SCA 120 Rimless

[sk8elenex92]

Hello all! Been a lurker and occasional poster here on R2R and deft one of my favorite reef forums and of course Chicago reefs. Decided to share my journey with every one since I've been pretty hungover all day and bored hah.. Took a butt load of pictures. All pictures are from an Iphone.

The tank was filled with water on July 25 2016. Planned on running bio pellets and keep nutrients low for sps. SPS were my goal for this. I had some other corals, all softies from an old tank. Started off good then I got in a terrible car accident and was away from the tank for almost a month. It was tough. Corals wouldn't grow and SPS kept dying. I have so many dead frags, probably more then I have alive ha. Took pellets off and brought up nutrients a bit and sps started looking better every day. My water was way to clean and way starving out my corals. Took my AI sols down and got an ATI fixture and love it will never go back. I just had to deal with Cyano for some reason and got sick of siphoning it so I used Chemi Clean. I was so scared and paranoid about using it but it worked amazing and had zero losses. Definitely would use it again if I had to. The only thing that sucks is the skimmer kept over flowing for over a week. I gave it a vinegar/water bath and got it working again. Finally on the right track with SPS. blah blah Ill just post pics now and just need to be patient and let the corals grow.

Alk - 8
Cal - 420
Mag - 1350
Nitrates - < 5
Phos - 0.02

SCA 120 Gallon
29 Gallon sump with cheatohttp://reef2reef.com/forums/member-tanks.52/create-thread
ATI 6 Bulb Fixture - 4 Blue+, 1 Coral+, 1 Purple+
Gyre 150 and 2 rw8's
Eshopps Dosing pump - Currently dosing 32ml of ALK and Calc a day
Eshopps S150 Skimmer
Eheim 1262 Return Pump
Reef Keeper Light
ATO from autotopoff.com

 

[sk8elenex92]

 

[sk8elenex92]

 

[sk8elenex92]

 

[sk8elenex92]

 

[bknapp]

Good looking set up.

 

[Chris Adams]

Very nice setup and corals.

Only suggestion I have is build a barrier around the cyphastrea. I have found it to be a fairly fast grower and very aggressive. Could not tell exactly what you have next to it. Maybe montipora spongode and setosa?
Both of these would loose. Also any acros.

 

[sk8elenex92]

Thank you!! Yah I already screwed up with the cyphastrea. I glued some plugs near it but I will have to eventually move the spongodes. Wonder if I get a different cyphastrea if it will survive near the other.

 

[Chris Adams]

Thank you!! Yah I already screwed up with the cyphastrea. I glued some plugs near it but I will have to eventually move the spongodes. Wonder if I get a different cyphastrea if it will survive near the other.

Well I found that my meteor shower seems to be stronger than my grinch. Grinch tries to battle back but left untouched I am sure it will be overtaken in time.
Spongode is fast grower also. Found it to be a bit aggressive also. Will kill some acro depending on type(smooth skin for sure..keep away from that beauty of a strawberry). Milli seem to be stronger than spongode. Hate seeing my corals wage war.
I so need a beauty of a setup like yours.

 

[sk8elenex92]

New Frag ORA Laura's purple polyp

 

[sk8elenex92]

Update my local forum might as well post it here. I've decided that I will try and take some grow shots the first of each month. It's tough getting the same angles. Did some test as well
7.4 alk 430cal 1600mag??
0 PO4 .75 NO3

New Frag Flame Thrower chalice

7/7

9/1

7/7

9/1

8/7

9/1

8/13

9/1

8/7

9/1

 

[reefwiser]

Looking good

 

[revhtree]

Nice job!

 

[sk8elenex92]

Thank you. It hard to compare the growth on the PC much easier on Tapatalk. I will have to stitch the two pictures into one picture next time. I also am planning on jumping on to the Aqua Forest bandwagon since its been looking so good. I guess we will see