37 Gallon Reef Development

Thanks for the compliment! I put a lot of time and effort into all of my vivariums and aquariums in regards to looking natural and providing necessary hiding spots for the inhabitants.

It took me a few tries to get this lay out, but I am very pleased. Creating depth in a 12" wide tank is no easy task. I'll get some side and above shots for more details.

As far as tank plans go, I would like to add a bubble tip anemone first so it can get situated before the introduction of coral. Then, hopefully it will be content with not marauding around the reef and stinging coral.

3/18/14 - Added a second dose of intriguing bacteria and turned up the vortechs to agitate the surface for better gas exchange.
 
Spring break is officially over and the tank finally has water with a sump connected to it!

Spent a few hours on it today, doing my least favorite part of the build, plumbing. Went to my LFS and found a flex drain hose to connect my overflow to the filter sock mount, worked very well.





Now it was onto the return piping that was started last week, but needed some final touches. I used a basic design that splits the return to feed the refugium as well as the display. Also added a T to form a small manifold to run the carbon/GFO reactor from.





Then installed it under the display and started to run some lines. I used some flex line to cut down on vibration and make some sharper bends a bit more achievable.





Also roughly hooked up the reactor and put the outlet line into the refugium, this will be cleaned up tomorrow.



Finally, I added more salt and water, 45 total gallons now (33 display, 12 sump) not counting the ATO reservoir.

On the list for things to do this week is:
- Completely silence overflow and sump (gurgle buster and extend filter sock inlet closer to water level
- Organize all power cords
- Order DJ power strip with individual rockers on outlets
- Extend refugium inlet to avoid splashing
- Plug in skimmer
- Add mature live rock to refugium



 
Decided I would add some life to the tank to give all of the dry rock and dry sand a head start. Picked up a few pieces of mature live rock locally with coralline, baby brittle stars, baby turbo snails, stomatellas, green algae, asterinia sea stars (fewer every time I see them), leather coral frag and bristle worms to place in the sump. Hoping this feeds the display the necessary bacteria to mature the aquarium eventually. Also picked up a lone adult turbo snail with a chiton on it's shell, so far so good. The leather opened up after a day in the sump under the fuge light, good sign!





Decided to get a head start on battling the noises from the aquarium so I built a Hofer gurgle buster for my overflow, helped eliminate the toilet flushing/slurping an empty dry noise tremendously.



Started doing some water tests to see where everything was at, and right now I'm just using API test kits and still need to pick up an alkalinity one.

Temp 76 F
SG 1.025
pH 8.2
Ammonia 0.25
Nitrie 0
Nitrate 0
Calcium 440

Plugged in the skimmer and found that 10" of water was too much for it, so made an egg crate stand to put it in 7" of water and seems to work much better. Quite the column of bubbles compared to other skimmers I've used before, it's the SCA-301 ebay skimmer.

That's all for now, hopefully in the future I can show off some coral and fish pictures. I actually was just notified that a pair of onyx perculas that I raised in a retail store for over a year are being rehomed in a few months, definitely put my name on them, miss those guys!
 
Got the tunze osmolator hooked up today to help with evaporation, also tracked down a small leak in my return hard line so I've cut the power off and put some pvc cement on it to patch and will turn everything back on in a few hours.

Sca skimmer is filling the display with microbubbles, but from my reading, a week or so of this is normal.

Turbo snail and leather coral look well, added some mysis puree to the fuge for some of the sea stars to eat.
 
The SCA skimmer is starting to break in and the whirlwind of microbubbles is beginning to deminish. Had to build a stand to raise it up in the sump, so now it sits in about 7" of water and seems to work well.





Added another mature rock to the refugium area to help establish nitrifying bacteria, as well as three different species of macroalgae for nitrate and phosphate absorbtion. Now I've got a turbo snail, some astrea snails, fan worms, amphipods, bristle worms, and stomatellas in the refugium.

I've been testing the water every few days, and so far the results are pretty steady

Temp 77 F
SG 1.025
pH 8.2
Ammonia 0-0.25
Nitrite 0
Nitrate 0
Alk 9
Calcium 440

Added my first fish to the reef and moved the live rock with the hitch hiker leather coral up to the display to help seed the dry rock. It's an aquacultured ORA yellow watchman goby and a red banded pistol shrimp. So far they have been digging burrows under my main rock structure and have remained pretty reclusive, hopefully they gain a bit of confidence and start to venture out a bit more often.



 
I had a little free time today and decided to get the carbon reactor set up on the side of the sump. The original plan was to run carbon mixed with ferric oxide, but I really don't have any phosphates as of yet, and I don't have any ferric oxide on hand. When the carbon needs changed next time, I'll start to add some GFO with it.



The aquarium holds 45 gallons of total water and according to the BRS calculator, that's 6 tbsp of carbon, seems like a small amount for such a large canister, but I suppose the extra water volume helps.

I hooked up the reactor and was having issues with the flow being too slow, but my refugium was getting way too much flow, so I added another ball valve to slow down the flow to the refugium and make a little back pressure for more water to the carbon reactor. Running the carbon outlet to the filter sock to make sure any particles are trapped and not left to float through the system.



Also not very flattering, but the tank is going through a diatom bloom right now, hopefully feeding lots of copepods, amphipods, the few snails that I've got, etc. The hitchhiker leather coral seemsto be doing well and was sloughing a bit today before it's polyp extension. That's all for now,

 
Hit the one month mark a few days back and figured it was about time for an update. The diatom bloom has passed and my copepod/amphipod population is out of control in the sump and the display tank. They took care of the extra diatoms in no time, now I'm getting some lime green algae on the rocks.



I've been collecting a few different macroalgae species for the refugium and so far I've got feather Caulerpa, grape Caulerpa, Chaetomorpha, and an unknown species that very dark green and resembles an inverted freshwater banana plant. Any takers on identification? The refugium reminds me of a freshwater planted iwagumi tank.



Added a pair of fire shrimp that really enjoy hanging upside down in either of the two holes in the rockscape. I've had pairs in my previous tanks as well, and although they can be reclusive at first, given time and they become pretty out going.



Also a bit of disappointing news, I found out that my combo of MP20 and MP10w is too much flow for the tank. I added a branching green/purple splatter hammer coral as the first frag and even on their lowest settings, it was a bit much for the "LPS tumble" that I'm going after. Maybe another MP10w so that the powerheads can communicate instead of blasting each other could get me the opposite directional sway instead of just swept one way? Coral pictures to follow, but I'd like to to open up and be illuminated by LEDs instead of my current 3 bulb t5 set up.
 
Here are a few pictures of the new LED light fixture, it's a full spectrum evergrow box, manual dimmers and 90 degree optics. I plan on hanging it tomorrow, but for now it rests on the tank the opposite of how it should. This is at 25% overall.





And a bit closer picture of the splatter/marbled branching hammer that will be the start of my Euphyllia garden.

 
Had a little extra free time after all of the family activities on Easter, so I got my light hung above the tank. Originally I was wanting a canopy, but my girlfriend heavily disagreed and thought a simple hanging kit would look a bit more sleek, have to admit she was right.

I bought some toggle bolts since I figured I wouldn't be able to find a stud in our textured apartment ceiling, but ended up finding one stud and using the toggle bolt on the dry wall only hole. Purchased a larger screw with a hook on the end for the stud side. One step closer...



The mp20 will be coming off shortly and am using it to trade for some other LPS corals and maybe a Euphyllia to add to the garden, can't wait.
 
Thanks! Should be fun to stack coral in it.

Ended up trading my MP20 off in favor for some corals. Thanks again TurkeyTy, you have an excellent system and pristine coral. Chose mostly LPS and like mentioned above, I'm going after a Euphyllia dominated reef.

Bicolor frogspawn, purple stalk with green and purple tips



Very hard to capture colors with such a horrible camera on my phone. This is a bright red Blastomussa, I'm thinking wellsi. It has really inflated over the past day and has rather large polyps.



Red, teal and green war coral, Favites. It's got a tiny bubble algae on it, was thinking air line siphon with a needle to pierce and extract it?



Pretty solid rock of bam bams, really like these zoas.





Also some great news. I was able to track down some misbar onyx perculas that I raised in a retail store for at least a year before they sold. Owners are moving and wanted to restart the tank after the transition, so now I am the proud owner of some nice clowns! I'm really glad to see they have held up well and I'm contemplating an anemone for them or let them host in the Euphyllia if they so choose.

 
It's about time for another update. While I've not gotten anything new, there have been a few changes in the reef. Also debating between a larger torch coral or a bubble tip anemone to host the clownfish pair, the torch would go along with my Euphyllia theme, could be placed where I want it, and with it being branching I could manipulate it's overall size. The anemone has me worried since they can wander around the tank, eventually attain a large size and can kill coral in the tank. Thoughts?

My Aussie splatter hammer coral is doing pretty well and eating mysis. I can see some new buds forming at the base of the calcium skeleton, but they don't have flesh yet.


Side view of the bam bam zoanthids, couple new heads and have remained fully open for the past few weeks.


The gold maul palythoas seem to be opening up more and really filling in the plug.


Here's a bit of an overall shot of the lower left side of the reef. My clowns have been attempting to host every coral in this picture and make their rounds frequently enough to pester the zoas and palys into closing for periods of time. Also picked up a frag tree rack and a rescue chalice coral, if I do end up getting an anemone, I'll move most of my coral to this tree while it figures out its final resting spot.


Also as of this morning, I thought I had lost my ORA yellow watchman goby, so I replaced him with a randall's shrimp goby. Thought it was rather odd that the randall's had not paired with my pistol shrimp for a few weeks and I found out why today. The yellow watchman is still alive and merely disappeared for 42 days in the reef... The shrimp gobies don't appear to be fighting, but after watching the Randall's shrimp goby for the past few weeks, I would prefer him to be paired with the red banded pistol.
 
The Randall's goby and the watchman started fighting, so I traded the watchman to a fellow reefer for a duncan frag and a green/purple branching hammer frag. Also managed to source a nicer green and purple Acanthastrea lordhowensis and a bright green and yellow Blastomussa wellsi from a LFS to add to my array of LPS.

Got a nice surprise over graduation weekend in the form of a rose bubble tip anemone after expressing some interest in one at a small reef meeting the previous night. I had been on the fence about getting an anemone, since I figured the clowns would eventually host some of my Euphyllia, but after seeing the rose, I couldn't resist. It's immaculate and the red really brings some balance to a green heavy reef. It's only been in one day and the clowns have started checking it out, hopefully they dive in shortly.

Shortly after recieving it on a dead Caulastrea skeleton



An overall shot of the aquarium mid way through loading my frag tree up with my coral. Just in case the anemone wanted to wander all over the rocks, I didn't want to risk any coral loss, so they will reside in the bleacher seats until it seats itself.



Over the first night, the anemone moved to the back side of my rock work and expanded out over the top right of the rock structure. I was really hoping it would pick somewhere on the right side as to not affect any of my current coral placement. I'll keep an eye on it over the next few weeks in case it continues to wander.

 
Oh man! Great progress!! I can relate to getting back to the hobby after some time :). I took a 6 year break due to school and now I'm back! Feels good to be back doesn't it? :)
 
Feels great to be back, but somehow I forgot the instant coral addiction an what that can do to a bank account! I keep telling myself to be patient, but with so many great deals popping up it's hard to resist.
 
So far, the Rbta has climbed up the back side and found a crevice to conceal itself in during the night. During the day it looks like a yamaka atop my rockwork.





Also, a closer picture of the lordhowensis frag, need to zap a few smaller aiptasia on him today.

 
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