lucianvlad
New Member
It's been a while since I introduced myself in this community and I hope starting this journal it will be a long journey:
The system I have built is an experimental tank and my plan for the next 6-10 months is to achieve the knowledge to be able to start a coral farm here in Bucharest-Romania. It is 5 months old and it had some ups and downs as you'll see further.
Description:
Display tank - 150x80x35 with 28 cm water column, 10mm glass thickness, aprox 300 liters (75 gallons).
Stand: DIY wooden stand
Sump: 350 Liters - first room filter bag and Bubble Magus Curve 5 Protein skimmer with a CO2 scrubber connected to the air inlet - second 2 liters of matrix and 8 of siporax, 10 kg live rock, 20 kg dry rock and some chaetomorpha macroalgae - third room return pump Eheim Compact +2000 - forth room ATO.
Lighting: DIY - 3x150W MH 20000K and 2x39W T5 ATI Blue+ and Purple+ . I think that MH bulbs are junk as I have ordered them from an Chinese website (I don't know the policy about commercial links so I will not name it) and payed less than 20$ a piece. Not satisfied about lightning at all. Planning on switching to an T5 and LED combo. I have read a lot about LED's and I don't think that a system with LED's only can achieve my purpose which is intensive propagation and growing SPS corals.
Parameters:
Salinity: 1.025
pH: 8.2 - 8.3
KH: 8
NO3: 0,5-1 - Salifert
PO4: 0,04 - Hanna Colorimeter
Ca: 430 - Salifert
Mg: 1380 - Salifert
Temp: 26 C
K: 430 - Salifert
Dosing:
Daily: DIY Ca and Mg from Calcium and magnesium chloride; KH buffer - baking soda; Trace elements - A,B,C Grotech; AA - VitAmino M Grotech.
Weekly: Biodigest and bioptim to support bacterial activity.
Maintenance: 10% weekly water change - Kent Marine salt, vacuuming detritus, algae cleaning (I have a lot of hair algae) from the glass using a blade.
Feeding: twice a week I make a blend of sea food (shrimps, mussels, squids and some mysis), turn off the skimmer and add the blend in the main tank. I do not do this during the night. I have seen some response from corals when I add this blend but I do not know if it brings some benefits. Some show extended polyps (Acropora), some catch pieces of meat (Milka)...
Evolution:
5 months ago when I started the tank I actually moved the rock, water and bio media from an 100g mature tank I peviously had.
One month later I added about 30 SPS coral frags (acropora, montipora, pocillopora, seriatopora). For one month everything was good, the frags were growing and encrusting on plugs then I had a temperature drop in one night due to some fans running. The temperature dropped around 22 C and I lost some plates, all the green Montipora capricornis become brown and some acropora also. Since then I tried everything but I can't make them colour back. Two months ago I also found that I had a lack of K+ (I did not know that running biopellets consumes K) and started to dose it. I have seen some colour show up here and there but not a major change.
Also since the temperature drop the growth slowed down a lot. Maybe is just a coincidence...
I would like to know all the opinions about my setup, parameters, ideas...
Some pictures:
The system I have built is an experimental tank and my plan for the next 6-10 months is to achieve the knowledge to be able to start a coral farm here in Bucharest-Romania. It is 5 months old and it had some ups and downs as you'll see further.
Description:
Display tank - 150x80x35 with 28 cm water column, 10mm glass thickness, aprox 300 liters (75 gallons).
Stand: DIY wooden stand
Sump: 350 Liters - first room filter bag and Bubble Magus Curve 5 Protein skimmer with a CO2 scrubber connected to the air inlet - second 2 liters of matrix and 8 of siporax, 10 kg live rock, 20 kg dry rock and some chaetomorpha macroalgae - third room return pump Eheim Compact +2000 - forth room ATO.
Lighting: DIY - 3x150W MH 20000K and 2x39W T5 ATI Blue+ and Purple+ . I think that MH bulbs are junk as I have ordered them from an Chinese website (I don't know the policy about commercial links so I will not name it) and payed less than 20$ a piece. Not satisfied about lightning at all. Planning on switching to an T5 and LED combo. I have read a lot about LED's and I don't think that a system with LED's only can achieve my purpose which is intensive propagation and growing SPS corals.
Parameters:
Salinity: 1.025
pH: 8.2 - 8.3
KH: 8
NO3: 0,5-1 - Salifert
PO4: 0,04 - Hanna Colorimeter
Ca: 430 - Salifert
Mg: 1380 - Salifert
Temp: 26 C
K: 430 - Salifert
Dosing:
Daily: DIY Ca and Mg from Calcium and magnesium chloride; KH buffer - baking soda; Trace elements - A,B,C Grotech; AA - VitAmino M Grotech.
Weekly: Biodigest and bioptim to support bacterial activity.
Maintenance: 10% weekly water change - Kent Marine salt, vacuuming detritus, algae cleaning (I have a lot of hair algae) from the glass using a blade.
Feeding: twice a week I make a blend of sea food (shrimps, mussels, squids and some mysis), turn off the skimmer and add the blend in the main tank. I do not do this during the night. I have seen some response from corals when I add this blend but I do not know if it brings some benefits. Some show extended polyps (Acropora), some catch pieces of meat (Milka)...
Evolution:
5 months ago when I started the tank I actually moved the rock, water and bio media from an 100g mature tank I peviously had.
One month later I added about 30 SPS coral frags (acropora, montipora, pocillopora, seriatopora). For one month everything was good, the frags were growing and encrusting on plugs then I had a temperature drop in one night due to some fans running. The temperature dropped around 22 C and I lost some plates, all the green Montipora capricornis become brown and some acropora also. Since then I tried everything but I can't make them colour back. Two months ago I also found that I had a lack of K+ (I did not know that running biopellets consumes K) and started to dose it. I have seen some colour show up here and there but not a major change.
Also since the temperature drop the growth slowed down a lot. Maybe is just a coincidence...
I would like to know all the opinions about my setup, parameters, ideas...
Some pictures:
