230 reef do over

[mr9iron]

I am in the process of redoing 230 gallon mixed LPS/Easy SPS tank. It's been a long road, but time to get it done right.

Equipment
Radion XR30W x3 for lighting. (Supplemental T5 as well)
LifeReef LF1-300S sump with Reefugium
LifeReef SVS-24 Skimmer
Max Spect XF 150 Gyre
Jaebo RW20 (extra flow, have 3 of them)
Neptune Apex, WXM, BOB, and other assorted goodies.
Neptune DOS for AWC

1.5 Inch deep Tropic Eden Reeflakes sand bed

Ace Roto Mold 25 gallon water tanks x2. 1 for Kalk/top off, the other for newly mixed salt/AWC.

Rock is a combination of Fiji, and other assorted rock. This rock was acid washed, bleached, then set in the sun for a couple of weeks.

Tank is being drilled and an Inky box will be installed with a Bean overflow.

Return is a mag 18.

24x24x16 frag/coral qt tank, sump, skimmer and Reefbreeders Nova A4 led

20 Long fish QT with Marineland Powerfilter.

I'm sure I have left other things out.

Here is what it was

 

[mr9iron]

Tank stripped and acid washing rock



The pile of rocks



Cleaning Equipment

 

[mr9iron]

Building of aquascape

 

[mr9iron]

My mermaid cleaning the glass



Another of the mermaid working hard



Setting the rock and sand











I will post more over the coming weeks, months as I progress.

 

[mr9iron]

Oh, here is the frag tank. Excuse the mess. It is now full of frags, and a 6 line, and cleaner wrasse.

 

[MCC]

looks great! i love the rock work. any chance of pictures of the whole thing? i want to see what trim you did. looks good the wood

 

[mr9iron]

looks great! i love the rock work. any chance of pictures of the whole thing? i want to see what trim you did. looks good the wood

I will try and get some better pictures up this week of it. My camera skills suck, but I am using my iPhone.:headwalls:

 

[ghellin]

looking great so far!

 

[nuxx]

Scape looks nice

 

[mr9iron]

Scape looks nice

Thank you. I will try and get some more pics of the QT and Frag tank later. I have to plan the plumbing, and figure out how I will do the AWC with the Neptune DOS next.

 

[79chopperdr]

Awesome tank. The wood walls are very cool. One thought, IME the pillars create some difficulties with flow especially in a peninsula where all the flow will come from one end. In my tank I wish I would have put the pillar nearest the over flow instead of furthest away. Just some hindsight.

Looks great.

 

[mr9iron]

looks great! i love the rock work. any chance of pictures of the whole thing? i want to see what trim you did. looks good the wood

Thank you and here you go!







Rear of tank

looking great so far!

I appreciate that!

Scape looks nice

Nuxx, coming from you I will take that as a compliment.

Awesome tank. The wood walls are very cool. One thought, IME the pillars create some difficulties with flow especially in a peninsula where all the flow will come from one end. In my tank I wish I would have put the pillar nearest the over flow instead of furthest away. Just some hindsight.

Looks great.

Thank you for the kind words. I didn't think about those pillars being at the other end of the tank. I will need to reconsider my flow options then. I have been looking at the WAV pumps, and trying to figure out a way to incorporate them in this setup. The gyre is a wonderful pump, but I will absolutely need more flow.

More pics to come.

 

[mr9iron]

There is so much work to have to be done on the tank in the next couple of weeks that it is maddening. Saturday we plan on drilling the tank and installing an Inky Overflow and get the sump plumbed, as well as the remote fuge. I am working with such a tight space for the sump, fuge, and AWC that it makes me crazy. This is definitely not the ideal set up, but it will be beautiful one day.

Sump end and AWC barrels
As you can see the sump will have to go partially under the stand, but I still have about 8-10 inches to remove the skimmer cup. The fuge will go back to the left of the skimmer where there are some doors so I can access it.


AWC and sump area


Here is a better pic of where the skimmer will go.

 

[nuxx]

My wife would kill me if she saw your finish out...

"Why does ours look so bad!"

 

[mr9iron]

My wife would kill me if she saw your finish out...

"Why does ours look so bad!"

Aww, don't cut yourself short. You have an awesome system. I cannot wait to get my hands on some of your corals. I've got a few LPS and Zoas in my frag tank, but want to get a couple of beginner SPS to test them out and get growing for the big tank.

 

[nuxx]

Aww, don't cut yourself short. You have an awesome system. I cannot wait to get my hands on some of your corals. I've got a few LPS and Zoas in my frag tank, but want to get a couple of beginner SPS to test them out and get growing for the big tank.

Thanks... we'll get it skinned someday...

It's funny our system is doing better with SPS than it is with LPS/Zoas.

Same goes for our frag tank...

Must just be too clean... guess that's OK, since I've been tossing around adding an angel or two.

 

[mr9iron]

Thanks... we'll get it skinned someday...

It's funny our system is doing better with SPS than it is with LPS/Zoas.

Same goes for our frag tank...

Must just be too clean... guess that's OK, since I've been tossing around adding an angel or two.

Have you got any updated pictures of your system?

 

[nuxx]

Looks pretty much the same

Just started dosing.

RO send me a new controller and power supply for our skimmer since the pump wasn't running near strong enough for the body size.

Chaeto and GHA in the fuge are going crazy. Still having some GHA in the display, even with 0 PO4 and GFO.

CUC was pretty small, so added 100 snails to our frag tank that will go into the display after 3 months, around mid November. Will then move over coral and snails and start with a new batch of both.

Need to add two more Kessil A360WEs, haven't got around to it.

 

[mr9iron]

Looks pretty much the same

Just started dosing.

RO send me a new controller and power supply for our skimmer since the pump wasn't running near strong enough for the body size.

Chaeto and GHA in the fuge are going crazy. Still having some GHA in the display, even with 0 PO4 and GFO.

CUC was pretty small, so added 100 snails to our frag tank that will go into the display after 3 months, around mid November. Will then move over coral and snails and start with a new batch of both.

Need to add two more Kessil A360WEs, haven't got around to it.

I would imagine that the GHA is just because the tank is still a bit new. However, are you overfeeding? I am notorious for overfeeding as I want fat fish. This time will be a bit different though because feeding will be controlled by the Apex with two AFS. I will had feed the frozen a couple of times a week as well. My goal is to have about 15 smaller fishes, and 5 larger fishes in this tank. I just have to find the balance between import and export so I can grow coral.

 

[nuxx]

I would imagine that the GHA is just because the tank is still a bit new. However, are you overfeeding? I am notorious for overfeeding as I want fat fish. This time will be a bit different though because feeding will be controlled by the Apex with two AFS. I will had feed the frozen a couple of times a week as well. My goal is to have about 15 smaller fishes, and 5 larger fishes in this tank. I just have to find the balance between import and export so I can grow coral.

I might be... but not excessively.

Nitrates are at 0, and I only dose 5-7mm of vodka a day. The clean up crew is terribly small, I think stuff is just getting stuck in places snails would get.

Also my skimmer has been working extremely poor over the past few months. I dropped our DCS300 and while it was broken (now fixed and on our frag tank) I bought a Regal 300SSS. From day one I couldn't get it dialed in.

Turns out the pump wasn't strong enough for the body, have to run water up about 3/4ths of the neck. Half the time it would overflow or not collect.

Reef Octopus has a new controller in the mail that bumps up the output from 50 to 70 watts and should run 40% stronger. We'll see if the skimmer starts working correctly after that.

It's weird, the GHA will go away, then just come back.

Also I noticed the fuge was COVERED in GHA, basically the walls of a 36x24" area. There wasn't any more room for it to grow. I'm so over lighting that area, that the walls of the fuge area are probably acting like an algae scrubber and the chaeto in the middle is going wild.

I think if I harvest the GHA when I see it full again maybe that will help as well. It had been full for months... maybe the tank was the next easiest place to grow.

Not to take over your thread, but here is what the fuge looked like after I pulled it and how much I pulled (with the water drained out, decent sized salad bowl):