DeepBrew's 75 Gallon Reef

[DeepBrew]

Even though my tank was set up before I joined R2R I decided to post a little build thread to document what I have now and as a place to discuss future upgrades. I told the story of my rocky start into the saltwater hobby here so I won’t get into that again.

The tank is a 75 gallon reef ready Deep Blue Professional with an enclosed stand and canopy. Here’s an overall shot of the system:



This is the present configuration:

75 gallon reef ready Deep Blue Professional display tank
29 gallon Petco $1/gallon sump (three chambers)
CPR Sockit 4” filter sock holder
Sicce Syncra Silent 3.0 return pump
Bubble Magus Curve 5 protein skimmer
Coralife 48” dual T5 standard output light
Current Orbit Marine Pro 48” LED light
BRS Deluxe Carbon/GFO reactor

Unfortunately, I don’t have many pictures of the initial build but it looks that same from the outside. It started out with a small wet/dry sump. Lighting was a Coralife dual standard output T5 fixture. After the great crash of November 2015 my family decided to let it go fallow for 12 weeks and I decided a wanted a skimmer before we added livestock back. The little wet/dry sump was too shallow for a skimmer so I got a 29 gallon on sale at Petco and added glass baffles to make it a three chamber sump. I bought a Bubble Magus Curve 5 skimmer, I’ve been very happy with it. It's hard to get pictures of the sump inside the stand but this is what the sump looks like now:





I bought the Orbit Marine Pro light last spring when we started keep a few soft corals and LPS. We’ve been getting nice growth but the daytime colors aren’t the best. I mainly chose that light because it easily fits under the canopy. We have cats that occasionally like to get on top of the tank so I wanted something worked with the canopy. I still use the old T5 as fill to lighten the shadows. I’m going to try a cheap 36” grow light T5 fixture ATI bulbs and see how that looks.


We had some red cyano problems, I tried to wait it out but added the carbon/GFO reactor about a month ago. Did a dose of Chemiclean to kill what was present and started the reactor. The tank has looked pristine ever since.

The latest addition is the ATO system. I’ve only had it a week but I’m liking it so far. Hopefully it will make daily maintenance a little easier and keep things more stable for the corals. Here is the reactor and Osmolator:


That's it for this post. I'll do another with information on the fish.

 

[DeepBrew]

This is the fish list:

Valentini Puffer
Talbot's Damsel
Tomini Tang
Starry Blenny
Melanurus Wrasse

I originally thought about adding another fish or two but now I think it's perfect as is. These fish all get along and they all bring something different to the tank. The most surprising one so far is the starry blenny, he's become territorial and goes after me anytime I have to get my hand in the tank. At least he doesn't have teeth that hurt! This is Skippy, the Starry Blenny:

All of the seem to be happy and in good health. We feed mainly frozen foods like whole krill for the puffer, spirolina, mysis shrimp and such. The tang and blenny get algae on a clip too. We occasionally feed pellets but not very often. There's a contingent of hermit crabs and various snails too. It's hard to keep track of them. I think some become snacks for the puffer and wrasse. Here's Tyler, the puffer and Bob the cleaner shrimp:


You can get a glimpse of the Bubble, the tang, Tilly, the damsel and Wrassy, the wrasse, in this one. They're harder to catch still:

The elegance coral in the background has since been moved to a 20 long temporarily. We got it in an online sale thinking it was a couple inches across. It got in the tank and opened up wider than the biggest space in the sand bed. I'm getting ready to set up a 40 gallon breeder as a frag tank along with the 20 long and will make sure it gets a nice place to spread out.

 

[Jenz]

Looks great!
What other inverts are within the tank?

 

[DeepBrew]

Thanks!

Aside from the snails, hermit crabs and cleaner shrimp there's a fighting conch and a sand sifting starfish. There's likely a gorilla crab hitchhiker. I've never seen it but the wife swears it's there.

Coral wise there's the big frogspawn and Xenia on the right side of the tank. Under them is a red mushroom, a merletti blasto and couple different zoanthids. There's a favia and gonipora in the sand bed on that side too. On the left side there's a nice yellow/green zoanthind colony up high and the mushroom colony on the rock close to the. There's several other small zoanthids, a couple more blastos and a duncan on the sand in the corner. There a few small brains and a couple little leathers too.

I'll try to post some better pictures of the corals soon. It's not easy to photograph them. You can see how brown the mushrooms look in the picture above, they look brown from the front when the daytime lights are on. Under the moonlight they're a really nice green, but the camera doesn't do well under that light. I'm having the same issue with most of the zooanthids, they are bright and colorful under the moonlight but blend in with the rock during the day.

 

[Joey waid]

Love your choose of fish..

 

[bknapp]

Looking good.

 

[Budman93]

Love the tank! I have a 72g bowfront I'm going to set up one of these months and if it looks anything like yours I'll consider it a success!

I also have looked into the Marine Pro lights as it's budget friendly and can support most corals. Don't regret buying it?

I love the aquascape too, it's simple yet is really open and gives plenty of room for the fish to swim.

 

[DeepBrew]

Thanks for the compliments!

I don't regret buying the light, it was the best unit I could find given that I wanted to keep the canopy. I just need to keep tweaking it to try to get better daytime color. I really like the sunrise, sunset and moonlight functions.

 

[LumpyFish]

Nice tank!

 

[revhtree Verified Admin]

Nice job!

 

[DeepBrew]

Thanks, revhtree!

I feel like it's really starting to take off now. I'm trying to keep my hands out of it as much as possible and let all of the critters do their thing.

 

[DeepBrew]

Here's a few pictures from today.

We gave the Xenia a haircut last weekend and the frogspawn is trying it's best to fill the extra space.



This little Chemical Romance coral from Cherry Corals is doing nicely, it's been in the tank for about a month and is very happy


Here's a candy cane and another zoa colony that are both doing well


This tank's running so smoothly right now I don't have an equipment upgrades planned. Well, maybe the lights at some point.

 

[DeepBrew]

Today was a special one for the fish, little neck clam day. We get a few clams from the grocery store, freeze them and toss one in occasionally. Everyone has fun, all 5 fish and the cleaner shrimp ready to get their share:


Skippy, the Starry Blenny thinks it all for himself:



The tang and blenny make sure they get plenty while the wrasse and puffer wait their turn:


Of course when the fish are full Bob gets a turn too:


Clam day is always fun for us to watch and fun for the fish as well. They work on that clam for a couple hours until it is completely clean inside.

 

[DeepBrew]

I haven't made any big changes to the 75 reef set up in quite a while and it's definitely settling in to a nice routine as it's second birthday approaches. The livestock is still the same except that I re-homed the Tomini Tang a few months ago because she was beating up the Starry Blenny. I haven't added any more fish so there's just the 4 now:

Starry Blenny
Valentini Puffer
Melanurus Wrasse
Talbot's Damsel

I occasionally consider adding more fish but everybody is happy and gets along well so I'm hesitant to change anything. Here's a couple pics of the coral progress.


I fragged the frogspawn a few months ago and it's about doubled in size again.

We've had the candy cane for about 1.5 years, it was 2 tiny heads when we got it. It's very happy in that spot.

Maintenance wise I do 10% water changes per week and dose two part to keep pH and KH about 8. I've been feeding LRS Reef Frenzy exclusively for several months, everything loves it. I don't use any other additives and this point and it seems to be going well.