Frogmans 90 gallon no sump mixed reef

[Frogmanx82]

So here is a long overdue update. All the fish are doing great even my 4 clowns. For those who say you can't have more than two, I think that may apply to wild caught, tank raised are definitely different. I got a mandarin a few weeks ago. It's still pretty shy but seems to be doing ok. I still have hundreds of bugs crawling on the glass. Cheatomorpha is growing out of the filter intake on the left.

The ricordia and green mushrooms have really grown and so has the acan and clam.

I'm not sure what to do about the macro algae. I'll need to control it, but I think it looks good.

I got medieval on the xenia and pulled the center rock out. I just about pulled it all off. One little piece left. I'm hoping I can contain it on the black coral stump.

The kenya tree has not been invasive at al and now seems to be in a bit of a funk.

Not sure if something is going on with the frogspawn as well. It seems a bit more withdrawn lately.

The montis are doing well, growing nicely.

The candy cane continues to do well and I picked up some smaller ones which you can see in the center tank shots.

You can see the ball anemone and the sponge are still around.

Todays water test, salinity 1.025, pH 8.2, calcium 400, mag 1275, kH 6 which I know is low, I added some baking soda. Nitrate 0, phosphate 0.01

 

[Frogmanx82]

I thought I would update the log. I had some issues this summer with steady high tank temps 85 to 86. Everything seemed fine except the frogspawn which started shedding, shrinking, and one of the heads turned white. You'll notice I was just starting to notice this in the post above. I have a glass top and I removed the front panes in late July. That helped temps right away and the tank seldom went above 80. The frogspawn responded well and you can't see any issues with it today.

That little sprig of xenia I missed ended up being 4 huge stalks and I took the rock out again. I think I have it pretty will confined to the black coral root which is easy to pull them from.

I got a new mandarin, really nice looking. Not sure what happened to the other one, it only lasted a couple weeks and disappeared. I have had this one only a week.

The hector's goby died. It looked like it just stopped eating. It was doing so well for a year, not sure what happened.

Everything else has done well, the cardinals breed every two months. I had a baby make it 3 months in the 10 gallon tank, but it never did adjust to frozen food much. I think it was just eating pods.

A summer of not changing the water regularly has left calcium low at 340, mag 1200, nitrates non detect, phosphate .01, pH 8.3, kH 7, SG 10.25

 

[muttley000]

Looking good, what is the fish at the top right of the first pic?

 

[todd141]

Very nice tank. I love it when I see a great tank without a sump....


I may have missed it - I just skimmed and looked at most the pics, but what kind of powerheads do you have? I remember reading about 1 koralia 3, but what else?

thanks.

 

[MyMonkey]

Can you provide the details on your skimmers and what overflow boxes they are in? Looks great BTW.

 

[Frogmanx82]

Muttley, if you're looking at the first pic i the thread, its a bangaii cardinal, in the pic I just posted its the scissortail dartfish.

Todd, I have a koralia 3 at about 800gpm, the flow coming out the jets piped under the sand from the fluval canister about 240 gpm, and the tunze in tank filter also about 240gpm. I have a lot of softies so not sure I want a lot more flow. I have a koralia 1 I may stick in if I get any more sps.

Mymonkey, I have two tunze nano 9002 skimmers. Some will say they aren't worth crap in a 90 but its the best I can do, you see my space constraints. I get about 4 cups a week of dark skimmate off them and they produce a very reliable foam. I am quite happy with them, the only maintenance is cleaning the collonista snails out of the impeller every few months. They come with a round collection cup that I switched out for some cups made for the tunze nano by inTank. http://shop.mediabaskets.com/Small-Tunze-Cup-Skinny-Body-Size-JBJCUP.htm Its the only way I could fit the light fixture on the tank. I did drill a hole as you see in some of the pics to drain them to half gallon jugs under the tank.

 

[Frogmanx82]

About time for another update. I took some photos of my modified canister during a cleaning and posted them in this thread http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1959429 if anyone's interested.

The full tank shot to start it out.

I picked up some different red algaes. These are doing the best.

The yellow watchman is doing pretty well

And the tailspot blenny is fun to watch.

Had a problem with the bangaiis. The female jumped all over the male and took his tail off before I could get her out. He had just let a mouthful of babies go. The female is now in the 10 gallon QT tank. I hope this tail will grow back. Its been about 2 weeks. They have been together over a year, I didn't see this coming. You can also see some of the other red algae I added.

Then there is the xenia. So far I have it pretty well confined. The glass is the best place to push it as its very easy to remove from the glass.

The open brain just gets bigger.

My four clowns still get along great, together for about 18 months. They are all hosting in the caulerpa prolifica.

So the macro algae is doing pretty well. I did have this happen several weeks ago.

I found out what going sexual looked like and pulled it out. I haven't seen any more of that going on. I'm definitely keeping an eye out.

The mandarin isn't pictured, but its doing fine. I haven't had any fish losses in a year and a half other than one purple firefish.

That's about it. Water parameters are ok. I had to get on some tech m to get the calcium and magnesium back to reasonable numbers, currently 380 on the calcium and 1290 on the mag. I'd like to get to 420 and 1350. I had a couple spots of hair algae but when I boosted the mag, they went away.

 

[todd141]

Love your tank!!!

 

[AEALOVESHERGIRLS]

Your tank is gorgeous!!! I had a 75 I ran VERY similar to yours! I had no sump, no fuge! I had just a skimmer and penguin filter I used for carbon!! If you click on my name and click on my homepage, you'll see just how similar our tanks are/were.

 

[T Diddy]

Hey Frogman,

Just looked at your thread for the first time. I love the old school with a twist. The macro looks great in there. Am I correct in assuming the 270 watts is (5) 54 watt T5s? If so, watt bulb combo are you running? Also what is the height of the tank?

 

[Frogmanx82]

Hey Frogman,

Just looked at your thread for the first time. I love the old school with a twist. The macro looks great in there. Am I correct in assuming the 270 watts is (5) 54 watt T5s? If so, watt bulb combo are you running? Also what is the height of the tank?

I'm running an Aquactinics Tx5 with

ATI Blue+
ATI Aquablue
Fiji Purple
ATI Aquablue
ATI Blue +

Positions 1,3,5 run 10 hours, the Aquablues run 6 hours. The last set of pics was with the aquablues off. The tank is a standard 90, 24 inches tall. I'm thinking of swapping an aquablue for another blue +. I tried 3 blue + bulbs in the 135 slots and all the reds looked washed out. I really needed that purple with the blue +. for the dusk dawn settings.

I will trim the chaeto back but generally let it grow into a softball size before pulling some out.

Thanks for the comments.

 

[jevolk]

Awesome Tank. How much water flow do you have running

 

[Frogmanx82]

I have a Koralia 3 running behind the barnacles with the big candy cane. The intank filter, where the chaeto is, is about 250 gph and the fluval is about the same. The return for the fluval goes through the undersand jets that I show in the first set of pics I posted. Overall then about 1300 gph which is not a lot, but I have the sps in pretty direct flow and the softies don't really like too much. I have an extra koralia nano I could through in, but I don't see anywhere I need it.

 

[bluetang66]

Tank looks great Frogman, i have a 75 set up about the same way. i use a fluval 405 and a octo skimmer.it's pretty simple set up. i have been wanting to try some pellets but don't want to hang a reactor off the tank, how effective do you think the pellets are in the canister and do you have the return pointed in the direction of your skimmer?

 

[Frogmanx82]

Tank looks great Frogman, i have a 75 set up about the same way. i use a fluval 405 and a octo skimmer.it's pretty simple set up. i have been wanting to try some pellets but don't want to hang a reactor off the tank, how effective do you think the pellets are in the canister and do you have the return pointed in the direction of your skimmer?

Its really hard to say how effective the biopellets are. I have never had a nitrate issue and I started the biopellets at the same time as GFO for phosphate. I no longer run the GFO and phosphates are still non detect on an Elos test.

I don't have the discharge to a protein skimmer. I figure though I'm better off with the bacteria that can be food for my corals and some must get skimmed. The big difference between a canister and reactor is the canister gets filled with snails and bristleworms that work to keep a bacterial gunk from building up.

I tried the biopellets in my freshwater tank and they just made a nasty mess in the filter and the pellets were just coated with slime. That doesn't happen in the salt canister. Above the last set of pics I posted a link to a thread I did on my filter, did you look at that?

I've been running the pellets for over a year, my tank is in good shape. It certainly won't hurt to run them. What else are you going to put in the canister?

 

[adamfajge]

I have a 46 bow mixed reef with no sump but got rid of my canister filter after a year of using it. The system runs much better without it. I use Aqua C Hang on skimmer, little powerfilter for gfo and carbon. I have an intank refugium that I use for cheatemorpha. I have 3 Koralia 1, and a MP-40 ES

 

[jevolk]

for what its worth or if at all worth it the blue foil back looks great with everything in there

 

[Frogmanx82]

A little quick for the update, but I was really happy with the way the tank is looking and wanted to take some pics.

If you look carefully at the light fixture you can see I used some black tape to block the light since the light is raised a couple inches above the tank. On the other side of the tape I stuck aluminum foil to act as a reflector.

My male bangaii is looking better every day. Hopefully the tail will be good as new in a few months. I just put the female back in the tank yesterday. So far so good.

This red algae is really doing well. Growing almost as fast as the xenia.

So what is this growing on this rock. It looks like an SPS of some type. Very odd since I've had this rock for 20 years so it didn't come from this rock.

Another whats this. There is some kind of tube worm on the bottom plate sticking up. I also have one in my green monti. The monti is encasing it, but the worm is using the casing. I see long threads coming out. Since both my montis have one, I assume its fairly common.

The mandarin is doing well I suppose. It won't eat any food I put in the tank, but its been in there since the beginning of October.

I added some more scarlet hermits. Hair algae that was cropping up in a few places has completely receded. Not sure if its the hermits or all the macro algae. All the fish are doing well. I haven't lost anything since my hectors goby last summer.

 

[Frogmanx82]

So now its two years since I started this tank and a good while since I updated.

Here's the tank. I still have the 4 clowns, I lost the male bangaii. He never really recovered from the beat down he got from the female after holding the eggs 3 weeks. The mandarin looks great, he doesn't eat anything I put in the tank, ever, and I've had him now about 9 months. The coco worm was a bust. Died after about 8 months. the yellow watchman and royal gramma are good additions. Still have the blood shrimp and brittle star. The crocea clam is good. The frogspawn seems a little contracted, but not as bad as it was a month ago when my alkalinity got low.

The big difference is the red algae that has taken off. I love this stuff. Grows like mad and doesn't anchor to anything or break off bits that get all over the tank. I think I'm going to get all the chaeto out of the tank. This stuff is so much cleaner.

I added this guy. He single handed cleaned up the aiptasia, didn't eat all my feather dusters, and seems a model citizen. I guess I got lucky. The algae he's on is a bit odd. Very fuzzy, attaches a bit but not too aggressive. Pods love to crawl thought it.

More red algea

I've been able to keep the xenia under control. Now limited to the back glass and a couple small rocks I'm going to pull out and get some store credit. For all the hassle, its still an amazing softy. Click on it to see it in motion.



Good growth on the montis

Zoas are spreading

What is that green stalk poking out to the right of the acan?

Well thanks for looking. Appreciate any comments.

 

[AEALOVESHERGIRLS]

Looks great!!! Keep up the hard work!