Hi all, I've followed this forum for a couple of years, but as a "lurker from afar", rather than as a contributor.
Wife and I dabbled in reef-keeping a couple of years back with a 40g breeder/20glong sump, but it ended in tears when a MJ power head feeding a phosban reactor shorted, killed everything in the tank, then dumped ~5g of nice warm saltwater onto our hardwood floors. Over a long weekend. Whilst we were away.
Anyway, despite the insurance claim(!), and significant remedial repairs to the (sub)floors, hardwood, drywall and basement, the addiction had taken hold - we just hadn't realized it at that time.
Recently I saw an ad for a custom 75g starfire tank on a local forum - 30" wide, 24" deep, 24" tall with coast-to-coast overflow, 2x 1.5" drains and a tee'd 1" return. It now sits in our newly finished basement, attached to a 40g sump that sits on the other side of the drywall in our furnace room.
DT:
30x24x24 starfire to 3 sides, coast to coast overflow. 1/2 inch glass.
Power heads: 2x wireless Vortech MP10's
Lighting: 3x 24" Vertex Illumilux (1 blue, 1 10K, one 50/50)
~35lbs of live rock
~50lbs of dry Marco rock
~ 2" base of aragonite substrate in DT, 6" DSB (aragonite again) in the Refugium
Sump:
40g sump: Refugium=>Return<=Skimmer (both primary and red returns are t'd and feed both the Refugium and skimmer sections. (Fully submerged overflow = SILENCE!!)
Return pump: Tunze 1073.004
Skimmer: Vertex IN-180
Heater: Aqueon 200W
Controller: RKL
ATO: Tunze Osmolator
RO/DI: Vertex 4stage w/booster to 55G reservoir (with float-valve)
Refugium light: Coralife 11" twin T5HO unit
Reactors: 2x 2-little fishes reactors.
QT:
Used 20g long
Used Aquaticlife T5HO (currently with 6700k FW bulbs, but they can be changed easy enough - if needbe)
Air pump and foam filter (foam sits in the sump, (hopefully) collecting a few bacteria...)
Tunze 6015 power head
Aqueon 150w heater
Salinity (currently): 1.023 - working on making this the same as the DT - hopefully this tank will become a little less vacant soon!)
We've been cycling the past 12 days, the last 7 of which were using Seachem's "Stability". During that time, the Christmas tree worms on the live rock have consistently been present, fanning the water, and the number of pods on the chaeto in our sump have increased dramatically.
Day 7 of the Stability dosing occurred 2 nights back, so on recommendation we added our first fish - a small pair of Dottybacks (yes - I'm learning that this ~may~ prove to have been a mistake, but if so, I have a sump and a QT to split them if needbe... Plus an Internet connection to Kijiji & Craigslist if those paths fail!). So far they've not caused any trouble, and have their own (non-overlapping) territories, and have fed the last 2 days(morning and night) on frozen cyclopeze.
Parameters are tested each evening (using an API master kit (for now) and a Salifert kit for alkalinity) @ 7:30pm, and have consistently been as follows:
Ammonia: 0
Nitrate: 0
Nitrite: 0
Salinity: 1.025
Alkalinity 8.0-8.2 (no lower, no higher)
Temp: 77F
Afew brown diatoms starting to form, and a little bit of hair algae, but I'm waiting for Vertex to release their controller so I can hopefully control and adjust the lighting better (currently it's the highly technical "tug on the plug" approach to dimming, so I'm tending to leave the 10K's off entirely during the day right now, just putting them on for ~2 hours when we return from work each day)
Anyway, thanks for reading my drivel - looking forwards to reading and learning lots from you crowd. I have broad shoulders - I'll gladly welcome the "3C's"*
* = Comments, Criticism, Cash donations
Wife and I dabbled in reef-keeping a couple of years back with a 40g breeder/20glong sump, but it ended in tears when a MJ power head feeding a phosban reactor shorted, killed everything in the tank, then dumped ~5g of nice warm saltwater onto our hardwood floors. Over a long weekend. Whilst we were away.
Anyway, despite the insurance claim(!), and significant remedial repairs to the (sub)floors, hardwood, drywall and basement, the addiction had taken hold - we just hadn't realized it at that time.
Recently I saw an ad for a custom 75g starfire tank on a local forum - 30" wide, 24" deep, 24" tall with coast-to-coast overflow, 2x 1.5" drains and a tee'd 1" return. It now sits in our newly finished basement, attached to a 40g sump that sits on the other side of the drywall in our furnace room.
DT:
30x24x24 starfire to 3 sides, coast to coast overflow. 1/2 inch glass.
Power heads: 2x wireless Vortech MP10's
Lighting: 3x 24" Vertex Illumilux (1 blue, 1 10K, one 50/50)
~35lbs of live rock
~50lbs of dry Marco rock
~ 2" base of aragonite substrate in DT, 6" DSB (aragonite again) in the Refugium
Sump:
40g sump: Refugium=>Return<=Skimmer (both primary and red returns are t'd and feed both the Refugium and skimmer sections. (Fully submerged overflow = SILENCE!!)
Return pump: Tunze 1073.004
Skimmer: Vertex IN-180
Heater: Aqueon 200W
Controller: RKL
ATO: Tunze Osmolator
RO/DI: Vertex 4stage w/booster to 55G reservoir (with float-valve)
Refugium light: Coralife 11" twin T5HO unit
Reactors: 2x 2-little fishes reactors.
QT:
Used 20g long
Used Aquaticlife T5HO (currently with 6700k FW bulbs, but they can be changed easy enough - if needbe)
Air pump and foam filter (foam sits in the sump, (hopefully) collecting a few bacteria...)
Tunze 6015 power head
Aqueon 150w heater
Salinity (currently): 1.023 - working on making this the same as the DT - hopefully this tank will become a little less vacant soon!)
We've been cycling the past 12 days, the last 7 of which were using Seachem's "Stability". During that time, the Christmas tree worms on the live rock have consistently been present, fanning the water, and the number of pods on the chaeto in our sump have increased dramatically.
Day 7 of the Stability dosing occurred 2 nights back, so on recommendation we added our first fish - a small pair of Dottybacks (yes - I'm learning that this ~may~ prove to have been a mistake, but if so, I have a sump and a QT to split them if needbe... Plus an Internet connection to Kijiji & Craigslist if those paths fail!). So far they've not caused any trouble, and have their own (non-overlapping) territories, and have fed the last 2 days(morning and night) on frozen cyclopeze.
Parameters are tested each evening (using an API master kit (for now) and a Salifert kit for alkalinity) @ 7:30pm, and have consistently been as follows:
Ammonia: 0
Nitrate: 0
Nitrite: 0
Salinity: 1.025
Alkalinity 8.0-8.2 (no lower, no higher)
Temp: 77F
Afew brown diatoms starting to form, and a little bit of hair algae, but I'm waiting for Vertex to release their controller so I can hopefully control and adjust the lighting better (currently it's the highly technical "tug on the plug" approach to dimming, so I'm tending to leave the 10K's off entirely during the day right now, just putting them on for ~2 hours when we return from work each day)
Anyway, thanks for reading my drivel - looking forwards to reading and learning lots from you crowd. I have broad shoulders - I'll gladly welcome the "3C's"*
* = Comments, Criticism, Cash donations
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