40 Breeder SPS build

[Nathan4Wvu]

Been sharing this with my old area reef club thought I would post it here for all to see since I'm closer to Pittsburgh any way! My goal is to be mainly SPS with a few lps. I have several years experience with lps and soft coral going back to high school. Now that I'm finally out of school I can have some fun with sps!

Here is my old tank which my mom inherited over five years ago when I left for college :twitch:
11/22/10

It's a work in progress so excuse the stand. I'm building a custom sump so I'm waiting to put the veneer and trim on it.

I'm running a 250watt DE icecap pendant with a vortex ballast. I drilled the tank for 2 1" bulkheads and the kalk reactor is home made.
At 3 weeks
Ph 8.1
Ca 440
Ammonia 0
dKh ?

25 lb order of macro rocks!

 

[Nathan4Wvu]

All the frags I brought up from home during Thanksgiving.

 

[Stray32]

Looks good man, that light is perfect for that tank.

 

[NaClH2Opgh]

Nice setup. How are you liking that skimmer?

 

[Nathan4Wvu]

It's pulling out some really nasty stuff even with me only having two small fish and feeding once a day. For the price I think its perfect for the tank. All the parts are of top quality as far as I can tell.


I'm starting to notice some red algae growing during the day when the light is on. I have not tested Phosphates yet but I'm assuming they are high. I ordered some phosphate remover and another pump for inside the tank.

 

[Nathan4Wvu]

I let the wife pick out a pair of clowns last night! They are not the best looking ones but they were in a tank alone from the rest and they seem to get along. All the others were just fighting.

 

[cloakerpoked]

Looks cool? Are you coming to the raffle Saturday, there should be some nice stuff there. I hope your homemade kalk reactor works better than mine does. Looks like it should since it isn't gravity fed by a reservoir or running on a timer I shot my pH over 10 with mine, so now I'm two parting it and loving it

 

[cloakerpoked]

^^^^

I think I used the wrong punctuation for the first two sentences, they should be flipped I guess.

 

[Nathan4Wvu]

Haha! Yea a guy from my home town makes those kalk reactors. They seem to work pretty well.

So I will ask you guys the same questions I asked the reef discussion forum and didn't get any responses.


How much kalk should I add to the reactor? Also, with the current amount of coral I have in the tank should I just wait? Will the reactor be ok if it is just hooked directly to my ATO? I'm going to set it to mix once ever 6 hours for 5 min. Will it be ok if the ATO kicks on while it is mixing?

 

[DEERE G]

You should not need a kalk reactor at this point. Weekly water changes should keep your parameters in check for now. Once you start adding more corals you will see more of a demand. You will then have to plan accordingly.

 

[DEERE G]

Looks like a great start btw.

 

[cloakerpoked]

It doesn't matter how much kalk you put in the reactor. The idea is to create a slurry in the bottom, and move it just fast enough to keep the top water saturated with kalk. As fresh water enters, it becomes saturated and pulled out the top of the reactor. You don't want too much kalk, but the idea is to have enough that you're not opening the reactor every other day to add more. Put another way, kalk is fine to be dosed to a tank in the maximum composition that water will hold it. Hope that makes sense.

 

[Nathan4Wvu]

Stray32 stopped down this morning since he was in town for the WVU game. I picked up a really nice sps frag pack from him. I got them all placed I will post some pics later!

Aquadelight
ORA Pearlberry
ORA Birds of Paradise
Alabama Blue Tort
ORA Green Birdsnest
Purple Stylo
Green Hydnophora
Golden Birdsnest
ORA Tricolor Valida
Idaho Grape Monti -

 

[Nathan4Wvu]

Stray32 stopped down this morning since he was in town for the WVU game. I picked up a really nice sps frag pack from him. I got them all placed I will post some pics later!

Aquadelight
ORA Pearlberry
ORA Birds of Paradise
Alabama Blue Tort
ORA Green Birdsnest
Purple Stylo
Green Hydnophora
Golden Birdsnest
ORA Tricolor Valida
Idaho Grape Monti -

 

[Nathan4Wvu]

 

[Nathan4Wvu]

 

[Nathan4Wvu]

Sorry about the quality. My camera takes horrible micro shots.

 

[Stray32]

Looking good man, hope they do well for you. Let's go USF!!!!

 

[Nathan4Wvu]

One week with sps update!

Everything is looking great! Aside from the Algae outbreak on the sand.
Anyone got any ideas on this algae I don't think it's red slime or normal hair algae. Its long and stringy and grows extremely fast on the sand no place else. I have been running phosphate remover for about a week now.

ph 8.2
ca 435-450 ppm
dkh 3.5 meq/L
ammonia 0

 

[Nathan4Wvu]