Captain Bill's 300DD SPS & Zoa Reef

[Captain Billy]

Hey everyone, my name is Billy and I am a fishing guide from Florida. I have been into aquariums since I was a kid and haven't stopped since.

I set this tank up in early 2013 and it's had it's ups and downs. The tank is still challenging to this day, but I am finally seeing positive things and hope the tank can reach it's full potential soon.

Here is a list of the equipment.

Lighting:

6 Radion pros

3 kessil a360w's


Flow:

2 Vortech MP60

2 Vortech MP40

Reeflo Dart for Return


Other equipment:

Aqua medic reef doser w/ BRS 2 part

RLSS R10 i Skimmer

Neptune Apex controller

Here are the fish that are in the tank now, I have more to add but not until the tank is running correctly.

1 Golden Rhomboid Wrasse male
1 Red Head Solon Wrasse female
1 Cleaner Wrasse
1 Gem Tang
1 Black Tang
1 Desjardini Tang
1 Clownfish
1 Mandarin female
1 Yasha goby
5 Lyretail Anthias
1 Sunburst Anthia
12 Chromis
Watanabe Angel pair
Eight Line Flasher Wrasse pair

Fish waiting to be added that live in the 60g frag tank.

1 Powder Blue Tang
1 Yellow Tang
1 Purple Tang

 

[Captain Billy]

The tank is mainly SPS and zoanthids but it has some LPS. I recently lost quite a bit of the LPS to a peppermint shrimp before I finally was able to catch it out of the tank. All of the SPS corals are doing well, but 50% of the zoanthid colonies just don't look right, never dying but just not growing right. No pests or predators.

I have narrowed the problem down to what I believe is dinoflagellates. The problems in this system are daily browning of the sand followed by bubbles late in the day which finally rise, carrying sand with them before raining it back down. The zoas look best right after massive water changes, which I have been doing bi weekly, but it's just a patch. The zoas open best when the lights first come on, but as the day goes on, some start to close. This repeats itself daily. I'm currently in the process of raising my pH with kalkwasser, turning the lights off and doing some massive water changes with seawater, which looks great this time of year where I live. When the seawater isn't useable, I use E.S.V. B-ionic salt system.

Many more photos to come, and hopefully a resolution to the issues the tank is having!

 

[Captain Billy]

http://youtu.be/AvgTA6c4NlM

 

[Captain Billy]

Also wanted to share another reef of mine, the attached 60g frag tank and my fish quarantine/holding system. This is the frag system for the 300, and it makes my garage look pretty cool!

 

[SPotter]

wow looks amazing!!!! how do you handle the heat in the garage? here is SC my garage is over 100 during the summer!

 

[dave.m]

When using seawater you need to quarantine it in the dark, the longer the better. This helps kill any unwanted organisms from entering your tank. Saying that the water "looks great" doesn't mean anything. You may very well be re-introducing the same elements (e.g. silicates) the dinoflagellates need to keep blooming over and over again. What other water parameters are you measuring the fresh seawater for?

Dave.M

 

[Captain Billy]

SPotter, thanks! I use a large blower fan that keeps the systems around 83* through evaporative cooling. I don't have any problems with corals at that temperature thankfully. I am going to buy a chiller for the garage system before next summer though!

Hey Dave,

I do let the seawater sit for several days usually before using it. I generally don't test it after checking it every time for close to a year and always finding desirable results, nothing in the water ever showed up on the test kits, even when the water was not looking good enough due to increased turbidity.

I am getting ready to change the way I store my water in the garage at the house, and I will keep that in mind about keeping it in the dark for a few days.

I only use the seawater a few times a year on the inside systems, it's 95% E.S.V. synthetic water. I do however use it exclusively on the systems in the garage. I've never had an issue in that system with dinoflagellates thankfully, so I can't attribute the dino's in the inside tank to seawater.

After blacking the tank out, raising the pH and going at it with water changes, it's been almost a week and I see no dino's. Corals are looking better and so far it seems ok. My NO3 levels are still higher than I want at .5, but they had dropped a little from where they were at 1ppm after the black out before the water changes. Hopefully they will keep dropping with the next few water changes and then stay down.

 

[Captain Billy]

 

[Uncle Luke]

Wow that's a sweet system! Looks great!