My 6 month old 90 gallon redoing LOTS OF PICS!!!

kg221

kg221

New member
Hey all,

After six months of having a undersized protein skimmer and sump/refugium; not to mention an aquascape that is just rocks piled on top of each other and is bound to have a rock avalanche will be getting totally redone.

1. I have chosen to upgrade from an ADHI 20 to an ADHI 45 refugium/sump.
adhi ref45 1a.jpg
2. I have upgraded from a marineland 100 gallon protein skimmer to a Reef octopus xp 20000. I hope to see a big improvement in my skimming ability. I also purchased a PH monitor.
xp2000i1.jpg
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3. I will be taking all the rock out of my tank and killing it/taking the time to actually properly aquascape my tank so it can look nicer, be more unique/creative, and also be more sturdy so there are no improper rock domino affect. Also most of my rocks have started growing wild filter feeding spiky polyps, which I do not want in the tank bc they grow like wild fire and are everywhere.
4. I also plan on taking 3-4 fish out of my tank due to being bullies and getting too big for my tank. I will make a list of what I have in the tank and what I will be taking out.
5. Questions asked will be in the color orange.

I ordered the refugium and protein skimmer last night so hopefully I get it early next week so I can get this started.

Once I have received the order I plan on switching out the refugium and skimmer and then getting a large kiddie pool to put my rocks in to dry out.

Then I plan on boiling them after about a week of drying out. (is this a good plan of attack to restart my rocks from scratch again? If there is a better way please let me know.)

While all the rock is out I plan to take out a few fish that I have which I will make a list of the fish I have in the tank and which fish I will be taking out. I also plan to sift the sand well and skim out a lot of waste with the new skimmer. Do you think I will cause a spike in ammonia/Nitrate/Nitrite levels if i stir all this up and potentially killing all my fish?

Fish List:
Sebae Clownfish
vlamingi tang
Blue Hippo Tang
Yellow Tang
Sailfin Tang
Sebae Clownfish
Blue Throat Trigger Male
Pink Tail Trigger
Lyretail Anthias Male and Female
Squareback Anthias Male and Female
Snowflake Eel

The Fish in red are the ones I plan on taking out.

My Pink Tail Trigger is going to be the first to go because it is the biggest bully in the tank. I got it when it was 3-4 inches, now its about 8! its gotten huge so fast because its such a porker when it comes to food. I then will take my first fish I ever got, my seabae clownfish (his anemone died recently and I am not getting a new one so he just swims up and down all day long and I feel bad that he doesnt have a home for protection. The female squareback anthias is just way too big compared to my other anthias so I plan on taking that out too. The nice thing is my LFS said I can put my fish on consignment there, which I plan on doing.

Pictures are to follow this final paragraph. I have a few sps corals that I am going to put on a frag rack for the time being in the tank. Anyone have any better ideas or is this just fine? They are not big so I think it will be fine for now. And my clam and Torch coral and just be in the sand at the bottom of the tank.

Here are pictures of my tank and everything attached:

I need/want feedback to help make this redo a better more structured and planned out one. I am looking for ideas and ways to secure the rocks structures I plan to build more efficiently. Pictures are welcome for references and to show me your aquascapes and how you went about securing everything properly.

Happy Reefing,

Kyle

Pics of Tank
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Millipora Purple and orange
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Millipora Peach color, I think might be pink and it recoloring from the LFS. Because it was beige at the store and after a week its been more of a peach/pink color
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Liverock: Why would you want to kill your rock? Unless it has nuisance algae you can't eradicate, just store it in a bin with a heater, powerhead and saltwater. When one "cooks" liverock, one doesn't boil it. It involves storing the rock in a bin with a skimmer, heater, and powerhead in total darkness, with frequent waterchanges until all detritus settles out and nitrates and phosphates read zero.

Fish list: That is WAY too many large fish for a tank that small. That's a list for a tank of several hundred gallons. Several sources indicate a minimum tank size of 125 gallons just for those anthias. Keep the yellow tang and add a few medium/small sized colorful fish like flasher/fairy wrasses, royal gramma, etc. Unless you want to upgrade to a 240 gallon tank, the list has to change.

The sps corals might not be too happy with all the changes, especially without the live rock to provide filtration.

I'd peruse the minimalist aquascaping thread for some ideas. Less rock elegantly arranged with more swimming space seems to be most pleasing.
 
Well the live rock has these polyp type anemones all over them and I want to kill them because they are everywhere so I feel I need to kill the rock to kill those.

I will work on my fish list, I need some suggestions for fish because I don't know of any small/medium sized fish that can handle the flow in my tank. I am not a wrasse fan due to their history of jumping out of the tank and I do not want to put my glass cover on because it blocks the power of light. Also I have a an eel so I need to get fish that aren't small enough where they can be snacks for him.

I will keep some rocks in the tank that don't have the anemone polyps on them for the sps corals and just build 1 tower for them or something.

I will look into the minimalist aquascaping because I do have a lot of small rocks from my 30 gallon that I need to get rid of out of my 90. Those are the rocks that make everything so cluttered and so unstable. I also need some advice with materials and ideas to make my aqauscaping better with more swimming holes and creative shapes.

My lights are a 324 watt 6x54watt Tek elite t5 fixture. I have the lighting spectrum that I like and my corals seem to like it too. But if I were to cut down on the amount of rocks in my tank and make the height lower, do you think I will have a problem with growing sps corals in my tank? compared to how high I have my rocks, would I be able to go lower?

Kyle
 
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Do you think an MP 40 and an MP 10 is suffice for a 90 sps tank? Should I sell my MP 10 and get another MP 40?
 
I'll respond to other questions later, but remember that small medium fish live in reefs with currents that are far more powerful than your MP40. They'll love that current.
 
I have no clue. I Plan on taking my rocks out today....So can I keep the rocks in a tub with water from the tank and power heads and protein skimmer? I need to kill off some growth on the rocks...whats the best way?
 
ill try to get pics once my lights turn on but they are like zoanthids how they grow in colonies or sometimes its just one growing, they are brown and transparent with spiky tentacles. I have them everywhere and I want them all dead!
 
Plus I need to find a good way to aquascape securely. What would you recommend using to make islands and to join rocks together? I've tried the reef epoxy stuff and it never holds for me it was just a waste of money. I'm sorry I have tons of questions that I want to try and get answered so that I can do this correctly without screwing anything up and I want to find the best way to do it.
 
For the rock, I would suggest cooking it multiple times. I had the same problem and wanted to cook it but didn't have the time. You wont regret not having to fight Aiptasia 24/7. PLus you can buy most of the stuff that comes in LR from websites. After buying live rock so long, the cool little things you see eventually are not worth all the pests.

Two days ago, I did the same thing you are doing (Removing fish, cleaning the SB, aquascape) and my biggest suggestion is have tons of premade saltwater on hand. More than 90g. That is if you intend on using all new saltwater. My rock displaced about 8g of saltwater and I didn't predict that so I had to make multiple trips to the LFS.

I would also suggestion going out and buying a large temporary tank at a LFS or Craigslist to hold all fish and coral. What you are going to be doing is going to shoot your Nitrates and Ammonia up. Some coral and fish cannot tolerate this so using a temp tank with a HOB filter would help out a lot.

As far as epoxying rock together, I went to HD and Lowes. Bought some watersafe epoxy and used that. Don't need to use a $15 tube when you can buy the same size for $5. You can set up the rock you want, epoxy it, then prop things up under it so it doesn't move. The epoxy cures very fast so you will have a strong hold but you do need a lot of it. You can also use zipties until it fully cures. Other people drill holes in their rock and use acrylic rodes or PVC. Do a search and you will get many answers.

For flow, an MP40 and MP10 will be perfect.
 
kg221 said:
ok thanks potsy. do you think I should sell my mp 10 and get another mp 40?
Click to expand...

Unless your sps grow into large, densely branched, flow impeding colonies, I wouldn't bother with another mp40 for now. Those things are pricey; just wait and see how the flow works out for you.

The tek elite puts out a nice amount of par and after reading an article by Dana Riddle on the par / photosynthesis saturation points of several stony corals I've learned that many acropora don't need to be blasted with light. Many species saturate with par values in the 300s. Try to keep the rockwork's highest peaks at 12" or less from the water surface and see how the sps react over time - check that they're keeping their color, showing growth, etc. If they're not doing so well then perhaps make adjustments to the rockwork for some taller peaks/shelves or take that $400+ that you would have spent on another mp40 and upgrade the lighting to a more powerful ATI T5 fixture or MH/T5 combo.

FWIW, I run an Aquactinics TX5 5x39w fixture over my 50 gallon 36x18x18" and my new acro frags are maintaining their color and quickly encrusting their plugs. They're about 9 - 12" from the lights.
 
Awesome! thanks for all the great info guys! I found out that I have Aiptasia all over my rocks. I have probably close to a hundred or more. My LFS told me theres a chemical I can use but I would have to target them with it and I laughed and said no way I can get all of them. I took all the rocks out of my tank and they are in a 45 gallon bin with my heater and some power heads pushing water. If anyone as any ways of getting rid of this nuisance that I have, please share! Thanks a lot.

Kyle
 
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