Need recommendation for a 135 gallon Softy/LPS tank

[Dilan Patel]

I have had a 135 Gallon tank set up for about 2 years now. I originally wanted it to be a high end sps tank but I have yet to get that tank in control. The nitrates is out of wack and the algae is unbelievable. I just lost a lot of faith in the tank and kinda just left is running for 6months. all i did was feed the fish, the tanks glass was not cleaned, skimmer was barely maintained and nitrates held extremely high. A couple days ago I was looking at my other tank and was thinking now that this tank is basically on autopilot I should really decide what to do with my other tank. I cleaned the glass and was able to see my fish! Keep in mind this tank has some of my dream fish such as a purple tang, vlamingi tang and a blonde naso and others as well. These fish look spectacular all fat, healthy and getting along. I was looking at the tank and I wanted something easy to maintain but would offer something my other tank doesn't...lots of movement. That is why I have decided to go softy and LPS tank as they tend to be easier to keep than an all out mixed reef as well as lighting requirements tend to be less demanding. I am not a fan of my aquascape at the moment but that is changing today! I am going for the two island look and dead space in the middle for fish to swim. I will also do a nice size waterchange to drop that nitrate down and hopefully the nopox can handle the rest. Here are a few pics and now starts the journey. I am looking for recommendations of corals to keep that are low maintenance but offer vivid colors and swaying motion)not all will be swaying). Rn I will go shopping in my other tank for coral which would include chalices, hammer, frogspawn and torches. I honestly don't know much about soft corals.

Unfortunately I do not have a picture of the tank before I cleaned it but trust me when I say it was dirty it was dirty...like even a razor blade did not take of the algae easy dirty lol.

 

[Reeffraff]

Some suggestions for hardly, colorful soft corals would be leather, mushrooms, zoas/plays and clove polyps. However, I think nutrients will continue to be a challenge given the fact that you have not one, but two naso species in a 135 gal tank (which is considered too small for these fish). They can attain lengths between 18 and 24" and eat... a lot.

 

[Dilan Patel]

Forgot to mention I am doing zoas, got over 30 strains to choose from haha. And yes I know they will outgrow the 135 eventually. They get fed 6x a day + 2 sheets of nori+ frozen...these guys can put down some food. I think my nutrient issue stems from me using dry rock. Never used it before and will never use it again.

 

[Jvalle]

I would stick with mushrooms And zoas first. I am a huge zoa fan and have about 3000 growing and it’s impressive because of the coloration u can’t find anywhere else in the hobby. Thx

 

[Jvalle]

 

[Dilan Patel]

Love zoas! I thought it would be nice to keep a softy/LPS tank just to keep it simple. Ive always wanted to keep duncan corals and I wanna get my neon green toadstool back. Figured since I already have a more difficult tank to keep might as well do something I can just sit back and enjoy. Im hoping I can maybe keep a couple angelfish like a flame angel and potters angel. Also will move a Magnificent foxface into that tank eventually once it grows out my frag tank. If I do mushrooms I would do some of the more "higherend" types such as jawbreakers and bounces.

 

[Victor_C3]

Years and years ago I had what was becoming a beautiful SPS tank. I went on vacation and a buddy of mine with no reefing experience kept an eye on it for me. For whatever reason, the lights didn’t come on one day. He didn’t think they were important so he didn’t call me to let me know. Well, 10 days later, when I returned home, I had lost all of my corals.

I was defeated and didn’t feel like doing anything with the tank. Rather than tear everything down, I pulled out the dead colonies and stuck a few LPS colonies into the tank along with a few photosynthetic sea fans. I stopped caring about almost any upkeep and the tank actually grew to be a pretty decent looking tank. Macro algae took over and all of the LPS colonies were on the green and purple side. I was actually stunned by how attractive the tank had become.

Eventually I had to tear it down because of a job loss and unfortunately, I never got too many pictures of the setup. This was before phones had cameras in them and it was a bit of a pain to take pictures then transfer them to my computer.

What you’ve got right now doesn’t look half bad.

 

[Dr. Dendrostein]

I have had a 135 Gallon tank set up for about 2 years now. I originally wanted it to be a high end sps tank but I have yet to get that tank in control. The nitrates is out of wack and the algae is unbelievable. I just lost a lot of faith in the tank and kinda just left is running for 6months. all i did was feed the fish, the tanks glass was not cleaned, skimmer was barely maintained and nitrates held extremely high. A couple days ago I was looking at my other tank and was thinking now that this tank is basically on autopilot I should really decide what to do with my other tank. I cleaned the glass and was able to see my fish! Keep in mind this tank has some of my dream fish such as a purple tang, vlamingi tang and a blonde naso and others as well. These fish look spectacular all fat, healthy and getting along. I was looking at the tank and I wanted something easy to maintain but would offer something my other tank doesn't...lots of movement. That is why I have decided to go softy and LPS tank as they tend to be easier to keep than an all out mixed reef as well as lighting requirements tend to be less demanding. I am not a fan of my aquascape at the moment but that is changing today! I am going for the two island look and dead space in the middle for fish to swim. I will also do a nice size waterchange to drop that nitrate down and hopefully the nopox can handle the rest. Here are a few pics and now starts the journey. I am looking for recommendations of corals to keep that are low maintenance but offer vivid colors and swaying motion)not all will be swaying). Rn I will go shopping in my other tank for coral which would include chalices, hammer, frogspawn and torches. I honestly don't know much about soft corals.

Unfortunately I do not have a picture of the tank before I cleaned it but trust me when I say it was dirty it was dirty...like even a razor blade did not take of the algae easy dirty lol.

unfortunately with the bans in the past and the virus we're dealing with today most beautiful corals, soft corals hard to get, bummer

 

[PicassoClown04]

Zoas, Duncan, elegance coral, lobos, welsos, open brains, scolies, hammer, torch, frogspawn, hamspawn (a cross breed of hammer and frog spawn looks really neat), octospawn (like frogspawn but like double the tips), palythoa, ricordea, rhodactis, regular mushrooms, blastomussa, acan, Favia, galaxea (careful here they’ve got wicked stinging tentacles and will mess up any coral within like 5-8 inches), cyphastrea.... the list goes on and on. Scolies are the only ‘hard’ coral on this list but in my experience they’re fairly easy as long as you feed them appropriately sized meaty foods at night like 2x a week. Good luck to ya! All of these corals together would make a spectacularly colored tank! WWC live sale is going on right now if you’re interested in some high end stuff right away

 

[Dilan Patel]

Thank you all for the encouragement and pieces to look out for! Just got done with the heavy cleaning/reaquascape/redo of the tank...lots of work but I can just see this tank looking good. Seems like I got a second wind of energy for this tank super excited about it. Hope to get corals in no more than a month. The aquascape I did allowed for a more even spread of light on all rocks allowing more corals to grow and collect. Also gives my tangs all the space they need in the front and big caves to the right of the structure for them to live in while the left side is where the smaller fish will find a place to live. I am now placing the two gyres on the back wall over each island...but they need to get cleaned first. The lights will probably be lowered another 6in to get even more par . One SPS I may put in because I love them so much is a plate coral. Had 3 massive colonies but lost them over the summer. Ended up having a piece survive and is growing out nicely. I have a nice warpaint scoly in my 180 reef that I love.

 

[Dilan Patel]

im going to be honest ive caught myself just sitting and looking at this tank which is weird because just a couple weeks ago I couldn't stand looking at this tank. The fish all swim so peacefully and it has become much quiter since I have raised the water in my overflow to reduce the falling water effect. Still battling nitrates but other than that parameters are perfect for coral. I am dosing nopox hopefully I can get it reduced soon. I already have some corals I wanna place lol.

 

[Dilan Patel]

Tanks been sitting at 50ppm for a long time while running nopox. I have about.05ppm of phosphate and thought nopox would be helping by now...I started dosing my live phytoplankton to the tank in an idea that they would consume the nitrate and phosphate with the addition of light like they do in my culturing setup. Today was my second day and before I placed my second dose I tested nitrates and it was at 25ppm. Is it possible that my idea is maybe working? Maybe the conjunction of the two?

 

[User1]

Nice looking tank. Not sure what those green polyps are on the lower left rock but while a nice color they are a weed . At least in my tank they are taking over everything and starting to sting my SPS test frags.

 

[Jvalle]

Nice looking tank. Not sure what those green polyps are on the lower left rock but while a nice color they are a weed . At least in my tank they are taking over everything and starting to sting my SPS test frags.

Hi those are green nuclear palys . They do grow quick and can harm yiur other stuff . The pandora zoas are also out of control thx