dirtdobber06
Active Member
My name is David and I have been running this tank for about 6 years. First I will describe my system, additives, stock, and maintenance. Then I will discuss my goals and ask for help on some items.
120 mixed reef. suggstions wanted please.
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dirtdobber06
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Well photobucket is giving me problems trying to copy links.
This is a 120 built into the wall in my living room. I have a dedicated fish room where I have about a 10 gallon sump and a 10 gallon refugium. I will try to post more pictures later. Lighting consists of 2x96 W Actinic bulbs that come on at 6:30 a.m. and go off at 4:30 p.m. I change these once a year. At 11:30 two 150 W Metal Halide Bulbs come on and stay on until 3:30p.m. I also change these yearly. I have a Skimz 181 skimmer that I just installed in May 2015 after not having a skimmer for a while because the old one quit working. I have a Phosban reactor with Carbon that I change every 6 weeks. I do 20 gallon water changes by siphoning into a sink in my fish room with a siphon that breaks at 20 gallon mark on tank. When the water is done siphoning out I turn a pump on in my mixing barrel and it fills the tank backup. I use Reef Crystals and SG runs around 1.025. I have a Reef Keeper that controls my lights and pumps and stuff. pH usually is around 7.98 to 8.03 on probe from controller. I have 2 power heads in tank for circulation along with the Mag950 return pump. I have been using Reef Fusion Parts 1 and 2- 25 mLs of each once a day. I also started using some limewater (dripping it in with acclimation set) from a 1 gallong jug. Ato with float valve. Tested stuff this last weekend Phosphates were zero on API test. SG 1.025, dKH 11, Nitrate 0 (API), Mg 1375, Calcium 500 (Seachem). I have 2 Mangroves in the refugium. The light for the fuge is a LED PAR38 bulb that is on all the time except when the halides are on. I feed a small pice of Nori daily along with a pinch of pelleted food and twice a week add 1 tsp phytoplankton.
I have 3 fish: cardinal fish, yellow wrass and a foxface. Montipora plate, montipora digitata, hammer coral, long tentacle anemones, Kenya trees, devils hand(?), yellow polyps, candy cane coral, and some very bland zoanthids.
This is a 120 built into the wall in my living room. I have a dedicated fish room where I have about a 10 gallon sump and a 10 gallon refugium. I will try to post more pictures later. Lighting consists of 2x96 W Actinic bulbs that come on at 6:30 a.m. and go off at 4:30 p.m. I change these once a year. At 11:30 two 150 W Metal Halide Bulbs come on and stay on until 3:30p.m. I also change these yearly. I have a Skimz 181 skimmer that I just installed in May 2015 after not having a skimmer for a while because the old one quit working. I have a Phosban reactor with Carbon that I change every 6 weeks. I do 20 gallon water changes by siphoning into a sink in my fish room with a siphon that breaks at 20 gallon mark on tank. When the water is done siphoning out I turn a pump on in my mixing barrel and it fills the tank backup. I use Reef Crystals and SG runs around 1.025. I have a Reef Keeper that controls my lights and pumps and stuff. pH usually is around 7.98 to 8.03 on probe from controller. I have 2 power heads in tank for circulation along with the Mag950 return pump. I have been using Reef Fusion Parts 1 and 2- 25 mLs of each once a day. I also started using some limewater (dripping it in with acclimation set) from a 1 gallong jug. Ato with float valve. Tested stuff this last weekend Phosphates were zero on API test. SG 1.025, dKH 11, Nitrate 0 (API), Mg 1375, Calcium 500 (Seachem). I have 2 Mangroves in the refugium. The light for the fuge is a LED PAR38 bulb that is on all the time except when the halides are on. I feed a small pice of Nori daily along with a pinch of pelleted food and twice a week add 1 tsp phytoplankton.
I have 3 fish: cardinal fish, yellow wrass and a foxface. Montipora plate, montipora digitata, hammer coral, long tentacle anemones, Kenya trees, devils hand(?), yellow polyps, candy cane coral, and some very bland zoanthids.
dirtdobber06
Active Member
I have a lot of macro algae in the display that I would rather have in the fuge but cant seem to figure out how to do that. I just added some clean-up-crew as I think I was down to 1 hermit crab. I want to add a few SPS or something else to add some red or purple. I have bought 2 SPS frags and they have both died so I am not sure what I am doing wrong with those. One died slowly and the other died within a few days of arrival from an online retailer (I live 45 min from closest fish store 
dirtdobber06
Active Member
Anyone know why when I point to links in photobucket they disappear and I cant copy them?
dirtdobber06
Active Member
dirtdobber06
Active Member
I would like suggestions on how to make this better. So far no luck with SPS corals. I have ordered stuff online, bought in store, and I have a lot of stuff die. This hobby is frustrating at times.
dirtdobber06
Active Member
dirtdobber06
Active Member
Please make suggestions or comment.
It looks like you have a nice setup, and the chemistry looks good. What were the SPS frags that died and can you give more detail on how they died? You already have montis which are SPS too so it can't be that bad. Personally that sand bed scares me - that large at 6 years old it might have a lot of nutrients in it.
dirtdobber06
Active Member
I switched from gravel to the sand bed about 1 year ago so the sand bed is not too old. The first one was an unidentified acropora that I bought at a local fish store. It died over several weeks. The second one, was sold as a "Maricultured Tight Bushy Acro, Purple" I got from Blue Zoo aquatics 6 days ago. I followed the acclimation guide over a little over an hour, placed in in the middle of the tank with good flow. It died very quickly.....all the tissue just fell off. It looked healthy when I received it. I know they have a guarantee but I don't want to kill anything else. I also got some fish (a tang and a mandarin), both of these died as well.
Should I not have put in such a deep sand bed?
Should I not have put in such a deep sand bed?
dirtdobber06
Active Member
It could have a lot of nutrients though because I did not have much clean up crew. I just added some snails and crabs so maybe that will help clean it up. I saw the emerald crab that came in same order this morning-eating away on the macro on the hammer coral.
The sand bed holding a lot of nutrients would be my worry, but still seems strange to have the acro die so fast. When you change carbon do you notice the coral perk up? With those leathers they could be producing chemical warfare the acro didn't like.
dirtdobber06
Active Member
I do not notice any difference in corals when I change carbon. I did notice the Chili coral perked up when I installed the new skimmer....it started extending polyps but has reverted to being mostly closed up again. Did not know the leathers would do that. Guess that could explain it. Do you think I wont be able to keep any of the branching SPS's with leathers in the tank?
I think you should be able to keep acros and leathers alright, I did for a couple of years. It's just something to be aware of. With those tank shots it looks like there is a nutrient issue even if the tests are reading 0. Can you carefully siphon the sand and see what you pull out? What color are the montis and how have they been doing? They look a bit brown in the photo, when my phosphate creeps up some of my sps always go brown.
dirtdobber06
Active Member
You mean suck some sand/water up like with a turkey baster, filter and test the phosphates? The monti's are nice orange color and have not been growing much lately. I have gotten good growth in the past but it seems to be much slower now.
dirtdobber06
Active Member
I will get another Phosban reactor to run some GFO in when my budget allows. I stopped running it about 6 months ago. I was putting both carbon and GFO in the same reactor but I saw a video on BRS where it is better to run them separately.
Got Acros???
Community Member
honestly i would use more accurate test kits instead of api kits. I've tested many customers water at the lfs store i work at multiple times with the same api test kit and every result was different. for example i tested someones alk, tested 6 times in a row and the results ranged from 6 all the way up to 11. so ive been bringing my salifert kits with me to work to get more accurate readings. I also agree that it seems like its a nutrient issue so even though you may test 0 nitrate and 0 phosphates, that could be due to the macro and other algaes that are growing in your display removing them a t a very fast rate so that they don't show up in your test results. i didn't see anything about a ro/di filter being used, if thats true than how do you go about mixing up the new saltwater? in my personal experience with acros/sps corals running an alk of 11 is pretty high and have seen acros with burt tips due to running alk to high. 500 ca isn't necessarily bad but it doesn't need to be that high, usually you see it between 380 to 420ish. First things first though, use more accurate test kits and retest nitrate/phophate and then go from there.
dirtdobber06
Active Member
Ok, I will try to get more accurate test kit. I'm sorry I did forget to mention that I do have a RO/DI filter from BRS with a TDS meter on it. I use the color changing DI resin so I know when to change it out. The top barrel has my fresh water supply with a float valve to help prevent water on the floor. I fill the bottom barrel to a line that is a little over 20 gallons then add salt (Reef Crystals) to make SG 1.025 or 6 depending on the tank SG. There is a pump and heater in the mixing barrel.
Got Acros???
Community Member
how many lines does your tds meter have and where are they reading the water from. for instance i have a three line tis meter that reads the water before going into the filter, when it comes out of the membrane and then when it comes out of the di chamber, that way when the numbers start to climb i have a better idea of whats going bad whether it be the filters/ membrane or just the di resin itself. i also use the color changing resin but i only rely on what the tds meter tells me cause that resin will loose color faster than its ability to clean the water. when the readings after the di chamber start to fluctuate between 000 and 001 thats when i replace my di resin.
dirtdobber06
Active Member
TDS on my RO/DI meter has 2 readouts. One on inlet side and one on outlet side. I do have an extra TDS meter on the shelf that has 2 more meters. I could put that in-line to get more info. Nice idea.
