introducing my 870gal tank (pics ahead)

Hi,
thank you very much...
There is also a Platygyra in there, but not as big as this one.
Originally I thought the coral is a Symphyllia, hmm.
Unfortunately most Symphyllia pics in the web are smaller individuals.

Moser:
Yes, large skimmer, only LivingRock, lots of light and water movement.
I feed two times a day frozen mysis/artemia/medium sized krill.
Each time I mix about 5 of those small frozen cubes.
An autofeeder feeds some really few pellets 3 times a day.
From time to time some aminoacids by hand.
>15% waterchange a week.
The main nutrient export should be the skimmer and coral growth (well and waterchange ... > 15% nutrients a week :-) )
For more than 10 months I haven't used any PO4 absorbers and PO4 is still < 0.025ppm, NO3 is < 1 ppm.
Actually I removed all Algae from the sump, there are only some LR in it,
changed once a year with new LR.

Thanks for asking,
Ralf
 
Hi,
thank you very much...
There is also a Platygyra in there, but not as big as this one.
Originally I thought the coral is a Symphyllia, hmm.
Unfortunately most Symphyllia pics in the web are smaller individuals.

Ah. That makes more sense! I just hadn't seen one that big! How big is it by the way? It's hard to tell from the pics!
 
Thanks Ralf,

why did you increase the water changes?.


Thanks
Mo

Hi,
thank you very much...
There is also a Platygyra in there, but not as big as this one.
Originally I thought the coral is a Symphyllia, hmm.
Unfortunately most Symphyllia pics in the web are smaller individuals.

Moser:
Yes, large skimmer, only LivingRock, lots of light and water movement.
I feed two times a day frozen mysis/artemia/medium sized krill.
Each time I mix about 5 of those small frozen cubes.
An autofeeder feeds some really few pellets 3 times a day.
From time to time some aminoacids by hand.
>15% waterchange a week.
The main nutrient export should be the skimmer and coral growth (well and waterchange ... > 15% nutrients a week :-) )
For more than 10 months I haven't used any PO4 absorbers and PO4 is still < 0.025ppm, NO3 is < 1 ppm.
Actually I removed all Algae from the sump, there are only some LR in it,
changed once a year with new LR.

Thanks for asking,
Ralf
 
Ralfp,

Amazing as always. Your tank and Ching's as well are some of the most inspirational tanks. It seems like so many people are giving up lately so thank you for keeping things going and providing continued inspiration for my build.
 
Hi all,
thank you very much for the latest compliments.

DuncanUK:
Its more than 40cm in Diameter (about 16") and a little higher than half of a sphere.

Moser: I've had some Cyanobacteria issues in the past.
We came to the conclusion, that using my modified version of that Balling/Randys 2part etc. method to supply Ca/Mg/KH brings way to much traceelements/heavy metals into the reef. I changed that (not adding "NaCl free seasalt anymore).
I did lots of waterchanges to rinse the system.
I think that, in this system, changing up to 350 liters a week (no traceelement additions) adds more color to the coral, changing more than that feels save to prevent ion-displacements due to chemical addings.
Now I change 500 liters a week which is compared to the netto volume of the tank about 20%.
The 500 liter comes from a easy handling thought. If I have too much work with waterchanges I tend to "forget" them.
My work with that is now:
- press button to fill 500 liter container with RODI water (with is refilled (level probe))
- drop one 20 kilogram sack of TM Salt into it.
- wait a week with water moving inside the container.
- press another button (500 liters water runs into the maintank, old water is flowing into the sink.
- start from the beginning.

thats quite easy to do (pressing 2 buttons, dropping one sack). no measuring etc...

viorel:
great what you did there.
Do you use less blue-ish light (more yellow) or is it just the photos?
Interesting, how different the coralcolor looks with this. A lot more red-ish colors. I recently added some few pink-ish bulbs, which pushes colors, I've not seen in there before.

dar8nge1:
Thanks a lot, I have mostly egoistic reasons to do so ;-)

Thanks again for your kind words,
It really helps facing larger changes and cleaningwork.

Best,
Ralf
 
Ralfp, at that time I running 250W MH Aquamedic bulb 10K with T5 actinic supplement.
I did not even change the water once in three years. Mg and Sr chlorides addition in fill water and separately trace elements, potasium, iodine and iron. Unfortunately I have problems with Kh not always stable and is destructive to coral. In one month I will pass up Balling all. Montipora digitata red KH is barometer.
 
Hi Ralf,

Top job!.

My water change technique is the same. Easy to do, so I don't forget either.
I'm still running GFO, but the tank is much more stable, so I might see how it goes by lengthening the GFO change cycle.

I don't leave mine a week as I use my 600L RO tank for top up as well. I don't see any issues when I use the water straight away, although I sometimes let it run for a 24hrs. Any reasons why you leave it a week?...

Thanks
Mo
 
Thank you very much for your kind words,

popeye_ali:
unfortunately I can't submit new pictures, because I use one of them "never fail" apple computers and the last update destroyed my photosoftware's (Aperture) ability to read my Canon RAW fileformat *curse*. Have to fix that first. Or better Apple should fix Aperture so it runs with my MacOS 10.6.8 again.

Some things changed in the past months,
The Ctenochaetus strigosus jumped out of the tank when I was away,
found him dried in the tankroom ;-(. It was 6 years with me.
Fortunately I had another Ctenochaetus in a Fragtank that was able to fill
the social gap, before the powderblue got used to the gap.
It's a Ctenochaetus tominiensis which only got a few punches on day 1 from the powderblue.
The Ctenochaetus strigosus killed all gobys I put into the tank, so maybe there now will be another try, tominiensis seems to be more peaceful.

I added a group of 17 Zoramia leptacantha last month and they do really well.
Interesting how colorless they were in the LFS tank and how they developed
after just a few days. Blue, yellow, transparent with the bluest eyes I've ever seen.
At least two male of them are continuously breeding, having the mouth full.

I again removed some coral and a LR, to get even more free room.
I am also trying to keep the sand more empty, moving coral in a different tank.

I am still trying to figure out, which LED lamps are suitable to replace some of
the VHO bulbs. I am thinking about changing some of them to experiment with
LED and for getting more different wavelength in my spectrum.

Hmm, think thats pretty much it.

Mo,
I guess, the aging of the water (one week) is my relict of the past.
With not that easy to use salts, we have had to add CO2 to bring it 100% into solution and it was quite aggressive the first days. With modern salts that should not be needed.
I store my RODI in a 1500 liters container, because I also use it for a different frag/quarantine etc. system and a discus (Blueface Heckel) freshwater/low hardness tank.
Directly after the waterchange, I refill the saltmixup container and drop in the salt.
So the 500l I take are refilled instantly and with this I have more water in storage.
If I would be facing waterproblems, I would be able to change 2000l water at a time
(1500l from RODI storage and 500l from mixup container.)
Today, maybe your method is the better one, getting the traceelements from the salt into the tank before they fall out in the mixup container.

Hopefully I'll be able to look at my photos again soon, in order to post some of them here.

Best,
Ralf
 
Good afternoon.

I tried to capture some moving pictures, let's see how it worked.
Please also have a look at the HD version, if your bandwidth allows it.

Best regards,

Ralf

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/XzG1AAhU00w?rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

hmm, seems that I don't know how to attach videos. anyway, here is the link: http://www.youtube.com/embed/XzG1AAhU00w?rel=0
 
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