Finally after 6 years

[abhishek@1985]

Hi friends,

Well it has 6 years since I owned a small nano 20 gallon reef tank back in India. Then moved over to the States , new job , got married and almost forgot I had a hobby or rather a passion called "Reefing" for 6 years until May 2016 when I luckily came across ********* .. It sparkled my passion for reefing again !!
Made wife agree by showing some of the great , amazing tanks here promising that someday I can have something remotely close to one of the great sps reef tanks . Can't believe she fell for it

So here we are - after collecting equipments for 6 - 8 months :-

Tank - 30 in x 30 in x 18 in undrilled with Lifereef overflow (Found the back glass to be tempered after buying it

Sump - 20 in x 20 in x 12 in acrylic cube sump with self built baffles of acrylic
Skimmer - Deltec SC1350

Bio Filteration - 2 liters of Siporax + 2 liters of Seachem Matrix + Brightwell aquatics dimpled bio block

Reactors - 1 Bahsea reactor filled with siporax and matrix + 1 MRC reactor for Aquaforest Carbon .. will later add phosminus and zeomix if needed.

Return pump - Jebao DCP 6500 pump . The pump is so quiet I could hardly hear it.

Wavemaker - 1 gyre xf 130 + 2 Tunze 6055 on 7095 controller + 1 inch seaswirl (Love it !!!)

Auto top off - Tunze 3155

Rocks - Reefcleaners dry rocks

Sand - Tropic Eden Mini and Reef Flakes (Amazing sand !!! Wayyyy better than Caribsea since I used it 6 years back )

Doser - GHL doser 1 with self made dosing containers from Menards bottles

Controller - Reef Angel Plus (Loved the Open Source !!!)

Light - Hamilton Cayman sun reflector with Radium 250 run on M80 (The one thing I always had a dream to own - A radium MH run on magnetic ballast)..

Going all Aquaforest . Started with Aquaforest Prodibiotic salt with Bio S for cycling .
As of now, in day 7 of cycling .

Plan to go for full blown sps with mostly montipora species , stylophora, seriatopora and Poccilopora ..

No ACROS planned yet but plan always changes!!!

Time to enjoy some crappy cell pics ..
Will try better ones ..

Regards,
Abhishek

 

[Radioheadx14]

Good start. I am using the same bulb/ballast combo and it is nice! be sure to keep us updated once you get some sticks growing.

 

[reefmutt]

Nice set up.
Clean and spanking new!
Good start

 

[abhishek@1985]

I picked up a PAR meter on rent to test my 5 month old Radium on M 80 ballast.
Its a single hamilton Bali Sun fixture over the 30 in x 30 in tank. Ofcourse I know its not gonna cover the entire footprint but still wanted to see the PAR distribution.
I will be keeping the sps only on rocks in the middle section of the tank .


The readings varied from 300 on the top of the highest rock on the left side to 130-150 on the bottom rocks ..
Do you guys feel its not enough PAR to start with ? Or should I consider new radium bulbs or change the reflector ?

Regards,
Abhishek

 

[reefmutt]

Hm.. not bad on top..
You may get away with low light corals nearer the bottom..

 

[y4ngel]

Looking solod, good luck.

 

[NeilFox]

Nice looking setup! I love the old school choice of lighting. You will get some serious colour! I have the same lamp in addition to 4 ATI Blue plus over my frag tank. You will be getting acros soon, trust me.

 

[sahin]

I picked up a PAR meter on rent to test my 5 month old Radium on M 80 ballast.
Its a single hamilton Bali Sun fixture over the 30 in x 30 in tank. Ofcourse I know its not gonna cover the entire footprint but still wanted to see the PAR distribution.
I will be keeping the sps only on rocks in the middle section of the tank .


The readings varied from 300 on the top of the highest rock on the left side to 130-150 on the bottom rocks ..
Do you guys feel its not enough PAR to start with ? Or should I consider new radium bulbs or change the reflector ?

Regards,
Abhishek

Hi. Those PAR levels aren't too bad. Ideally for many Acropora you would want 400+ like many millepora and those sps found in shallow water areas. Towards the bottom you can place the low light sps like montipora/digitata etc. But even some of those like purple digitata prefer higher light.

You can add a couple of T5s of possible or even two diy strips of blue leds.

With these light levels you'd need to keep an eye on the nutrient levels to get the best colour out of your sps.

 

[abhishek@1985]

Thanks guys for the reply ..

Am planning to get a reefbrite led 50/50 strip through a friend of mine .
Hopefully that will resolve the issue of PAR in front of the glass .

@sahin

By nutrient levels , you meant keeping it low at low light levels ?

Regards,
Abhishek

 

[abhishek@1985]

So the Hamilton fixture with a single radium bulb was not giving enough PAR and nice coverage for 30in x30 in tank . Had a friend selling his double halides and jumped on them .
So now it may be wayyy overkill for some but the coverage is amazing from 550+ PAR at the top of the biggest rock to 200+ on the sand bed ..

2 250 watt radium running on sunlight blue wave magnetic ballast inside lumenarc reflectors ...
It's "MH Pornography"

Regards,
Abhishek

 

[Rakie]

Just a heads up, that tank looks EXTREMELY similar to the old marineland tanks. I have a 24x24x18 just like it actually.

If it looks anything like this it's a marineland

-- Call the company to confirm if any of it is or is not tempered. When I called they assured me my model was *not* tempered, and that they made very few that style that were ever tempered except for a very few certain sizes & years. But since you're already up and running, I suppose you won't be drilling.

 

[abhishek@1985]

Thanks Rakie ..
Well I have already set everything up and the lifereef overflow is working pretty good ..

Regards,
Abhishek

 

[abhishek@1985]

This is what Christmas looks like at my house ..:bounce1::bounce1::bounce1:

Aquaforest balling salts , carbon , Reef mineral salts , trace elements ,
Amino acids , BRS Reef chili , LRS food , V2O zooplankton and phytoplankton ,NLS Thera A and NLS nutri cell for sps and Coral Frenzy ....

All set for my dream wrasses ,anthias and of course sps !!!!

Regards,
Abhishek

 

[Haksar]

Great set up Abhishek.

 

[jda]

That is MORE than enough light for the species that you listed. If you do delve into acros, just put them in the top/middle and they will be plenty good.

 

[abhishek@1985]

Alkalinity has been low with high calcium and magnesium.
Alk - 6.5
Calcium - 575
Magnesium - 1600

Did a water change and slowly brought it upto 7.5 over the course of 4 days and now pH is holding steady between 8.05 - 8.10.

Got my first sps tester frags from Adam @ Battlecorals . Amazing person to deal with and the post delivery advices are priceless. The sps are doing great .
Even though i mentioned "NO ACROS" , no wonder first ones to enter the system were acros !!!

From left - PC Rainbow, Grape Juice and BC Secale.



And then the orange Forest Fire Digitata .

Let me know what you all think !!!

Regards,
Abhishek

 

[abhishek@1985]

8 months and things have changed drastically but slowly.

Light has been replaced with a bigger 20 inch reflector from hamilton with 2 reefbrite led strips running for 8 hours on halide and 10 hours for reefbrite leds. Still using Radium...
Flow has been increased to 2 x Tunze 6095, 1 Tunze 6105, 1 Icecap gyre and 1 Tunze 6040 with a seaswirl connected to my red dragon return pump.
Skimmer has been replaced with a Bubble King DC 150 .
Started ATI essentials and no water change done for 2 months and things looking good still..
Removed all GFO and carbon and let my bubbleking keep the water clean.
K.I.S.S method makes my life easier and my corals too.
Fish wise - have a trio of randalls anthias, 1 charlenae anthias (very aggressive), blue star leopard, black onyx clown pair, carpenter's flasher wrasse and a solor fairy wrasse.
Still looking to add a trio of Halichoeres Melasmapomas or Iridis or Rubricephalous

Alk is solid at 7.4-7.5 (measured 3 times a day) . Nitrates are high around 16 and phosphates around 0.08 - 0.1.
Little algae .
Biggest issue is with aiptasias which need to be stopped. Will try peppermint shrimps and then may be berghia nudis.
Started minimal maintenance except for changing filter socks and draining skimmer cup.

Tank is almost 90% acros mostly from WWC , Battlecorals and Big E and others. Can't say enough good things about these people and their livestocks. Makes my job as a hobbyist almost too easy to keep acroporas.
THANKS YOU GUYS !!!

Time for a crappy cell shot :-

Question /- how do I insert a larger image ?

Regards,
Abhishek

 

[reefmutt]

Looking good. And nice upgrades!
Unfortunately I can't help you with how to add a larger image..
I hope you find out though, it'd make my viewing experience better!
I'm clueless about that stuff.
What are you using to upload images?

 

[jda]

I just flickr and they let me pick the size to link images. ...might want to give them a shot.

 

[Leopardshark]

I like it! COngrats on your tank