Roggio
New member
Hey Reefers,
As a professional athlete who's finally able to commit a little more time to the hobby due to an injury I decided to document the trials and tribulations of my lagoon and reef build. I've learned a lot in this hobby over the years and I hope to shed some light on some false concepts and things I have had to learn the hard way. Maybe you guys will catch one of my mistakes during this extensive build and steer me in the right direction as well. Since not everything in this hobby is an exact science and a lot of what we learn is through anecdotal evidence. I enjoy sparking intelligent conversations about the hobby and bettering the environment for future reefers. Things have definitely evolved in the seven years I've been reefing.
To get started I thought I'd share some pictures and videos of my prior set up. The 250 gallon lagoon held up well for years despite my constant absence. Water changes were almost never done and the tank relied heavily on natural filtration. Most of these fish were juveniles when I introduced them to the aquarium but quickly outgrew the tank.
The hardest fish to part with was a Spiny Puffer named Manatee. He was full of personality and it was like letting go of a puppy that had outgrew your home. He was tame to the point where you could pet him and scratch his belly. He lived for attention and would even spray you with water when he saw you were leaving. I had him for five years and never dreamed he would outgrow such a large tank. Manatee is currently awaiting adoption papers to Seaworld Florida.
Here's a video: https://youtu.be/i5Tf6tOVVwg
and a picture: http://imgur.com/utRDA3O
If anyone is interested here is a build thread on constructing the LED lights years ago. http://imgur.com/a/4vnQf
Despite common belief a strong population of mangroves managed to keep the nutrients low in this setup. Some issues I ran into were the rocks falling over as the roots grew and the fish eating the roots. I highly suggest using Bonsai anodized aluminum wire to direct the trees growth. I was able to get them to grow together and even act as a support system as they grew. I kept a small spray bottle of RODI water on hand and would occasionally spray the salt creep off of them. I'm fortunate enough to be able to just collect the propagules locally. Most online sellers (especially the ones in Hawaii) start these trees off in fresh water. I believe this is why many reefers struggle with this method.
I started my new setup with around 5-600 lbs of live rock to build my structures. This time around I elected to use the Haitian rock due to it's flat surfaces and shapes. I believe the older bolder designs in the past have led to some limits in flow patterns and I believe the hobby is moving towards a more minimalistic rockscape. I plan on growing a lot more coral like I had in my previous tanks. This is another reason I had to donate a lot of fish. Building a biological filtration population that could sustain that many fish would have taken a long time.
I used dry rock for a variety of reasons but I'd say the main benefits are not introducing pests into a new system and cost. In a tank this large it is really hard to catch something once it's in the system. I also planned on using a mortar and silicone system to adhere the rocks to each other in order to have a stable structure for the new mangrove roots. To be honest I regret buying live sand and wish I had went with dry. Live sand clouds up the system so badly it took days of protein skimming to remove the dust cloud. I even added the sand prior to the salt water to avoid this. IMO the best method is to use dry sand and wash it thoroughly.
This was only a few hours of skimming
This time around I cycled my system using bacteria additives. Despite the claims it is very possible to overdose these products. My cycle was dropping the ammonia added at a rapid rate and suddenly stopped when I added the powerful "turbo start" Fritz offers. What I believe happened is there was so much bacteria (it smelled god aweful) the trace elements were being removed too quickly. Once I reintroduced these through water changes and additives the cycle started all over again. I then ran into an unbalance; the phosphates would start bottoming out and the leave the nitrates extremely high. I still have this issue but I was actually able to get things going again by adding some Coca-cola to the system utilizing the sugar and phosphates it contains.
Cycling this tank was a nightmare for me. If I had to do it all over again I would use a bacteria additive based on the products recommendations and not overdo it. The system is still cycling two months later. I couldnt keep a few of the fish in holding for two long so I was forced to add a large bioload to the tank a few weeks into the cycle. I did this as gradual as possible.
I'm currently dosing Vodka, Zeostart3, ZeoBak, and SeaChem Stability in order to gain decent biological population before I start making too many changes to the system. I have the 150 gallon reef cycling as well, as soon as thats done I will tie it into this system and hopefully establish an strong bacterial population. The plan is to get to the point where I'm just using only the ZeoStart and ZeoBak as my carbon source and bacteria additive. I'm using a gallon of Marinepure spheres, the 4x8x10 block, 4 liters of matrix and maybe even some pond matrix in my sump in the future. I'm currently growing out Dragons Breath macro algae and plan on having a large enough amount in the 60 gallon refugium to keep nutrients low.
As a professional athlete who's finally able to commit a little more time to the hobby due to an injury I decided to document the trials and tribulations of my lagoon and reef build. I've learned a lot in this hobby over the years and I hope to shed some light on some false concepts and things I have had to learn the hard way. Maybe you guys will catch one of my mistakes during this extensive build and steer me in the right direction as well. Since not everything in this hobby is an exact science and a lot of what we learn is through anecdotal evidence. I enjoy sparking intelligent conversations about the hobby and bettering the environment for future reefers. Things have definitely evolved in the seven years I've been reefing.
To get started I thought I'd share some pictures and videos of my prior set up. The 250 gallon lagoon held up well for years despite my constant absence. Water changes were almost never done and the tank relied heavily on natural filtration. Most of these fish were juveniles when I introduced them to the aquarium but quickly outgrew the tank.
The hardest fish to part with was a Spiny Puffer named Manatee. He was full of personality and it was like letting go of a puppy that had outgrew your home. He was tame to the point where you could pet him and scratch his belly. He lived for attention and would even spray you with water when he saw you were leaving. I had him for five years and never dreamed he would outgrow such a large tank. Manatee is currently awaiting adoption papers to Seaworld Florida.
Here's a video: https://youtu.be/i5Tf6tOVVwg
and a picture: http://imgur.com/utRDA3O
If anyone is interested here is a build thread on constructing the LED lights years ago. http://imgur.com/a/4vnQf
Despite common belief a strong population of mangroves managed to keep the nutrients low in this setup. Some issues I ran into were the rocks falling over as the roots grew and the fish eating the roots. I highly suggest using Bonsai anodized aluminum wire to direct the trees growth. I was able to get them to grow together and even act as a support system as they grew. I kept a small spray bottle of RODI water on hand and would occasionally spray the salt creep off of them. I'm fortunate enough to be able to just collect the propagules locally. Most online sellers (especially the ones in Hawaii) start these trees off in fresh water. I believe this is why many reefers struggle with this method.
I started my new setup with around 5-600 lbs of live rock to build my structures. This time around I elected to use the Haitian rock due to it's flat surfaces and shapes. I believe the older bolder designs in the past have led to some limits in flow patterns and I believe the hobby is moving towards a more minimalistic rockscape. I plan on growing a lot more coral like I had in my previous tanks. This is another reason I had to donate a lot of fish. Building a biological filtration population that could sustain that many fish would have taken a long time.
I used dry rock for a variety of reasons but I'd say the main benefits are not introducing pests into a new system and cost. In a tank this large it is really hard to catch something once it's in the system. I also planned on using a mortar and silicone system to adhere the rocks to each other in order to have a stable structure for the new mangrove roots. To be honest I regret buying live sand and wish I had went with dry. Live sand clouds up the system so badly it took days of protein skimming to remove the dust cloud. I even added the sand prior to the salt water to avoid this. IMO the best method is to use dry sand and wash it thoroughly.
This was only a few hours of skimming
This time around I cycled my system using bacteria additives. Despite the claims it is very possible to overdose these products. My cycle was dropping the ammonia added at a rapid rate and suddenly stopped when I added the powerful "turbo start" Fritz offers. What I believe happened is there was so much bacteria (it smelled god aweful) the trace elements were being removed too quickly. Once I reintroduced these through water changes and additives the cycle started all over again. I then ran into an unbalance; the phosphates would start bottoming out and the leave the nitrates extremely high. I still have this issue but I was actually able to get things going again by adding some Coca-cola to the system utilizing the sugar and phosphates it contains.
Cycling this tank was a nightmare for me. If I had to do it all over again I would use a bacteria additive based on the products recommendations and not overdo it. The system is still cycling two months later. I couldnt keep a few of the fish in holding for two long so I was forced to add a large bioload to the tank a few weeks into the cycle. I did this as gradual as possible.
I'm currently dosing Vodka, Zeostart3, ZeoBak, and SeaChem Stability in order to gain decent biological population before I start making too many changes to the system. I have the 150 gallon reef cycling as well, as soon as thats done I will tie it into this system and hopefully establish an strong bacterial population. The plan is to get to the point where I'm just using only the ZeoStart and ZeoBak as my carbon source and bacteria additive. I'm using a gallon of Marinepure spheres, the 4x8x10 block, 4 liters of matrix and maybe even some pond matrix in my sump in the future. I'm currently growing out Dragons Breath macro algae and plan on having a large enough amount in the 60 gallon refugium to keep nutrients low.
