Matt's Elos 120xl

[Mattres]

How long are you running the MH's? I've found 3 hours to be plenty in mine due to the shallow depth. I also started with dry rock and have the same algae on the sand bed. I thought it may have been from one T5 bulb I tried, and have since switched it back to a blue+. I plan to chart PAR readings and have the meter, just lazy. I love the minimalistic rock approach with plenty of fish swimming area. Looks fantastic!

Hey mate! Currently I've reduced it to only 1 hour a day, before that it was only 3 hours. I have 1 Giesemann Super Actinic and 1 Actinic Blue on for 12 hours then 2 Aquablue Corals on for 7 1/2 hours.
Your PAR map would be interesting to see, definitely post that if you do it. What bulb combo are you running?
Thanks for the kind words about the scape, hopefully one day it will look like what I have pictured in my head! haha
The algae on the sand bed is still persisting, but not only that I have a crazy amount of short brown algae appear which i think is just diatoms. I'm starting to think the rock needs a lot longer to mature than i had thought. I have a low bioload with just the 4 fish and went through a decent cycle before adding them but the re-occurrence of the diatoms and the fact corals aren't doing well I think tells me things aren't ready biologically.

 

[jporter17]

Hey mate! Currently I've reduced it to only 1 hour a day, before that it was only 3 hours. I have 1 Giesemann Super Actinic and 1 Actinic Blue on for 12 hours then 2 Aquablue Corals on for 7 1/2 hours.
Your PAR map would be interesting to see, definitely post that if you do it. What bulb combo are you running?
Thanks for the kind words about the scape, hopefully one day it will look like what I have pictured in my head! haha
The algae on the sand bed is still persisting, but not only that I have a crazy amount of short brown algae appear which i think is just diatoms. I'm starting to think the rock needs a lot longer to mature than i had thought. I have a low bioload with just the 4 fish and went through a decent cycle before adding them but the re-occurrence of the diatoms and the fact corals aren't doing well I think tells me things aren't ready biologically.

I have a Reef Brite Hybrid fixture. It has 2X250W MH, 2X39W T5's, 2xXHO Blue LEDs, and a moon light in the middle. The MH's are 20K Radiums, the T5s are Blue+. MHs are on 3Hrs, T5s 10Hrs, and XHOs 12Hrs ramping up in the morning to 80% and down to moon lights in the afternoon. The algae I'm experiencing looks like little fur balls. I vacuumed the sand bed this past week and that removed some, but not the majority of them. They were mostly towards the front of the tank where I had experimented with a Coral+ bulb which has some red and white in it. Thought that might have contributed to the algae. I had a little pressure from some local reefers to try the ATI power module on this new tank, but really like the RB. JP

 

[Mattres]

I have a Reef Brite Hybrid fixture. It has 2X250W MH, 2X39W T5's, 2xXHO Blue LEDs, and a moon light in the middle. The MH's are 20K Radiums, the T5s are Blue+. MHs are on 3Hrs, T5s 10Hrs, and XHOs 12Hrs ramping up in the morning to 80% and down to moon lights in the afternoon. The algae I'm experiencing looks like little fur balls. I vacuumed the sand bed this past week and that removed some, but not the majority of them. They were mostly towards the front of the tank where I had experimented with a Coral+ bulb which has some red and white in it. Thought that might have contributed to the algae. I had a little pressure from some local reefers to try the ATI power module on this new tank, but really like the RB. JP

Oh nice that would be an awesome fixture!
I'd love to add some led's somehow but can't bring myself to add anything to the Spectra.
I'm away from the tank for a couple days, hoping I don't come back to anything to bad!

 

[Ttnguyen]

Very nice and clean build . I love the way you put everything together. Look so neat . May I ask where did you order the Elos Absolute stand ?

 

[Mattres]

Very nice and clean build . I love the way you put everything together. Look so neat . May I ask where did you order the Elos Absolute stand ?

Thanks for the kind words mate
I'm happy with how it all worked out.
Yea sure, I just inquired about it with the Elos distributer here in Australia.
So your local Elos dealer should be able to look into one. If you're in the U.S i hear Aquarium Speciality is pretty good with Elos?

 

[Janci]

Hi Matt, how are things going in the Elos120XL?
Could you get the algae under control?

 

[Mattres]

Hi Matt, how are things going in the Elos120XL?
Could you get the algae under control?

Hi mate! Things are moving very slowly unfortunately. I've been meaning to do a proper update for a while but work and life seem to be taking a lot of my time recently.
The algae got a lot worse before it got better and I believe it's because I went through another cycle. The tank became blanketed in diatoms, it was thick, long and the whole tank looked brown.
I dont feel like i rushed anything, I've had no more than 4 fish in the tank and very few corals.
I have a theory what happened but no test results to prove it.
I think I was naive about how long the dry rock takes to mature even though after a month my cycle was over.
Not long after my last post I forgot to fill the auto top off for maybe 5 days after I should have. This dropped the water level in my sump. When that happens the section I have my siporax, becomes exposed to air, it's not usually a problem because I remember to fill it up! Haha.
This siporax is what I used to seed the tank and probably contained most of my bacteria.
I don't know how long it was exposed to air but from what happened to the tank I assume long enough that the bacteria died off and I was left with very immature rock to take up the slack, which it didn't do very well.
This period probably went for 3-4 weeks, most of the snails were upside down and dying. My Kole tang showed some signs of stress a few times, other fish acted normal.
The euphillias shrunk up to nothing, the acros and SPS all paled and died.
So lesson learnt and I've decided to let it all mature for a lot longer.
Things have looked better for the past 3 weeks although I still have a green tinged sand bed.
I have a 6-7 week honeymoon coming up next February. I've decided I'll wait until I'm back to start stocking coral again. Will be easier on the house sitter that way. I do hope to add a few more fish slowly, hopefully I can find a few on my wishlist.

 

[Janci]

Things have looked better for the past 3 weeks although I still have a green tinged sand bed.
I have a 6-7 week honeymoon coming up next February. I've decided I'll wait until I'm back to start stocking coral again. Will be easier on the house sitter that way. I do hope to add a few more fish slowly, hopefully I can find a few on my wishlist.

Bummer on the evaporation issue. But now your tank will only benefit from the extra cycling time.
Congratulations on the honeymoon!!!

 

[FMF0331]

Following

 

[Wrangy]

Bummer to hear about the problems man! I'm sure it'll recover wonderfully for you though especially if it's being left to mature for another 4 months

Congrats mate! Where are you off to for the honeymoon??

 

[choss]

Matt,

Sorry to hear about your issues with the tank. I'm glad I read this today. As you know I'm close to getting my tank wet and the last big decision I need to make is whether to go with cured dry rock (I've been curing it for roughly 3 months), or to start with live rock. I have enough live rock in my old 40 gallon to properly seed my tank but I have had to eliminate a few aiptasia from that tank in the past (successfully) and so I was debating whether it might not just be best to go with all dry rock. The other option is to get some aqua cultured live rock from TBS. If you could do it all again, would you have started with live rock?

 

[Mattres]

Bummer on the evaporation issue. But now your tank will only benefit from the extra cycling time.
Congratulations on the honeymoon!!!

Thanks mate!
Yea it was a frustrating time, especially at first since I didn't realize what had actually happened. Then it clicked. But leason learnt and we move on!

 

[Mattres]

Bummer to hear about the problems man! I'm sure it'll recover wonderfully for you though especially if it's being left to mature for another 4 months

Congrats mate! Where are you off to for the honeymoon??

Thanks buddy, it has been slowly recovering and all the rocks appear clean now. All but a patch of growing cyano.. ;Facepalm
Yes hopefully in 4 months she's ready to rock and roll!
Sorry to hear that aefw made another appearance in your tank, seems like sometimes in this hobby it takes many steps back to go forward!

Thanks, we're off to Canada mostly (Vancouver, Toronto, Banff, Jasper) and then New York. Should be a good little trip! I need to research some aquarium related activities..

 

[Mattres]

Matt,

Sorry to hear about your issues with the tank. I'm glad I read this today. As you know I'm close to getting my tank wet and the last big decision I need to make is whether to go with cured dry rock (I've been curing it for roughly 3 months), or to start with live rock. I have enough live rock in my old 40 gallon to properly seed my tank but I have had to eliminate a few aiptasia from that tank in the past (successfully) and so I was debating whether it might not just be best to go with all dry rock. The other option is to get some aqua cultured live rock from TBS. If you could do it all again, would you have started with live rock?

Thanks Choss. I've actually thought about that question a bit and it's a hard one to answer. I've loved using the "Real Reef Rock" as it was easy to scape, and no pests.
I did though love using live rock for the mini, they're was awesome microfauna, some good some bad of course. Obviously the maturity of the bacteria levels is a big consideration between the two.
I think my two options if I ever did it again would be dry rock that had been curing already for months, like what you have OR I would use live rock that I have quarantined to make sure no unwanted pests are added to the tank. Which you have as well. Haha
I hope I haven't made that harder for you? lol

 

[Janci]

Thanks mate!
Yea it was a frustrating time, especially at first since I didn't realize what had actually happened. Then it clicked. But leason learnt and we move on!

For a moment I was doubting if you were here talking about the honeymoon ;Sorry;Sorry;Sorry or the tank...

 

[Eliot]

Love the elos

 

[Janci]

The other option is to get some aqua cultured live rock from TBS.

That TBS rock and sand looks amazing. When D2mini restarted his tank the creatures on/in the rock was more then you ever get with any rock.
I wish we had access to it...

 

[Mattres]

For a moment I was doubting if you were here talking about the honeymoon ;Sorry;Sorry;Sorry or the tank...

Hahaha Yes definitely the tank.
The honeymoons been mostly easy to plan. Buying heaps of snow gear has cost me a bomb though! Not something I'm used to down here! Haha

 

[Mattres]

Love the elos

Thanks, Elos do make a nice looking tank!

 

[Mattres]

That TBS rock and sand looks amazing. When D2mini restarted his tank the creatures on/in the rock was more then you ever get with any rock.
I wish we had access to it...

I don't know of any live rock that is as fresh out the sea as that. It's literally like dropping the ocean into your tank with TBS!