Maroun 150g Build Thread

[maroun.c]

will try checking LFS water however they also use Reefcrystals as I buy it from them. what I did on the last two water changes is that I'm using both salts together (Reef Crystals and Crystal Sea Marine Mix) to hopefully minimize any very high components in each. Could have tried instant ocean or another salt present at another LFS as these contain much less Calcium however these also contain much less MG which will make it even harder to compensate.One good thing that will now happen is that I will start adding much more magnesium to boost the leves and as Randy confirmed to me the increase in Salinity from Mg will lead to taking out some water and replacing it with freshwater to keep salinity levels stable which will reflect on Calcium levels and Alk beinging them a bit lower.
I'm always checking the salinity of the tnak especially after I started adding MG.
Will also try to document all those values to coduments any shifts.
Thanks for all your suggestions.

 

[maroun.c]

More updates.
3-4 weeks ago I had a one week trip to holland to our training center. just close to it is a vary good lfs that always has good quality stuff, fisha nd corals and also the owner is a very nice guy that gives me lots of times and walks me through all their tanks showing me the filtration, calcium reactors....
explaining loads of stuff for me.
posted some pics of the store here:
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=1489257
got those things I needed for the tank. unfortunately they only had on 150 W 10k and didn't have salifert test kits.

Also could not skip on the clams as they really like nice although really small , and picked up this accropora that looked very healthy. Prices were on the expensive side especially with the rise of the Euro however I only remember seing 1 blue maxima clam in our local LFS since 10 years.

got the one closest to GSP

While chosing my sps the LFS owner understood that it was my first SPS in the tank ant that I needed a very good specimen to avoid load of checks and headaches if it dies in my tank as in that case I will definitely think something is wrong .... he even stopped me from buying another accro and notified me that it's polyps did not reoppen as quickly after he moved it out to check it out for bleaching on the back side andbugs on theh braches and from below. each coral I was choosing was getting checked by him more than me and he was explaining how to make a good choice on a SPS choice. he made me chose this one as it was the only one showing grow over the plug and had good polyp extension even seconds after moving it....
These were sent to my hotel before I traveled and they continued to amaze me with their packing:

 

[melev]

You will have to add a lot of Mg to get that number up. My reef was down to 1280 ppm and I had to add almost a gallon of Mg to get it back up to 1400 ppm. Using Jdieck's calculator, it called for something close to 3500 ml, which seemed like a lot. However, over about 7 to 10 days, I ended up dosing all of it and the numbers rose.

Mg is supposed to be 3x the calcium level. I think the salt-combo you are using may be part of the problem, since both have higher dKH. Still, I'd like to see if the kit in question is wrong, thus the idea to get some 'other' saltwater for a test.

 

[maroun.c]

Will do that on Thursday when back Marc I will also send some of my waer for testing in a lab which hopefull ywill clear things up a bit. the calcualtor suggested around 370 teaspons of tropic marine bio Mag.
Am thinking about doing some water changes with instant ocean which is lower with alk and Ca but the problem is that its also much lower on mag which will being my levels of Mg even lower.

 

[melev]

If you are dosing Mg, then it doesn't matter.

 

[maroun.c]

the clam seemed to be a very healthy one it was fully open in the bag all the time. I packed the corals in coolers with lables on them (temp and light sensitive please close if opened with my phone number in case airport security opens them in my absence which did not happen)I also recieve the CITIS license from teh LFS but luckily never needed it.

at home while acclimating the clam it fully opened even when transporting it in a cup to my tank(didn't want to expose it to air as I thinki heard its bad for them?) yes its a bit smaller than 2 inches but I guess it'll make it with good lighting and additional phyto.

here's few pics of it showing how blue it is from over the tank but unfortunately it looks abit purple when seen through the glass.

 

[maroun.c]

Looks really smaller than my other clam but open a lot more. it still sits on the sand bed as in the LFS where it was under 150 W MH 14 K do yo uthink i should put it on a rock to attach and then rise it more? how about flow on it?

 

[melev]

If it is happy there, you can leave it. I like to put a rock or an empty clam shell under it so it has something to grab onto, and prevents worms from sneaking up from below which may choose to munch on its foot.

 

[maroun.c]

As for the acro I got unfortunately it got a bit damaged in shiping. 3 tips got broke but it was only small parts.
in the store WB not really good as it looked a bit more brownish.
http://i296.photobucket.com/albums/mm185/mcaqua150g/Corals/DSC_3905.jpg[/IMG

upon arrival to my tank with broken tips.

[IMG]http://i296.photobucket.com/albums/mm185/mcaqua150g/DSC_4015.jpg

I was told to put some glue gel on the broken tips to prevent alga from growing on them. I believe I'm seing new tissue form on the broken parts and also it is showing a greenish colour that was not showing at the LFS.

progressive shots over the last month

 

[maroun.c]

Last pic shows very clearly tissue covering up the broken tips. any Id on this acro? also any tips on positioning I have it in a high light area equivalent to where it was at LFS and getting some constant slow flow from my closed loop as well as more powerful flow on and off from a SCWD. is it normal for it to start showing some green especially on the plug area?

 

[melev]

It looks like an A. millepora to me. It isn't very polyped out in that picture, but given time and good water it should be a good coral. It should be interesting to see what color it becomes.

 

[Aquarist007]

Hi Maroun
Still following your thread--and your tank is fantastic as always.

 

[Joeee]

Glad you're getting some good assistance and hope things work out for the best.
Your last additions look good but I can't see the pics of the last acro you posted, weirdly Melev could see it and ID it!
Is that blue clam a maxima too?
Just emailed you my address for the high quality file for the anemone and clown thanks for sharing.

 

[maroun.c]

Hi Maroun
Still following your thread--and your tank is fantastic as always.

Hi capn,
Glad your safely back. hope things are totally back to normal now.

 

[maroun.c]

Joeee.
high res pic emailed.
Sorry must have broken the link by moveing my pics to a new subalbum in photobucket will repost.

 

[maroun.c]

 

[maroun.c]

and last pic showing some tissue growing over the skeleton of the broken tips.

Thanks for the ID mark and hoping the green thats starting to show on the base will take over the brown. all over it does look just a a tiny bit lighter in colour than the LFS and that upon introduction directly so guess it's because of the light colour difference. Will take new pictures when back on wednesday and repost. it is true though that polyps are not as prominant as when it was in the LFs so wondering if it needs a more powerfull flow?
At the moment it gets a bit of flow from one output of my cl directed towards it and stronger alternatign flow from one output of a second CL with SCWD.

 

[melev]

Varied flow sounds good. You may have fish nipping at it, which can cause a coral to retract its polyps. You also could check on it late at night when the lights are out, as many coral extend those polyps when the fish are sleeping (about one hour after lights out).

 

[maroun.c]

will watch things a bit more from a distance and try to see if any fish is nipping at it.
Concerning flow I have been watching some videos and did watch the flow in teh aquariums of that LFS I visited in holland and noticed mine does lack more random flow. also you suggested addign a squirt long ago when I was still discussing my plumbing... so took the chance that my sister was in New York and ordered the followings from Aquacave and modular hoses:
- OM squirt
- Test kits Salifer MG CA ALK
- Kent flow valve
- Aqua Medic Niveaumat ATO
- Filter socks
- collection of nozzles attachments and 3/4 1/2 inch locline.

So between Holland's aquarium shopping list and corals and this order last month was painfully expensive. however I don't always find the things I bought and also the saving in shipping I did on the above was huge.
The locline order alone (not more than 5-6 Lbs) would have cost me around 85 usd in shipping only where as the items price was no more than 50 ended up paying 7-8 usd in shipping for those instead of 85...
so my sister already received all those and is back to Paris and she would be sending those with somebody traveling back or I should pick them up on any conncting flight in Paris ( I do lots of connections in Paris so I guess I should be getting my order in 2-3 weeks from now)
my current flow is as follows

it looks ugly in real life as the pipes are not yet attached to the back of the hood and I attached them with zip ties to the bracing of the tnak which looks really ugly, adn I still did not have hte tiem since 4-5 months to arrange them.
Basically I should be using the OM squirt on the OR 3500 and am wondering if I should have it:
-feed 4 single or double outputs each on one of the corners of the tank
-feed two singel or double outputs on the RT side of the tank and connect the remaining 2 outlets one to the front and one to the back parts of CL1.
Only thing is that currently the pump is feeding the 8 1/2 inch nozzles and flow out of them is rally strong so having the flow go through only 4 nozzles of the CL (with half of the flow going to another output from the squirt) will be 1.5 time the power it is now which will be too much direct flow on the corals hit by this flow I believe.
also having it only output in 1 exit even if Td intwo outputs will be too strong
Any input on this would be great as I hate to experiment with PVS which will take a lot of work( and get expensive) to glue just to check different combination to just check differnt combinations.
One last questions on this if I go with 4 single or double outputs in each corner, and SCWD will give flow to 1 1/2 port each time do I have the front and back output from RT go together and same for lt to have to opposing currents from teh back and front hitting two other ones from back and front from rt or do I have them go out sequentially:
Back lt and front LT -Front LT and Front RT- Front Rt and Back RT-Back RT and BAck LT

Sorry for the long post but this was really hard to explain and hopefully its clear.

would you suggest I remove the SCWD or use it witha modified loop now with only one output from RT and another from LT or should I cancel it to avoid it conflifting with the organized flow from the SCWD.
I also haev a 1000 LPH maxijet blowing water behind the rocks and will be adding a 2nd return pump (2500 or 3500 LPH) to act as back up and have it with one heater and skimmer on UPS. do you htink that would be enough/overkill?
Any other suggestion for improvements on flow would be appreciated.

-

 

[melev]

If you take the SCWD & VisiJet into consideration, at most you'll get 600gph flow before you add all those fittings and plumbing. The VisiJet moves 750gph and the SCWD takes away 20% of the flow. The plumbing distance and outlets will create more friction, taking away more flow. You may be getting 300 to 400gph out of each outlet, tops. That's pretty weak. The larger SCWD can handle more flow, which means a bigger pump would be preferable.

No matter what you are going to use, remember that your 150g needs at the very minimum 10x the volume for flow. With SPS, 20x to 30x is preferable. If your tank is 600L, you'd be looking at 12,000 to 18,000 LPH for good flow in the display. I normally think in gallons, but hopefully have the Liters right...

Flow through the sump and refugium would be more like 1800 to 3000 LPH, as you don't want a billion microbubbles.

Take a Tunze 6100 or VorTech pump. Each one can move about 12,000 LPH (3000gph). One or two of those in/on your tank would provide up to 24,000 LPH of flow. With controllers, it could be randomized and get a lot of plumbing out of the equation, and a lot less fittings to look at and/or work around. If you could swing it, a single VorTech would make a big difference with your tank's flow and you wouldn't have to make any big changes. I realize they aren't cheap, but random or pulsing flow is discernibly a major improvement in most tanks.