Trigeek's 90g Reef

[Trigeek]

The tank is 90g AGA with built in overflow. It sits on an AGA stand and has an AGA canopy. I used to have a 55g that was up and running since 1996. I had fish mainly fish and live rock and some soft corals along the way, it was sumpless, had a very bad HOB skimmer and a DSB. I broke the tank down about 6 months ago when we remodeled our kitchen. I bought the 90g a few months back and have been slowly accumulating stuff (lights, skimmer etc.) to help turn the glass box into hopefully a beautiful living reef!

I used caribsea sand (oolitic) to make a new 5"sand bed. I have about 90 pounds of LR from the old 55 and added another 20 pounds of base rock I bought from an LFS (old Fiji rock that was dry, previously bleached). The LR from the 55g has been in a couple of rubbermaid bins with a heater and powerhead for about 4 months. I changed the water a couple of times and topped off as needed. I guess I cooked it, though didn't really do the whole dunk and swirl thing. I lost the corraline frfm the rock, but I already see a lot of small spots growing back.

The new sandbed, LR and water went into the tank 4 1/2 weeks ago. I first measured the levels three days in and had no ammonia or nitrites. Had a diatom bloom followed by a little green algae bloom about 5 days in. I added a small cleanup crew consisiting of three emeralds (which my wife affectionately named Oz, Toto and Glinda), one sally light foot (named Baryshnikov), about 15 blue legged hermits, one larger red legged hermit, 20 astrea snails and 6 nassarius snails.

Things going well so far (knock on wood). Added a maroon clown and a bicolor blenny last night. Both are very small.

Here are some pics

Right side

middle

Left side

side view from right

Have much more work to be done. Currently have 6 x 54 w 48 inch T5s, ASM G3 skimmer with 1260 Eheim return pump, Tunze 6060 Turbelle stream. Going to add a seaswirl from the return in the near future. I'm going to add a refugium also (I'll post info on the sump soon, need pics), already plumbed just need to drill the seprate 5 1/2g tank I'm going to use for it for the drain back into the return.

 

[AVALover5498]

Nice tank!!!!!!!

 

[Trigeek]

Here's a pic of the new, tiny blenny. See if you can find him. He's nesteled back into a whole in the rock, just his head is showing. These guys have such personality!

 

[dc]

I like the looks of your rock.

 

[drummereef]

Looks good so far! Keep us updated! :thumbsup:

 

[Trigeek]

o.k., list of things to do:

need to increase baffle height of the middle baffle in sump

get small aquarium drilled for drain from fuge

get a new heater (mine works, just doesn't shut off, so I unplug it during the day and use it at night)

make housing for electrical stuff

get timers (think I'm going to HD and use some outdoor timers)

change outlet behind sump to GFCI

set up something (container to hold water) for the ro/di unit in laundry room

drill bigger hole in the cap on top of drain pipe (getting some burbing sometimes)

do a water change!

I'm sure there is more that doesn't come to mind right now.

Here is a pic of the sump:

It's a 20 long aquarium. I put three baffles in to act as a bubble trap and give me place to put activated carbon. I didn't put the middle one high enough, as the water just seems to float over the top of the baffles. I think I'm just going to get another piece of galss and attach it to the middle baffle to increase the height. The fuge will be on the far right. It's a small 5 1/2 gallon aquarium. Eventually, I may get something bigger for the fuge, but for now it was a very inexpensive option. The plumbing is set for it. I have a a tee from the return to the fuge with a ball valve to control flow. I need to get the fuge drilled for a bulkhead for the drain from the fuge. It will drain back into the return via gravity.

 

[Trigeek]

Thanks for the compliments. Hoping to have it look it a little more interesting in the near future!

Our clownfish is hosting the Tunze

Poor guy. Hoping to get him a BTA at some point (hopefully I can find a nice RBTA).

There about a gazillion pods all over the glass and sandbed. I think the small algae blooms and diatoms really helped with that. I also see some other benthic organisms o the sand bed, various types of longish type creatures barely big enough to see and different shaped pods. I had a lot in the liverock transfered into this tank and seeded my new DSB with 2 large samples from existing established DSBs from a couple of LFSs. These little guys are really multiplying!

 

[Trigeek]

o.k., update.

Clownfish is still hosting the Tunze, but is also making his around the tank. He is eating a ton of pods from the glass! He's also eating some frozen food, though prefers smaller pieces. He tends to spit out the larger pieces. The bicolor blenny is also eating the frozen food and picking all over the rocks.

I've noticed my nassarius snails are leaving behind a trail of slime. Anyone know what this is? They love shrimp pellets. I drop about 4 or 5 every other night to the sand. What isn't claimed by the a.m. is covered in pods.

I added a ball of chaeto I bought from an LFS. It has a bunch of life within it (noticed different pods, a small star, some worm like things that are extremely minute). Also noticed a feather duster in the chaeto which I'll leave for now. The fuge is not yet set up, so the chaeto is in the display.

Did a water change last night of 20 gallons. It's the first water change of this size since the set-up. Prior to the water change, I measured the water parameters:

ammonia 0
nitrites 0
nitrates 0
phosphates .07
ph 8.2
specific gravity (hydrometer) 1.025
temp 81
calcium 440 mg/l
alk not tested (need new test kit)

I used IO Reef Crystals (used to use regular IO for years in the old 55g, but decided to make the switch to reef crystals based upon the early salt study results by Eric and Kim and Macna). I would have used Red Sea Pharm product, but I didn't find it locally.


Here are some pics.

clownfish eating pods!

new chaeto (suck that phosphate you bad ball of green)!

full tank shot

I widened the hole in the top of the Durso stand pipe which eliminated the flushing sound by allowing more air to escape the stand pipe.

More to come soon. Need to go out for a run!! Happy Sunday everyone!

 

[AVALover5498]

That Maroon is beautiful!!!!:eek1:

 

[CeeGee]

That is going to be nice. I would watch the sandbed. Are you going for a DSB?

I had about 3" of sand in my tank and it has caused nothing but problems. I am going BB asap.

 

[Trigeek]

AVALover5498: Thanks, his color is really coming out.

CeeGee: Yes, it's a DSB, 5 to 5 1/2 inches. I found a DSB to be very helpful in my last tank, however I did need to be sure to keep up the benthic populations to make sure it functioned properly. I had a 4 inch bed for about 5 years that worked well at keeping the nitrates down. I hope to have similar success with this one. Good luck with your BB. There are some beautiful BB tanks I've seen on this forum.

 

[CeeGee]

I meant to add that your aquascaping is nice.

 

[Joshua Tree]

I think the tank looks really nice. I like the color of the clowns.

 

[sleevasteve]

Nice tank..I like the aquascaping too! Very open!!

 

[tokinreefer]

Great start, looking good. Just wanted to chime in to let you know about the mods for your ASM. I have an ASM G4X and was really disappointed with it's skimming until I started looking around and found that you can mod them with a recirc pump and gate valve. The skimmate output has doubled just in doing the gatevalve mod and I plan to do the recirc mod in the near future.

Just wanted to throw that out there for ya, I wish I would have known about it sooner myself!

 

[Phyto]

Lookin good

 

[Trigeek]

Thanks for the compliments everyone.

sleevinsteve:
Thanks. I like the "openness" of it too. I think it will be better for flow throughout the entire tank which hopefully will help keep the detritus down. Also, I like having more surface area for the sandbed. It'll help it function better.

tokinreefer:
Thanks for the advice. I am planning on doing both modifications. They seem to really make a big difference in the output of the skimmer. I'm hoping to get it done in the next month or so, along with tying up many other loose ends on this set-up (see list above).

I felt I needed to add some more photosynthetic creatures to the tank, so last night I bought the tanks first 3 corals!!

zooanthids, blastomusa and a ricordea polyp.

The zoos had a piece of caulerpa attached to them which I'll leave in the display for now.

The balstos came with an ugly aiptasia which is writhing its evile tenticles at me right now. The polyps near the aiptasia are closed, so I guess this thing is irritating them. I'm going to inject this thing with kalkwasser today before the evil spreads!

I need to do something about my flow. I have the Tunze turbelle 6060 which provides awesome flow, however, and here's a drawback with a fine DSB, it blows sand around, even if I aim it at the glass, across the tank, at the overflow etc. This was o.k. before I got the corals, but when I woke up this morning the blastos weren't fully opened because they had some sand on them from the Tunze slowly blowing things around throught the night. I'm going to get a couple maxijets (1200) and blow them across the Tunze stream to see if this will break up the streem of the flow a bit. If it doesn't work, then check the sellers forum for a brand new Tunze!! I'm getting a sea swirl and, if the Tunze needs to go, I will probably use 4 to 5 maxijets with the sea swirl and put them on timers to make the flow more random throughout the day.

I promise to have some pics posted by the end of the day.

 

[Trigeek]

O.K., so I put in 2 maxijet 1200s and ran the flow of one perpendicualr to the Tunze, near the Tunze. I angled the Tunze slightly toward the overflow (have the Tunze on the left wall of the tank) and placed to other max on the other wall facing toward the oncoming Tunze stream. We'll see if I get a snowstorm look on the rocks in the a.m.

I didn't take any pics as the zoos and blastos weren't fully open due to me blowing sand around the tank, trying to clean the LR of sand. Hopefully things will settle overnight.

I did inject the aptasia with kalkwasser using a needle and syringe. It recoiled back into the rock before I could zap it, but I still think I put a hurting on it. I haven't seen it yet, but will inject again until it accepts defeat.

I think I see some flat worms in the tank. :mad2: These may have come in with the chaeto or on the corals. (another shining example of why quarantining is a good idea). They are very small and on the glass with my gazillion pods. I didn't really want to add anymore fish for a while, but if these things become abundant, I may have to get my sixline soon.

So, that concludes this edition of "How the Reef Turns." Time for bed!! Busy day for work tomorrow!! Sweet dreams everyone.

 

[Trigeek]

Here are some updated pics under actinics. New additions!!

Ricordea polyp and zoos, top of clam in the foreground:

open brain and blastos and some more zoos with caulerpa attached (to the left of the blastos):

I'm still getting a lot of sand blowing around with the Tunze, even with pointing the Tunze every direction imaginable and with blowing maxijets across it. I may need to try a couple weaker powerheads (any suggestions anyone)?

I finally got the fuge drilled and will be installing it this week. I also figured out something to allow me to move the lighting out of the way for tank access. I bought two drawer tracks that I'll attach to the canopy and the pieces of wood the light fixture sits on so they can slide backward easily. Presently, the pieces of wood (left over molding from kitchen cabinets) tend to fall everywhere and move easily when I move the lights. I have those pieces to elevate the lights a bit to help with cooling. That's also a project for the week.

 

[sleevasteve]

Its looking nice!! Good idea with the drawer tracks. Keep the pics comin.