Everything has a price - 235 Gallon Build - No water changes

Tclason1

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Update - I finish my MBA at Rice next year and will be moving mid 2022. Big plans for the next tank! I figured I would throw this out there early and start liquidating the current tank piece by piece starting with livestock. No steep discounts here unfortunately. If you see something you like PM me with a fair offer and it’s yours.

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Finally posting my build thread! It’s a mixed reef going on two and halfish years with two water changes :) I’m an annual water change reefer lol.

Quick Details:

Display-150 gallon SCA
Sump - 75 gallon Petco
Fuge - 10 gallon Fiji cube
Lighting - black box LEDs and a single T5 in the back

I’ll be posting more pics and details soon - stay tuned!
 
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Tclason1

Tclason1

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Some more pics!

equipment and stuff:

Clarisea filter roller
Carbon reactor
Skimmer with recirculating CO2 scrubber
Ozone
Marine pure blocks
Filter sock from fuge (keep ulva from display tank)
Apex
Dos with kalk
Dos with DIY AllforReef
Cheap dosing pumps for phytoplankton, NoPOX, and aminos
80w lifeguard UV
25w recirculating UV Aqua ultraviolet
Icecap gyres with battery backup
Jaebo gyres
Other random cheap flow pumps
Túnez primary ATO
Apex backup ATO
Flood guardian ATO refill
Man I’ve never made a list of everything before this is a lot of crap!
 
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Tclason1

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Also, there should be a trident on there but it’s currently not working and on its way back to APEX - so it doesn’t make the list.
 
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Tclason1

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My Battle with Ich:

I’ve been fighting Ich ever since I started this tank three years ago. It got really bad around the end of year one. I removed all fish and treated them in a separate tank with copper for 90 days - lost about 1/2 of fish during their treatment. After placing all fish back in tank the Ich came back within a couple of months. Went down the rabbit hole of the many different things that maybe were done wrong during the treatment period - decided I would learn how to live with Ich and still have healthy fish. It’s been two years - no quarantine and no treatments ( from short bath before introducing new fish) and fish are healthier than ever.
Here is what I do to live with Ich and have healthy fish:
1: feed a lot: And lots of fresh seafood - I fish offshore several times a month so there is no shortage of fresh seafood to feed.
2: UV: I run a 50W constantly through return line and I run a 25W recirculating at night.
3: Dont buy shady fish! I stopped buying new fish about 1 year ago, but before then I would only buy from one shop I know takes good care of their fish.

I occasionally see a spot or two on my blue tang - so I know Ich is still in the system, but it has never manifested on any other fish in the past 20 months. Not perfect, but it’s working!

some pics of the recirculating UV:

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Tclason1

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Some random stuff in my tank I find fascinating:

A feather duster living inside one of my acros? Whatever it is it looks like a feather duster and is constantly popping in and out grabbing floaters. It’s tiny tiny
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Also love that these oysters that came with my sun polyps are still alive after years and they open and close during feeding along with the sun polyps. The red sponge is cool too - doesn’t grow fast like I was expecting but find it cool. These sun corals came off an abandoned rig out in the Gulf of Mexico before it was blasted for maintenance.
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Tclason1

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Wanted to share a little about my no water change ups and downs. The first year I ran regular water changes but after the first year I got lazy and wanted to try to automate as much as possible and avoid water changes. Short of the long is - it has ended up being more work to not do water changes than to do them, ha! But it has been a challenge and I’ve enjoyed it. The past two years I’ve done one 30% water change a year. here are a few things I’ve done to eliminate water changes:
1: run 4 large marine pure blocks
2: filter roller it’s a life saver
2: very very light carbon dosing daily - just a few ml
3: skim very dry
4: run a large external fuge with ulva and deep sandbed. Also use this to harvest pods for the display. I get some GHA growth in this as well, but the Ulva gets along with it great so I’m not worried. Just scrape it out every couple months.
5: lastly and most important I do ICP about once every two/three months. Some things that have come back - low iodine (just dosed some), high silicate (RODI was cause installed new DI resin, TDS meter and ran some Phosban to get rid of silicates in tank), and most recently high aluminum (not sure cause, but ran some GFO, Cuprisorb and another media can’t remember to get it down).

Nutrients was an issue the first year of no water changes. High nitrates 50ppm and phosphates about 2.0, stunted coral growth for about 12 months. Stuck with it and the combo of the above eventually brought a terrific balance to the system. It’s been running sub 10ppm nitrates and about .05 consistently past 12 months. Harvest ulva about every week, maybe 25% of it. I have a large bio load with a very hungry ribbon eel so not suprised it grows so fast. It took way too much work, but the last 12 months has been great and largely hands off with great growth and good coloration.

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Tclason1

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Beautiful!

Do you not have any issues not changing the water weekly?
Thanks James! Oh, I absolutely had issues. It was a solid 12 months of issues mostly with nutrients. But the past 12 months has been phenomenal - I don’t know, tank just hit its stride and the combination of methods described above has just worked. If I didn’t do regular ICP I would definitely run into issues.
 
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Tclason1

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Thanks James! Oh, I absolutely had issues. It was a solid 12 months of issues mostly with nutrients. But the past 12 months has been phenomenal - I don’t know, tank just hit its stride and the combination of methods described above has just worked. If I didn’t do regular ICP I would definitely run into issues.
And full disclosure I still get some light algae (GHA/ turf algae) in the display tank but the CUC and tangs mow it down!
 
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Tclason1

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Ulva vs Chaeto


Brief backstory of my struggles with Chaeto and ultimate move to ulva. I tried growing Chaeto for about 6 months after the first year of my reef tank. Tried every light, every flow combo, etc. My nutrients kept climbing and my Chaeto kept slowly dying. My ICPs came back normal apart from high nutrients (50 nitrate .5 phosphate general reference). I finally decided to switch to Ulva and oh boy what a change! This stuff grows so fast, been running it for pst 18 months and it’s awesome. It’s prolific. Harvest about 15-25% weekly! I keep it in the external fuge and run the output through a filter sock to keep any potential spreading from happening. Low flow through a 12” sprayer bar on top keeps it happy and slowly churning. I run blue yellow light on top around 200-300 par for 12 hours and a fuge light on the side of the tank for around 14 hours. I run it with my light schedule during the day to boost daytime PH. Love ulva - couldn’t be happier with the crucial role it has played in my no water change goal.
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Tclason1

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Just a pic of my midas blenny in his favorite spot :)
 

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Tclason1

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NPS and no water changes - are you crazy?

apparently! Ive been keeping these NPS from the GoM for over 18 months with no water changes. 6 of those months was a battle with nutrients - combined ulva external fuge, light carbon dosing (about 25% recommended dose) and feed NPS every 4 days instead of daily. I feed these sun corals 50ml of photo broadcasted every 4 days, turn return pumps off for an hour and let them eat. They love it. Pumps turn off for an hour every night and I run a gyre on the bare bottom to kick up detritus for corals to eat and then pumps kick on and I filter detritus from bare bottom through filter roller/skimmer. I also dose amino acids every 2 days when pumps are off for an hour every night.
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A worm with high fashion and practical utility: Have you ever kept feather dusters in your reef aquarium?

  • I currently have feather dusters in my tank.

    Votes: 64 36.8%
  • Not currently, but I have had feather dusters in my tank in the past.

    Votes: 59 33.9%
  • I have not had feather dusters, but I hope to in the future.

    Votes: 25 14.4%
  • I have no plans to have feather dusters in my tank.

    Votes: 26 14.9%
  • Other.

    Votes: 0 0.0%
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