90 gallon reef build

[petere1989]

it looks like a small bit of xenia on the rocks. and +1 to the above poster. My first tank crashed due to me rushing my livestock, the tank can't handle it and then everything dies. Also get some gfo

edit- spend the money on separate reactors, the time in between changing will make it expensive if you mix them

thats what i did, got two separate. I'm sure I heard that gfo will last longer then carbon will.

 

[petere1989]

Tested my water today. readings came back as listed:
mag-1400
ca-still 500+
alk-8.4
ammonia-0
nitrates-0
nitrites-0
ph-8.0
phosphates(taken with new hannah phosphate checker) - .9 OR 1.05 The thing flashes the reading and goes away quicker then it comes up. So i retested and i got 1.05 but the first time it said .9. so its either/or.

I started with the GFO yesterday since I got my new carbon/gfo reactor from BRS. I think....could just be me....I think i'm seeing a difference in algae already, keeping in mind i also dosed algaefix and my water quality is all ok. I'm not seeing as much buildup on the front glass as i am used to seeing every morning and alot of my bubble algae disappeared over night. also my phosphate levels were lower then before I started the gfo. yesterday morning it was reading 1.25 and now..as listed above...its lower. I am going to be getting some more cleaner snails at some point.

I also had another question. Everybody seems to not like me adding livestock or doing anything different to the tank. Whats the point of having a reef tank if you cannot add anything to it. I haven't added any new fish for a long time. the dwarf angel I added was a month ago and nothing new since. Whats the big deal changing out my carbon for carbon/gfo? I just don't get why nobody likes how i'm doing things, when i've been doing research and reading. I don't just go to the store and point at what looks cool and add it to the tank. I also realize my damsels will get nasty. The yellow tail is actually really nice and all the fish get along great. i intend to just add coral from here on out since that is my main focus at this point. Totally confused as to why I am told i'm doing it the wrong way when this is the only way I can really think it can be done. also someone said to check to see if the tank can handle different changes...how do you do that? you can't ask it if it wants gfo or not. just an insight..... just to clarify I'm not mad,annoyed,ect. just confused!!

 

[RGCEsq]

Your tank is looking nice. Thank you for sharing. I'll be following this thread.

 

[petere1989]

Your tank is looking nice. Thank you for sharing. I'll be following this thread.

thanks! just some quick pictures

bubble algae gone

Going to try to grab this and put it on a frag plug. The coral above dropped this off of the bottom side and it looks alive and doing really good so i wanted to see if i can save it.

 

[Fieroguy19]

I think your tank is looking good. Can you list all of your equipment? Are you planning on manually dosing the 2 part or are you getting a doser? I used to live in Peoria a few years ago and had a 40g tank back then. Are you on any of the local forums?

The 4 t5s will be ok for all lps and softies and polyps, and some lower light sps like montis, but to get optimal growth I'd go for something to supplement it with. A great option is one of these http://www.ecoxotic.com/panorama-marine-led-system.html it has a decent price tag considering its 100% controllable and can give shimmer and added intensity. This is also a nice option http://www.buildmyled.com/custom-led-strip/ . You can customize the colors to get a nice array of any spectrum. Its about 35 dollars. You get the same shimmer. Get a 45 degree lens so you have good coverage and good penetration. If you have any questions, ask.

I agree on the light. Should be ok for LPS, softies and easier montipora SPS placed at the top of your rock. Examples would be montipora capricornis or digitata

Tested my water today. readings came back as listed:
mag-1400
ca-still 500+
alk-8.4
ammonia-0
nitrates-0
nitrites-0
ph-8.0
phosphates(taken with new hannah phosphate checker) - .9 OR 1.05 The thing flashes the reading and goes away quicker then it comes up. So i retested and i got 1.05 but the first time it said .9. so its either/or.

I started with the GFO yesterday since I got my new carbon/gfo reactor from BRS. I think....could just be me....I think i'm seeing a difference in algae already, keeping in mind i also dosed algaefix and my water quality is all ok. I'm not seeing as much buildup on the front glass as i am used to seeing every morning and alot of my bubble algae disappeared over night. also my phosphate levels were lower then before I started the gfo. yesterday morning it was reading 1.25 and now..as listed above...its lower. I am going to be getting some more cleaner snails at some point.

I also had another question. Everybody seems to not like me adding livestock or doing anything different to the tank. Whats the point of having a reef tank if you cannot add anything to it. I haven't added any new fish for a long time. the dwarf angel I added was a month ago and nothing new since. Whats the big deal changing out my carbon for carbon/gfo? I just don't get why nobody likes how i'm doing things, when i've been doing research and reading. I don't just go to the store and point at what looks cool and add it to the tank. I also realize my damsels will get nasty. The yellow tail is actually really nice and all the fish get along great. i intend to just add coral from here on out since that is my main focus at this point. Totally confused as to why I am told i'm doing it the wrong way when this is the only way I can really think it can be done. also someone said to check to see if the tank can handle different changes...how do you do that? you can't ask it if it wants gfo or not. just an insight..... just to clarify I'm not mad,annoyed,ect. just confused!!

The parameters look good. I wouldn't worry about calcium being that high as long as you are not dosing anything. It will come down on its own with water changes and the corals using it up. It would be good to continue the GFO to get the phosphates down to 0.07 to help prevent algae outbreaks.

I think that reason why people are commenting about livestock is because you didn't say how long this tank has been setup so it seems like you bought everything in the last month which I hope is not true. If it is true then you went way too fast in stocking the tank. It takes time for the biological filtration to build up in the tank. If this tank has been running for 6 months then I really don't see a problem with your livestock.

The Eibli Angelfish you bought may end up eating LPS coral in the future since they have been known to do that. It really depends on the fish. You might get lucky and it will never eat LPS, or it might start eating coral at some random time.
The damsels you know can be aggressive, especially if you add other small fish to the tank.

 

[petere1989]

I think your tank is looking good. Can you list all of your equipment? Are you planning on manually dosing the 2 part or are you getting a doser? I used to live in Peoria a few years ago and had a 40g tank back then. Are you on any of the local forums?




I agree on the light. Should be ok for LPS, softies and easier montipora SPS placed at the top of your rock. Examples would be montipora capricornis or digitata




The parameters look good. I wouldn't worry about calcium being that high as long as you are not dosing anything. It will come down on its own with water changes and the corals using it up. It would be good to continue the GFO to get the phosphates down to 0.07 to help prevent algae outbreaks.

I think that reason why people are commenting about livestock is because you didn't say how long this tank has been setup so it seems like you bought everything in the last month which I hope is not true. If it is true then you went way too fast in stocking the tank. It takes time for the biological filtration to build up in the tank. If this tank has been running for 6 months then I really don't see a problem with your livestock.

The Eibli Angelfish you bought may end up eating LPS coral in the future since they have been known to do that. It really depends on the fish. You might get lucky and it will never eat LPS, or it might start eating coral at some random time.
The damsels you know can be aggressive, especially if you add other small fish to the tank.

oh ok. to clarify...the tanks been set up for 5 months now. I had a 20 gallon set up before that, and a 10 gallon set up before that. some of the damsels are my original fish from about 10 months ago.

for the time being i'm just going to manually dose but if it gets to be too much, then i'll look into a doser. I'm running out of electrical plugs so trying it manual is better for me. and my equipment list is as follows:
coralife 150g protein skimmer
two vortech mp10's set at about 95% flow
500-800 gphoverflow box
bulk reef supply dual carbon/gfo reactor
heater
tunze auto top off
aquaticlife T5's (the 4 bulb)
cooling fan to cool the air under the cabinet
nano pump set up in the sump for more water movement
500gph return pump
reef controller from bulk reef supply and i'm running two power bars off of it
attached to the controller is a itemp probe

im sure theres something i'm missing. ill edit and add if there is.

 

[petere1989]

So to neutralize the algae, I did a 10% water change and will check all my parameters tonight. I'm also going 3 days lights out to see if that will kill off some of it. Hopefully with all that, plus my gfo running, it will take care of it. i'll post pictures in 3 days of what it looks like.

 

[petere1989]

just some pictures. I did 3 days lights out and most of my algae is gone. there's still some in the sand bed that's dead and i'm hoping my sea hare will take care of that. he's been eating like crazy recently and has my back wall almost cleaned off.

 

[phantomg23]

you may want to re route the wire on the mp10, if the dry side ever falls off its going to crash on the floor. thats why you see the wires going up instead of down

 

[Dsotto]

I'd be careful with the angel. I had a Eibli that was fine and all of the sudden one day it started going after all of my LPS. I have a 4 bulb t5 over my 90 and it does well with my softies and LPS. Tried a birdsnest SPS and that didn't work out. Don't expect tons of growth but it will do ok.

 

[petere1989]

you may want to re route the wire on the mp10, if the dry side ever falls off its going to crash on the floor. thats why you see the wires going up instead of down

I took your advice!! It cleaned up the wires and made the tank look a lot nicer having it set the correct way.

 

[petere1989]

I'd be careful with the angel. I had a Eibli that was fine and all of the sudden one day it started going after all of my LPS. I have a 4 bulb t5 over my 90 and it does well with my softies and LPS. Tried a birdsnest SPS and that didn't work out. Don't expect tons of growth but it will do ok.

what do you think about low light sps's?

 

[Dsotto]

I think there will be a few factors that you will need to look at. By the looks of your rocks you will need to try to get it closer to the lights. The 4 bulb t5's don't penetrate like the LEDs or Halides. I wouldn't if it was me due to the cost and the potential of having something dying in your tank.

 

[petere1989]

I think there will be a few factors that you will need to look at. By the looks of your rocks you will need to try to get it closer to the lights. The 4 bulb t5's don't penetrate like the LEDs or Halides. I wouldn't if it was me due to the cost and the potential of having something dying in your tank.

alrighty. sounds good. thanks! hope to get more corals soon.

 

[phantomg23]

nice! the eotechs really make the tank look nice. If I were you, id check out craigslist for some cheap sps corals. The reflectors on the aquatic life lights are nice so you might get enough penetration. It never hurts to try it out, just don't go crazy at first

 

[petere1989]

well my tanks had a few big changes recently. I got a new protein skimmer because I was not happy with the coralife 150g. I also stopped using gfo and am using a brightwell aquatics phosphate media. I just set it up next to the carbon today so in a few days i'll be testing to see where I am at on phosphates. I also changed out my carbon today too. I also replaced the mj1200 pump with a 350gph pump that will flow 110 gallons more per hour though the carbon and phosphate media then the mj1200 pump (does about 240). the skimmer just today broke in and is working fine. I need to fine tune it but its already half full with stuff out of the tank.

hard to see but what is that on my snail's shell?? sorry for the bad picture

just started working today and this is what it pulled in just under a half hour. its not very watery either, its a thick skimmate.

new pump for the carbon/phosphate media

also picked this guy up. he's really neat.

 

[petere1989]

UPDATE: Phosphates are at 0.00. i'm really impressed and happy that that stuff actually worked. i forget the name but its my brightwell aquatics. so maybe now the little algae thats left over will die out and everything will be good. also, the protein skimmer is amazing. its pulling chunks out and its dark. way better then the coralife.

 

[rssjsb]

A few suggestions . . .

That sailfin tang is a bad fit in 90 gallon tank. They can get to 15" long when fully grown. That's the kind of thing people were talking about above when they suggested that you to do more research before adding things.

Second, you may have more luck with your ebili angel if you stick to more noxious LPS like your galaxy coral, frogspawn, or torches. Your war coral and other fleshy LPS (acans, brains, etc.) are likely to be eaten in the long run.

Finally, it looks like you're not using a QT. You can set up a small (20- or 30- gallon) quarantine tank. It will save you in the long run. Operating without one is taking a huge gamble. I and others have been down that road before and it ends in tears.

 

[petere1989]

Little updates. I took the advice and took the sail-fin tang back to a different fish store who traded me two pieces of coral for it. I get that it was to big and really I like the group of fish I have currently, plus my focus is coral right now. I haven't been using a qt tank since I haven't been buying fish. Otherwise i would of.

montipora. I placed it at the very top of the rocks and under the lightings directly. The guy said it should be fine there. I asked specifically for low light sps since I only have 4 T5's.

hollywood stunter chalace. This one I was told to place on the bottom since it's a low light coral.

and here's my hammer coral. I have had this one for a while but just recently it fully opened so here it is. its got 6 heads on it.

as for my phosphates, they are at 0.03 (using the hannah checker so they could really be at 0.00 since theres a +- .03 on that thing.) protein skimmer is doing great and all in all, the tanks doing great!

 

[petere1989]

just some more pictures. I got two dosing pumps and plan on getting a third. doing this has really helped a lot and my parameters have been a lot more stable then they have been.