clowndude 65 gallon sps tank

[mark54321]

Hi video looks great,I hope all will be fine with your tank after the power loss.I had one time temp.drop to 72 degrees for a day and all SPS were fine.

 

[clowndude]

It's been a while since my last tank update and a lot of things have changed since then.

Added/Replaced Equipment:
-Added Ecotech Battery Backup for powerheads
-Replaced chiller with brand new JBJ 1/4 chiller due to old one leaking freon every two weeks.
-Added Kalk+2 to my ATO top off and now my tank seems to be doing better overall. My sps are showing great color from this change and I've noticed a drastic decrease in algae growing on the glass. I now clean my glass less than once a week.

Corals:

Lately I've really taken a liking to scoly corals. I started off with come cheap ones to make sure they would live okay in my tank and then purchased some really nice ones.

Scoly List:

Bleeding Apple
Reverse Bleeding Apple
Ultra Master
Red
Green

Lately I've also taken a keen liking to plate coral so now I have a orange plate and orange plate with green tentacles.

Fish:

I'm pretty much done adding fish to my tank. Here is a current fish list.

-Regal Tang
-Sleeper Goby
-Diamond Watchman
-Bluespot Jawfish (One of my favorite fish)
-Borbonius Anthias
-Purple Squareback Anthias
-Purple Anthias
-Green Mandarin
-Dragonface Pipefish
-Tailspot Blenny
-Blue line Wrasse (New favorite fish)
-Green Wrasse
-Pair of clown fish. 1 Black ice and 1 Extreme Misbar Ocellaris.

Here are some pictures of the tank and corals.

FTS

Ultra Master Scoly

Bleeding Apple

Reverse Bleeding Apple on left and Red Scoly on right

New Scoly's when first added to tank

Blueline Wrasse

Orange Plate with Green Tentacles

Hope everybody enjoys.

 

[poohcl]

so Beautiful

 

[mark54321]

Tank looks fantastic.Great job.

 

[clowndude]

Here are some recent pictures that I took of the tank after a good cleaning.

 

[djbetterly]

How does your jawfish do with the shallow sand bed?

 

[clowndude]

How does your jawfish do with the shallow sand bed?

Mine has done really well. He has two main caves in the tank. The middle island which he rarely goes to and big right cave which he is always in. My jawfish def doesn't take any lip from the other fish. They are one or my top 5 favorite fish. If you get one though be sure you cover your overflow and def make sure you have your tank covered as that is how I lost my last jawfish. They LOVE to jump. If you get one post some pictures. I always love seeing bluespot jawfish.

 

[mark54321]

Great looking tank. Do you have any updated pictures? How do you add Kalk+2 to your system? I never did kalk before, and I am thinking of using it in addition to my 2 part.

 

[clowndude]

Great looking tank. Do you have any updated pictures? How do you add Kalk+2 to your system? I never did kalk before, and I am thinking of using it in addition to my 2 part.

Hi Mark, nice to hear from you. So the story of my life was taking pictures of the tank the other day and I so happen to look real close at one of my sps with no polyp extension and bam, my heart feel to the floor as I saw lots of tiny like red devils all over the coral. Needless to say the more I looked around the more I saw on others. Boy if it isn't one thing it's another in this hobby. I did a lot of reading the last two days on red bugs and found that interceptor is the main treatment, but didn't want to treat the whole tank. My searches found me to a product bayer advance insect killer.

Here is how I treated my sps.

Dosage 10ml to 2 cups tank water. I took out 22 cups of
Tank water and placed it in a budget. I then added 11-10ml of bayer advance insect killer found at home depot or lowes in a blue bottle. Can post picture of bottle if people are interested. Then I stirred the mix really well. After this I dipped my first sps that I noticed fully infested with red bugs. I dipped the coral for 10 minutes and then while taking it out of the budget swished it in the dip mix. After this I put it back in the tank. I would say over 75% of them disappears at this point and the red bugs that were left did move at all. Monitoring the coral I saw if instantly wanting to throw its polyps out which I hadn't seen this one do in a long time. After about and hour or two all the red bugs completely disappeared off the coral. I dipped all the rest of my sps and they all are back in the tank now. Boy what a process but to my surprise all of
Them look better than before. Their polyp extension has double and the ones without polyp extension have it now. I will watch the corals closely. Currently I have everything detached from the rocks and plan to dip the corals again for safe measures when I move them all next week.

Here are some pictures of the tank taken just before I took all the coral off the rocks.

 

[denash24]

I have one question Why you put the metal halide in the tank

Most people don't know but all of the LED fixtures currently out on the market including the ecotech do not provide UV light which is essential for long term coral health, as a matter of fact most of these companies will be coming out with new and improved fixtures by the end of the year which will include UV emitting LED's. So in my opinion for SPS lighting, MH's are still very relevant and possibly still superior to LED's.

BTW - CLOWNDUDE that is a beautiful tank / really digging the improved aquascape. Don't let the RB's discourage you, with that dipping treatment I'm sure your corals will be ok.

 

[clowndude]

Most people don't know but all of the LED fixtures currently out on the market including the ecotech do not provide UV light which is essential for long term coral health, as a matter of fact most of these companies will be coming out with new and improved fixtures by the end of the year which will include UV emitting LED's. So in my opinion for SPS lighting, MH's are still very relevant and possibly still superior to LED's.

BTW - CLOWNDUDE that is a beautiful tank / really digging the improved aquascape. Don't let the RB's discourage you, with that dipping treatment I'm sure your corals will be ok.

Thanks for the kind words. I was a little bummed when I saw it, but after seeing how the sps reacted to the dip really got me excited again. I'm moving the tank next week as we are moving to a bigger place. During the move I'm going to dip everything just to make sure I didn't miss anything. Then I'll probably give it a week and re-dip everything just to be certain. After that I will closely monitor and if I see any I will dip again.

On the lighting aspect, I wasn't happy at all with the leds. Tank looked cold and really had no life to it. My reds even on fish didn't look right to me, growth seemed okay with the lights, but I decided to go back to something that has proven itself time and time again MH. Of course the downside is the heat so that is why I added the chiller. One thing I do miss is the moonlight effect I got with the leds. I've been trying to come up with a way to resolve this and think I figured out a way. Just waiting for the funds and the time to build it all out. Hopefully I will have time around the holidays to complete this project.

 

[REEF SMAC]

Having to move is a PITA enough. Much less having to deal with red bugs at the same time. Sorry to have read that.

It's always something with this hobby though isn't it?

 

[clowndude]

I believe the dose of bayer knocked out all the red bugs, I watch the corals daily like a hawk. Even at night. Now I got some new problems that have me wondering what is going on. I think I narrowed down the issues. A lot of my frags and mills aren't looking good lately. I believe it's either due to my flame angel or tailspot blenny picking. I'm going to pull both of them this weekend and see if my PE on the corals comes back. If that doesn't do it, then I'm at a loss.

 

[clowndude]

So it's been a while since I posted last. Tank is coming along quite nicely especially since I cut back feeding the fish and started feeding the coral twice a week.

Currently I'm trying to determine whether or not to get a GEO 612 Calcium reactor or a Bubble Magus Dose pump system. Currently I'm leaning towards the calcium reactor. I'm looking for a few opinions or suggestions on this matter. Currently I'm manually dosing B-Ionic Two part at about 35mL per day.

 

[Acronic]

Glad to hear things are going better. Did you move yet?

At 35ml i would go the 2 part route. If my tank ever breaks the 250ml a day mark i would be seriously considering a calcium reactor.

 

[clowndude]

Glad to hear things are going better. Did you move yet?

At 35ml i would go the 2 part route. If my tank ever breaks the 250ml a day mark i would be seriously considering a calcium reactor.

Yup, moved about 2 months ago. Tank is scaped a little different but everything is doing great. I am going to go the two part route. I can't wait to not have to manually dose everyday lol. It gets to be a pain.

 

[Acronic]

I hear ya, my GHL doser screen is broken. The new one should arrive soon. Ive been manually dosing for months now

 

[clowndude]

I hear ya, my GHL doser screen is broken. The new one should arrive soon. Ive been manually dosing for months now

Ah manually dosing for months, that doesn't sound fun at all. I just order the bubble magus package from premium as they are having a sell right now. Now I gotta solve my next problem with my skimmer. I've been totally unhappy with my vertex alpha 170 and I'm considering going with an ATB elegance 200 Pro. Haven't found much information out there on them, but the little I do find say it's a good skimmer.

 

[smalltime]

Just went through your build. Looks like you started with basic equipment then made the choice with vortechs, bk skimmer and 400watt. Great choice of equipment.
Tank looks awesome!
Whats wrong with your bk?

 

[clowndude]

Just went through your build. Looks like you started with basic equipment then made the choice with vortechs, bk skimmer and 400watt. Great choice of equipment.
Tank looks awesome!
Whats wrong with your bk?

I've noticed it doesn't seem to pull out much junk out of the tank and the cup skimmate tends to be wet no matter how much I try to cut back. I spent the first 6-7 weeks fighting pulsation issues with the skimmer only to find out that the recommended water level they suggest isn't correct. So the whole time I had been fighting an issue because of the wrong recommendation. Also I believe the neck is to large for the pump as u have to pretty much close the wedge pipe almost 100. This I believe is part of the reason why the skimmer gets the pulsation issue as it creates turblance. Needless to say I believe the alpha vertex 170 design is flawed. The red dragon pump is dead silent which I will give the skimmer that credit, but for the money this thing cost I wouldn't recommend it. I'm considering going to a atb elegance 200 pro or bk mini 160. Still on the fence about this.