TC's 460 gallon Alternative Reef rebuild

CherryCorals · Jul 2, 2011

I recently decided to get a fresh start in my 460 and go with all Alternative Reef ceramics so I may as well start at the beginning with pics as well.

Step 1: tear off the back of your house.

Step 2: dig a very big hole! The new basement was excavated 18" deeper than the old as you can see in the picture. I had to underpin the entire length of my home before taking out the block walls.

Step 3: Yayyy, rain!!! It barely stopped raining long enough to pour my footings and walls. Seeing these pics again bring back some painfull memories.

Step 4: bring in 15 yards of dry fill and compact.

Step 5: build the addition of my dreams complete with my own fishroom with tiled floors, countertop and sink :)

Breakin Newz · Jul 2, 2011

Awesome!

Troylee · Jul 2, 2011

Pretty intense man would love to see more pics!!!!! I'm all about the builds..;)

Reef keeper · Jul 2, 2011

Followin!!!

lps1212 · Jul 2, 2011

Wow I would create an thread topic for this one called monster builds between the demo and construction this will be a nice thread to follow lookin forward to doin so on this one

skinz78 · Jul 2, 2011

Very cool! I would love to do something similar to this some day!

LBA · Jul 2, 2011

That's pretty neat, congratulations!

CherryCorals · Jul 2, 2011

Fast forward a year or so.....

A robust utilitarian stand of core filled concrete block and steel :)

Lets get it started!!!

CherryCorals · Jul 2, 2011

Viola!

CherryCorals · Jul 2, 2011

I moved a bunch of stuff around and had quite a goniopora collection going on.

I had a few wellsophyllia too.

lps1212 · Jul 2, 2011

Great pics guys thats one sweet gonni and tarchy collection you have going there

CherryCorals · Jul 2, 2011

From this point I removed all of the substrate(it became quite the nutrient sink) and all of the live rock. As much as I loved the Marco rock in a tank this size the aptasia started gaining a foothold so I pulled it all out.

Scott from the Alternative reef made me the most beautiful structures and towers complete with holes for me to place lots of plugged colonies and frags. The ceramics make it much easier to attack aptasia as they pop up. One of the other great things about the Alternative Reef structures is that they are all hollow!!! My fish never had so many places to hide.

Fast forward to today.......

CherryCorals · Jul 2, 2011

The above pictures are just the right half of the tank.

All of the acros are nice little aquaculture pieces, I cut them off the bases and made sure that there were no bits of live rock where AEFW could be located. I then dipped all the mounted colonies in Levamisole(be very careful if you ever use this product) to kill off any nasties. I expect to lose a few of the more sensitive pieces since it was alot for the little guys to handle, travel from Bali to me and then get cut and dipped.......OUCH!

Here are some of my new babies, I hope they all survive.

Whoahoooooawhoooooo

lps1212 · Jul 2, 2011

Hey 2 questions 1st What type of lighting and 2nd do u use any type of additives such as zeovit

Troylee · Jul 2, 2011

I remember that tank from a year ago you were trying out the plasma lighting... Are you still running that? If so how's that going???

CherryCorals · Jul 2, 2011

I don't add anything to the tank except for Fauna Marin LPS food and fish foods.

20% water changes every two weeks with ESV salt.

These are all freshly imported pieces, I expect the colors to change quite a bit some for the better and some for the worse.

CherryCorals · Jul 2, 2011

A big NO on the plasma, to yellow and mine was not dimmable.

Now I am using 2 radiums in these giant Sunlight Supply Lumenmax reflectors and 4 ATI blue plus T5's. I have the halides dead center over the ceramic bommies where I plan to keep all the SPS. My hope is that the lower light areas can be filled in with Acanthaphyllia, wellsophyllia, and challices.

I should also note the total water volume of this system is 1000gallons.

Troylee · Jul 2, 2011

Did you run the plasma long enough to experience any growth??? I know the color isn't the best but I was thinking a plasma surrounded by royal blue crees would look hot but wonder how the growth would be...:)

lps1212 · Jul 2, 2011

CherryCorals said:
A big NO on the plasma, to yellow and mine was not dimmable.

Now I am using 2 radiums in these giant Sunlight Supply Lumenmax reflectors and 4 ATI blue plus T5's. I have the halides dead center over the ceramic bommies where I plan to keep all the SPS. My hope is that the lower light areas can be filled in with Acanthaphyllia, wellsophyllia, and challices.

I should also note the total water volume of this system is 1000gallons.

Great way to go on the lighting I was thinkin of doing a hybrid mh/t5 fixture myself but might just do all t5 ither way the corals look great