SunkAA's SPS/Mixed Reef Build (90G)

[SunkAA]

Hello everyone, I joined RC back in Jan. 2011 and didn't get around to putting up my build of my first reef tank. I did most of this work during May of 2011 not a whole heck of lot of DIY skills experience prior to this with tank plumbing, etc. I would say that I am so-so on the DIY tip, got the vision, but execution of my plans lands me about 70% of what I really wanted!

Before my attempt at reef keeping I had a couple of FOWLR tanks that were pretty successful and big time fun. I felt that my game had grown enough to take on the added challenge of putting together a reef tank with a greater emphasis on invert life than fish life. I also already had a few items that could work great on the new build off my old 72 gallon FOWLR, not to mention a ton of live rock to boot.

Well without further ado, I'll launch into the build. I got a load of pics, shot by the power of the iPhone 4 camera :bigeyes:

I wanted to setup an all SPS tank, with a pretty much standard sized tank design. My fiancé would not allow a six footer at this time (but she is open for it in the future - mwahaha). I wanted a good quality tank, so I opted to go with Deep Sea Aquatics (DSA) tank, stand and canopy all in black. Unfortunately I didn't take any pics of the tank upon its arrival for some reason, but you can see it on DSA's site, and finished shots of the build will show it all. I went with a 90 gallon, standard glass (3/4" thick), standard corner overflow, with two drilled holes (standard overflow fitting), DSA made the back of the tank black from the factory. Here's a shot of me water testing the tank "“ note typical "œfoggy iPhone smeary photo action" here ☺

The canopy is their newer design, which opens from the front, with half of the top of the canopy fit for egg crate to allow your lighting fixture to have adequate air circulation.

The stand is their standard black stand, but they had a stand in the warehouse that had a matching lip option all ready to roll for no extra charge, so I went with that too. Unfortunately, a couple of mistakes occurred here, the first was I should have got their 140 standard 5ft tank. It's wider in the dimension department and the same length. This would have been ideal...oh well. The second was DSA stands typically have side doors for easy access to sump, plumbing, etc. For unknown reasons it wasn't communicated to me by DSA that the stand they were sending me had no side doors. This kind of sucked....oh, and the stand was not drilled for plumbing....this would require some of my ghetto DIY skill sawing action! The third was maybe getting a third hole drilled on the stand/or a C2C overflow to plumb da' Bean Animal, oh well, next time!

Anyways, the peeps over at DSA were for the most part helpful and worked with me and my LFS on ordering everything up + my LFS/DSA hooked me up with a pretty decent deal. Can't complain...


Equipment:

So I went with a pretty decent assortment of equipment for this build. My goal was to be able to transfer most of the equipment on this tank to future tanks, eliminating wasteful spending.
Sump "“ I really was so freaked out about making my own sump that I actually bought a pre-built one from Trigger Systems. Looking back, this was kind of a dumb move. Making your own sump isn't all that bad and it would have been a blast as well. Not much really to see here, a regular old cube, that's red "“ see more in the plumbing section. One thing I knew is that I wouldn't really have enough room for a refugium of much size, so I focused on other pieces that could aid in reducing nitrates and phosphates as well as my own habitual, weekly water change routines.

Skimmer "“ With a goal of transferring to later builds I went with a oversized skimmer. Actually, more like overkill. The ATB Elegance 200 Pro.

Return "“ I wasn't going to do a recirc or anything elaborate like that. I was looking for a pump that was quite, efficient and didn't transfer excess heat into the tank. I went with the Eheim 1260.

The pump would run up and over the tank to one of these bad boys, a Sea Swirll"¦

Water Movement "“ This would be handled by three Vortech's, 2- MP40w's on the left and right, and 1 "“ MP10w on the back tank wall.

Lighting "“ 48" 6 Lamp Tek Light Elite (newer "œwe fixed the dying fan issue" version + came with replacement fans too!). Really wanted the ATI powermodule, but fiancé wouldn't be thrilled with me suspending the lamps from the ceiling in the alcove the tank was fitting into downstairs.

Heater "“ Eheim, blah, blah, blah"¦you know this one. Ol' reliable, have a back up as well just in case.

Chemical Filtration "“ Decided early that I was going to be dosing"¦so GHL stand alone doser fit the bill. I hadn't yet decided on what reactor-based filtration I wanted to run "“ phosphate/carbon or run with biopellets..so at this point I kind of left that decision for later.

Electronics "“ Controlling everything would be an Apex Neptune with WXM module to interface with the Vortechs, plenty of pics of my extremely ghetto rats nest wiring job to come!

 

[SunkAA]

During late April and May 2011 I began piecing everything together. Due to work schedule I couldn't get to any of this until after my busy season was completed, so I was just accumulating gear. The part I was dreading was the plumbing as I never had even touched this before. I found out it wasn't as bad as I had initially thought. The funny part of my plumbing is I plumbed it all with SCH 80, which is pretty much a waste IF you paid full price. For whatever reason my local Lowes sold me their stock of SCH 80 PVC for DIRT cheap - they didn't even have the SKUs for it anymore in their system, they just had it laying around.

I was going Herbie and since I only had two predrilled holes for flow to the sump, it meant I had to plumb my return behind and over the top of the tank. For the inflow I needed a gate valve, so Spears gate valve was the ticket:

Gotta love this stuff!!

Clean seals on the PVC glue is key to a clean look...but not so clean hands!

Gotta love the unions!

The "dial-in" section almost complete!

Fitting the other side of the union to connecting side (bulkhead side).

Done with inflow side, note the 3/4" PVC for the "emergency/non-syphon" plumbing on the Herbie.

 

[SunkAA]

Now the return plumbing of the tank, which is where things get a bit ghetto fab.

With my initial selection of the Eheim return connected to the sea swirl, I had two issues (I am skipping ahead here):

1. The eheim for whatever reason was insanely loud (I think it was a bad unit), so I returned it.

2. The plumbing's weight caused the Sea Swirl to tip up and out of the water (wouldn't stay level with waterline) due to my ghetto plumbing, so this I also returned.

What I did instead was this:

Picked up an ATB Flowstar for the return, whisper quite and highly versatile for later manifold plumbing (if I ever do this) - I seriously cannot hear this thing at all!

Fitted the return with Loc-Line output. The following is how I completed th return - note - ghetto plumbing:

Get some of this - reinforced vinyl flex tubing

The tubing connects to the return pump and runs into the hard plumbed SCH 80. Note Spears ball valve for flow control.

Plumbing running up and behind tank.

Completed return line - note - extra ghetto (but surprisingly effective) zip tie precautionary reinforcement. Don't worry this thing doesn't move in inch even without my "cherry on top" move. Also note that the tank is filled with water at this point. The only thing running was return as I was leak testing the tank during this time.

 

[SunkAA]

Ok moving to lighting for a quick second. Here's the tank during water stress test and lighting fixture on:

With this I was running a good combo of ATI and KZ lamps:

I think what I have here from front to back is ATI Blue +, a KZ Super Blue, an ATI Purple Plus, a KZ New Gen, followed by two more ATI Blue +'s. This lineup has been changed to sometime now, but just showing it for the heck of it. iPhone makes all lighting look terrible so bear with me!

 

[SunkAA]

With everything proving to fine, no leaks in plumbing or tank seals I started mixing salt water and moving on ahead with putting in sand and live rock. I had some live rock left from my FOWLR, so I could use that.

For sand I picked up some of this:

I began laying the sand in the tank. I was not going with a DSB, just between 1.25-2", so it looked natural and the Vortechs wouldn't blow it all over the place.

Top down view of all sand in topped with garbage bags to prevent stirring up the bed.

With the salt mixed and sand in place the tank was filled and I placed my old live rock into the tank. This was my initial 'scape. LAME!

I wasn't happy with this one and I needed to create some better positioning for SPS lighting needs, so I needed some new rock! One of my LFS always has super nice Pukani live rock for sale, so I got a few pieces to add to the tank. Here's how the 'scape was adjusted to a two island look.

Rock doesn't touch the tank walls!

 

[SunkAA]

Ok, coming up next will be the electrical and initial livestock additions. Thanks for looking everyone! Keep in mind this was all done over a year ago, so things have changed MUCH since inception here.

 

[SunkAA]

Ok on to the electrical work, I went with the full blown Apex controller and the WXM module for auto switch of Vortech flow patterns throughout the day. This was the initial placement of the Apex and its connecting ports inside the stand:

I needed to also deal with top off, so I grabbed a Tunze ATO:

Since then I switched the placement of everything within the tank to cleanup the amount of wiring running through the sump area. This is how everything is currently connected within my system:

The wiring to the Apex modules was screwed into a piece of black starboard, which was screwed to the back of the tank's stand:

The above shot is the rat's nest of wiring that is behind the tank - nasty! Need some help here to clean this hot mess up!!! Not in the shot, but above the apex main brain is a WiFi router for wireless access to the Apex.
Next to my tank is an old home theater stand, which has now been converted to the tank accessory stand (amongst other things). Included within the stand is the Vortech battery backup:

We lost power for two days during this winter, just when I added coral (yes, I waited over 8 months before I added coral to my tank). In Seattle it is super rare for snow storms to come in and do this much damage, but many were without power for over a week's time due to serious tree and limb fall caused by the snow and ice storms. Thankfully I didn't lose anything, but as a precaution I got the vortech backup in case of any potential future issues.

 

[SunkAA]

The sump has a built-in probe holder where the Apex pH and temp probes are housed:

Note nice yucky detritus slime on probe holder - yummy!

The Tunze ATO pump is within a food safe resevour kept on the opposite end of the tank:

The sensor is kept within the return pump section of the sump, while the ATO return is fed into the overflow above:

Note the eggcrate blocking the back portion of the stand's canopy.

 

[SunkAA]

For cooling I only need a fan in the sump area, so Sunlight Supply's clip fan worked great for my space and needs, since temperatures rarely exceed the need for a chiller. The Apex auto controls the on and off of the fan depending on temp. I try to keep the tank steady between 77.5-79 degrees.

Right around the 4 month mark, and through research and a couple Q & A's on forums and such, I came to the realization that my current skimmer, the ATB Elegance 200 Pro, was a bit too much for my system. I sold off the Elegance and bought an ATB 840v2, which once I dialed in, and eliminated some micro bubble issues (caused mostly by flow in my sump), has worked like a beast! Here's some shots:

Notice the skimmer stand made from egg crate. Once I got a bit more pressure on the skimmer pump by lowering the depth, I was able to eliminate some of the micros coming out of the skimmer. Also skimmate production became more efficient (my sump gives the skimmer 8.5" to work with, it currently is at about 6.5").

For additional chemical filtration I thought I'd start the tank off initially with biopellets. So I bought an Avast media reactor and connected one of my MJ1200s to it, and added EcoBak to it:

After using the biopellets for around 4.5 months I took them offline. I never used the recommended amount to start, instead I used about a 1/4 up to a 1/2 of what was recommend. I didn't really have a huge bioload, I believe, to take advantage of what the BPs could do for me. I may try again in the future, but my tank is doing very well, so why change what is working?

I went to PO4 removal media from BRS. Later I found the design, rather the utility of changing media out of the Avast reactor to be painful in its operation, so I switched it out for a Marine Depot AquaMaxx reactor instead:

Note the ominous vision of "Julian's Thing" behind and underneath the reactor (mwahahah).
I loved the build quality of the Avast, but it was too cumbersome in changing and cleaning. I think the AM is great as it has almost the build quality of the Avast along with the hang on ability of a Phosban reactor, and an easier to remove canister to dump old media and clean out. Anyways, it has worked great for me!

 

[SunkAA]

Now to go back to lighting. After the addition of corals (which I haven't posted yet) I wanted to tweak my lighting a bit, so after some research I came up with this as an addition to the the Tek Elite.

I tried some of these:

(Sorry no tank shots for whatever reason). The stunners didn't do anything for growth, but can make for some insane displays in the tank. I still have a blue and a blue/magenta (not online) laying around here. If only I had more room to use them, especially the blue/magenta combo strip - if anyone has seen them when on, the color is just sick!

Anyways, what I ended up with and am using is this:

ReefBrite 48" XHO Blue 3w LED strip

The thing I love about this LED array was the care that ReefBrite packed into its design. Seems like they knew how it could be put to a multitude of uses and users' needs. The included brackets allow it to be mounted easily to my Tek fixture right out of the box! How cool is that?

Additionally, I switched out all of the T5 lamps to the following setup:
Front to back: ATI Blue+, ATI Purple Plus, ATI Blue+, ATI Coral Plus, ATI Blue+, and ATI Blue+. Gives the tank a nice 20ish K look, which allows all of the coral and fish colors to pop and an awesome amount of light energy for the SPS and other corals in the tank.

 

[SunkAA]

Now for the last piece of equipment in my tank I needed something to control my coral growth foundational elements. I thought about going Ca Rx route, but I really loved the tweak-ability of dosing pumps. I opted to go the 2/3 Part dosing route (salt mixes from the good people at BRS) and picked up a GHL 3 Pump Stand Alone doser, pictured here:

For the dosing stand I bought a cheap Target black plastic storage cube, which I drilled out holes (later hacked out further by me, shown in the pic - straight up Chainsaw Massacre on that cut) for the dosing tube intake in the front, and cut out a section off the top of the cube for the dosing line output to the return section of the sump:

Color coded tubing was picked up at Marine Depot, and my magnetic dosing line holders was picked up from Avast Marine, who seem to have a product answer for everything a reef tank owner needs:

I love this component of my tank. I have been able to easily test, track and dial in my Ca, Alk and MG needs seemingly on the fly. Just follow the instructions, test religiously, and alter the parameters (if necessary) and its good to go. Plus its neat having all of these electrical components next to 100 gallons or so of saltwater!

 

[SunkAA]

Way back in June of last year I began adding fish to my tank. My initial fish inhabitants were the following:

6 - Bartlett Anthias
1 - Fathead Sunburst Anthias (from old FOWLR)
1 - Potter's Angel
2 - Clowns (one, left from old FOWLR ORA Picasso, one new SA 'Fancy' Clown)
1 - Red Tail Flasher Wrasse (added later ADCF*)

Here are some horrendous iPhone shots:

*Means After Death of Clownfish

With this initial line up, I lost one of the Bartlett's due to suiciding out of the tank, and my fave Picasso clown also jumped to her doom (!!). I added the red tail flasher after the picasso wanted to be jerky more than be my pet. The tank mates got along for the most part, the Bartletts will be Bartletts and chased each other here and there, but they sorted out their pecking order. This tank lineup did not last though, and has been completely changed over once coral was introduced to the tank. I knew I would be taking a gamble on the Potter's, he was easily my favorite fish in the tank, was healthy and gorgeous as well. I very nice specimen, had an almost 50/50 pattern to blue mix. Upon addition of my first corals (late Oct. 2011/Early Nov. 2011) I noticed him nipping at them (Acans), so he had to go :thumbdown

Later the Red Tail decided to also like the idea of being jerky and he suicided out of the tank as well - COVER YOUR ENTIRE TANK PEOPLE!!!

After all of this the Bartlett's were just not working out in this space and I moved them out as well. The last clown was also removed because I did not plan on housing any anemones, but other LPS that it could potentially make unhappy and damage. Please note that these fish were all moved along to new, better homes and are all doing fine as I type this, save for my jerkies

 

[dvanacker]

Wow man your doing this right for your first reef!....good job.

 

[SunkAA]

Since I had pretty much gutted (figuratively, not literally) my livestock of fish, I needed to make some new additions. After more research on fish, this is what I knew I wanted: reef safe for all corals and inverts (obviously), peaceful temperament, gorgeous coloration, adult growth would not exceed living space (kind of hard and fast rule anyways).

What I came up with was the following:

3 - Hawaiian Flame Wrasse (Male w/ 2 female trio - snagged off of the Diver's Den
1 - Lineatus Wrasse (Supermale - snagged from PIA)
1 - Blackcap Basslet (love these guys, only dude with a textbook "semi-aggressive personality" - snagged off of Diver's Den)
1 - Flasher wrasse of size that would not cause dis-harmony with the four fairy wrasse in the tank

The above would all join the lone Fathead anthias (also from Diver's Den bought a couple of years ago) in the tank. What eventually occurred was 2 out of three Flames shipped horribly from LADD (of course the supermale was one of them) and perished a day after arrival, the Lineatus essentially did the same - supermale fairy wrasse can be tough shippers. All were refunded and credited for the loss. Unbelievably disappointed about this, I was fortunate to have the one initial phase male/female flame live from shipping and is doing great in my tank.

Based on (and fortunate for me) available stock, I was able to scoop up an initial phase male Rhomboid wrasse from LADD, along with a very nice Linespot Flasher (also from LADD). All shipped perfect, acclimated easily and have been in the tank now for about a month and half now. The current fish stocking list (and not changing at all) is the following:

1 - Fathead anthias
1 - Changing phase Hawaiian Flame Wrasse
1 - Initial Phase Male Golden Rhomboid Fairy Wrasse (larger than the flame by and 1.5")
1 - Blackcap Basslet
1 - Linespot Flasher wrasse

Not only does this quintet look gorgeous in the tank, its peaceful to watch all of them and they're very healthy fish. The more dominant male coloration is coming in more and more each day on the rhomboid, which is just a gorgeous fish - this is a treat, happy I was able to get him. The best part is the overall color balance in the tank, there's yellows, blues, purples, pinks, oranges, and reds. Good color mix and nothing looks the same. Nice!

 

[SunkAA]

Ok, now that I've kind of given a bit of a primer on what exactly came before, here's how it looks now. Like I mentioned previously, I waited (patiently) before adding any coral to the tank. I believe the first pieces I placed in the tank in November 2011 (all LPS - acan lords), after the tank had been running since late April 2011 (so 7ish months maybe?). A couple of things that bothered me the most about the setup had to be changed before I went forward.

First of all was the aquascape. I was never a fan of the way the two large islands looked in the tank. I wanted a minimalist aquascape, but I also didn't want it to be uninteresting to look at. I know that many people try to follow in Takashi Amano's footsteps in making a natural looking 'scape, while keeping the viewing focus to a "golden rule," or anchor site in the tank. Well, I am by no means saying that I have created such genius, not even close, but I wanted to understand exactly what this meant, and if I could, apply it somehow in the tank's 'scape.

I wanted the tank clean, but not empty to look at, true it would be empty because there weren't any corals in the tank, or the corals were just frags and needed to grow out, but that is different than having the "two zoned" look I had in there previously. It just kind looked like two big 'shrooms in there. Also I am keeping LPS with some zoas/palys along with the SPS. Some of these corals need shade zones to keep from fading colors or bleaching, so I had this to contend with. After all of this time (and $$$) wrapped into my 'scape I decided to pull the largest piece of pukani out of the tank, and re-scape the structure to a more balanced, minimalist and realistic look. Keeping in mind the livestock that would eventually populate the reef.

Also, since I had taken most of the fish inhabitants out of the tank I would also need to keep in mind the living requirements that the new fish would need to thrive in my reef. All of these prerequisites needed to be filled, and it was over a course of months of tinkering, swearing, swearing some more, and tinkering until I got it just right. You know what I am talking about, when you look at the tank after you finished your water change and maintenance for the week and you don't feel like cussing - yeah that look. So here's the pics of how my tank is now (sorry i switched the camera on ya - its GoPro Hero2 time - yep fish eyes baby! Nope - the tank isn't a bowfront its a standard 90, but I really have a need for a better camera). Pics are from today, need to scrape of the bits of coraline on the back wall, which I do every Sunday.

The right side of the tank is more of a lagoon that actually bows out to 60% across the tank. The overhang is for SPS on the top, while shading the sand dwelling LPS on the bottom (acans aren't puffy right now in this pic b/c I just turned on all the lights while the LED was on). The left side of the tank is reserved for tentacle/waving LPS corals, of which I only have two at the moment, a yellow and a orange hammer, to contrast with the non-movement on the right side (save for my lil dendro). There is definitely room to grow as well as pieces that I haven't yet decided where to place permanently within the reef.

I have been keeping acros and other SPS since January, and have experienced zero ill effects or pests of any kind (sorry these pics are terrible, but what I got for the time being). It has taken some time to get the pieces I wanted and to fill this thing up. For now, I am done, as i'm just going to let things settle and grow out some before making any additional purchases. I'm getting some good encrusting from the SPS on top and started to see some very good growth within the last two months especially (more tweaking my parameters to where they should be). Toughest coloration to achieve within my SPS has been red. Purples, blues, pinks, yellows, greens are all fine, but the one red acro I have has an almost crimson color to it, though it is growing like crazy and has a nice encrusted base.

 

[allsps40]

Wow nice setup.

 

[RebelReef]

Nice equipment. This tank is almost identical to my last tank with the exception of the bio pellets. Tagging along.

 

[SunkAA]

Wow man your doing this right for your first reef!....good job.

Thanks! Yeah, kind of wanted to accumulate the gear, slowly - not in a big hurry. Learned that it just doesn't work in this hobby. Now just going to wait and see how things take off from here before any new coral additions (waiting until the end of summer to see).

Wow nice setup.

Thank you - hopefully the cost of the gear and good husbandry will lead to some awesome results! Wait and see!

Nice equipment. This tank is almost identical to my last tank with the exception of the bio pellets. Tagging along.

Cool! What are running now? Yeah I took out the BPs...when I had them on there wasn't anything resembling much of a load - hardly any skimmer production and parameters were all 0's on the Hanna and NO3 kits. Didn't give them much of a chance, will try again if there are any swings in my nutrient measurements, where I think they might be useful. I change water weekly and swap out media monthly. I know there's some PO4 there getting eaten up by the algae in the overflow (I don't scrape it off unless it begins covering the syphon), but nothing in the water column (at least traceable on the kits).

 

[RebelReef]

Now I have a 30x30 cube. But on my 90 most of the the equipment with the exception of the lights was the same as yours. I ran an Ati sunpower. I also dosed vodka similar to your bio pellet method. I also had two mp40s and two mp10s. The stand was just like yours except it was cherry stained not black. Also, minamalist aqua scape like yours. I'm not kidding, pretty much identical. I love the size of a 90. Any updates?

 

[adam87]

Nice Tank!!!