My 400 litre NPS

[Wave Ace]

Back in march 2012 I had a very nice reef tank the tank was was an upgrade back in December 2011
from more or less the same system / tank but the old tank had loads of scratches and was feed up with it

Upgraded tank

well I had a 90% wipe out and lost all my fish and most corals apart from a few larger LPS I believe this was due to contamination from jays fluid on my hands and I was using it to clean up after my two pups

Mia and Poppy @ 6 months and 6 weeks

So what to do next well I had the privilege of seeing Pieter van Suijlekom's NPS tank in Holland in the flesh and from then have wanted to set up a non photosynthetic tank

So a full strip down went ahead and a NPS tank was born

details
48"x22"x28" high acrylic hole in wall tank with external weir with twin (3) down pipe system gravity feeding a AM 5000 shorty compact skimmer and a DIY trickle tower with K1 media

36"x10"x15 sump containing trickle tower, phosphate reactor and heaters plus some live rock with a new jet 6000 return pump

also under the tank is a 43litre salt water make up tank, UV and aquatronica controller with two power bars

Current lighting is 3 TMC blue led flexi strips and 1 red one

the old live rock was soaked in RO/white vineger for 6 weeks

tank flow apart from the return pump is a MP40

dedicated fridge with DIY magnetic stirrers for feeding and food storage


it has taken me will the beginning of this month before August 2012 be for restocking with corals (CUC has been in for 6 weeks)

Here are a few pick of my tank to date

 

[james30ct]

Looking good, what are you using to feed the tank?

 

[Wave Ace]

Looking good, what are you using to feed the tank?

I'm using about 300ml of phyto twice a day (i make my own)

And a cockteal of frozen foods (6 cubes) finely choped and more phyto added to make it upto 352ml this dosed at 8ml per hour for 22 hours a day

and a mix of FM foods mixed up with RO waterto 352ml and again dosed as above

The reson for only feeding for 22 hours is to give the skimmer a chance to catch up ( I may make the brake in feeding longer)

 

[Wave Ace]

Well got my first two fish now a fireball and lemon peel angle and also two sun corals now thats nearly all my savings gone I need to sort out lighting now I cant to find any decent blue LED strips in the UK so going to make my own

PO4 is currently a bit high at 0.36 but steady and NO3 are at 2-4 so have started to dose No3Po4-X to see if that will bring it down