82 Gal paradise reef from Costa Rica (lots of pics)

[jovares]

Hi guys, after a long time I decided to start this post to share pictures of my aquarium. I setup my tank 2 years ago, and have been a long trip since them, and been honest, I love my hobby, I feel passionate for it a bit more every day. :thumbsup:

I started as many, with soft corals and with a really simple idea about what I wanted for my tank, after a while I decided to take the risk to try SPS and right now I have a mixed tank that I'm converting to SPS dominated.

I do have LPS also, but I can deny that I really enjoy to culture SPS frags and to let them grow in my system which is a bit more complex 2 years later.

A brief summary of my aquarium equipment goes like this:

Tank size: 82 US gallon, 48x20x20
Sump capacity: 22 gallon
Skimmer: Reef Octopus dnwb-150
Refugium: with chaetomorpha
Return pump: Mag Drive 7
Circulation pumps: 2 hydor koralia 4 with JBJ ocean pulse wavemaker
Light: 2 x EcoRay 60D LED system (60x1 watt 6400k and 60x1 watt royal blue)
Calcium Reactor: Vertex RX6-Duo with millwakee ph controller and selenoid, connected to a 15pounds CO2 cylinder.
Natural Sand, cured Live rock


Parameters:

Nitrate: 0
Phosphate: 0
Alkalinity: 10dkh
Ph: 8.2
Calcium: 440
Salinity: 1025
Temperature: 75,2 F

My system setup is pretty simple compared with more elaborated tanks that I have seen here, but accomplish the task and is doing well so far. I have plans to make some updates but I'm working on it ($$$$).

Well now to make it interesting here are some pictures, i hope you like them:

Cheers

Jeff.

 

[jovares]

A few pics more...

 

[pnavarro170]

way to saturated.

 

[jovares]

There are some pictures that may look a bit saturared. From corals perspective I have many Sps Frags that I need to rearrange, I want to go from a horizontal aquascape to something more vertical using a couple main columns for Sps and give more space at the bottom for my lps corals.

Regarding to pictures have been difficult to get good and real colors with my iPhone camera. As I'm using Led's the camera tries to block part of the ligth intensity and the original pics get to dark, so I use a program to provide more clarity and to balance colors for something really close to the colors that I can see over my tank, however I've noticed that blues and certain reds looks saturated in some pictures.

Any good advice and suggestion is well received,

 

[karsseboom]

Look great...

 

[reeflover7826]

tiquicia! pura vida mae!!!

 

[jovares]

Look great...

Thanks, I'm glad you like it

 

[jovares]

tiquicia! pura vida mae!!!

Eso mae, pura vida!! Saludos desde mi linda Costa Rica

 

[dannytom99]

very cool tank

 

[Reefer1225]

Nice work.

 

[Kayo2289]

how do u like that little jbj wavemaker? was considering getting something similar, the hydor smartwave perhaps..

 

[jovares]

very cool tank

Thanks man, :thumbsup:

 

[jovares]

Nice work.

Appreciated, Thank you

 

[jovares]

how do u like that little jbj wavemaker? was considering getting something similar, the hydor smartwave perhaps..

Well by the time when I bougth the jbj, I wasn't looking for something full of options, I wasn't sure about what to buy, vortech's were just comming out and I knew I needed a wavemaker to switch my pumps and help my system to avoid dead spots, so I decided to give it a try and so far has been working fine, I have plans to upgrade my wavemaker system, but probably for the end of the year.

Cheers,

Jeff

 

[jovares]

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=T3H8-44OI64


This is a video that I prepared on april, it was working with ATI t5's. I switched to Led like 3 months ago. It was a great choice, coral colors are more radiant now and they have been growing faster for the improvement on ligths and after adding the calcium reactor.

When I see the video and my pics now I noticed a big difference in just 4 months, which is great, I'm really satisfied after the update.

 

[jovares]

New video!!

New video!!

Well after a while without updates on RC, I decided to create a new video of my tank, I have rearranged the aquascape.

I took this video with the normal software of my mobile camera, I hope you like it.:dance:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IbQxKOktJRM

Cheers,
Jeff.

 

[tuawcxs]

Beautiful tank and corals. Good job keeping them healthy and growing. Where do you get your corals from? Are there others in your country that are tank owners too?

 

[karsseboom]

Nice video.

 

[Noypi]

very nice looks like u need to upgrade soon

 

[jovares]

Beautiful tank and corals. Good job keeping them healthy and growing. Where do you get your corals from? Are there others in your country that are tank owners too?

Thanks, keeping this aquarium is a real passion for me, I'm glad that my dedication to it is giving good results.

Regarding corals and community, we do have a good amount of reef keepers in Costa Rica, I normally buy additives, salt and equipment in LFS, they bring corals also, unfortunately they don't trade SPS corals very often, they commonly bring LPS, softies and fishes. But due that reason, major part of my SPS corals have been growing as frags from colonies of some other hobbyist.

I've been participating as frags provider for other partners for a while too.

cheers.