A corner in Taiwan

[shih87]

Three years ago, my whole family moved back to Taiwan from Bay area. Three years past, now I have another reef tank built in Taiwan. The tank is a SPS dominated 125 gallon reef tank which start setup at the end of 2011, but it actually start to buildup stably after last house moving at Sept. 2012.

My old tank was built when I worked in Bay area, but it was burn down due to my careless. Since then, safety become my top priority to setup a tank.

Start this thread is because I think I am now hit the wall on SPS grow, how to keep shallow sand bed clean, and of course ... SPS color

I have read some fantastic tanks in this forum such as Leonardo's tanks and some amazing tanks in Zeovit.com. Definitely learnt a lot but most points I learnt are not addressed exactly to my tank condition, so I hope this thread can help me learn and discuss directly to my tank.

My tank equipment listed as below....

• Skimmer - Bubble King DoubleCone 200
• Pump - Red Dragon 1600
• Chiller - JBJ 1/5 Hp
• Wave maker - Tunze 6105 x 2 + 6101 x 2
• Top Water: Tunze
• Controller - DA ReefKeeper Elite
• Light - 400x XML 15KK x 2 + T5 54w KZ Blue Pluz x 6 + T5 54w KZ Fuji Purple x 2
• Dozing pump - GHL 4 head x 3 = 12 dosing heads

Full tank pictures show below first....

Oct. 2012

May 2013

Some zoom-in pictures

 

[tupes]

Looks really nice also thats some awesome growth in your tank.

 

[shih87]

Looks really nice also thats some awesome growth in your tank.

Thanks. After a few more post, I will address some problem I am facing now ;-(

 

[shih87]

Here is my sump setup

It is quiet simple sump design.. First main section is a settlement section, second main section is for my BK skimmer and Zeovite reactor, and last section is for Red Dragon 1600 return pump.

On the top left side is my GHL with a total of 12 heads dosing pump

 

[s_kelley]

Wow that is a nice setup you have, awesome growth in your corals. What exactly are you dosing that requires 12 pumps? Your colors are amazing

 

[Elton Wng]

You should give us more idea about how you maintain the tank?
Why do they grow so quick in months?
My friend.

 

[shih87]

Wow that is a nice setup you have, awesome growth in your corals. What exactly are you dosing that requires 12 pumps? Your colors are amazing

Thanks. Due to I often travel more than 3 weeks, I auto dose as many as I could to keep daily routing work easy and automatic. I dose the following via GHL...
K, Ca, Alk, Mg (yes, I gave up Calcium Reactor)
KZ Start3, KZ Spong Power, KZ Amino Acids, KZ Xtra
KZ Food7, KZ Flatwormstop, KZ booster, KZ B-Balance

and, others are dose manually....

You should give us more idea about how you maintain the tank?
Why do they grow so quick in months?
My friend.

I am not sure KZ booster help or not since my grow are linear with or without it. The growth pretty much meet text book expected speed, so I don't think my tank grow significantly faster than others. However, keep SPS tank stable ( as you know... I have SOP to keep tank low risk during my traveling) and try to keep SPS lost ratio to very minimum did help it looks grow faster, I think.

Hmmm... Elton you found my new thread very quick... Hahaha....

 

[shih87]

My tank parameters are as below....

Temp 76~79 (probe)
KH 7.0~7.4 dKh (Red Sea)
PH 8.2~8.5 (probe)
CA 430~460 ppm (Red Sea)
MG 1380~1450 ppm (Red Sea)
K 380~500 ppm (Salifert)
NO3 0 ppm (Red Sea)
PO4 0~0.04ppm (Hanna)
ORP 410 (probe)
Organic not tested

I am considering test organic since my sand bed very easy grow brown algae, which is one of my main problem now.

 

[Arkayology]

That is some dosing setup you have there!

 

[blakers82]

Impressive growth on some corals there. Those stags are reaching for the sky!

Please tell what all you are dosing.

 

[shih87]

Impressive growth on some corals there. Those stags are reaching for the sky!

Please tell what all you are dosing.

Yes, one green stags just touch the surface. I like stags forest kind of scene with fishes swim in.

I am not sure what exactly help the growth most, maybe everything a bit.
Anyway, here is my dosing rule in detail.

Manual dosing

GHL Auto dosing

 

[kungfukid]

another Zeo system, great color

 

[noy]

amazing stuff!

 

[shih87]

That is some dosing setup you have there!

another Zeo system, great color

amazing stuff!

yes, sometimes I feel sick that how many Zeovit bottles I keep.
Here is a corner scene in my fridge for my manual dosing stuff:headwally::headwally::headwally:

That's why next tank after house moving again, I may consider back to DSB plus basic KZ and Bio!?
Not sure, but I am cooking the idea now.....

 

[chercm]

Nice tank

 

[Selkoner]

Really nice tank and amazing growth ... I have the same problem with brown slim

 

[reefinder]

Very nice very nice!

 

[shih87]

Nice tank

Really nice tank and amazing growth ... I have the same problem with brown slim

Very nice very nice!

Thanks guys.

To Chercm: I notice that you also have problem to keep Blue color (in other email thread), I have the same problem. Blue always turn to purple a bit under my light. I have been followed the instruction as below for my trace element, but so far not too success on blue color.

=======
yellow - Nitrate and Phospate needs to be low
green - Iron - overdose tends to cause darkening of tissues (KZ Iron)
blue and purple - require Potassium Iodide (KZ PIF)
red - require Potassium (not potassium iodide)
purple - require Potassium Iodide/Potassium
=======​

To Selkoner: Yeap... If simply to keep tank buffer, I can run BB with a RDSB, but I really like to look & feel of sand bad. In the past, I can siphon sand during water change, but since SPS grow too big, I can't reach most area anymore. Instead, I have to use a nets to grab some sand and clean it then put it back. However, every time I do so, my PO increase from 0 to 0.04 for 24 hours. I might consider change to KZ coral sand which allow me increase water currents at tank bottom. But.... I heard KZ coral sand, due to its size, may grow coralline algae on surface, which I don't like ;-(

 

[Selkoner]

Thanks guys.

To Chercm: I notice that you also have problem to keep Blue color (in other email thread), I have the same problem. Blue always turn to purple a bit under my light. I have been follow the instruction as below for my trace element, but so far not too success on blue color.

=======
yellow - Nitrate and Phospate needs to be low
green - Iron - overdose tends to cause darkening of tissues (KZ Iron)
blue and purple - require Potassium Iodide (KZ PIF)
red - require Potassium (not potassium iodide)
purple - require Potassium Iodide/Potassium
=======​

To Selkoner: Yeap... If simply to keep tank buffer, I can run BB with a RDSB, but I really like to look & feel of sand bad. In the past, I can siphon sand during water change, but since SPS grow too big, I can't reach most area anymore. Instead, I have to use a nets to grab some sand and clean it then put it back. However, every time I do so, my PO increase from 0 to 0.04 for 24 hours. I might consider change to KZ coral sand which allow me increase water currents at tank bottom. But.... I heard KZ coral sand, due to its size, may grow coralline algae on surface, which I don't like ;-(

I have a zero edge tank and that brown film gets on both sides of the acrylic and it **** me off because Phosphates nitrates nitrates all at zero !! I think it's the hose that runs into the filter sock it's gray and kind of see threw and all I see is brown !! So I think I'm going to change it ...

 

[shih87]

A few more pics