Finally my 90 gallon reef
- Thread starter BigMike75
- Start date
PaPa_Johnny
Premium Member
Mike your tank looks immaculate, how did you manage to miss the hair algae nightmare? Your sand looks freshly vacuumed and groomed in every picture also. What kind of water changes etc are you doing on the tank now? I'm also curious as to how large your clean up crew is. I can't recall if you listed already in the thread.
BigMike75
New member
Don't jinx me.
My totoka rock came out of someone else's tank, and the only new rock was a couple of large pieces of fiji rock at the bottom. I would catch a few pieces of bubble algae, but I would pull what it was on out of the tank and clean it off. I had 1 coral that got some hair algae on it so I was able to brake off that part. I would see my powerheads getting some but my Torchus snails would clean it off in no time. I think the torchus snails was the biggest part of not letting any hair algae get started.
CUC
9 Trochus snails: all still in tank
20 Cerith snails: lost a few of them
20 Nassarius snails: lost a few of them
1 Sand sifting starfish
And a few misc. hitchhikers
I do a 15 gallon water change every 2 weeks. I also have been running carbon and GFO since it was first setup. Right now I am changing the carbon monthly and the GFO every 6 weeks. When my bioload goes up with will probably have to change it sooner. I have had very good luck with my tank so far and hope it continues.
Thanks for the good words.
My totoka rock came out of someone else's tank, and the only new rock was a couple of large pieces of fiji rock at the bottom. I would catch a few pieces of bubble algae, but I would pull what it was on out of the tank and clean it off. I had 1 coral that got some hair algae on it so I was able to brake off that part. I would see my powerheads getting some but my Torchus snails would clean it off in no time. I think the torchus snails was the biggest part of not letting any hair algae get started.CUC
9 Trochus snails: all still in tank
20 Cerith snails: lost a few of them
20 Nassarius snails: lost a few of them
1 Sand sifting starfish
And a few misc. hitchhikers
I do a 15 gallon water change every 2 weeks. I also have been running carbon and GFO since it was first setup. Right now I am changing the carbon monthly and the GFO every 6 weeks. When my bioload goes up with will probably have to change it sooner. I have had very good luck with my tank so far and hope it continues.
Thanks for the good words.
Reeftanks6
Active member
Wow this is a beautiful tank. Looks like the tank is doing really well. You have some great growth to. I will be tagging along. One question for you. I have a 90g set-up for a little more then 2 years. I am starting to turn it over to more of a reef. What are your parameters of the tank? What type of lighting? and do you dose or have a calcium reactor or anything like that?
BigMike75
New member
My parameters:
Salinity 1.026
Cal 500
Alk 12
Mag 1450
PH runs from 7.9 night to 8.2
Ammonia, Nitrite, Nitrate, and Phos are all 0.
I started adding 1 tea spoon of Kalk per gallon in my top off water because I ran into a porblem with my PH dipping down to 7.7 or 7.8 because of excess CO2 from my house. Tank is in the basement and the house heating was running alot because of winter and the tank was not getting much fresh air. I think using the Kalk has really got my LPS growing great and keep my Cal and Alk maintained. I can go up to 2 tea spoons per gallon when the corals start using more.
Right now I am running my 110 X 4 VHOs 8 hours a day. I have 2 white and 2 antic bulbs in my setup. When I start adding my SPS colonies I will start running my 250 X 2 MHs with my VHOs for about half the time of my VHOs to boost my growth.
Salinity 1.026
Cal 500
Alk 12
Mag 1450
PH runs from 7.9 night to 8.2
Ammonia, Nitrite, Nitrate, and Phos are all 0.
I started adding 1 tea spoon of Kalk per gallon in my top off water because I ran into a porblem with my PH dipping down to 7.7 or 7.8 because of excess CO2 from my house. Tank is in the basement and the house heating was running alot because of winter and the tank was not getting much fresh air. I think using the Kalk has really got my LPS growing great and keep my Cal and Alk maintained. I can go up to 2 tea spoons per gallon when the corals start using more.
Right now I am running my 110 X 4 VHOs 8 hours a day. I have 2 white and 2 antic bulbs in my setup. When I start adding my SPS colonies I will start running my 250 X 2 MHs with my VHOs for about half the time of my VHOs to boost my growth.
BigMike75
New member
Tank is a standard 90 48L*24H*18W. XP2000 is a great skimmer, I am glad I got it because of any future upgrades, Reef Specility recommends it up to a heavily stocked 180. It pulls plenty out even with a light bio load of any 4 fish right now, I am sure on a bigger tank with more fish it would really pull out some major skimmate. It has quieted down but I still have some noise because it is sitting on a stand made from eggcrate. I am sure if it was sitting on the pumps rubber feet it would be quieter. The skimmer is running in 6 inches of water at this time and doing great. I wouldn't run this skimmer on anything smaller then a 90 gallon tank.
Thanks for the info. I've been doing some research on this skimmer and it seems 6 1/2" or so is the sweet spot. I'm in the preliminary stages of designing/ordering a sump for my 90G. My intake/skimmer chamber will be 10" deep so I'll be making a acrylic stand in order to raise the xp. Hopefully, it will do a better job at deadening the noise than the eggcrate. How is the livestock from liveaquaria.com doing? Would you order from them again?
BigMike75
New member
I would have no problem ordering from liveaquaria again, every thing is doing great. I just have to wait till I can order enough to justify the shipping charge. I like ordering Diver Den items because you can see what your going to get, but even the regular stuff has been great.
I would say that an acrylic stand would be better for the skimmer, but my sump is behind a wall from my tank so I don't really hear it.
I would say that an acrylic stand would be better for the skimmer, but my sump is behind a wall from my tank so I don't really hear it.
BigMike75
New member
Video
Video
Here is a short video of my tank. Sorry, not great quality.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yBwyMO5rxLo
Video
Here is a short video of my tank. Sorry, not great quality.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yBwyMO5rxLo
BigMike75
New member
Tank has been going about 3.5 months now and doing good. I bought a Vortech MP20 off of a club member last weekend and I am going to get the stuff to upgrade it to a MP40 ES. They are running a special on the Echo Smart driver as a upgrade so I am going to order that and a power supply. Still going to wait a little longer on adding my SPS colonies but the SPS frags that I added are doing good, I am seeing some good growth on them. Wish that I had a better camera to take some macro pics.
Here is some pics.
Here is some pics.
BigMike75
New member
LMAS went to Inland Aquatics last Saturday. It was a great trip and I had alot of fun. I picked up 1 of the last 2 fish that I wanted for the tank. It is a nice size Kole Tang. The only other fish that I am going to add is a mandarin goby. I also picked up some different types of algae for my fuge.
BigMike75
New member
Well it has been about a month since I updated my thread, and the tank is still doing good. Took out 1 of the K3's and replaced it with a MP40 ES. I also installed a battery backup for it. I haven't had any power outages this year but it is better to be safe then sorry.:rollface:
I still haven't started using my MH's but everything is growing good so why add to my electric bill.:lmao: Tank is a little over 4 months old now.
Some pics.
I still haven't started using my MH's but everything is growing good so why add to my electric bill.:lmao: Tank is a little over 4 months old now.
Some pics.
