100 lbs of fiji premium LR
3 bags of live sand
5 bags of aragonite sand
2 overflows on each end with two siphons in each
1 eheim wet/dry filter for 100 gallons minimum
2 300 watt heaters
2 magnum 12 pumps
1 37 gallon aquarium sump
bioballs loaded
1 sea clone skimmer rated for 100 gallons in sump
1 660 power jet
2 MH actinic setup 165 /150 MH's and 65 95 watt actinics
occupants
4 feather dusters
15 turboes maybe 20
10 bumble bee snails
20 neiserria snails
20 hermet crabs
2 blue damsels
2 dominoe damsels
1 dottyback
1 yellow tang
2 green clown gobies
1 purple chromis
corals:
nothing fancy yet,
2 sps acro
1 frogspawn
2 zoanthid rocks
1 goniopora
2 yellow polyp corals
1 leather
2 star polyp rocks/frags
3 campanella's
1 favite
3 ricordias
1 mushroom rock
4-5 hitchiker crabs
lots more critters in LR
some corals/sps on fiji rock, growing nicely trying to take pictures to visualize progress
The big difference in the tank occurrend when I added the two overflows and sump, and bioballs. The clarity even surpassed the magnum 350 micron filter. My pumps mag 12's are being underutilized because of the amateur plumbing I did. I'm using python hosing for outflow 1 pump fights 6 feet minimum of hosing. The other only about 3 feet. Still the water motion is pretty brisk.
Future Upgrades:
1) better skimmer
2) better pvc plumbing
3) better sump in unfinished part of basement(rubbermaid horse feed container)
4) CA reactor
5) Auto top off
6) Refugium
7) upgrade lighting with custom lighting installed
I love the way the tank is looking now, my wife is nuts about how much time I spend with it staring at it. Its truley gorgeous, its been up for only couple months now. My readings have never spiked. Even with the current bioload. I tried experimenting with a sump DSB, but I soon learned these tanks are living breathing entities they need a fairly good amount of ventilation. I keep a basement window open now.
I use buffers and Ca, purple up, and trace element repletion on a regular basis. I top off with nutriwater from the store. Premade saltwater. Now I switched to RO/premade saltwater the store sells instead of the brandname stuff. Initially I regretted putting damsels in, but now I look at the blues which have really come out, and they are truely gorgeous fish.
I had a watchman goby that always wanted to enter the overflow boxes. So now he lives in a spare tank I use for Q. My green gobies like the SPS too much. I'm thinking of getting rid of them. But the SPS is not too expensive and willing to see if they can manage with them.
Chris
