Shallow water Acropora garden

[Idrassil]

Hey guys,
I am registered on Reefcentral since a few years but I just read (a lot ) without writing anything (Maybe because my English is not that good ). I have to restart my shallow reef tank due to a power failure,
this thread is basically to document the restart of the tank. The main tank dimensions are 100x75x45cm
=340l (90gal). The aim was to keep shallow water Acros like A. humulis, gemmifera, spathulata,
millepora, abrotanoides etc.. that's why I wanted to have a shallow reef tank. The plan is to start the tank with branched reef rocks (dead and hopefully live rock branch).

Equipment:
Skimmer: Nyos Quantum 160
Light: ATI Hybrid 2x75w LED + 8x39w T5
Flow: 3x Vortech MP40QD
Dosing Pump: GHL Doser two
Calcium supply: Triton with 35l Macroalgae refugium "“> DaStaCo A1 extreme after restart.
Fish:

3x Pseudanthias randalli
2x Chromis viridis
1x Zebrasoma flavescens
2x Amphirion ocellaris,
1x Siganus magnificus
1x Halichoeres melanurus
1x Corythoichthys intestinalis

Because it's may a bit boring to have a threat without pictures, I want to share a few pictures of my tank before the power failure crash in which I lost a few of my big Acropora colonies. After that, I sold most of the remaining Acros, I´ll move the other Acros and the fishes into a small tank soon until the shallow reef is successfully restarted.

Many greetings from Germany,
Thomas

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[FloformAustria]

Wow Thomas you really had an amazing tank!!!
So sad that you lost so much due to a power failure
Hope you have prepared a way the be safe at the next failure

Will follow your progress!!

Cheers

 

[minus9]

Nice setup! I love shallow tanks, I'm currently setting up a shallow 90g now, so I'll join the club soon. Keep up the good work!

 

[Alfrareef]

Shallow water Acropora garden

Great tank and I'm sorry you had that power problem...
Better luck for this restart... that I'll try to follow.

 

[reefmutt]

Hey Thomas, your last tank looked great!
Hope the new set up loooks just as good.

 

[WatDatThing]

Wahhhh NICE......

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[Piper27]

I am assuming you mean shallow water acropora garden in that you have a lot of beautiful reefcrest acros that grow in shallow water and not that you have a shallow tank
The thick nubby reefcrest acros are my favorite kind and they can be very tough to keep, tough to aclimate to tanks and even to choose when buying. What regions do most of yours come from?

 

[Idrassil]

Hi all,
@Flo:
Thank you! I also followed your old thread on nanoriffe Yep, I already had a battery pack for the vortechs. Unfortunately, the skimmer pump was broken and caused the failure. After I switched on everything, the water became cloudy within hours (because I had no skimmer ). I replaced the pump on the next day but it was too late for some of the corals.

@minus9
Thanks, nice! I think we´ll have quite similar tank dimensions. Looking forward to see your tank

@Alfrareef
Thank you! Fortunately, I could save some nice corals and all fish.

@reefmutt
I hope so, but it will take again a few years (?) until the colonies are as big as shown on the pictures At least I have enough space to buy new corals

@WatDatThing
thanks!

@Piper27
I didn´t get you but I think you´re right As I said in the previous post, my English is not as good as it should be For me, these kind of Acros are my favorite ones, too. I really like the reef crest because it´s the part of the reef you see when you go snorkeling- for me it was always the most exciting part.

Yes, some of them are very hard to acclimate, I always had problems with multicolored Acros and A. gemmifera from Fiji. When they arrive in Europe, they are in most cases not in as good conditions as for example aussie shipments. Also the really think branched Acros like A. humilis and A. abrotanoides need very strong light and flow to form the think branches. I noticed that the branches became thinner when the flow is high enough.

I would say they 50% of my corals are Indonesian marinecultured Acros (A. humilis, millepora, hyacinthus), around 30% Australian Acros (spathulata, anthocercis), 10% from Fiji (for example purple gemmifera) and 10% aquacultured from other hobbyists (shortcake etc..).

Here is a short video from February, hope you´ll enjoy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=baZLlwDaLRw

Cheers
Thomas

 

[Piper27]

Holy coral tank... This is now my favorite tank! You have the most and nicest digitate acropora I have seen in one tank in a while! Very well done, even though you lost stuff it's still very impressive. I would love to hear about how you keep these corals, what's your sump like? Lights, water parameters, ect?
Do you have any abrotranoides in the tank now? I have always had trouble with the multicolored corals that come in as well. Especially the prostrata that come in even look great but just are very finiky and hard to keep colored even if they live the transition to a tank. The corals coming into the states have to go to California first and take another day in the air to get here, so it's really tough on these kinds of corals. They are normally the first to die from anything and that's always tough on me when I get a nice box.

 

[Idrassil]

Hi Piper,
thank you so much and sorry for the late answer..I was really busy during the last weeks and had also a lot of work to set up the reef tank. I used the triton method (Core 7) for calcium supply, ATI hybrid 8x39w +7x75w LED with 4x Coral+ and 4x Blue+ bulbs. For nutrition export I use an algae refugium which has around 10% of the size of the tank.
Yes, I have an abrotanoides in the tank. For me, it was always the hardest coral to keep and grow. That's why it is still a relatively small frag Maybe I have more luck when I´ll start my DaStaCo calcium reactor. Didn´t know that it is that hard to get fresh imported corals in good condition.
I´ve sold now around 70% of the corals, moved the remaining Corals and fish into another tank and restarted the tank. The idea was to start with less rock, the aqua scape consists of just a few branched rock with a few kg of live rock in the sump. The tank is running for two weeks now and I moved 90% of the corals and clams into the tank. The fishes are still in the other tank. I attached some photos which are showing the progress during the last two weeks.

Cheers
Thomas

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