My bumpy SPS tank journey

[BriansBrain]

I think the best part of all of this is that is my wife wants to set up her very own nano! Maybe a Reefer 200. It’ll be her first reef!

We’ll see what we can get into at Reefapalooza Chicago lol

 

[BriansBrain]

My wife got her tank! Waterbox 70.2

Cube Build - Bitten by the multiple tank syndrome clownfish

We went to ReefAPalooza Chicago and picked up Real Reef rock, Radion xr15 pro, and an mp10 for great deals at the show (along with a lot of other goodies) knowing she wanted her own tank at sometime. Her plan is 100% captive bred and aquacultured inhabitants. Picked up a very gently used...

www.reef2reef.com

A few weeks ago I made a mistake of using GFO, and turned up my lights a couple percent. So dumb of me. My phosphate went from 0.19 to 0.03 overnight. I didn’t catch the Alk swing, not huge, but from 8.2 to 9.1. I burnt a lot of tips and lost color on my acros and totally lost a few. Montis lost color and some began to loose flesh. I turned the doser off for 2 days and turned my lights down. The Alk finally started to come started to come down so I slowly started dosing again. Things are starting to come around again and I sent an ICP just to be certain no contaminants.

lesson learned

 

[BriansBrain]

I’m going to try and keep adding to this thread (good and bad updates) for documentation and advice purposes. I’ve learned a ton from all of this and hopefully I can apply that to this setup.

I rebooted my tank over the holidays because it was just a bad experience with different algae blooms that I’ve never experienced previously (mainly bryopsis at the end), aefw, and who knows what else. It was just a problem tank that became a time and money pit. It was doing ok until my last update over a year ago and sps never did well since.

I redid the rock work with Caribsea rock and started cycling it in September 2022 until I put it in the tank around Christmas with some live rock from my wife’s established tank. All livestock was held in a stock tank during the transition. I dumped a bunch of citric acid in the tank with the equipment for a thorough clean. Also, I cleaned all the equipment and importantly redid my cable spaghetti monster to be much more organized.

Hopefully this run will be more successful after spending even more time and money the first the last picture I took front the old setup

Edit 9/23/24
Current setup equipment:

Monitoring: Neptune Apex el with Trident
Lighting: 4x Radion xr15 g4 and 2x Radion xr15 g6 w/ h/o lenses.
Flow: 2x mp40, 2x Nero 5, 1x Nero 3
Mechanical filtration: 7” Mesh filter sock
Filtration: Reef Octopus 150INT 6”
Return pump:Neptune Cor20
Dosing: DosQD dosing soda ash and Kalkwasser from Avast K2 stirrer. 2x Kamoer x1 dosing mag and calcium.
ATO: tunze osmolator
Misc dosing: trace elements by hand occasionally. Acropower and Benepets once weekly

 

[BriansBrain]

Some of the acro frags I added from my other tank did not do very well: Oregon tort, Myagi tort, pc rainbow, even green slimer, red planet. Only took a couple days for them to pale out.

I put them back into the tank they came from and they’re coloring back up, other than the Oregon tort mostly STNing, but hopefully saved a nub.

I have 5 radion xr15 (2 g6 pro and 3 g4 pro) they were only set to 40% and I usually have about 10 nitrate and around 0.03 when I test weekly. I’m waiting for my par meter to test my lights output. Other tank (60 cube) runs only one xr15 g5 at 70%.

 

[BriansBrain]

As an update, it’s been nearly a year and the reboot is paying off and beginning to really launch! Been a bumpy road over the years learning again. I was definitely over complicating things and took years to learn simple is better!

 

[BriansBrain]

Hung the lights from the ceiling because I added an extra radion I had laying around. Wasn't a huge fan of all of that weight pushing on the glass and seams of the tank. Pushing about 200-500 par throughout the tank and moving towards a sps only tank. The LPS is being moved to my other tank

 

[DIYreefer]

Nice tank! I applaud your perseverance. It looks like you've had quite the rollercoaster ride to get to where it is today, but it looks like it's doing great now, good job!

 

[BriansBrain]

Nice tank! I applaud your perseverance. It looks like you've had quite the rollercoaster ride to get to where it is today, but it looks like it's doing great now, good job!

Thank you! My wife thought I was insane for wanting to start over, but it's paying off. Enough issues from algaes etc to aefw, that I should of quit. All a learning experience. One huge thing I learned is to keep it as simple as possible, and stop buying all of this gear that I think will help my tank.

 

[DIYreefer]

Thank you! My wife thought I was insane for wanting to start over, but it's paying off. Enough issues from algaes etc to aefw, that I should of quit. All a learning experience. One huge thing I learned is to keep it as simple as possible, and stop buying all of this gear that I think will help my tank.

Funny how that works! Sometimes we just keep throwing money at gadgets and magic potions, trying to provide the best environment for our livestock. Then, once we get fed up and pay less attention things seem to just work themselves out.

It's a crazy hobby that can definitely make you want to pull your hair out but it's equally rewarding once things start looking up. I've been in the hobby for a couple of decades and will remain so to some degree until I physically can't do it anymore. At which point, hopefully I'll be financially secure enough to have someone to the grunt work for me, haha!

Anyway... Once again, good job! I love seeing success stories!

 

[dangles]

Is that a ClearView lid?

 

[BriansBrain]

Yes clearview lid

 

[Gumbies R Us]

Hung the lights from the ceiling because I added an extra radion I had laying around. Wasn't a huge fan of all of that weight pushing on the glass and seams of the tank. Pushing about 200-500 par throughout the tank and moving towards a sps only tank. The LPS is being moved to my other tank

Lights look good repositioned like that!

 

[dangles]

Yes clearview lid

How have you liked it? I just got mine delivered yesterday.

 

[BriansBrain]

No issues at all. Have the solid framing on my cube. Had them for a few years now.

 

[BriansBrain]

How have you liked it? I just got mine delivered yesterday.

No issues at all. Have the solid framing on my cube. Had them for a few years now.

 

[BriansBrain]

I'm bored, so just posting update pictures with the lights hanging from the ceiling, and some closer ups. Things are doing very well.

Debating doing Moonshiners, but on the fence.

 

[BriansBrain]

Update pictures of my sps tank and 60 cube, coming along. Started first dosage following the Reef Moonshiners 2/1/24 on the sps tank. Pretty fun having two very different tanks.

 

[BriansBrain]

60 cube looking spicy today! I’ll post some pictures of the sps tank whenever I get to cleaning the glass hopefully tomorrow.

I like the toadstool, but it’s getting huge and shading a lot! I may remove it and add some more rock for more coral. It adds dynamic to that side though. What do you think?

 

[dangles]

Beautiful!

And MAN that Yellow looks GORGEOUS!

 

[BriansBrain]

Beautiful!

And MAN that Yellow looks GORGEOUS!

Thanks! I’ve had him for a couple years now and I swear he was a dwarf or something because he barely grew! I was completely fine with that, but he just went through a big growth spurt the past few months as you can see in the pictures from the last update. He may be needing to go to the bigger tank shortly!