Epic Aquaculture
The artist formerly known as SawCJack00
Partner Member 2024
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Reef Tank 365
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AZ FRAG Member
My Tank Thread
Good day peoples!
So I’ve been in the hobby for a while, and some old timers may remember my coral farm – North Star Corals (if anyone has frags from my babies, please message me as I’d like to get some of them in my new setup), but this will be my first tank build thread. So back in the day my wife and I decided to leave the frozen tundra of Minneapolis which is where I had North Star Corals in the early 2000’s. We moved to the Tampa Florida area where I set up a 120 gallon SPS tank. That went well for a few years, but then I decided to take a break from reefing as we were travelling a lot. In 2011 I had an unplanned career change, and we decided to move to the Florida Keys where I could dive just about every day when I wasn’t working. I set up a Red Sea Reefer 350 in 2016, and it was really doing well on 9/9/2017. Unfortunately on 9/10/2017, a Category 4 Hurricane named Irma decided to visit my little island of Ramrod Key, and absolutely destroyed it. We were without water for 17 days, and without power for 28 days. I could not get enough gas to keep the generator running, and lost the entire tank after 7 days… Fast forward a few months, and we decide it was time to move again. I love the desert and grew up out West, and my parents live in the Phoenix, AZ area, so we decided that there were probably fewer hurricanes there, and that’s where we decided to make our home. Because home prices are MUCH lower in AZ, we went from an 1,100 square foot stilt home to a 3,400 square foot home in Surprise, AZ which cost us half as much as our Keys home… I think you know where this is headed… bigger house = bigger tank! That’s just math. So now we’ve arrived to the current time period, and I am setting up a Red Sea Reefer 750 XXL. This will be a full blown SPS tank.
Latest FTS 11/20/2019
Equipment as of 4/3/2019:
Tank: Red Sea Reefer 750 XXL – Tank 170 gallons – Total volume 200 gallons with an Artfully Acrylic mesh top.
Controller: Neptune Apex with all the bells and whistles
Lights: LED T-5 hybrid using 2 x 36” Aquatic Life 4 bulb T-5 fixtures with 3 Radion XR15 G4 Pros on each for a total of 6 Radion XR15 G4 Pros.
Return pump: Abyzz A100 feeding a Locline split
Circulation: 2 Maxspect Gyre 350’s and 5 Neptune Wav's
Filtration: Reef Octo Elite 220 Int skimmer with auto neck cleaner and Avast skimate locker. Turbo's Aquatics L4 Algae Turf Scrubber. Lots of Siporax.
Alk and Calcium maintenance: DaStaCO2 Model A-2 Calcium Reactor Contolled by an Alkatronic.
ATO: Spectrapure ATO
Heat: 2 Finnex 500w titanium heaters
CO2 scrubber hooked up to skimmer to keep PH up.
Dry Rock: 180 lbs of Reef Saver from BRS
Sand: 1-2 inches of Carib Sea Special Grade reef sand
So I’ve been in the hobby for a while, and some old timers may remember my coral farm – North Star Corals (if anyone has frags from my babies, please message me as I’d like to get some of them in my new setup), but this will be my first tank build thread. So back in the day my wife and I decided to leave the frozen tundra of Minneapolis which is where I had North Star Corals in the early 2000’s. We moved to the Tampa Florida area where I set up a 120 gallon SPS tank. That went well for a few years, but then I decided to take a break from reefing as we were travelling a lot. In 2011 I had an unplanned career change, and we decided to move to the Florida Keys where I could dive just about every day when I wasn’t working. I set up a Red Sea Reefer 350 in 2016, and it was really doing well on 9/9/2017. Unfortunately on 9/10/2017, a Category 4 Hurricane named Irma decided to visit my little island of Ramrod Key, and absolutely destroyed it. We were without water for 17 days, and without power for 28 days. I could not get enough gas to keep the generator running, and lost the entire tank after 7 days… Fast forward a few months, and we decide it was time to move again. I love the desert and grew up out West, and my parents live in the Phoenix, AZ area, so we decided that there were probably fewer hurricanes there, and that’s where we decided to make our home. Because home prices are MUCH lower in AZ, we went from an 1,100 square foot stilt home to a 3,400 square foot home in Surprise, AZ which cost us half as much as our Keys home… I think you know where this is headed… bigger house = bigger tank! That’s just math. So now we’ve arrived to the current time period, and I am setting up a Red Sea Reefer 750 XXL. This will be a full blown SPS tank.
Latest FTS 11/20/2019
Equipment as of 4/3/2019:
Tank: Red Sea Reefer 750 XXL – Tank 170 gallons – Total volume 200 gallons with an Artfully Acrylic mesh top.
Controller: Neptune Apex with all the bells and whistles
Lights: LED T-5 hybrid using 2 x 36” Aquatic Life 4 bulb T-5 fixtures with 3 Radion XR15 G4 Pros on each for a total of 6 Radion XR15 G4 Pros.
Return pump: Abyzz A100 feeding a Locline split
Circulation: 2 Maxspect Gyre 350’s and 5 Neptune Wav's
Filtration: Reef Octo Elite 220 Int skimmer with auto neck cleaner and Avast skimate locker. Turbo's Aquatics L4 Algae Turf Scrubber. Lots of Siporax.
Alk and Calcium maintenance: DaStaCO2 Model A-2 Calcium Reactor Contolled by an Alkatronic.
ATO: Spectrapure ATO
Heat: 2 Finnex 500w titanium heaters
CO2 scrubber hooked up to skimmer to keep PH up.
Dry Rock: 180 lbs of Reef Saver from BRS
Sand: 1-2 inches of Carib Sea Special Grade reef sand
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