nTime's "It's New to Me" Perfecto 90

[ntime60]

The setup is approximately 3 months old. 6 days for me at this posting
A Glass Perfecto 90 Gal 48"x24"x24" drilled tank with an internal overflow and a durso-standpipe for overflow.

The overflow falls to the sump where the first chamber consists of a SWC 160 cone skimmer. The sump (40gal) consists of 5 chambers a bubble trap after the skimmer, which flows to a refrugium and then flows on to the pump section for uplift to the tank. In the pump section there are three pumps beside the uplift. One for an automatic top off system. One for the BRS Reactor and one for the UV sterilizer.

An AquaLife T5 48x4 with moon leds. There is a Hydor Koralia Smart wave controller with 3 wave motors.

Finally there is the TruTemp controller and heater. There is approximately 70 lbs of fine crushed coral and 70 lbs of live rock. I might swap out the CC for sand, but the wife gave me that look, so this will come later.

The rock is just getting green and purple coraline.

This is it at day 6. Personally I think the tank has a great start. Oh you might notice a few scuff marks on the tank rim. It is painted black by the previous owner and my son and I pushed it upstairs. I think its final resting place is a good one.

I'm still trying to figure out where I'm putting stuff and tying up power cables to prevent accidental water intrusion.

20 years is a fair amount of time to be fresh going back into it again. The big difference between then and now, is I know what I want and how I want it...Now it's open your wallet...

I'll post a pic or two from time to time to keep the thread fresh. For better or worse, here it is.

 

[ntime60]

A little self reflection about what I am doing. This is the tank at one month (technically 5 months, but one month with me) You can see the rock support structure I built to elevate the rock above the substrate. Hopefully this will promote better flow.

I added a green mushroom and a pulsing Xenia, several hermit crabs, some micro-stars, more macro algae (different types) The micro-stars disappeared against the substrate.

I had some trouble placing the Xenia because I found out I have significantly more flow in the tank than what I thought I did. I moved the heads around so they would still provide good flow but not buffet the Xenia.

 

[ntime60]

So it's been about 2.5 months since my last update. Here is what the tank is looking like now.

Changes since the last update.
Bought an RO/DI unit.
Added 30# more of live rock The total is roughly 90-100# of rock now.
Added another 90# of reef sand. This brings the substrate to ~4 inches.
Added about 100 dwarf Cerith snails from a member of INDMAS.
Added a bunch of Nassarius snails.
Added a brittle star.
After adding some new rock, I found a couple really small brittle stars.
I've also found a couple bad crabs hitchhiking, they've been removed.
I've added a few more corals.
Water quality has been rock solid.

Here are a few more pics.

The neon candy cane is about to split and so is the teal candy cane. The zoas and blue chalice are very happy.

The tank is really starting to take off. I'm getting coraline algae growing everywhere. It seems like this last month the coraline has gone crazy and is getting on everything.
I'm doing 18% water changes about every three weeks
No fish yet, I'm enjoying the coral and inverts right now.

 

[ntime60]

Ho time flies. It has been almost 4 months since my last update. The tank is progressing nicely.
Added
Hammer Coral
Frog Spawn
a couple False Percula Clowns
A green mandarin (rescue)
Sunset Montipora
RBTA
Replaced the AquaticLife T5 lamps with ATI lamps. they are much different.

 

[ntime60]

Where does the time go?

Since my last post...
I lost a return pump, followed by a heater loss, followed by a severe alk spike, because I was dripping kalk into my return water, when the sensor died on the ATO, and caused the ATO pump to dump 20 gallons of highly alkaline water into the sump, causing low PH, which in turn let the phosphates out of the rock, which caused a cyanobacteria bloom, which in turn led to the great HA war, which is still somewhat ongoing. Whew! Did you all follow all that?

All this has made me question my dedication to this hobbly/

The tank at its worst looked like this.

The tank is looking better today, but the war is far from over. I added a couple emerald crabs, a sea hare, lawnmower blenney, about 20 more trochous snails, and 40 ceriths. All to combat HA.

So you can see the tank is improved from the last shot, but it is not yet over. I suspect it is here to stay.

I removed the 3 Hydor 750 pumps and replaced them with 2 Jebao WP25s and a dual controller. I highly recommend this because I can see a lot more water movement that I ever did with the Hydors.

This has been a long hard road for me.

New plans -
New lights are on the way - LEDs
I'm getting ready to buy an apex monitor and add a dosing pump to add the necessary elements to the tank to keep it in balance.

More to come.