Tony's Innovative Marine 200EXT Build

[tritonpower]

I have had much more success also when I cure the rocks for a while before setting a tank up. Looking good so far. I'll be making a video this weekend with a tank update.

 

[QuickrdenU]

I have had much more success also when I cure the rocks for a while before setting a tank up. Looking good so far. I'll be making a video this weekend with a tank update.

Sweet. I’ll be sure to check it out. I couldn’t wait for my dr reef order of inverts to get here so I went and grabbed a fire shrimp from a LFS. I was half expecting someone to eat it but all the fish have been dying for it to pick them clean. Coolest thing I’ve seen in awhile. I never kept any cleaner shrimp when I was in the hobby before.

And then I went and ordered a pair of flashing tilefish… hopefully I can keep them alive. They weren’t the cheapest!

 

[tritonpower]

Sweet. I’ll be sure to check it out. I couldn’t wait for my dr reef order of inverts to get here so I went and grabbed a fire shrimp from a LFS. I was half expecting someone to eat it but all the fish have been dying for it to pick them clean. Coolest thing I’ve seen in awhile. I never kept any cleaner shrimp when I was in the hobby before.

And then I went and ordered a pair of flashing tilefish… hopefully I can keep them alive. They weren’t the cheapest!

I have one fire and 2 cleaners. It is fun to watch the fish get cleaned by them. I have kept my melanurus wrasse in the garage as I suspect he would eat them. The fish tend to ignore them now although my watchman goby ended up bonding with the fire shrimp since the pistol shrimp is MIA.

 

[dangles]

I have one fire and 2 cleaners. It is fun to watch the fish get cleaned by them. I have kept my melanurus wrasse in the garage as I suspect he would eat them. The fish tend to ignore them now although my watchman goby ended up bonding with the fire shrimp since the pistol shrimp is MIA.

Have you checked your sump? Mine disappeared for a couple of months. I found the dork in the rear return pump chamber of my AIO. Another time if found him in the fuge chamber.

 

[QuickrdenU]

I have one fire and 2 cleaners. It is fun to watch the fish get cleaned by them. I have kept my melanurus wrasse in the garage as I suspect he would eat them. The fish tend to ignore them now although my watchman goby ended up bonding with the fire shrimp since the pistol shrimp is MIA.

All is well with my melanarus and fire shrimp. I’m adding more shrimp this week. I’ll let ya know if anyone becomes lunch. But I try to keep the fish well fed.

 

[QuickrdenU]

I put this St Thomas Bounce mushroom in the tank 5 months ago and it immeiately pulled itself down into the rockwork. The diamond goby or tilefish dug up the tank last night and look what I found! Lets see how quickly it colors up!

Also, the fire shrimp, cleaner shrimp, and 2 peppermint shrimp are alive and well after a few days with the melanarus and exquisite wrasses. Ha

 

[QuickrdenU]

Today I got 6 new super colorful Rock Flower Anemones from Morgan at Reef Gardener. They’re still getting cozy but attached quick. I think this might be my favorite area in the tank. So much variation.

I also picked up 3 more varieties of zoa.

I did an ICP test and learned that my iodine was insanely high so hopefully the zoas will do better once that’s more regular.

 

[QuickrdenU]

I did the Dos jumper trick today. Nice and easy way to track my Alk and Kalk containers. Just wish the max was higher than 150,000ml.

 

[QuickrdenU]

I have my first bit of ugly. Maybe a little cyano and dino. Not very worried about it. Used my wife’s fancy microscope to take a video but I had no idea what I was doing.

Microscope Video

 

[trmiv]

good looking build. I’ve got this same tank coming at some point in the next 6 months as an upgrade to my reefer 350. Debating on sump size between 36”,44” and 48”. I also want to maximize space under the stand for other things. Trying to get a sense of how much space that 48” sump is taking up under your stand?

 

[QuickrdenU]

good looking build. I’ve got this same tank coming at some point in the next 6 months as an upgrade to my reefer 350. Debating on sump size between 36”,44” and 48”. I also want to maximize space under the stand for other things. Trying to get a sense of how much space that 48” sump is taking up under your stand?

It leaves 8” to the front of the sump and about 19” to the side of it. Keep in mind that the door latches protrude into those measurements some.

 

[trmiv]

Thanks, that’s super helpful!

 

[QuickrdenU]

Added some Chaeto and the Tunze Eco Chic to the sump to try and bring the nitrates down some. We’ll see what happens..

 

[LiquidSpace]

How is everything going? I’m in the planning stages of the same aquarium, so I’m going to follow along.

Did you take care of the ugly?

 

[QuickrdenU]

Sweet. I tried Chaeto for all of 2 months and hated it so I have an ebay algae clean scrubber running to bring nitrates down from 30. I hope that solves things. I have some algae and diatoms. The diatoms seem to be clearing up. Fish are doing well. Some of my lps are not looking great. My plan is to check par in the coming weeks and hopefully everything sorts itself out. I’ve increased my AWC’s to 3 gallons a night from 2. Fingers crossed!

How is everything going? I’m in the planning stages of the same aquarium, so I’m going to follow along.

Did you take care of the ugly?

 

[LiquidSpace]

I think I’m going to go with the same sump too. I love the look of the Nuvo sump but not being able to use an auto roller is a bit of a deal breaker. The return chamber also seems like it uses up more space than it should.

Is it working out good? Any regrets?

 

[QuickrdenU]

I think I’m going to go with the same sump too. I love the look of the Nuvo sump but not being able to use an auto roller is a bit of a deal breaker. The return chamber also seems like it uses up more space than it should.

Is it working out good? Any regrets?

It works really well. The filter roller barely fits but it is possible to hook up both returns. There are definitely things I would change. Having built in reactors would be cool as well as having lids even though that’s not a big deal. I don’t have any salt creep or noise from the sump itself. The algae scrubber is the only source of noise on the entire tank. I’m hoping some of that goes away as the algae comes in thicker. Also, having it to where there are bulkheads for the return pumps to connect to would be cool. Have you looked at Geo Reef sumps? They may be much more expensive in which case this sump is awesome. But if they’re not much more in cost, that would probably be my upgrade option. Let me know what you choose!

 

[LiquidSpace]

It works really well. The filter roller barely fits but it is possible to hook up both returns. There are definitely things I would change. Having built in reactors would be cool as well as having lids even though that’s not a big deal. I don’t have any salt creep or noise from the sump itself. The algae scrubber is the only source of noise on the entire tank. I’m hoping some of that goes away as the algae comes in thicker. Also, having it to where there are bulkheads for the return pumps to connect to would be cool. Have you looked at Geo Reef sumps? They may be much more expensive in which case this sump is awesome. But if they’re not much more in cost, that would probably be my upgrade option. Let me know what you choose!

I actually was planning on the Geosreef sump after reading this comment, but when I cycle the aquarium I want to throw a ton of Tampa bay base rock in the sump and it doesn’t look like it has enough room for what I’d want. I came back and looked at your sump picture and it looks like it has a ton of space for what I want.

 

[QuickrdenU]

I actually was planning on the Geosreef sump after reading this comment, but when I cycle the aquarium I want to throw a ton of Tampa bay base rock in the sump and it doesn’t look like it has enough room for what I’d want. I came back and looked at your sump picture and it looks like it has a ton of space for what I want.

Good deal. Yeah. Even with a huge skimmer and fleece roller occupying the first 2 chambers, the 3rd chamber I have is now completely empty due to having mounted the reactors and algae scrubber above the sump. I put the heaters in with the filter roller along with quite a bit of ball type media in bags. It is kind of nice having an empty chamber in case you need to put a fish in there or something.

 

[QuickrdenU]

So I have been dealing with green hair algae and dinos for a few months. I finally decided to get serious about them as the toxins were killing my snails and affecting my corals. Dinos completely covered the rock work and sand. I think it all showed up after I removed a ton of sponges from my sump when I cleaned it for the first time. I upset some kind of balance and allowed my nitrates to creep up to high. Seemed like diatoms at first that maybe transitioned into dinos. Used the microscope and did the paper towel test and even noticed some air bubbles. Definitely dinos without bottomed out nutrients. But nitrate was always harder to control which sounds like a symptom of dinos also.

I raised temps to 80, blew off the rocks and corals, cleaned glass, vacuumed the gravel completely(for the last time hopefully) and stopped my auto water changes. I followed the general guidance here of dosing peroxide at night, along with running ozone a couple times at night. I also dose a bacteria in the morning with uv turned off for a few hours and then kicks back on at noon. I run 2 of the blue channels at 8%. I’m on the 5th day. May take it to 7 days just to be sure. I vacuumed the gravel very lightly on the 3rd day just to remove any minor amount of dino that had regrouped.

Things look spotless so far. Nitrates are down from 30 to around 15 with reduced feedings and the algae scrubber starting to work. Phosphates at about 0.05. Snails seem to be moving around more and the hair algae on the rocks seem to be fading away.

Just hope I can get some of my Euphilia to plump up.

I also checked light par for the first time. Seems at 45% and 15” off the water, these little lights have plenty of power for what I have in the tank.

Lastly, I moved 2 of the outer back mp40’s to the sides of the tank to create a circular motion within the tank. Now once a day, the tank automatically runs a “storm” virtual output and I can send the detritus flying and give everything a good blowing off.