Ryan's Reef - 112-gallon SPS Tank

[Joe Glass Cages]

hahaha... I just fill my IM112 about a month ago... No leak test and Pummmm... Like always, 1 E-Drain bulkhead was needing a little touch.

A few notes about this tank:
1- Glass Cage look awesome. The clear glass the seals everything is High Quality.
2- The APS scares me a little bit... I was even thinking in make my own, at the end I use the APS (witch is like to lite-weak for me) but it is holding perfectly.
3- Scape this Cube-Type is the best... Lot of room and 3 big side panels gives the chance to be creative.
4- Lighting this is not so easy if you build in a budget Like I did. Covering the 36x36 is not easy. I have to Radions G6 Blue and had to ad 2 LED bars to reduce some shadows.

tank looks amazing @Moronta12

Thanks for sharing!

 

[rynosreef]

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[rynosreef]

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[rynosreef]

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[Ryans Reef]

Update time!

Sorry for the disappearing act, but there were some not so great events over past few weeks. My IM Lagoon 25 tank crashed... I lost 99% of the corals in the tank, the deresa clam that I grew from a couple inches, and the Swissguard Basslet to name a few. It was pretty devastating to say the least.

I did all I could to try to slow it down, but in the end the whole house smelled of dead acros and once it got going there was just no stopping it.

They say it's good to show your successes and your failures, so here goes:

Before:

...and after:

 

[Ryans Reef]

In terms of what happened and why... I'm still not 100% certain, but I have some theories...

Over the last few months I had randomly started seeing STN appear on my acros. I ran ICPs, checked for contaminants, stray voltage lol, you name it, I checked it. Ultimately I think the cause of the STN was likely a bacterial infection similar to what Mike Paletta and others have described.

At the same time I'd been trying to combat some cyano and bubble algae and decided to hook up a media reactor with some GFO and zeolites to bring down nutrients (which I'd done in the past with no issues). My tests of NO3 and PO4 showed I had low nutrients but the cyano and bubble algae growth told me otherwise. I put the media reactor on a literal trickle using a RODI valve. 2 days went by. The tank and corals looked great. I go to bed, the next morning I wake up to a cloudy tank and the smell of dead acros.

So what happened?

Theory #1: The GFO/Zeolites may have stripped the water to the point of killing the coral and nitrifying bacteria and caused a cascading event of ammonia build up and coral death.

OR

Theory #2: The clam did it. I say this because at one point I moved the clam out of the tank in a last ditch effort to save it. The new tank I put it in immediately clouded up as well, and I later realized it was spawning... Shooting its' love juice everywhere. And a 7 inch clam spawning in a 25g gallon tank can be disastrous if you don't immediately filter out the material before it starts to decay.

Now whether the clam spawned as a result of the GFO/Zeolite thing as a last resort to save itself, or if the clam spawning caused the whole thing, I'll never know...

But the whole experience sure hit me in the feels and took the winds out of my sails with this new tank.

 

[The Roaming Reefer]

In terms of what happened and why... I'm still not 100% certain, but I have some theories...

Over the last few months I had randomly started seeing STN appear on my acros. I ran ICPs, checked for contaminants, stray voltage lol, you name it, I checked it. Ultimately I think the cause of the STN was likely a bacterial infection similar to what Mike Paletta and others have described.

At the same time I'd been trying to combat some cyano and bubble algae and decided to hook up a media reactor with some GFO and zeolites to bring down nutrients (which I'd done in the past with no issues). My tests of NO3 and PO4 showed I had low nutrients but the cyano and bubble algae growth told me otherwise. I put the media reactor on a literal trickle using a RODI valve. 2 days went by. The tank and corals looked great. I go to bed, the next morning I wake up to a cloudy tank and the smell of dead acros.

So what happened?

Theory #1: The GFO/Zeolites may have stripped the water to the point of killing the coral and nitrifying bacteria and caused a cascading event of ammonia build up and coral death.

OR

Theory #2: The clam did it. I say this because at one point I moved the clam out of the tank in a last ditch effort to save it. The new tank I put it in immediately clouded up as well, and I later realized it was spawning... Shooting its' love juice everywhere. And a 7 inch clam spawning in a 25g gallon tank can be disastrous if you don't immediately filter out the material before it starts to decay.

Now whether the clam spawned as a result of the GFO/Zeolite thing as a last resort to save itself, or if the clam spawning caused the whole thing, I'll never know...

But the whole experience sure hit me in the feels and took the winds out of my sails with this new tank.

I'm sorry to hear that man. That's quite a blow for sure. The loss of the time it took to grow those colonies will sting for a long time.
I lost about 600 acro frags to a similar infection 5 or so years ago. It was enough to make me step away from SPS. I moved to keeping more mushrooms, zoas, gorgonians, and blastos to make it feel like more of a transition than a loss and restart.

 

[Ryans Reef]

I'm sorry to hear that man. That's quite a blow for sure. The loss of the time it took to grow those colonies will sting for a long time.
I lost about 600 acro frags to a similar infection 5 or so years ago. It was enough to make me step away from SPS. I moved to keeping more mushrooms, zoas, gorgonians, and blastos to make it feel like more of a transition than a loss and restart.

Yeah, I've been thinking of doing the same... focusing more of the fish for a bit and some easier coral... we'll see... it sure did hurt though to see the tank implode like that. Hoping it never happens again!

 

[The Roaming Reefer]

Yeah, I've been thinking of doing the same... focusing more of the fish for a bit and some easier coral... we'll see... it sure did hurt though to see the tank implode like that. Hoping it never happens again!

I will say though, nothing will make you miss SPS more than melting a few high end zoas haha

 

[Ryans Reef]

All that being said, the show must go on...

I started building out the rock scape using Caribsea XL and regular arches, as well as a box of their Shapes Liferock. I wanted something with lots of swim throughs for fish, and multiple caves, while also having some nice spots for coral placement. I also wanted to avoid filling the tank with rock, being sure to leave some open water. This is where I ended up:

 

[Ryans Reef]

I will say though, nothing will make you miss SPS more than melting a few high end zoas haha

Haha I hear ya. I've done some zoas... and yeah it sucks to lose something pricey... Especially to my aiptasia eating filefish... I used to have more zoas and then one day he decided to rid the tank of all of them.

 

[Ryans Reef]

Added some water!

 

[Ryans Reef]

I also picked up about 20lbs of actual live rock from KP Aquatics. Really happy with it too. Tons of critters and life on the rock. I had already started doing a fishless cycle with Dr. Tim's with the Caribsea rock when the KP Aquatics rock finally arrived. But I'm hoping the cycle finishes soon so I can add in this stuff to really get a diverse bacterial population.

 

[Ryans Reef]

Aquascape with water:

Aquascape with Water

youtube.com

 

[Moronta12]

Added some water!

Looking Good!!! How much sand did you put on it?

 

[Ryans Reef]

Looking Good!!! How much sand did you put on it?

About 4 bags worth of AF Bio Sand. If it's all spread out it's about 3/4" to 1" deep. I'm a big fan of bare bottoms for SPS heavy tanks, but I also love the look of sand (and most of my acros bit the dust). So who knows if it'll stay long term. But I think for the first year or so, having sand is pretty helpful for the tank biology to get stable.

 

[drawman]

Sorry to hear about the crash! I was going to say it's impressive to have that many acros in a 25 gallon tank.

Are the latest photos still of the 25 gallon or did you upgrade?

 

[Ryans Reef]

Sorry to hear about the crash! I was going to say it's impressive to have that many acros in a 25 gallon tank.

Are the latest photos still of the 25 gallon or did you upgrade?

The latest photos are of of the upgrade. The 25 gallon is still running as well, but it's really just housing the fish until the cycle is done on the 112 gallon.

 

[drawman]

The latest photos are of of the upgrade. The 25 gallon is still running as well, but it's really just housing the fish until the cycle is done on the 112 gallon.

Ah just ran through the thread again. I have to ask who made the stand on the upgrade or is it an IM stand? It looks great!

 

[Ryans Reef]

Ah just ran through the thread again. I have to ask who made the stand on the upgrade or is it an IM stand? It looks great!

Yep that’s the IM stand that came with the tank. I believe it’s made out of aluminum.