Spyd's 180G Mixed Reef

[Spyd]

Hello Everyone!

I thought I would start here on my 180G Mixed Reef Tank. My tank has been running for about 1 1/2yrs now. It is mostly SPS dominated but I do have various chalice, zoos / palys, LPS, etc mixed in there as well.

The tank itself is a standard 72" x 24" x 24" size. Custom made 3 sided Starphyre w/ external overflow and a 1 piece Starphyre Eurobrace which is very sweet! The stand is a custom steel stand with acchocolate maple wood skin surrounding it. The skin is magnetic so I can easily remove it if need be.

I used all dry macro rock in my setup along with some live rock in my sump to seed the rockwork.

I have my tank placed in the basement and all of my equipment is located behind the wall in my furnace room. The sump is custom made 46" x 22" x 18" acrylic. I also have a water change tank plumbed to the system to make life a heck of a lot easier to perform a water change. Simply turn 2 valves to disconnect the tank from the main system and open a valve on a drain line that goes to my floor drain through a vinyl hose. I drain the tank and then fill it with fresh RO/DI water, mix my salt and let it sit for 24hrs to heat up and oxygenate. Then, I simply turn on the 2 valves again and my water change is done.

Equipment list is as follows:
Skimmer - BK Super Marin 200
Reactors - Vertex UF15 for biopellets, BRS Dual Reactor for carbon & GFO.
Return Pump - Water Blaster 10000
3 x BRS Dosing pumps for Cal / ALK / Mag
Lighting - 8 x 80w ATI Sunpower T5 fixture using 5 x Blue Plus, 2 x Coral Plus, 1 x Purple Plus
2 - Rapid LED 24 - 3w Cree Royal Blue LED actinic supplement kits mounted on my ATI fixture
Apex Elite Controller
2 x Tunze 6101 powerheads w/ controller
1 x Tunze 6105 powerhead
2 x UPS. 1 solely is back up for my pump and the other solely for the powerheads in case of a power outage.
Elos Osmocontroller w/ 30G glass tank for RO/DI resevoir.

All reactors, frag tank and water change tank are plumbed into my Water Blaster pump.

Here is a pic of my behind the scenes setup:

My frag tank is a Miracles 40G short. 36" x 18" x 15". Lighting is a 4 x 24w ATI Sunpower with 2 24" XHO Actinic Strips mounted on the sides of the fixture. I run a WP25 for water movement in the frag tank.

Here is a pic of the frag tank setup:

Time for some progress shots:

This was what my tank looked like after 6 months of running:

Some of the pieces came from my old 75G tank that I transfered into the new tank after it was cycled.

This is what the tank looked like about 1 year in:

and here is what my tank looks like today:

Just have to ignore the fish trap. lol. I am trying to remove some Blue Streak Cardinals just because I have got a little bored of them.

So, that's it in a nutshell. I will get to some more in depth coral shots. I have been lucky to become friends with Darryl V over the years and he has helped me out big time with my awesome collection of SPS and LPS corals. Plus, he has given me a lot of great advice to help my tank thrive. So big shout out to him!

 

[Spyd]

My maintenance schedule is very routined. I practice the KISS theory and nothing more.

20% water change every 2 weeks on the dot. Change out carbon and GFO once every month. I blow off my rocks with a Turkey baster prior to a water change and stir up the top layer of my sandbed once a month to ensure no dietritus build up.

I clean my skimmer and return pump completely every 6 months and clean out my sump every 6 months as well to prevent any gunk from building up. Other than that, clean the glass and top up pellets whenever they need to be. That is it, that is all. No dosing of anything other than ALK, CAL and MAG only.

 

[Spyd]

My livestock is as follows:

1 - Sailfin Tang
1 - Foxface
1 - Fowleri Tang
1 - Purple Tang
1 - Hippo Tang
1 - Powder Brown Tang
1 - Flame Angel
1 - Ruby Wrasse
2 - Leopard Wrasse
6 - Blue Streak Cardinals (Which will soon be 0 once I catch them all.)
2 - Randalls Anthias
1 - Blacker Ice Clown
1 - Snowflake Clown
4 - Flame Bubble Tip Anemones that all ways mount in places that I can't remove them easily.
Various snails - Trochus, Mexican Turbos and Nassarius


My coral list is extensive but here are a few noteables:

SPS:
- RR Jaw Dropper (Just a tiny frag but growing and colouring nicely)
- Tyree Red Dragon
- ORA Hawkins
- Ultimate Rainbow Acro
- Tyree Pink Lemonade
- RR Gold Buddah
- ORA Pearl Berry
- Tubbs Pink Jade
- Tyree Ponape Rainbow Acro
- Strawberry Shortcake Acro
- Purple Dragon
- RR Nauti Spiral
- RR Diablo Stag
- Tyree Setosa

I also have a lot of Darryl's Signature SPS:
- Cobalt Blue Tort
- Palmer's Blue Milli
- A. Convexa
- Limeade
- Bottle Brush
- Sunset Milli
- Northern Delight
- Glow Stick
- Kushberry
- Banana Berry Smoothie
and the list goes on!

For LPS:
- Rainbow Lobo
- Rainbow Chalice
- Tyree Miami Hurricane
- DV My Crazy Chalice
- WWC Toxic Pie
- Tyree Space Invader Pectina
- Aussie Gold Torch
and a wack load more of awesome chalices.

 

[Spyd]

So the LED Actinic supplement kits are a new addition to the tank within the last few weeks. The drivers are dimmable and run off my Apex controller. So, here are some shots of the modified fixture and some coral shots with just my LED strips running. Forgive the super purple shots but it is very hard to take pics with solely RB leds running:

Here is the modified fixture with the RBs running.

Here's a FTS with solely RBs running:

Here's a FTS with my Actinic T5's and RB's running:

Here's a FTS with all my T5's and RB's running:

Here are a few stand out corals with solely the RB's running:

Absolutely insane colour on my Rainbow Lobo!!

Darryl sure named this coral correctly: The DV Glowstick:

Tyree Pink Lemonade. The polyps just glow like crazy!

Here is my Tubbs Pink Jade:

Here is my ORA Hawkins growing nicely!

And of course my Tyree Red Dragon:

 

[worm5406]

I like a lot of your frags. I bet the color pops.

 

[jrod738776]

What us your t5 bulb combo?

 

[lluv24]

Very nice setup.

Thanks for sharing;-)

 

[DrAsTiC]

Beautiful tank and some awesome corals.

 

[Mark...]

Great looking tank...love the aqua-scape,very natural...

 

[Huntor0]

Awesome tank thank you for sharing. Your aquascape is so nice it is making me rethink my plans of islands.

 

[Spyd]

Thanks for the compliments everyone! I worked hard on getting my aquascaping just right. Luckily, when I was setting up my tank we had a company in town that sold crates of Marco rock. I was able to hand pick all my pieces including shelf rock. If a piece didn't work out, I was able to just go back and exchange rocks until I was happy with the end result. Only the arch on the far right is actually fastened together using acrylic rod and expoy. Everything else is just friction fit and I can move it at any time.

I did purchase a large piece of Tonga Dry Shelf rock to switch things around a little on the right side fo my tank. The rock piece has a base and a nice large 16" long x 10" wide shelf. It is just curing right now and waiting to see 0.00ppm on my Hanna before I consider moving it into my system. Right now, it is at .09ppm after 2 RO/DI water changes. Down from .19ppm from the first bath.

As for lighting combination, I use 5 x ATI Blue Plus, 2 x ATI Coral Plus and 1 x ATI Purple Plus. I like the bluer look in my tank but that is personal preference.

 

[Spyd]

All right party people... Time for a photo dump! I have been working on my white balance and am starting to get the hang of it. Pics look a tad on the greener side of things, but definitely improving.

Here's my new clam along with my Branching lobo, open brain, superman monti and Tyree Mystic monti.

Ultimate Bonsai is growing like crazy! Love the ultra green polyps!

My RR Gold Buddah up close. It is a fantastic golden colour with burgundy polyps. Nice tabling growth pattern as well.

Love this pic of my Leopard Wrasse swimming past my Purple Dragon and DV Bottlebrush Acro.

Here's a sweet shot of my Flame BTA. I have about 5 of these things now and trying to remove some. It would be a whole lot easier if the rock they are on wasn't the only one that is doweled and epoxied into place....

Group Shot of my Tubbs Pink Jade, DV Cobalt Tort and DV Candlelight

Group Shot of my DV Limeade, Red Dragon, ORA Cali Tort in the back, noname Pink & Yellow acro and another Bonsai frag.

Right Side shot of Tank

Left Side shot of Tank

Full Tank Shot

That's a good start for now... Lots more to come!!! I am getting excited to switch over my frag tank to a LPS dominated tank. Rock is all most done curing. Sand is rinsed and the corals I have for it are SPECTACULAR!!!! I will show them off soon enough.

 

[Mark...]

Do you have an pictures of your scape before the grow out? Or during the rock layout? Great looking tank...

 

[peter15]

Awesome tank. Thanks for sharing.

 

[Mark...]

Sorry I missed the opening picture with the scape.

It's funny, when I see your original rock work before the grow out, it seems everything is un-naturally designed to face forward to the front of the tank. But with the grow out it looks great, very natural and pleasing to the eye. One of my favorite scapes I've seen. It seems the coral and its placement rules in the long run. Bravo!

 

[Spyd]

Thanks for the compliments everyone. The scape has changed a little from the initial photo. The left side and middle has generally stayed the same. I lowered the arch on the left a little as the powerhead was blasting directly at the base of my corals and was causing an issue. I also extended the top ledge in the middle of the tank to go all the way across the left side right to the arch.

The right side has changed the most since the start. The arch in the back has remained the same. I removed all the front pieces though and added a shelf piece and a flat rock on the bottom right of the scape for LPS.

My scape was designed to essentially have 3 different viewing levels to make corals pop and allow higher and lower lighting for the corals. My biggest regret was not going 6" wider with the tank. It would have really allowed me to get those 3 levels a little more defined. The ledges also allows my fish to have lots of hiding places and I think it has prevented a lot of aggression as a result. Every time I added fish, I have had very minor aggression and everyone seems to get along just fine.

The middle shelf piece is massive and definitely allows certain corals to be on full display.

 

[Spyd]

Anyone enjoy quality chalices? Here are some of my nicest pieces of my chalice collection:

My Raging Inferno (self named) chalice:

It needs to be mounted to a tile as the growth rim is mainly underneath now:

Here is my self named Rainbow Raceway:

WWC Toxic Pie

Here are a couple IAS chalices. The Triple Threat and Purple Rage:

Here is the DV My Crazy and the IAS Dynamite.

This is the BS Valentines Day Massacre:

My Bleeding Apple Chalice:

My Tyree Miami Hurricane:

Lots more to come.

 

[1fishkeeper]

Wow looking really good.

 

[Spyd]

So here are some of the other pieces that are going to highlight my LPS / frag tank makeover. I will start with some beautiful colonies I got from my buddy a while back:

This is the original RR Hurricane chalice purchased years ago. I love the blue speckle covering the entire piece:

Massive War Coral Colony:

Massive dual coloured chalice with glowing yellow eyes:

Here's a cheap $10 frag I purchased at a show last year. It was brown when I bought it but saw some potential. I think it is going to be stunning and is growing fast! Red / Green with orange eyes.

Another stunning chalice:

Here's a killer Lepto I got from Darryl. Growing nicely and far more orange than the phot shows:

I love this piece! Cheap little $10 frag that has turned into a beauty! Base is actually going blue in some spots as well:

Here is an absolutely CRAZY Astralomussa!! Starting to grow. Just needs to be fed lots. Red, green, yellow and blue!!

Here's a beauty of an acan:

My Utter Chaos palys that started from 1 large head and 1 small baby head:

That's it for now. I will start posting some SPS progress shots. Stay tuned!

 

[Spyd]

I can't forget what will be the star of the show.... My Tyree Space Invaders Pectina!!!