Mike's 200g

[MichaelW]

Hi everyone,
I have been hanging around, reading the forum, for a while now and just getting up the courage to share my tank (doesn't come close to some of the incredible tanks on here).
A little bit of background,
I started reef keeping in 2013 after my father in law was upgrading his 90gallon to a 120. I inherited the 90 and the addiction began.
The tank ran pretty well, then in August 2014 we moved house and that meant UPGRADE!

Current tank: Started April 2015

The tank is a custom built 72 x 27 x 24inch 3-side starphire from oceans by design. The tank has a center overflow with a coast to coast "trough" across the back. 2 x 1.5 inch drain (herbie) and 2 x 1inch returns.

Sump is a custom sump designed by myself and oceans by design and is kept relatively simple.

For lighting I am using 5 Radion G3 with wide angle lenses.

Flow is provided by 2 mp40's and 4 Jebao rw8's

Skimming is provided by reef octopus elite 200.

A.T.O.: tunze osmilator

Dosing: Fauna Marin Balling lite.

Controlled by Apex

The majority of livestock was transfered from the 90 gallon. I did however start with new dry rock (due to annoying aiptasia) and new sand.

The tank is mainly SPS with a couple bits of flubber and zoa's for the wife.

Fish include ;
4 x resplendent anthias
1 x male lyretail anthias (changed upon addition off resplendents)
1x blue green chromis
1 x royal gramma
1x leopard eraser
1 x melanurus eraser
1 x red velvet fairy eraser
1 x one spot fox face
1 x tomini tang
1 x blue hippo tang
1 x blonde naso tang

Looking to add more fish soon (and acros of course)

As soon as I can work out how to post pictures I will

 

[MichaelW]

Ok, lets see how this goes..

First fish in after cycle


More recent showing sump and Radions


Showing cabinetry matching the room

 

[Cosmojo]

Very clean build

 

[MichaelW]

now for a few SPS (only have poor quality cell phone pics sorry)

Valida


Aussie Echinata (really hard to get blue tips to show) and unknown green stag


Efflo under moonlights



What I believe to be Acropora loripes but not sure

 

[MichaelW]

And lastly a couple of fish pics

Blonde Naso


Red Velvet Fairy Wrasse (unfortunately came out blurry)

 

[Pife]

Nice, clean build. How long has your tank been cycled?

 

[MichaelW]

Very clean build

Thanks

 

[MichaelW]

Nice, clean build. How long has your tank been cycled?

Thanks. Tank has been cycled since April. Most things came out of the old 90 recently because it had to be taken down.

 

[Pife]

Can we get some photos of the sump?

 

[MichaelW]

Can we get some photos of the sump?

I will try take some better sump pics soon. Its pretty simple:
Drains through bulkhead into filter sock, water moves into a section that could be used for media reactors ( right now houses my apex probes and a few pieces of live rock from the 90 gallon), skimmer section, then flows into a small chamber with racks that could be used to run a polyfilter or some kind of floss if needed, then return section. Sump is very well made with lids for each section and John guest fittings drilled in the top of return section for ato and dosing lines

 

[markalot]

Hi Mike,

tank looks terrific! You going to be getting a better camera?

Can we know more about your params, maintenance, dosing, PO4 and Nitrate control, stuff like that? Thanks!

 

[reefmutt]

Beauty!
Love how the cabinet and the wainscoting match. Nice!
And your corals are looking great.
Another very nice looking Radion lit tank.
+1 on what Mark asked...... Except the camera part... I'll let that slide for now. I have a feeling you'll be taking better photos down the road..

 

[MichaelW]

Hi Mike,

tank looks terrific! You going to be getting a better camera?

Can we know more about your params, maintenance, dosing, PO4 and Nitrate control, stuff like that? Thanks!

Thanks for the comment,
Parameters are;
Alk 7.5 (hanna)
Cal 400 (elos)
Mag1300-1350 (elos)

Since the initial cycle nitrate came down to 0 on both salifert and red sea pro test kits and I have been trying to feed more to the fish to change this but no luck so far... Don't know why.
Po4... 0.00 (hanna low range) same problem as nitrate..can't get it to budge!

I havnt been feeding any coral food or aminos untill recently I am going to start trying small weekly doses of acro power. I hadn't wanted to add much food etc before as tank was new.

Tank has a reef dynamics recirc bio pellet reactor but so far it is not running as it's not needed. The plan was to use all in one biopellets like Krzysztof who has some of the most amazing corals I have seen on here.

Filtration right now is just filter sock cleaned every otherday, skimmer, and a small bag of carbon run passive in sump.

Maintenance I do weekly about 10% water change with red sea blue bucket, I suck up detritus from the sump and blow off rocks with every water change. I am thinking about changing to every 2 weeks
No algae really in display but there is some in the overflows and the glass gets a light haze within 2 or 3 days so I don't know if this is where the nitrate and phosphate readings of 0 come from?

I hear you on the pictures... Gotta find a way to stop them looking so blue!

Anyway if anyone has any thought or recommendations about the system let me know... Always trying to learn from you guys

 

[MichaelW]

Beauty!
Love how the cabinet and the wainscoting match. Nice!
And your corals are looking great.
Another very nice looking Radion lit tank.
+1 on what Mark asked...... Except the camera part... I'll let that slide for now. I have a feeling you'll be taking better photos down the road..

Thanks for the comment about the cabinet and wainscoting... That was a very important part in the build for me, the goal was to make it look almost built in.
Yeah I'm trying to learn on the picture taking part... Its hard.

 

[reefmutt]

And I have found shooting under LEDs particularly challenging...
Check out Tank Master's thread. He's running Radion pros. Maybe he'd have some pointers. His photography is top notch.

 

[MichaelW]

Yeah I have read his thread... Talk about a great collection and colors. I will ask him for some photography pointers.

 

[MichaelW]

Well the Nikon is charging so hopefully I can work out how to use the thing to get some better pics for now I will just share another horrible cell phone picture

Acropora Selago. really happy with how this one is starting to grow out and has great PE hard to tell in picture but polyps have a slightly white silver shimmer to them

 

[markalot]

Wowsa, I 'd hate to see a good picture of that! Beautiful.

I put my Nikon in shutter priority, 400 ISO, White Balance Cloudy and move the little dot the right to customize it a bit. I usually have to adjust the exposure on the camera to -2 or so otherwise a log of corals will be over exposed. Hopefully that's a good start anyway.

 

[biggles]

That's a beautiful tank Mike, the way you have it in the house is beautiful. Mine is on raw unpainted 2 x 4's so from where i sit you're a bit of a flash harry showoff.........:hammer:

That blonde naso tang - can i have one of those, yours looks stunning - how long do they get mate, less than the humpback whale i recently added i hope :facepalm:

I'd be really happy with the colors on that Selago too if i were you Mike, that thing is beautiful. And you have grown all these acros under the Radions alone ?

 

[sahin]

Tank looks great. I really like the built in look. :beer: Following the thread with interest.