Wolf-Head Mountain Reef Tank- 200 gallons

[Shawn_epicurious]

i started having some very cool discussions with people here on establishing a path towards and SPS dominant tank... they have asked for some much more specific data here on my build thread... so here goes....

initial tank set up. Half of my live rock came from from the ocean (Fiji) I dipped and cleaned that before using it. The other half came from a LSF. He had it in a tank for over a year before I bought it, so it was very well cured. Yes, I did the aquascape myself : ) I am quite proud of how it came out. (Yeah... then I saw some pics here showing what you guys can do with a scape) blown away!

from there, I established my cleaning crew... and yes, I put somewhat too much in my tank at first. I new some of it would die... sadly, that death helps get the tank cycling

40 little turbo snails
20 hermit crabs
20 elephant snail
8 little crabs
10 conches
4 cleaner shrimp and 2 red shrimp (mostly cuz they look cool)

most of that is still alive : ) I see very few shells that never move... one of the red shrimp died and a few of the crabs died... the ones that are still alive have really grown!

 

[Cristy17]

Nice set up! Coming along well. Patience is one of the hardest parts of this hobby!

 

[Shawn_epicurious]

Filtration. My sump is 39” wide, 16” deep and 15” tall, but the average depth of the water in it is 8” or 2.8889 cubic feet of water... there are a lot of things in my sump displacing the water, so.... rounding down... 18 gallons of water in it..? That’s close : )

Two drain lines 1 1/2” diameter... one is emergency overflow... it just goes strait down into the middle of my sump. I have never seen a drip of water come thru it. The other drain line is the primary for filtration and it empties into my sump is a small chamber that spills into a 3 sock chamber. I change out the back sock once a month and rotate the other two backwards... put either a new sock, or one I’ve ran thru the washing machine in the front slot. I installed a calcium reactor that not reacting calcium : ( (I’ll prolly change the media in it to active carbon, or GFO later if I need it) The return from that is behind two large bio-filter media stones. They have only been in there for 2 weeks, so they are not doing much yet : )

From there the water enters the next stage when my skimmer is. I skim 24/7.

The water flows across 2 bags of purigen from there. And then spills past that thru a large sock full of active carbon. From the the water enters the last chamber before it get pumped back up into my tank. That’s also where the RODI / ATO system is plumbed into. The pic below is of my return pump. I have the outflow split in a tee going up thru two return lines.

I have no clue what the flow rate in gallons per hour going thru my system is. No clue how to calculate that.

 

[Shawn_epicurious]

Lighting... remember, I only have fish and ...mostly softies in my tank right now... a few anemones

I am running 2 Hydra 32s... left and right and 1 Hydra 26 in the center. I know I will need more light once I have a good sized bioload of SPS corals. But... I feel like I a, in a good place with my lights.

below are pics of my lights schedules... the Hydra 26 is on a separate schedule from the 32s. The app won’t join them together... the fist pic of of the center light

 

[Shawn_epicurious]

RODI / ATO

no gonna lie.... I know less about my RODI system than anything else I own right now. I have been putting off researching it. If I am not running Kalk thru it yet, I soon will be.

 

[Shawn_epicurious]

Oh yeah... tank size. 72” wide, 24” deep and 27” tall... so...roughly 27 cubic feet or almost 202 gallons. I was shooting for 1.5 lbs of rock per gallon. I end up with just a touch more... 320 lbs in total

 

[Shawn_epicurious]

Species list (here is where I get beat up a little... lol

i put my cleaning crew in a comment above..

fish list - from largest to smallest

2 spotted eels - they are about 9” long, so they seem big, but the next three fish are actually bigger
1 fox face rabbit fish (he’s a big wimp lol
1 copperband butterfly fish - yes he is eating now ...whew... and gorgeous!
1 blue hippo tang (my grandson just had to have Dorey! Lol
5 cardinal fish... I love the way they school
1 fairy wrasse (started out with 2)
5 clown fish. 3orange and white, 2 are black and while (they have not gotten aggressive with each other

now for the getting beat up part... : ( I do not know the names of all my corals, mushrooms, anemones.

I have 1 cucumber, 2 small tube anemone, 2 small carpet anemone, and a 1 I don’t know the name of.
I have 21 softies in my tank... across 12 specie. I struggle with most of their names, so... pics below

i have way too much of one species. I plan on trading several of them in when I start buying SPS corals

 

[SPR1968]

Species list (here is where I get beat up a little... lol

i put my cleaning crew in a comment above..

fish list - from largest to smallest

2 spotted eels - they are about 9” long, so they seem big, but the next three fish are actually bigger
1 fox face rabbit fish (he’s a big wimp lol
1 copperband butterfly fish - yes he is eating now ...whew... and gorgeous!
1 blue hippo tang (my grandson just had to have Dorey! Lol
5 cardinal fish... I love the way they school
1 fairy wrasse (started out with 2)
5 clown fish. 3orange and white, 2 are black and while (they have not gotten aggressive with each other

now for the getting beat up part... : ( I do not know the names of all my corals, mushrooms, anemones.

I have 1 cucumber, 2 small tube anemone, 2 small carpet anemone, and a 1 I don’t know the name of.
I have 21 softies in my tank... across 12 specie. I struggle with most of their names, so... pics below

i have way too much of one species. I plan on trading several of them in when I start buying SPS corals

That looks very nice, and don’t worry about coral names, I can’t remember them either! Lol

 

[Shawn_epicurious]

i accidentally posted the same this twice. I deleted it. Ignore this one : )

 

[Shawn_epicurious]

So... I thought I’d write this down before I forget it. I “jokingly“ named my tank “WolfHead Mountain”. I’ll say this first... scotch was involved. : )

The highest rock on the right side.... like a shape in a cloud... you can see a wolf’s head... it’s facing to the left.

That dang rock! I bet I picked it up 50 times when I was doing my scape. I could find a place for it. Too thick, too thin, to short... it just never fit anywhere. It was literally the last rock I put in there. A few hours later.... te tank was full of water for the first time and yes, I was no longer on my first drink lol

Ot was late... dark in the house... lights very blue and saw it. I have not been able to unsee it since : ) I even put a coral on it.... now it has hair!

 

[Shawn_epicurious]

I lost one of my spotted eels : (

This hobby... wow. You read, you research, you think you ... learn. You see an idea repeated in multiple place and my multiple people in here and you try something new... some small change. I removed the plexiglass covers to increase oxygenation, bring the temperature down just a little (from 79 to 77) and improve PAR.

And like an idiot you let a really cool eel jump to its death : (

I just ordered a screen kit to build some screen covers.

 

[Shawn_epicurious]

Well... here goes nothing. Unboxing this right now. Wonder how many curse words this is going to create today lol

 

[Shawn_epicurious]

I have it Four probes are in the water and at them moment I have the heater and the skimmer running thru it. Parts of this setup were a little frustrating... the PH refused to complete the automated calibration. I tried 3 times. I may have gotten a drop of the 7.0 solution in the 10.0 solution. I’ll pick up a few new packs and try that part again.

I’ll add more running thru it later : )

 

[Chrisfish]

Tank looks awesome!!!

 

[count krunk]

Don't run kalk thru your rodi unit. Unsure if that's what you meant but don't haha.

 

[Shawn_epicurious]

Tank looks awesome!!!

Wow, thank you!

 

[Shawn_epicurious]

Don't run kalk thru your rodi unit. Unsure if that's what you meant but don't haha.

I have decided against Kalk. I don’t like the idea of it supplying three things in equal measures that do not get used up equally

 

[Shawn_epicurious]

And now i find out the reactor set up is a waste smh.. make lemonade right. I am going to switch out the media in the reactor to either carbon of gfo need to read some more. The 3 stage dosing system will handle the calcium : )

So, I finally got around to changing out the media in this “non” calcium reactor. I filled it up with premium active carbon and put the old media... in my sump. Someone called the original set up a “house for more good bacteria and eventually live rock.” So, yeah... didn’t want to waste it. I recently put a batch of copepods in my tank, so half of them got put in my sump, down under that media. I put a media bag around the pump for now... that media was dirtier than I thought it would be when I took it out. I got 98% of the flotsam out : ) ...just protecting the pump.

 

[Shawn_epicurious]

Took a few more steps towards being able to run a safe SPS tank. : ) ....I still need the trident system : ( I hope Apex goes back into manufacturing again soon!

I have an Octopus Calcium reactor set up now. I have it set up to run thru the neptune. I have not turned it on yet. I still have a tank full of softies and my calcium is maintaining itself at 425. The tank is full of CO2. I just got the bottled filled today, so it’s not really all hooked up yet in the pic below

I also now have the Apex DOS dosing system in place... its 100% ready to use. Again, I have not turned it on yet. I am hoping the trident becomes available somewhere... soon. I am on everyones “notify me” lists

anyway... progress! : )

 

[Shawn_epicurious]

Short post just to keep up to date. I redid the plumbing on my RODI system so that I can use t to make my own water. I can’t believe it actually took me this long to do that. Anyway, I ordered a flow meter to see how much RODI water I am using between making water and my ATO. I also ordered a float system to shut off the RaODI from filling my barrel on the days I am filling it. Right now, I just have to remember to keep looking while it fills... lol...it almost got away from me today.