290 Gallon SPS only Frag tank build.

[moatdaddy]

i need an ocd organizer to come by and clean up all the electrical lines. i would make them all look pretty if they were long enough, unfortunately most are not.

I Also ditched the ATS after my power outage. The screen stopped growing and to be honest i cant grow algae anywhere in the tank. I am not sure if its the Marine Pure Block, the copepods eating it, or skimmer. Maybe the matrix too. I grew algae for about 4 days and then i added the ball of chaeto. Boom copepod explosion. Next day all my brown diatom algae started lifting off the surface of everything. It entered the water stream and was skimmed out. system is only 3 weeks old.

ALK 10
Calcium 450
Mag 1355
PH 7.8 (cheap chinese reader)
Salinity 1.025
Temp 80
Ammonia 0
Nitrate 0
Nitrite 5ppm
Phosphate .005

Current Bio Load. In 300 gallon section, flame angel, koran angel, coris wrasse, melanarous wrasse, clownfish, 2 bait shrimp 1 kenya tree to watch if it shrivels. If its mad time to test outside of normal bi monthly testing. I test alk and calcium far more. In Frag section. 2 yellow tangs. I feed two times a day of homemade food with brine shrimp.

I used Reef Crystals for my starting salt as i had some left over from an old tank. I am now on HW Marinemix and hope to keep that Alk around 8.5. I want to raise the PH but before i do will need to get another way to test it.

 

[reefmutt]

That is one serious mad scientist's lab you got going there.
Love it!

 

[moatdaddy]

Quick update, my chaeto took off. took over that whole bucket in a few days with those red blue leds. I have coralline algae growing everywhere in the frag tank. went to test calcium with my high speed hanna checker and its regaent a had leaked everywhere. My Alk is coming down after swapping from the reef crystals to HW marine salt. I didn't like it at the 10.25 level. Also when i set up the first fish order from Live aquaria i ordered a beginners SPS pack. The blue tort was a fresh frag.

It had AEFW. I only had two acros in the system, so i am fairly certain where the critters came from. The only other option is the one live rock i got from the LFS had eggs on it. I didn't initially dip them thinking, hey they are from LA, and its a brand new system. When a week later there was no PE i knew something was up. I am doing a dip 2x a day on the last peice. If in another week it doesn't stop dropping off baby AEFW i will just trash it.

Once this issue has been resolved, either by fallow acro system for a few months or eradication i will order my box of acros from fiji. Soon there will be pretty pictures. I promise.

 

[moatdaddy]

overdue update.

I received a box of tiny but nice Fiji acros. That was almost a month ago. The box was cheap, and two of the 40 died due to heat pack issues. I have had to frag some to fit on bases or accidently broke a tip off. All have healed.

Alkalinity gets checked daily. I try not to let it swing but im up to 6oz a day. The frags i had prior are really taking off. I dont clean out the diatoms as you will see. I added 8, yes 8 small yellow tangs at the same time. About a week before i got my acro box. They school and with the amount of swimming room seem extremely fat and happy. I struggled to get nitrates into my system due to the fact of owning a marine pure block. I still read 0 on nitrate and 0 on phosphates, which is not true. I have algae growth so i have both, and even though i use phosgaurd my corals color up just fine.

i have noticed a lot of my acros went to a green tint, then a deeper blue green coloration. read it might be due to high iodine. either way, the coloration is awesome.



Softie add on tank

Taken today with some natural sunlight, system gets about 2 hours a day when its nice out.



added a new breaker and two 20 amp switches to the panel. dedicated for this.

 

[moatdaddy]

that was day 1 of the fish being added. they killed the big naso.


an older photo

 

[mr9iron]

Hey Moatdaddy,

Any recent shots or progress on the frag tank?