Torch Garden:

Acan Patch:

Hammers & Frogspawn Garden:

Top view of the respective areas I mentioned above:

 

[reef-rc]

DID THE UNTHINKABLE - Added Nitrogen

The tank nitrate and phosphate level have slowly been inching down to near zero for weeks.

For weeks I have been feeding fish twice a day heavily + feeding tangs 1 algae clip a day. I am also feeding powder food to a number of corals once a week - goni, torch, gorgonians, etc. In addition, I have been turning off the roller mat, skimmer and algae scrubber for a number of hours throughout through the day. This is with the goal to increase nitrate and phosphate.

What to do right? I could turn off all three filtrations or one of them but I am hoping to keep them on for varying reasons.

Yesterday I decided to increase nitrate by .5 ppm using NeoNitro. Did a dose of 10 ml.

This may be by chance but I did noticed the only soft coral in the tank (long tentacle toadstool) and my long time elegance opened up more than previous days shortly after I dose nitrogen. Not sure if that is a sign.

Will look to test later today and see where things go from here for the next few weeks.

 

[Melanie Fish]

DID THE UNTHINKABLE - Added Nitrogen

The tank nitrate and phosphate level have slowly been inching down to near zero for weeks.

For weeks I have been feeding fish twice a day heavily + feeding tangs 1 algae clip a day. I am also feeding powder food to a number of corals once a week - goni, torch, gorgonians, etc. In addition, I have been turning off the roller mat, skimmer and algae scrubber for a number of hours throughout through the day. This is with the goal to increase nitrate and phosphate.

What to do right? I could turn off all three filtrations or one of them but I am hoping to keep them on for varying reasons.

Yesterday I decided to increase nitrate by .5 ppm using NeoNitro. Did a dose of 10 ml.

This may be by chance but I did noticed the only soft coral in the tank (long tentacle toadstool) and my long time elegance opened up more than previous days shortly after I dose nitrogen. Not sure if that is a sign.

Will look to test later today and see where things go from here for the next few weeks.

I had to start dosing NeoNitro when i was dealing with dinos. My soft corals all seem to really like it. Def helped raise my nutrients back up. No negative effects. Your tank looks amazing!

 

[najer]

Very not a fan of roller mats, I would pull it.

 

[reef-rc]

I had to start dosing NeoNitro when i was dealing with dinos. My soft corals all seem to really like it. Def helped raise my nutrients back up. No negative effects. Your tank looks amazing!

Thank you for the validation. After today's test, what look like the same as yesterday, I up the dosage slightly and also started to add NeoPhos. Will look to maintain today's dosage and continue monitoring. I am definitely trying to keep the dinos @ bay also as there are small signs.

Thank you for the compliment. The tank has progress nicely for it's 1st year.

 

[reef-rc]

Very not a fan of roller mats, I would pull it.

I am tempted but do like how it keeps water clear. More than likely I will leave it off longer than turning it off completely once I am to get nitrate and phosphate up and stable a bit.

 

[Krokilus]

Looking awesome man and Merry Christmas. I think I need to start dosing nitrogen as well. my phosphates are good now but nitrates might spike up to 0.25.

 

[reef-rc]

Looking awesome man and Merry Christmas. I think I need to start dosing nitrogen as well. my phosphates are good now but nitrates might spike up to 0.25.

Happy belated Xmas.

Nitrogen - slow and steady as they say. So far it has looked to helped the lonely soft coral - toadstool in then tank and seems to also help the elegance. Definitely need to go slow here and ensure test kit and testing are accurate.

 

[Krokilus]

Happy belated Xmas.

Nitrogen - slow and steady as they say. So far it has looked to helped the lonely soft coral - toadstool in then tank and seems to also help the elegance. Definitely need to go slow here and ensure test kit and testing are accurate.

Thats good to hear about the toadstool because mine is growing like crazy but barely any polyp extension.

 

[reef-rc]

Thats good to hear about the toadstool because mine is growing like crazy but barely any polyp extension.

This was mine from earlier this morning before the lights came on around noon. Managed to take quick shot while lights still off.

 

[reef-rc]

Thought I share this lovely piece, red tnt anacropora, that I had moved from the Fusion a week ago. With more lights, i would imagine growth would be much faster here.

 

[reef-rc]

I have found another use for the nano flipper. Removing gunk from the algae scrubber.

This seems like hair algae but really slimly. The pic below is like this on both sides. Having these growing in here is better in here than in the tank. Makes so much easier to remove.

 

[reef-rc]

dup

 

[reef-rc]

I got my ClearView aquarium lid a few weeks back and had chance to installed this past week.

This definitely is a nice looking lid. It's low profile, clear and has a sufficient feeding slots.

 

[reef-rc]

MP40 extension cable...

Extension Cable for Ecotech Marine Vortech is such a nice to have. For months I been living with the out of the box cable length constraints until I finally settled on where i wanted the pumps to positioned long term. These extensions from AquaLifeStudio made things more manageable without being limited by the length of the cable. I have been using these for over a month and it does the job.

 

[reef-rc]

Who knew HIGHER PH is possible!

The tank's normal PH range is 8.0x - 8.2x. I am used to seeing 7.8 - 8.2 for as long as I can remember.

This past weekend I cleaned out the sump along with the skimmer and decided to finally installed BRS CO2 scrubber I had sitting around. The Maxspect aeraqua duo has two air intakes. I installed the scrubber on one of the air intake and left the other as before.

To my surprise, PH is now reaching 8.35 - 8.39 for the last few days with lows 8.13 - 8.15. This is with one intake connected to a CO2 scrubber. Needless to say I have another CO2 scrubber on the way. Maybe I can get 8.4 - 8.5; fingers crossed. I should mentioned that I do use a KALK reactor and that too has an effect on the PH (especially when KALK is low in the reactor). With just the skimmer, KALK reactor and algae scrubber running after the lights goes out, the tank PH normally is 8.05 - 8.2x.

 

[reef-rc]

It has been a little over two years since water was add and so I though I take a opportunity to share the latest. You would think with COVID and working remotely I would be able to share more; just the opposite it seems.

From the beginning, this was mostly intended to house mostly SPS and some LPS. Two years in and things started to take off at around 1.5 yrs.

I figured I would start from top to bottom to document the current state of things.

Lighting:​

• 5 - Radion X15 with diffuser
• 4 - Kessil a360x with 55 degree reflector
• Both sets of lights are setup with ramp up and ramp down schedules
• Both are setup with daylight first half; blueish latter half
• 10 hrs photo period total
• PAR range: 400ish (near top of coral) - 150ish (bottom)

​

Future Plan:​

• I plan to add 4 more Kessil a360x with diffuser. I have noticed a few back areas, mostly on the side or back edge that could use a little more light punch.

 

[reef-rc]

Videos and pics below were taken with the phone camera no touchup and without any add-on filter except adjusting the white balance. I just uploaded to youtube dropped them here. The pics came out larger than I would have liked but I did not want to spend the time to resize them. The lights were on their daylight schedule at the time of the videos and pics.

Left top view:​

Corals:​

Next up:​

• top ride side view