TajabaMk3 --- 1000 Gallons Ecoreefing method

Tajaba

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Greetings from Thailand! I've been lurking here for several years now but was never confident enough to put my tank up here till now. I'm an expat reefer living in Thailand for ~10 years now.

Around 6 years ago, I was introduced to a reefing method (that was very strange at the time). They told me to put some mud, grow macro algae and put vodka into my reef tank. Needless to say I was very skeptical at the time. But I tried the Vodka anyways........just for kicks.

Well, I've been through 3 iterations of this method now and learned alot in the process of getting ready to build this tank in my new home. I spent 2 years with the Mk2 learning as much as I could about this holistic reefing method without requiring regular waterchanges, and I honestly didn't even have much of a skimmer, but relied mostly on an active deep sand bed + chaeto instead.

here is some of the mk2 before and after pics (the tank is 32X24X18)
zsogep.jpg

2md4ggk.jpg

wmb4ax.jpg

2v7wkg6.jpg

And here are some after pics. Most of these are 1 year growths. I am happy to say that I didn't lose any corals with this build at all, although the colors of the corals were much more vivid than the Zeovit method (which was very popular at the time). I was very happy with the results.
9r25ja.jpg

2eqb3at.jpg

hsrlag.jpg

ac7m76.jpg

Here is the last pic before the teardown
2872dqc.jpg


As you can see, the results were very good. I was really amazed that reefing could be so much easier. So I decided that I was gonna go all out with this method for the Mk3.
 
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Tajaba

Tajaba

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So the Mk3 build is basically the same as the old Mk2 but 10X bigger. Here are the specs:

Display: 138X42X32
Sump: Modular Acrylic system (Bare sump with just 1 middle section for plumbing and maybe a Carbon reactor)
Protein Skimmer : Bashsea Twisted 830
Module: 2X Chaeto Reactor
Seagrass bed refugium [48X24X18] (decided to go with a seagrass bed instead of an aDSB this time because I found they were pretty much equally effective)
Caulerpa refugium [32X24X18] (also used to exile aggressive fishes)
Calcium Reactor: AC4 Pro by Pacific Sun
Nielson style Kalkwasser reactor
Controller: Apex Gold by Neptune systems
RoDI: Ginkosea 5stage
Main Pump: Bubble King RD3 Red dragon 230W
Aux Pump: Sicce ADV 7.0
Wave Pump: 3X Ecotech Vortech MP60
4X Ecotech Vortech MP40
2X Ecotech Vortech MP10(Seagrass)
4X Maxspect 280xf
Dosing Pump: Kore 5th by Pacific sun
Gorgonian Dosing pump (Kalkwasser reactor)
Lighting: 8 X Ecotech Marine XR15G4 pro
2 X Ecotech Marine XR30G3 pro
2 X Ecotech Marine XR30G4 pro
2 X AI Hydra 26HD (Caulerpa)
1 X Maxspect Recurve (Seagrass)

and without further ado.......some pics!

The tank
amva4y.jpg

1gitet.jpg


And due to the restrictions on size, I "had to" take over the basement.....which may or maynot be conveniently built right below the tank :D
iwnea8.jpg

2nk2te9.jpg
 

KrisReef

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Nice. That tank doesn't need wavemakers, the tidal influence should be enough on your inland sea! :)

It looks like you built the tank in place?
 
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Tajaba

Tajaba

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Rocks........nothing but rocks
xbhlqf.jpg


fkuzxz.jpg


Oh also some sand

5o6wrr.jpg


Then water!

2pq9evp.jpg


This tank was cycled 100% from freshwater, dead rock, dead sand........dead everything, I wasn't taking any chances with some wierd pests because teardown was impossible

2vs3hw2.jpg


oh and just for fun, I threw in some mollies I had in my backyard (Yep, we have fish EVERYWHERE in Thailand). I figured they were gonna be good at cycling the tank :D

34eduhf.jpg
 
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Tajaba

Tajaba

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Started up the refugium 3/2017
29xdxsw.jpg


Seagrass weren't looking so good from the transfer
2em0wau.jpg


Oldest fish I have (still alive today!) Got him back in 2013 and he lived by himself in an 8 gallon nano, then moved to a 13 gallon and lived there till 2017 survived 3 couch surfing incident, and 2 tank crashes, this crazy fish
14khzdd.jpg
 
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Tajaba

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Not quite sure which one was more scared of the other here
2w1tw84.jpg


At this point, It looks like the mollies should be heading back
mt4jly.jpg


ps: No Mollies were killed in the process of establishing this tank. Their descendants are still swimming happily to this day
 
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Tajaba

Tajaba

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Last Year, I finally had time to finish up the tank and started to light it up, chose Radion gen 4 pros as the base and made a modular leg stand for the light.

I wanted the tank to be very open since its hot here in Thailand so I'm using the tank as an evaporator for the house.
1ih82o.jpg




Heres my "refugium" ~6/2018 (The refugium was actually the mk2 tank)
2ekq0t4.jpg

348m0kg.jpg


Had some pretty fun runs with it, but the stand was not going to last so I decided to tear down the tank and redo the fishroom a little bit

1gkpcp.jpg


Calcium reactor arrived around november 2018
scrjpi.jpg


LIDkoGo
 

crusso1993

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Nice looking system you have built for yourself!
Following along...

Just out of curiosity; was the tank built on-site and does it have low-iron glass?
 
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Tajaba

Tajaba

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Nice. That tank doesn't need wavemakers, the tidal influence should be enough on your inland sea! :)

It looks like you built the tank in place?
Yep, the builders had to haul the glass to the house and assemble it in place. It took about 3 weeks for the silicone to fully cure, but the work was pretty satisfactory.
 
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Tajaba

Tajaba

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Without further ado, here is the FTS shot as of today, As you can see........really can't see alot! I'm still a frag grower at heart, so pretty much all the corals you see have been grown from frags (with some exceptions only)



Will have some before and after shots soon!

okx4as.jpg


2db84ee.jpg


As you can see, I really hate cleaning the glass, I know everyone tells me that I should clean the glass at least before taking pics......but honestly, Who has time to clean this much glass?

Here's the sump room
345ones.jpg


Redid the refugium stand and frag tank. I have now separated the seagrass from all the crazy caulerpas and chaeto. The Caulerpa was really becoming a problem with its growth rate and overgrowing all the other macros so I gave it a whole tank. I might change this later to a soft coral tank or something, growing caulerpa is getting boring and I think I may have saturated the market with Caulerpas.

1252c0g.jpg
 

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Looking great! Thanks for sharing :)

I like the amount of "negative space" and room for swimming :) This will grow out to be even more of a stunner in no time I'm sure!
 
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