Len's 160 gallon build

[Lenny_S]

Have a new update... Started stocking some corals and fish.

Clowns around a nice hammer I picked up.

Photosynthetic gorgonian

Green toadstool leather

Australian pink toadstool leather

Pink milli

Green Valida acro

Green Duncan

Trumpet (one polyp splitting already)

So far everything is doing great... More updates will follow, and questions or comments are welcome.

 

[Zero Nitrates]

Sweet build, Lenny. Really like the first coral going in.

 

[Lenny_S]

Sweet build, Lenny. Really like the first coral going in.

Thank you! This is the slowest I've ever done a tank, and I think it's paying off.
I started planning in May, 2015... Building August, 2015... Wet in October... Macro in November... First livestock in December
Water parameters have stayed within 10% of the following since November
0 - Ammonia and Nitrite
0.25 ppm Nitrate
0.02 ppm Phosphate
10.4 dKH Alkalinity
420 ppm Ca
1369 ppm Mg
1.026/35 ppt salinity
78.5 degrees Fahrenheit

 

[Lenny_S]

Been about a month since my last update, it's been a bit of a wild ride I guess.
Had a little bit of a diatom bloom, saw a rise in nitrate and phosphate. Well, decided to give carbon dosing a try. So a few weeks ago I started dosing AZ-NO3. I calculated the recommended dose for my water volume and then cut that dose down to 2/3 of the recommended amount. I started slow like they recommend, with literally just a couple of drops on day 1. The instructions say to double each day so I did, but double of only 2/3 the calculated amount. By the time I was dosing the maximum dose, about a week, I was in a full blown bacteria bloom.

I was fine in the beginning, as soon as it happened I immediately stopped all carbon dosing and expected it to clear up in a couple of days. Well 8 days go by and it showed absolutely no signs of improving. The good news was my nitrates went from 40 ppm to zero. The bad news was my corals were starting to look small and little to no PE. By then I was desperate, after trying several things, I posted to this forum and was given some good advice. One of them was to add a UV sterilizer, I did and 2 days later the tank was completely clear!!!
Needless-to-say, I was quite happy. I had never used a UV sterilizer before, but I have to admit, it did the trick and I run it all the time now (well I bought the thing, might as well right?)
Tank is doing really good now, and nitrates are staying in check between 0.25 and 0.75 ppm on the Red Sea pro. Still not seeing much in the way of phosphate. My Hanna Phosphate LR picks up 0.01 ppm once in a while, but for the most part just reads 0.00 But everything looks good, so I'm not going to worry about it.

Here are some of the latest photo's and additions. I borrowed my son's DSLR for these, so much better than the iPhone pictures.

Skunk Cleaner Shrimp

Acan

Trumpet is splitting another head (toward the back)

And a pretty good sized CUC. A mix of things, but among them are 20 Mexican turbo snails with a good amount of coralline on them. Hoping it helps seed a little around my stark white rock.

Well, that's the update for now. Will be looking to add some more acros and fish in the coming weeks. Will post another update after the new additions are in.

 

[furam28]

Man that's amazing workmanship on the Truvu aquarium. Makes me want to seriously consider an acrylic tank for my next upgrade. How do you like it so far? Great rockscape btw.

 

[Lenny_S]

Man that's amazing workmanship on the Truvu aquarium. Makes me want to seriously consider an acrylic tank for my next upgrade. How do you like it so far? Great rockscape btw.

This is my first acrylic tank of any kind. I like it, the clarity is outstanding. But every time I clean it I go very slow and avoid getting too close to the sand. Luckily the front and sides only need to be cleaned every other week. In fact, the most recent pictures are already a week since the last time I cleaned.
Another thing I like is it was very easy to modify/drill. I was able to put holes in the top to pass the cords through for the Gyre and power heads. That made for a very clean look. I'm pretty happy so far.
Thanks for the compliment on the rock scapes, those are like version 10 of a bunch of different designs I tried on a table. [emoji1]

 

[Lenny_S]

Well, it has been about a year since my last update. Tank has been running several months at pretty much 100% stability so I figure it's about time to catch up the build thread.
Removed the 2 leather corals. They were the only softies I was going to keep, but the dang things got so big so fast it just wasn't going to work. I ended up trading them to my LFS for a few buck credit towards some fish food.
Aside from the 2 clowns I started with (which are both still going strong) I added the following fish.
7 - Zebra Barred Dartfish (one jetted into the rocks and injured their jaw, ended up not making it, down to 6)
3 - Flame Anthias
1 - Hippo Tang
1 - Tenneti Tang
1 - Kole Tang (all the Tangs get along nicely)
1 - Bellus Angel (female)
1 - Spotbreast Angel (female)
1 - Copperband Butterfly
1 - Social Fairy Wrasse
1 - Rose-Band Long-Tail Fairy Wrasse
1 - Starry Blenny

Inverts..
Dozens of snails (each): Florida Ceriths, Nassarius, Nerite, Trochus
2 - Serpent Stars
2 - Skunk Cleaner Shrimp
2 - Peppermint Shrimp
1 - Tuxedo Urchin
1 - Tiger Conch
1 - Fighting Conch

Corals
I have a dozen LPS colonies (Hammer, Torch, Acans, Duncan) and 40 SPS pieces. My most notable SPS are...
Sexy Corals Orange Passion
AV99 Voodoo Magik
Aussi Candlelight
PC Rainbow
Needle in a haystack
Saphire milli
Red Planet
24K Lepto
ORA Frogskin
ORA Hawkins
Purple Dragon Eyes
Red Dragon
Atlantis Christmas Mirabilis
Mystic Sunset
ORA Lantana
Orange Setosa
Pink sand dollar

The dosing I am doing daily is Alk, Ca, Sr, & Mg, no point giving amount as I mix all of those from dry. My periodic dosing is 8ml of TLF Iron + Manganese once a week, 5ml of Seachem Reef Iodide once a week, 5ml of Seachem Reef Trace twice a week, 5ml of Brightwell Potassion once a week, and 15ml of TLF Acro Power once a week.

My water params for the last several months has been (and yes I test every one of these with Red Sea kits once every 3 weeks)...
Ca - 420 ppm
Alk - 9 dKH
Mg - 1300 ppm
K - 400 ppm
Fe - 0.15 (Whatever Red Sea Coral Colors Pro says this 0.15 is)
I - 0.06 ppm
Ammonia and Nitrite - 0
Nitrate - 5 ppm
Phospate 0.01 ppm (sometimes 0)
Salinity - 1.026/35ppt
Temp - 78.8 Fahrenheit

Over the past year I have done three 20% water changes (about once every 4 months). The supplements I add seems to be replacing everything that is good and important that is getting depleted. And the GAC (which I change every 60 days) and chaetomorpha (which I trim every few weeks) seem to be removing enough of what is bad.

This is the lighting program I'm running. And since the initial build I have added two 48" TrueLumen Marine Fusion strips to reduce some shadowing.

Here is a shot of the lights with the 2 strips...

Full tank shot....

Semi closeup of the left side...

Semi closeup of the right side...

Those are all iPhone pictures. I have some closeups of the corals too, but honestly they suck. My next purchase is a decent enough digital camera to get clear closeups of the corals. Any suggestions of something like a point and shoot that will give me good pictures would be appreciated.

 

[Lenny_S]

Decided to add a shot of my sump and the 15"x24"x6" thick wad of chaetomorpha before I trim it.

 

[bif24701]

Well, it has been about a year since my last update. Tank has been running several months at pretty much 100% stability so I figure it's about time to catch up the build thread.
Removed the 2 leather corals. They were the only softies I was going to keep, but the dang things got so big so fast it just wasn't going to work. I ended up trading them to my LFS for a few buck credit towards some fish food.
Aside from the 2 clowns I started with (which are both still going strong) I added the following fish.
7 - Zebra Barred Dartfish (one jetted into the rocks and injured their jaw, ended up not making it, down to 6)
3 - Flame Anthias
1 - Hippo Tang
1 - Tenneti Tang
1 - Kole Tang (all the Tangs get along nicely)
1 - Bellus Angel (female)
1 - Spotbreast Angel (female)
1 - Copperband Butterfly
1 - Social Fairy Wrasse
1 - Rose-Band Long-Tail Fairy Wrasse
1 - Starry Blenny

Inverts..
Dozens of snails (each): Florida Ceriths, Nassarius, Nerite, Trochus
2 - Serpent Stars
2 - Skunk Cleaner Shrimp
2 - Peppermint Shrimp
1 - Tuxedo Urchin
1 - Tiger Conch
1 - Fighting Conch

Corals
I have a dozen LPS colonies (Hammer, Torch, Acans, Duncan) and 40 SPS pieces. My most notable SPS are...
Sexy Corals Orange Passion
AV99 Voodoo Magik
Aussi Candlelight
PC Rainbow
Needle in a haystack
Saphire milli
Red Planet
24K Lepto
ORA Frogskin
ORA Hawkins
Purple Dragon Eyes
Red Dragon
Atlantis Christmas Mirabilis
Mystic Sunset
ORA Lantana
Orange Setosa
Pink sand dollar

The dosing I am doing daily is Alk, Ca, Sr, & Mg, no point giving amount as I mix all of those from dry. My periodic dosing is 8ml of TLF Iron + Manganese once a week, 5ml of Seachem Reef Iodide once a week, 5ml of Seachem Reef Trace twice a week, 5ml of Brightwell Potassion once a week, and 15ml of TLF Acro Power once a week.

My water params for the last several months has been (and yes I test every one of these with Red Sea kits once every 3 weeks)...
Ca - 420 ppm
Alk - 9 dKH
Mg - 1300 ppm
K - 400 ppm
Fe - 0.15 (Whatever Red Sea Coral Colors Pro says this 0.15 is)
I - 0.06 ppm
Ammonia and Nitrite - 0
Nitrate - 5 ppm
Phospate 0.01 ppm (sometimes 0)
Salinity - 1.026/35ppt
Temp - 78.8 Fahrenheit

Over the past year I have done three 20% water changes (about once every 4 months). The supplements I add seems to be replacing everything that is good and important that is getting depleted. And the GAC (which I change every 60 days) and chaetomorpha (which I trim every few weeks) seem to be removing enough of what is bad.

This is the lighting program I'm running. And since the initial build I have added two 48" TrueLumen Marine Fusion strips to reduce some shadowing.

Here is a shot of the lights with the 2 strips...

Full tank shot....

Semi closeup of the left side...

Semi closeup of the right side...

Those are all iPhone pictures. I have some closeups of the corals too, but honestly they suck. My next purchase is a decent enough digital camera to get clear closeups of the corals. Any suggestions of something like a point and shoot that will give me good pictures would be appreciated.

Use all/only whites. It helps when taking photos with LEDs. Frankly, you may never be able to take the same quality photos as people with T5s or MH. Something about the LEDs, looks great to our eyes but the camera can not pick this up.

 

[Lenny_S]

Even with the blue/violet turned down, close ups are still crappy. I think I just need to get a decent camera, any suggestions?

 

[Lenny_S]

For anyone who has AI Hydra 26's or 52's regular or HD, I'm putting a link to the light profile I use on my Google drive...

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0Byl1iTuW5PcIMkJQME1LaVMydWM
... in the upper right there is an icon to download the file

Then you should be able to import it with the AI Director. It is a standard AI Hydra profile (not HD) but others with HD's have been able to convert it.

 

[Lenny_S]

I decided to add two 48" dual bulb T5-HO fixtures to my DT. Just installed them on 11/3/2016, so no way to tell what that will do from a growth or coloration standpoint. But I'll talk a little about the fixtures I got and the bulbs.
First the fixture... I purchased the Odyssea 48" T5-HO fixture from Amazon for $49 each. I thought the price was excellent. Pro's are sleek design, price, and remote ballast. The remote ballast was a plus for me because I have my lights suspended from the ceiling and this kept the weight of the fixture to a minimum. Cons are reflector is so-so, and the cable that links the ballast to the fixture is only 4' long, it would have been much better for me with such a tall tank and stand to have a much longer cord. But I just put the timer and the ballasts on the side table next to my stand and it worked out fine.
Bulbs I used are ATI Coral+ for all 4 bulbs. With just a total of 4 bulbs, and being that this is for a LED/T5 hybrid, I was mostly looking for the color temp to be close or complimentary to what I was running on my LED's. Since I was already running a LED profile that was giving me a 14K color temp, I picked these as they are listed as 15K+. Once I turned them on I noticed 2 things, first it was in fact very close to my LED color temp, I'd say just a quarter shade bluer. Second... I took some before and after PAR measurements and they added 100 PAR at 8" below water, and 50 PAR at 16" below and 25 PAR at the sand, I'm sure it would have added more PAR if the fixtures were lower. But more importantly, it gave me a more even PAR spread, which was the whole reason I was adding them to begin with.
Overall I'm very happy with them, if I were to do T5 only lighting, I would probably only use these Coral+ bulbs. I'll see what kind of growth and coloration effects these have and check back with my observations.
For now, here's an updated FTS with the new lights installed...

 

[atlorange]

Nice!

 

[Lenny_S]

One week since adding the T5's. I'm pleased to say that I'm starting to see some color and growth improvement already. The only down side so far is I have had to clean my tank walls twice in this week, whereas before adding the T5's I could easily get by with 1x a week.... se-la-vis.

Some updated pics so it will be easier to see the progression...

 

[bif24701]

I decided to add two 48" dual bulb T5-HO fixtures to my DT. Just installed them on 11/3/2016, so no way to tell what that will do from a growth or coloration standpoint. But I'll talk a little about the fixtures I got and the bulbs.
First the fixture... I purchased the Odyssea 48" T5-HO fixture from Amazon for $49 each. I thought the price was excellent. Pro's are sleek design, price, and remote ballast. The remote ballast was a plus for me because I have my lights suspended from the ceiling and this kept the weight of the fixture to a minimum. Cons are reflector is so-so, and the cable that links the ballast to the fixture is only 4' long, it would have been much better for me with such a tall tank and stand to have a much longer cord. But I just put the timer and the ballasts on the side table next to my stand and it worked out fine.
Bulbs I used are ATI Coral+ for all 4 bulbs. With just a total of 4 bulbs, and being that this is for a LED/T5 hybrid, I was mostly looking for the color temp to be close or complimentary to what I was running on my LED's. Since I was already running a LED profile that was giving me a 14K color temp, I picked these as they are listed as 15K+. Once I turned them on I noticed 2 things, first it was in fact very close to my LED color temp, I'd say just a quarter shade bluer. Second... I took some before and after PAR measurements and they added 100 PAR at 8" below water, and 50 PAR at 16" below and 25 PAR at the sand, I'm sure it would have added more PAR if the fixtures were lower. But more importantly, it gave me a more even PAR spread, which was the whole reason I was adding them to begin with.
Overall I'm very happy with them, if I were to do T5 only lighting, I would probably only use these Coral+ bulbs. I'll see what kind of growth and coloration effects these have and check back with my observations.
For now, here's an updated FTS with the new lights installed...

I'm also looking to add 2 each 2 bulb60" T5 retro fits to my 2 each Kessil AP700s for same reasons. I think the Coral + is perfect, I might get the some bulbs.

Do your pictures come out better with the T5s?

 

[Lenny_S]

I'm also looking to add 2 each 2 bulb60" T5 retro fits to my 2 each Kessil AP700s for same reasons. I think the Coral + is perfect, I might get the some bulbs.

Do your pictures come out better with the T5s?

In fact they do. I used my iPhone for the most recent ones and I think they came out better than with LED only.

 

[Shaun Sweeney]

Very interesting. I'm a little behind but will be going thru the same process.

 

[A. grandis]

I decided to add two 48" dual bulb T5-HO fixtures to my DT. Just installed them on 11/3/2016, so no way to tell what that will do from a growth or coloration standpoint. But I'll talk a little about the fixtures I got and the bulbs.
First the fixture... I purchased the Odyssea 48" T5-HO fixture from Amazon for $49 each. I thought the price was excellent. Pro's are sleek design, price, and remote ballast. The remote ballast was a plus for me because I have my lights suspended from the ceiling and this kept the weight of the fixture to a minimum. Cons are reflector is so-so, and the cable that links the ballast to the fixture is only 4' long, it would have been much better for me with such a tall tank and stand to have a much longer cord. But I just put the timer and the ballasts on the side table next to my stand and it worked out fine.
Bulbs I used are ATI Coral+ for all 4 bulbs. With just a total of 4 bulbs, and being that this is for a LED/T5 hybrid, I was mostly looking for the color temp to be close or complimentary to what I was running on my LED's. Since I was already running a LED profile that was giving me a 14K color temp, I picked these as they are listed as 15K+. Once I turned them on I noticed 2 things, first it was in fact very close to my LED color temp, I'd say just a quarter shade bluer. Second... I took some before and after PAR measurements and they added 100 PAR at 8" below water, and 50 PAR at 16" below and 25 PAR at the sand, I'm sure it would have added more PAR if the fixtures were lower. But more importantly, it gave me a more even PAR spread, which was the whole reason I was adding them to begin with.
Overall I'm very happy with them, if I were to do T5 only lighting, I would probably only use these Coral+ bulbs. I'll see what kind of growth and coloration effects these have and check back with my observations.
For now, here's an updated FTS with the new lights installed...

Nice thread!
You will be very happy with your choice of T5 bulbs! ATI Coral Plus will bring up the colors and give you the PAR necessary for a decent growth without any problems for 10 months. I use them for 12 months over my zoa tank. Try to lower the fixture to about 14 or 12 inches from the top of the glass. You could bring the LED intensity down a bit if you choose that.
I noticed also that you have some covers over the tank. Please correct me if I'm wrong. If so, I would recommend to remove them. Your system will improve a lot without those covers. If that is because of jumping fish you could place some nets over the tank and let the gas exchange to happen freely.
That system will start to be crazy beautiful 6 months from now!!! Very nice!
Congrats!
Grandis.

 

[Lenny_S]

The lights are already about 11" above the top of the tank, about 12" above the water... I'm going to let it run with the added T5s the rest of November as-is then see how it does if I lower them an inch.
Funny you mention the net tops... I bought the BRS DIY kits months ago, just haven't gotten to that yet. But for me it was more for the gas exchange and heat management than lighting. The whole tank is acrylic, the PAR reading with and without the acrylic tops is virtually identical.

 

[revhtree Verified Admin]

Tank is looking great!