So this thread as been long over due. I just never felt that it was in good enough shape to make a thread about it. The tank itself ive had to move five different times. So needless to say, most of the coral was unhappy with me but I couldn't help having to move the tank around. I live in a condo so im pretty limited on the amount of room in my living room, plus I used to have my sump and frag tank in the living room as well. Any who, on to the good stuff. My current display is 120 gallon tank. (48x24x24) It has two drains and two return lines. I currently have around 40 pounds of live sand and after removing some rock from the tank, im right around 150 pounds in the tank. About a month ago I upgraded my lighting to two Kessil leds. One A350w (wide) and the other one is a A350 (narrow). If I remember correctly the wide is around 70 or 80 degree lens and the narrow is 30 degrees. The LFS store I got them from only had one of each so I had no choice seeing how I already took down my t-5 fixture and set it up on the frag tank. I was skeptical at first about going from t-5 to any type of leds but I am so glad that I did. Ive been nothing but impressed with these lights and yes its only been a month but ive had acros color up and everything else looks great and is happy and growing like weeds. I had to spend some time redoing the aquascape because I had the rocks stacked high to accomidate the acros that needed strong lighting but with the leds in place they would have just fried stuff if I left things the way they were. So heres a pic of what it currently looks like (whites 100% blues 0%)
heres another one (whites 100% blues 100%)
Onto the livestock, starting with the fish:
(1) large purple tang (this fish has an interesting story which i will talk about later on)
(1) small scopas tang
(1) copperband butterfly
(1) green file fish
(1) algae blenny
(1) pair of Picasso clowns
(1) melanarus wrasse (male)
Inverts:
(2) skunk shrimp
(2) peppermint shrimp
(1) black brittle star
(1) red knobby star
(1) pistol shrimp (cant remember what kind)
plus a hand full of blue legged hermits
Corals: SPS
blue tenius
red dragon
pink lemonade
ora hawkins blue
red planet
blue milli
cali tort
blue tort
rr poison ivy
2 different kinds of lokanis, pics to follow, one is from TBG
fire digitata
tyree sunset montipora
red montipora cap
bonsai tree
orange sertosa ?
birdsnest
ora blue bottle brush
and a couple more pieces that im not sure of the names as of right now
Softies:
green star polyps
rock w/ purple and green mushrooms
rock w/ red mushrooms
Palys:
pink cush
ju ju eyes (TBG)
giant palys
orange/pink ones Jim was giving away at the frag n swag wheel
The next couple tank shots were taken with my iphone so please bare with me as far as the quality of them goes. these were taking with the whites on 100% and the blues off.
right side island
middle island
left island, by this time everyone heard there was a photo shoot going on and they all tried to rush in and get in on the pic.
some of the frags may be hard to see in these pics cause most of them are still on the blue glow racks at the bottom of the tank. all the coral used to be in my frag tank but after purchasing the Kessils i moved them into the display and whenever i have some free time i try and glue as many of them in place as i can. I still have a couple more frags to go though.
Please stay tuned theres much more to come about the sump and frag tank setup plus pics of corals and fish, ive been on the computer for 8 hours already doing homework but i thought i could squeeze out the whole thread but i cant keep my eyes open any longer. to be continued until tomorrow.....
Last edited by ReefTech; 08-11-2013 at 01:22 AM.
Reason: left out pieces of coral
Heres two pics of the lokanis that I have, this first one I got from a local LFS store, not sure what the exact name is. It has great coloration though. along the base it has red polyps and the branches fade to white and then have a purple ring around the coralite with bright white polyps.
heres the second lokani that I picked up from andy at The Blue Glow table at the ann arbor swap. this piece took a god 3-4 before it really started to color up but now that it has this is my favorite acro that i have now just cause the color alone. Its hard to see in the pic but it starts out as a deep purple then fades to blue and then at the end of the branches it fades to green som or even going from green to a yellow circle around the coralites and its really starting to take off as far as growth, the entire plug is nearly completely encrusted are there are a ton of new branch buds popping up all over the bas and main branch.
As far as the sump and filtration go, its pretty simple and straight forward. Directly underneath the 120 in my basement is a large table/stand that i built to hold my 75 gallon sump and my 45 gallon frag tank. So the water drains from the 120 into the refugium part of the sump, flows over the baffle and into the skimmer/return pump chamber. As of right now I have a mag 18 returning the water to the 120 and I also have a mag 9 pumping water over to the frag tank which is 48x18x12. The tank itself is drilled with a 1" drain an 3/4" return but the way I plumbed it, I made both of them drains. I converted the 3/4 inch return to 1" pvc and ran that the length of the tank and connected it to the 1" drain. Right after that I converted the 1" pvc to 1 1/2" pvc which runs over and drains into the refugium. Even though I have a ball joint in the line with the mag9 and dialed the flow down it was still causing the tank to overflow so that's why I ended up plumbing the way i did and it runs smoothly now.
In this pic you can see the silicone lines on the glass in front of the skimmer cause that's where the baffles were for the bubble trap. i used to have a smaller reef octopus (forget what model it was) it was rated for 150 gallons I believe but upon setting the 120 up and plumbing the frag tank into the system i needed a serious upgrade. i purchased the reef octopus xs 250 diablo last November and haven't looked back sense. This skimmer is incridable, it has two pumps and pulls some serious skimmate from the water. I run it a little on the wet side, so the skimmate looks like really dark green tea in the collection cup. This skimmer has run flawlessly for me ever since i first plugged it in. I really wanted to get the next model up, the same one youll see andy using in the sumps at reef paradise but it was alittle too big for my sump. But again no complaints at all about the model I have. Its made keeping sticks a lot easier since I made the switch. so besides the refugium and skimmer, that's really all the filtration I have that's always running. Now and then I will use a filter sock and run some carbon but that's it. The refugium is filled with live rock rubble around the size of tennis balls loosely stacked on top of each other sitting on a 4" sand bed with a carpet of chaeto on the surface.The chamber is 15" tall and 10" wide. i do have a dual chamber calcium reactor with all the components to run it but im waiting until i have some extra income to purchase a ph controller so i can set it up the proper way and not have to worry about bad ph levels of alk swings and the co2 levels. I do make my own ro/di water with a 4 stage ro filter from BRS. Its rated at 75 gallons a day. I use two Rubbermaid trash cans, one to hold ro/di water for topping the system off and the other one for mixing saltwater. I currently do not have an ATO on my system, that is also on my list of things to get. For now i just manually add top off water as needed throughout the day.
Back to the display tank....
As far as water parameters go this is how i run my system:
salinity- 1.026
temp- 78
pH- 7.8-8.1
dkh- 8.9
alk- 3.19
calcium- 425
magnesium- around 1400
phosphate- 0
nitrate- 0
right now until I get my calcium reactor up and running im using sea-chem reef builder to dose for alk without affecting pH and sea-chem advantage calcium to dose calcium plus it has magnesium and strontium in the same ratios as there found in natural sea water. i have to dose 2 teaspoons of reef builder and one of advantage calcium everyday to keep the numbers stable. i only do a 5 gallon water change every week which may seem small but it helps put some clean water in the system without having an affect on the water parameters so i don't have to worry about any swings after doing a water change. I do also carbon dose with vodka every morning before the lights come on, I wanna say its dosed at .05 ml. So for right now my system is pretty set just need to pick up a few more pieces of equipment ph controller, mp40 possibly a jabaeo w40. saw some pretty impressive videos on you tube about them but well see when i actually have the funds to purchase one. and an ATO. oh and a lot more coral so thank goodness for the swap coming up in September.
You betcha, I've always had good reactions to feeding coral frenzy and my personal favorite is the frozen food Andy makes at Reef Paradise. I also spot feed the chalices and wellso from time to time. Usually just chunks of my sis, krill, or finely chopped cocktail shrimp but really they don't discriminate, they'll eat anything. I'm glad you like the tank though, thanks for the compliments.
So I exchanged the A350 narrow I had for another A350w. I had the LFS store that I got them from to order another wide for me but they let me use the narrow until it arrived at the store. It finally arrived yesterday so since I was switching the one fixture out I thought I would snap some pics of how much coverage these wide fixtures have. The wides run 90w with a dense matrix led and a 70 degree lense.
running 100% white 100% blue
running 100% white 100%blue
FTS with both of them on. Not to much different from the first pics I posted but if you notice the left side of the tank there is a lot more light. Before the light was 4-5 inches below the rim before it hit the back of the tank, now it hits the top rim. I love having such a larger spread now especially for the coral I have on the center island. Everything looked happy before but I think everything looks better with the new light not being so focused.
Also snapped some pics of the fish:
purple tang
scopas tang
copperband butterfly (love, love, love this fish!!!!)
Picasso clowns female on the left, male on the right
melanarus wrasse gorgeous fish with great coloration just hard to get a descent pic
algae blenny on one of his favorite perches
belly full of eggs, actually they both are carrying eggs right now
corals:
acros still needing a permanent home in the display
ju ju eyes for The Blue Glow
fire digitata this one may not look that special but if you can find the sweet spot in your tank the white skeleton actually turns green which looks amazing with the bright orange polyps. you cant tell from the photo but some of the branches at the top are turning green.
screaming comet chalice picked this frag up at the lansing swap in 2012 and a month after I got it it somehow rolled into a lobo I had at the time and when I woke up the next morning all of the flesh melted away except for a tiny little strip. so I moved it into a low light and low flow area and here it is a year later and its just getting bigger