Mark's new build

[mark54321]

Any new FTS pics Mark? The last one from 2013 looks incredible. Great colours and rock work layout!!

Thank you Andrew, I will post some pictures soon.

 

[mark54321]

Mark, is this tank purely Zeovit in terms of filtration?

I didn't see any Zeovit reactor in the sump shots and was a little confused.

If Zeovit, how much zeolites are you using? Thanks.

Hi Sahin, I don't use any zeovit reactor or zeolites at all. This tank is filtered with oversized skimmer, carbon in mesh bag and currently 6L. of Siporax in sump. I do add some Pohl's Xtra and some zeovit amino acids but very sporadically.

 

[mark54321]

Well, it has been a while since last update. I had some ups and downs with my tank, but slowly coming ahead. First it took me a while to find a sweet spot for my corals as far as light go. I bought PAR meter and was finally able to set my light to desired intensity. Keep in mind my tank is pretty shallow, only 17 in. of water. Currently I run my leds at 45% and T5's at 75%, with a period during a day for about an hour that they dim to almost 20% led and 50% T5, to simulate cloud cover. After initially bleaching some of my corals , colors are coming back nicely. I re did my aquascape again ( hopefully last time ). I always wanted an open, minimalist rockwork and this time I am very happy with it. It gives my corals plenty of space to grow upward and out. It might be too little rock for most people , but i like it a lot. Given some time corals should take over and fill up the space in my aquarium. Knowing better to quarantine all incoming fish, I put one directly to my DT and within a week I had an outbreak of marine velvet . It wiped out most of my fish. Now I am in third week fishless and plan to do full 72 days before putting any fish back. I have some algae problem now, as there is no grazing fish in there. Got some more snails to take care of it, but its going slowly. Also I brought flatworms with one of my frags I guess. I always dip in ReVive, but I think maybe eggs survived and now have small out brake of flatworms. I treated with Salifert FW Exit first time last week,plan on two more treatments. Most of flatworms died , but I still see more small ones. Two more treatments should take care of this problem. For the good, I am happy with growth and colors of my SPS so far, despite all that happened. Still has a way to go, but hopefully better times ahead.
I am experimenting with new powerheads: Jebao WP-25. I took mine Tunze pumps last week and only keeping two of the Jebao. So far I am impressed with flow they put out and most of all small size, almost half of my 6105 tunze. Of course I am keeping my Tunze as back up just in case.
Mine current bulb combo is front to back:
ATI blue+
KZ fiji purple
KZ superblue
ATI coral+
custom led
KZ new generation
ATI blue+
KZ superblue
ATI blue+

When all bulbs and led is on I have very crisp 14K look.
Thread is worthless without pictures, right? Please excuse the algae and some flatworms you see, but I am not the guy who always posts only good things.

 

[mark54321]

 

[mark54321]

 

[mark54321]

 

[sahin]

Wow! I love this shot:

Excellent work on the rockscape. Seriously Mark, it looks like a snapshot of a section of a lagoon. :thumbsup:

Yes, it is a very minimal amount of rockwork, but the 6Litres of Siporax will make up for the lack of rock in the display.

Those flatworms are no big deal. Had it in the past was pretty easy to get rid of. Sorry about the loss of fish. That sucks, but lesson learned and move on.

Keep up the good work, I can see this tank turning into something much nicer than your 120G which was an amazing tank itself.

 

[sahin]

Hi Sahin, I don't use any zeovit reactor or zeolites at all. This tank is filtered with oversized skimmer, carbon in mesh bag and currently 6L. of Siporax in sump. I do add some Pohl's Xtra and some zeovit amino acids but very sporadically.

Do you use any GFO? Despite the algae, you made no mention of GFO. What is your reasoning behind non use of GFO?

 

[MK]

Wow Mark great job, your tank looking amazing... So clear...
Subscribed !

 

[sahin]

I hope I am wrong, and its just a bit of debris/detritus, but take a closer look at this coral for Redbugs.

To the left and right of the coral, I see a few dots which look suspicious.

 

[glaukos]

That is an aweeeeeesome coral collection mark and an amazing tank!
Love every single one of them!
Can't pic my favorite.
Welldone and thanks for the update

 

[Andyf30]

I hope I am wrong, and its just a bit of debris/detritus, but take a closer look at this coral for Redbugs.

To the left and right of the coral, I see a few dots which look suspicious.

I hate to admit it but I'd have to agree. There are too many dots on this one to not be suspicious

 

[mark54321]

As much as I hate to admit, you guys might be right about red bugs. Actually about a month ago I saw couple of dots on one of my light skinned acro and I thought I was red bugs, but I couldn't find them anymore after that. I guess camera lenses and couple of good pair of eyes is a big help. Anyway I have interceptor ready to go, it shouldn't be a big problem. As far as gfo, I did not need it in this tank yet. I only had few small fish and a yellow tang, there was no algae at all. Once I took all fish out including Tang, algae showed up. Maybe my ceramic rock is leaching phosphate. Without any fish in there , my nutrients will get very low and I am sure it will starve all that algae. I am afraid to add gfo at this point, do not want to starve my corals too. In the future I will probably need gfo, I always used it in past.

 

[sahin]

As much as I hate to admit, you guys might be right about red bugs. Actually about a month ago I saw couple of dots on one of my light skinned acro and I thought I was red bugs, but I couldn't find them anymore after that. I guess camera lenses and couple of good pair of eyes is a big help. Anyway I have interceptor ready to go, it shouldn't be a big problem. As far as gfo, I did not need it in this tank yet. I only had few small fish and a yellow tang, there was no algae at all. Once I took all fish out including Tang, algae showed up. Maybe my ceramic rock is leaching phosphate. Without any fish in there , my nutrients will get very low and I am sure it will starve all that algae. I am afraid to add gfo at this point, do not want to starve my corals too. In the future I will probably need gfo, I always used it in past.

Yeah with the Interceptor it will be easy to kill the Redbugs.

Your coral colours look good. So yeah, using GFO will probably cause the SPS to turn pale.

Look forward to this tank progressing. :thumbsup:

 

[ridetheducati]

When in doubt, always check the Tri-color acro for red bugs, it is the "Canary" for bugs.

 

[9thwonder]

Any updates?

 

[Benar]

Mark, nicely done. I blame the ceramic! I took mine out yesterday, I don't know wether it was denial from the big cerameco price tag (+shipping to NZ) or what, but I finally put two and two together, realised when my diatom blooms kicked off and never stopped. Reading up, some of these pieces seem to leach silicates like mad. I presume a bit of phos too, mine seemed 'manageable' though. I'm kicking myself because i poured a bit into zeovit and had a beautiful tank, bar the ceramic/rocks and back wall. Couldn't figure it out as I was ULNS, thought it was bacterial from zeo. Went BB and hit ULNS again. Lo-and-behold this stuff remains. Zeovit, Lanthanum Chloride, even low nutrients couldn't fix that stuff for me, neither does a blueface, majestic, blue and purple tangs. Snails are ~$8-10 usd each here so I usually pass. I'm pinpointing the cerameco as it basically started around the time I added it. Keep us updated. A bit of my stuff looks very similar to yours. A beautiful tank, I've been watching it for a while now.

 

[4bruceinc]

Any update Mark?

Did you end up treating for red bugs?


Regards,

 

[tmantaylor18]

As much as I hate to admit, you guys might be right about red bugs. Actually about a month ago I saw couple of dots on one of my light skinned acro and I thought I was red bugs, but I couldn't find them anymore after that. I guess camera lenses and couple of good pair of eyes is a big help. Anyway I have interceptor ready to go, it shouldn't be a big problem. As far as gfo, I did not need it in this tank yet. I only had few small fish and a yellow tang, there was no algae at all. Once I took all fish out including Tang, algae showed up. Maybe my ceramic rock is leaching phosphate. Without any fish in there , my nutrients will get very low and I am sure it will starve all that algae. I am afraid to add gfo at this point, do not want to starve my corals too. In the future I will probably need gfo, I always used it in past.

Check for silicates. I've found that these ceramic rocks are notorious for leaching them. I had similar algae blooms because of it.

 

[mark54321]

Well,it has been a loooong time since any updates. First, my work got crazy busy for this time and I had no time to be very active. Second, most importantly I had few problems, I had to deal with. Everything was going good for few weeks since last update , until I got few new SPS frags from one of reputable vendor. Unfortunately it came with AEFW and red bugs. Even after dipping every frag, it is impossible to kill eggs of AEFW. It become apparent that something was wrong about a month after frag introduction, as it became very pale and lost its PE. I took it out and dipped in ReVive, and about 10 AEFW come off, , I disposed of this frag, but they spread very quickly and few other SPS became infected as well. Being busy at work, also at home with my kid, best course of action was to get rid of all of my SPS frags and go fallow for couple of months. I just had no time for weekly dipping regime. Also outbreak of marine velvet wiped off most of my fish,I thought about throwing a towel and just take break for some time, I was very discouraged. Fortunately tank was going on auto-pilot,having no fish and any SPS it was very easy, just replace my ATO container once a week. To get me out of this miserable situation, I decided to change my aquascape too, something to do. After 12 weeks, I slowly started stacking corals again, this time I went to couple of members from my local club, that I know have great SPS and no pests. Big thank you, those guys are great and hooked me up with more that I was barging for. .
All corals and fish are doing great now for couple of months, and I am hesitant to add anymore. I have over 40 different SPS, I guess I don't need much more. As far as fish, I got to like wrasses and have three of them, also a beautiful flame angel that was just too pretty to pass up. So, that's the story for now. Plan it to keep my hands off from my tank and let everything to mature. Just doing regular maintenance, checking parameters, etc.

I guess few pictures are in order

my fish

wrasse1 (640x426) by mark_mikina, on Flickr
wrasse2 (640x426) by mark_mikina, on Flickr
wrasse5 (640x412) by mark_mikina, on Flickr
wrasse6 (640x327) by mark_mikina, on Flickr
flame1 (640x426) by mark_mikina, on Flickr

left island
island3 (640x427) by mark_mikina, on Flickr

right island ( bonsai tree)
island2 (640x427) by mark_mikina, on Flickr

FTS as of today

fts for CR (640x554) by mark_mikina, on Flickr