Deep Blue 57 Edge ATI Acro Garden

[Water Dog]

Chiller stand complete! Just wanted to elevate the chiller a bit so that it could exhaust excess heat out the window. Gonna grab one of those window fans to exhaust the air out.

 

[Water Dog]

And here’s a look at how the tank and its various support systems are laid out in the room.

 

[Reefcowboy]

Looking great!
I had that exact tank before! Super sharp set up!

 

[Water Dog]

Looking great!
I had that exact tank before! Super sharp set up!

Hey Carlos, thanks for stopping by! I totally remember your 57 with the Orphek LEDs. I’m LQT from over on RC. How’s your ATS coming along? I’m debating whether or not to put my Turbo’s Aquatics L2 ATS on this tank as it’s fairly small and I don’t want too clean of a tank, devoid of nutrients. So I’m considering just running my skimmer, go bare bottom and go with just B+ and C+ in my Sunpower. My inspiration being @Big E ’s amazing acropora tank. I’ve been following along n your 150 build thread... the tank looks great!

 

[Reefcowboy]

T

Hey Carlos, thanks for stopping by! I totally remember your 57 with the Orphek LEDs. I’m LQT from over on RC. How’s your ATS coming along? I’m debating whether or not to put my Turbo’s Aquatics L2 ATS on this tank as it’s fairly small and I don’t want too clean of a tank, devoid of nutrients. So I’m considering just running my skimmer, go bare bottom and go with just B+ and C+ in my Sunpower. My inspiration being @Big E ’s amazing acropora tank. I’ve been following along n your 150 build thread... the tank looks great!

Thank you Leon, you are covering every corner really well, this tank definitely promises results. Yes I still have the Orpheks at an office tank, running my Spectra now on my 150 with the orphek strips, but am a life long fan of the proven Sunpower for sps.

The ATS is a must in my 150, it works like clockwork every two weeks being harvested and keeping po4 at zero and No3 at 4ppm. It does however work too well if the lighting schedule is too long I've noticed. Ive seen nutrients drop way low before and I found the best schedule to be around 8 hrs on at night. I have to say lately Ive seen many setups running NO3 at 20-30ppm with crazy sps colors, which is tempting me to reduce further lighting of the ATS to see what I get.

The thing however is also manage alk when nutrients are higher. At my levels, I see a clear change in some sps when the range goes from 8.3dkh to 9.0 dkh. Some montis start showing burns and some sensitive acros get burnt tips as well. I lower alk with wc’s and they recover right away. I have never ran a higher nitrate sps tank, but I can say if it is managed properly, will yield top coloration. What do you plan for PO4 management, GFO?

 

[Water Dog]

If I don’t run the ATS, then I have room to fit my small Avast Spyglass reactor to run carbon and GFO. I do worry that if I let those PO4 and NO3 levels drop too low, then the specter of dinos may rear there ugly head, especially since I’m using dry Pukani rock... though it’s been curing in a Brute trashcan since October of 2017.

 

[Water Dog]

Fill ‘er up! Coming straight from my RODI unit, it’s gonna take awhile.

 

[Water Dog]

She’s filled! Special shout out to @sntmods for making me some MP40QD extension cables so the dryside wires + extensions can reach my controller cabinet. It’s a wonderfully simple plug and play solution.

Unfortunately though, one of my MP40QD wetsides had a hairline crack in the plastic and a swelled magnet. Knew it was sketchy when I turned on the pump and the wetside flew off the glass. Upon further inspection the prop was very stiff and almost stuck to the shaft because of the slight magnet swelling. See the 3 hairline cracks? New wetside should be here by Friday.

Slowly adding more salt until I hit 1.025, currently at 1.022. Once it gets there, I’ll add my cured Pukani.

 

[mich2599]

Looking good!

 

[jamo130788]

This is really nice build - just added an ATI T5 fixture to my frag tank so I am excited to see what its capable off.

 

[Water Dog]

T5s are a no brainer for this build as it will be an acro tank. Minimal shadowing and an even blanket of light is as good as it can get IMO for my specific goals for this tank.

 

[WWIII]

Fantastic build! Everything looks awesome and should be an acro growing machine with any luck! Thanks for the link to the screen corners, order placed, my fish thank you! That pic of your holes drilled into your tank is a bit of an optical illusion. The next set of pictures showing the overflow installed made me feel better. Lol

Looking forward to the cycle and testers in the near future! Good work!

 

[Water Dog]

Thank you for the kind words!

 

[AquaLifeStudio]

Really nice setup! I'll look forward to seeing it filled.

 

[Leadfooted]

Super clean and nice set up. Do you mind sharing what paint you use for the stand or how you sealed it?

 

[High ICP]

Current FTS

Where did you get this?

 

[Water Dog]

I bought it from Amazon but can’t find it there anymore. Here it is on eBay. The price often fluctuates. I think I got mine for around 90 bucks or so.

https://rover.ebay.com/rover/0/0/0?mpre=https://www.ebay.com/ulk/itm/272818146557

 

[Water Dog]

I put two bags of Tropic Eden Reef Flakes in the tank when the tank was dry and I just wasn’t feeling it. I carefully scooped it all out, taking great pains to avoid any scratches to the tank and put the sand into storage a 5 gallon bucket. This will be my first bare bottom tank and I’m exited to be able to really crank up the flow.

I pulled my 40 pounds of Pukani which has been curing in a 20 gallon Brute container since October of 2017 and carefully placed the pieces into the tank. I set up the rock work so that there will be minimal self shading from rock overhangs. I also made sure to have nice flat ledges on which grow acropora. Although I plan on growing predominantly acros in this tank, I think I may turn that little isolated rock in the front of the tank into a colorful mini zoa garden.

Whaddaya guys think?

 

[Water Dog]

Super clean and nice set up. Do you mind sharing what paint you use for the stand or how you sealed it?

Sorry for the late response. I used 4 coats of Kilz Premium Latex primer sanding between coats with 220 grit sandpaper using an orbital sander. Then I used 3 coats of Behr Premium Plus acrylic paint in gloss white. I like the acrylic paint as it cures to a hard shell glossy finish. It’s very easy to wipe spills on its hard finish. I also used Flood Floetrol in the finish paint to help minimize brush strokes for the finish coat. I used 320 grit sandpaper again with the orbital sander after the first 2 coats of the acrylic paint. I rolled and tipped the final coat. All of my supplies were purchased at Home Depot.

 

[Leadfooted]

Sorry for the late response. I used 4 coats of Kilz Premium Latex primer sanding between coats with 220 grit sandpaper using an orbital sander. Then I used 3 coats of Behr Premium Plus acrylic paint in gloss white. I like the acrylic paint as it cures to a hard shell glossy finish. It’s very easy to wipe spills on its hard finish. I also used Flood Floetrol in the finish paint to help minimize brush strokes for the finish coat. I used 320 grit sandpaper again with the orbital sander after the first 2 coats of the acrylic paint. I rolled and tipped the final coat. All of my supplies were purchased at Home Depot.

Thanks man, just in time. I’m going to start sealing and painting later this week. Thanks for the tip on sanding too.