Erik's 180g Reef Tank

[WolfInRed]

Hi All, I thought I would start a thread of all my trials of running a reef tank. I have been doing it for the last 5 years now with some success and lots of failure. I hope I'm learning along the way. I would like to go to MACNA one of these years. I started with a 72g bow front with all the mechanics stuffed under the tanks and 1.5 years back I changed to a 180g display tanks with all the mechanics in the basement below.

In the last 6 months I have had die my (6) Acros, (3) scoly, (6) acans, Hammer Head, and others More on that in my future postings. I will work back through the tanks history and current treatment. There as been a lot of ups and downs.

A quick rundown of what I have:

Livestock (a lot less corals then I had)
(2) Tomato Clowns
(1) Pajama Fish
(1) Blue Chroma
(2) Yellow Tangs (one in the basement tanks)
(1) Flame Hawk
(1) Tobacco Bass

Equipment
(1) 180g glass display tank with 2 corner overflows
(1) 110g rock tank
(1) 50g sump/refugium (nothing growing in it)
(1) reflow baracuta return pump
(2) Vertex Reactors (GFO, Bio pellets)
(1) My Reef Creations Calk Reactor
(1) Emperor Aquatics 40W UV Sterilizer
(3) 1.1ml/m dosing Pumps for Alk, Mag & CA
(1) Genesis Water Filter System
(1) Trigger Systems Protein Skimmer
(1) JBJ Arctica Chiller 1/10hp
(1) Vertex Calcium Reactor (new, just added)
(4) AI Sol LED's
(2) Tunze 6105 wave pumps
(1) Tunze Wavebox
(1) Apex Neptune Control System (ph tank, ph CA reactor, temp tank)
- (3) EB8
- (1) PM2 (input switches, salinity probe died, temp sump)
- (2) VDM (used for wave pumps & Lights)
- (1) AFS (automatic Feeder)
- (1) ASM (PAR Meter)
- (1) DOS (Dosing pump used for CA reactor)

 

[WolfInRed]

Current Tank Conditions; 205ppm ALK, 300ppm CA, 80.9F, 8.2 pH,
Frog Spawn continuing to decay, while film covering newly dead heads
Can not find any reference to this type of decay. Tissue putrefied unde membrane.
Researching Viral infections
Treating 2nd dose of Interceptor+ (7 days from last dose)
Reduced light level 10%.
Reducing temperature of tank to 80 to hopefully slow growth of bacteria/virus

 

[WolfInRed]

Hi All, The tank is doing much better. I was able to get the Alk and Calc back to normal and everything has opened up and is doing better. Green grass is growing well. A few weeks has passed and the alk/ca has dropped back down and holding at 160/330. At least this is giving me a chance to check out if it's the interceptor or the water change that helped get the levels back. It must not be the Ca reactor since it is still running with the same settings it had before. The TDS of my RO shot up again so it had been putting contaminated water back into the tank as makeup water. I bought a new RO system and have the same result, whatever is in my water is not getting rejected by the membrane - i have 68TDS going in and 20TDS coming out. It's all up to the DI to get rid of it. The question is do I water change or treat with interceptor?

 

[james30ct]

68tds is high. What ro/di unit are you using?

 

[WolfInRed]

Hi James, 68 is my incoming water from the road - 68 is pretty good -it was 120+ before they cleaned all the pipes. Thought my TDS out of the RO Membrane was ~7 and now its ~20. Go figure.

 

[WaReefer458]

My meter reads 140-150 going in but 0 coming out. You need new filters bro

 

[WolfInRed]

It's brand spakin new - the output pre DI has dropped to 7 TDS. Happy Happy
Put Interceptor + in the tank but it does not seem to be affecting the CA level - go figure
Setting up for a water change - keep ya all posted.