The Sleeping Giant 75 gallon build

[Sleeping Giant]

Very awesome. Mine is arriving tomorrow. I'm having trouble going back and locating it in the thread. Would you be so kind to share the color scheme you find provides you with the best color/growth balance? Thank you

They are great lights, I'm saving for another on my 75. Having 1 is good, but 2 would be better.
I was running a t8 fixture with it, but it was too much light for my anemone and toadstool. Now that it's off, the Ben is getting brighter and bigger. The toadstool has polyps showing for the first time in a long time.

 

[Sleeping Giant]

Been a while since I have updated this thread. I went on vacation for the first week of August. I did a water change 2 days before leaving, everything looked great. It was hot as heck out and my temperature went up, but my daughter was home to take care of the high temp swing by opening the top glass panel and getting cool air blowing into it.
I came home, see that I've lost my hammerhead coral, whole bunch of mushrooms, snail's and 2 urchins. I checked the salinity, it kept reading low, even a new batch of water was. I re-calibrated my Hanna checker and replaced the battery. Checked the tank and new water both are sky-high. Remove some water from the DT and add fresh RO water to lower the salinity. Rechecked the DT after about an hour, the tester reads very low again, so recalibrate, rechecked the DT and it's at 1.027. now I know my tester isn't working properly so I went to the LFS and bought the only salinity tester they have, a manual swing arm hydrometer, it reads 1.030. I have lowered the salinity based on the swing arm and have a new Hanna salinity tester on its way, so peace of mind will be had. My tank is looking good, my wife and I seemed to help the livestock over this hurdle. It has been scary, almost wanted to quit, lol ohhhh the summertime Blues with aquariums, lol
My BTA just about died, it's coming back, but very slow.
On top of all this, had major cyano outbreak. I did a red slime removal treatment for 4 days and it has subsided.
I also switched from tap water to RO water purchased from a local water store, it looks like it has been helping too.

 

[Sleeping Giant]

How my Frogspawn looks now

 

[Sleeping Giant]

Went to the LFS a couple of days ago, the had some coral life "life rock" I have the same rock in my DT so I grabbed 1 that was a cave and 3 other base rocks. They were 25 lbs when I weighed them at home @ $11.95/lbs, the person behind the counter sold me each rock for $11.95, massive savings, I might go back and buy more, lol since I just bought a used 20 gallon tank.

 

[taulgrl]

Been a while since I have updated this thread. I went on vacation for the first week of August. I did a water change 2 days before leaving, everything looked great. It was hot as heck out and my temperature went up, but my daughter was home to take care of the high temp swing by opening the top glass panel and getting cool air blowing into it.
I came home, see that I've lost my hammerhead coral, whole bunch of mushrooms, snail's and 2 urchins. I checked the salinity, it kept reading low, even a new batch of water was. I re-calibrated my Hanna checker and replaced the battery. Checked the tank and new water both are sky-high. Remove some water from the DT and add fresh RO water to lower the salinity. Rechecked the DT after about an hour, the tester reads very low again, so recalibrate, rechecked the DT and it's at 1.027. now I know my tester isn't working properly so I went to the LFS and bought the only salinity tester they have, a manual swing arm hydrometer, it reads 1.030. I have lowered the salinity based on the swing arm and have a new Hanna salinity tester on its way, so peace of mind will be had. My tank is looking good, my wife and I seemed to help the livestock over this hurdle. It has been scary, almost wanted to quit, lol ohhhh the summertime Blues with aquariums, lol
My BTA just about died, it's coming back, but very slow.
On top of all this, had major cyano outbreak. I did a red slime removal treatment for 4 days and it has subsided.
I also switched from tap water to RO water purchased from a local water store, it looks like it has been helping too.

This stinks. Glad your BTA is recovering though. It is spectacular

 

[Sleeping Giant]

This stinks. Glad your BTA is recovering though. It is spectacular

Thanks

 

[garybroon]

A great read, cracking pictures and now have question.
A few posts back someone asked about your canister media, mech and bio. Not sure if I missed your reply.
I’m looking at swapping my freshwater 125 litre glass tank over to Saltwater.
I have a small bookshelf 12g long, running a small skimmer and hob refugium. Carrying out 5% water changes per week.
I’m contemplating keeping my Aquael ultra max 1500 Canister on the 125litre, as I don’t have much room for a sump. I’m not sure on media, I was planning on using Seachem Matrix in all the baskets, the canister has a built in prefilter, that I currently clean weekly. I have been looking at the Tunze 9004dc in tank skimmer that I would hide behind the scape.
As you have now went through the full experience of running the canister, is the canister filter hindering the lowering of Nitrates and Phosphates and would you recommend the canister, or in hindsight have gone down the sump route.
I’m hoping to use the canister and skimmer, but would really appreciate some solid advice from someone that has done it, rather than hearsay of naysayers.

 

[adittam]

A great read, cracking pictures and now have question.
A few posts back someone asked about your canister media, mech and bio. Not sure if I missed your reply.
I’m looking at swapping my freshwater 125 litre glass tank over to Saltwater.
I have a small bookshelf 12g long, running a small skimmer and hob refugium. Carrying out 5% water changes per week.
I’m contemplating keeping my Aquael ultra max 1500 Canister on the 125litre, as I don’t have much room for a sump. I’m not sure on media, I was planning on using Seachem Matrix in all the baskets, the canister has a built in prefilter, that I currently clean weekly. I have been looking at the Tunze 9004dc in tank skimmer that I would hide behind the scape.
As you have now went through the full experience of running the canister, is the canister filter hindering the lowering of Nitrates and Phosphates and would you recommend the canister, or in hindsight have gone down the sump route.
I’m hoping to use the canister and skimmer, but would really appreciate some solid advice from someone that has done it, rather than hearsay of naysayers.

I don't want to hijack this thread, but if you want to click on my build thread badge, you can take a look at another system that uses a canister filter successfully. Sumps are definitely more popular, but successful reef systems are definitely possible with a canister filter as well.

 

[Sleeping Giant]

.

 

[Sleeping Giant]

A great read, cracking pictures and now have question.
A few posts back someone asked about your canister media, mech and bio. Not sure if I missed your reply.
I’m looking at swapping my freshwater 125 litre glass tank over to Saltwater.
I have a small bookshelf 12g long, running a small skimmer and hob refugium. Carrying out 5% water changes per week.
I’m contemplating keeping my Aquael ultra max 1500 Canister on the 125litre, as I don’t have much room for a sump. I’m not sure on media, I was planning on using Seachem Matrix in all the baskets, the canister has a built in prefilter, that I currently clean weekly. I have been looking at the Tunze 9004dc in tank skimmer that I would hide behind the scape.
As you have now went through the full experience of running the canister, is the canister filter hindering the lowering of Nitrates and Phosphates and would you recommend the canister, or in hindsight have gone down the sump route.
I’m hoping to use the canister and skimmer, but would really appreciate some solid advice from someone that has done it, rather than hearsay of naysayers.

It is harder to keep the nitrates and phosphate down, but not too hard. I clean out my canister (just the canister not the media) once a month, spray out in a tub. The media I use is Blue life clear fx and reef fx, 1 bag of each in the top 2 center areas and ceramic bio-pellets in a food grade/safe bag (like a media sock, so while they degrade, the pump doesn't get the ceramic particles in it) in the bottom center tray. I use the original dense foam on the outside areas and clean 1 from the top and 1 from the bottom (there's 2 per level) about once a month or earlier if I find the water clarity diminishing. It's almost time for new foam for the outer rings, I would change them every 6 months or so.
I did have a sump, but it overflowed on me and that was that. I don't want to have that happen again. A sump would obviously be better, but for what I got and my needs the Fluval FX4 canister filter works great. If I could have fit it, I would have gotten the FX6, but I'm just as happy with this.
Some people don't like canisters, but these same people would use an All-in-one any day of the week... which is basically the same thing. We all have our own reasons for using sumps, canister or AIO.
In my opinion, use what you can, if you want something else later on...time is on your side.

The skimmer I use, and it works great is a HOB Aquamaxx 1.5, it is good at removing gross stuff and is super quiet.

 

[adittam]

It is harder to keep the nitrates and phosphate down, but not too hard. I clean out my canister (just the canister not the media) once a month, spray out in a tub. The media I use is Blue life clear fx and reef fx, 1 bag of each in the top 2 center areas and ceramic bio-pellets in a food grade/safe bag (like a media sock, so while they degrade, the pump doesn't get the ceramic particles in it) in the bottom center tray. I use the original dense foam on the outside areas and clean 1 from the top and 1 from the bottom (there's 2 per level) about once a month or earlier if I find the water clarity diminishing. It's almost time for new foam for the outer rings, I would change them every 6 months or so.
I did have a sump, but it overflowed on me and that was that. I don't want to have that happen again. A sump would obviously be better, but for what I got and my needs the Fluval FX4 canister filter works great. If I could have fit it, I would have gotten the FX6, but I'm just as happy with this.
Some people don't like canisters, but these same people would use an All-in-one any day of the week... which is basically the same thing. We all have our own reasons for using sumps, canister or AIO.
In my opinion, use what you can, if you want something else later on...time is on your side.

The skimmer I use, and it works great is a HOB Aquamaxx 1.5, it is good at removing gross stuff and is super quiet.

Agree 100000000000000000000000000000%.

 

[Sleeping Giant]

Agree 100000000000000000000000000000%.

Ya sorry about that, I forgot to reply to their post and posted my own before I realized lol

 

[Sleeping Giant]

Just received my order from Candy Corals. They are great and fast shipping.
I had so much happen to my tank when my salinity tester stopped working and I over salititized my tank.
Hopefully everything lives. So far so good, my wife temperature acclimated them.

 

[Sleeping Giant]

We have about 2 dozen baby Nassarius snail's, grown in my tank.

 

[Sleeping Giant]

Added new Life Rock to the display, it's been in my 20 gallon with salt for over a week. Added my Xenia forest and sponge rock to my 20 gallon. Hopefully everything goes well.

 

[Sleeping Giant]

I got some replacement hammerheads (6 heads) from a local reefer, some blue mushrooms, pink zoas, some GSP and my first Lobo. I can't wait to watch these grow out.

 

[Sleeping Giant]

 

[adittam]

Did you do anything to get your anemone to host your clowns? Or did it happen organically? How long did it take?

 

[Sleeping Giant]

Did you do anything to get your anemone to host your clowns? Or did it happen organically? How long did it take?

The clowns did it on their own, took about 2 months. The anemone was about 6-8 months older before the fish were introduced.

 

[Goaway]

I'm happy to see things are recovering. I lost a lot of coral I loved back in 2014 or 15 due to heater not turning off.
Lost several heads of hammered colony recently as well.

But, new growth and recovery is always comforting.
I really enjoyed going through this build