Zachtos’ unique 240G reef w/ 375G sump/fuge-growout/RDSB/aggro tank
- Thread starter zachtos
- Start date
zachtos
Active member
zeolite reactor
skimmer rebuild
new skimmer pump, bubble master hy5000
airflow from skimmer
skimmer in action, pulls out about 4 times the waste of the old genx4100's at nearly the same wattage
55G sump w/ only live rock added
Installed new 250W HQI DE light over 75G fuge/anemone tank
relocated 50G fuge into same tank as anemone, put a 75W HPS light on one side of tank for growing macro at night. I don't want to pay for lighting the entire tank since I only care about the anemone, may change this later
bear river zeolites, cliniloptilites (same thing as zeovit zeolites, but about 20% of the price)
zeolites, cliniloptilites
So may updates but so busy.
I upgraded the skimmer, started a DIY zeovit system, doing huge water changes and cleaning. Upgraded the lighting in the anemone tank, removed deep sand beds from refugiums, dropped down to only one half size refugium since it doesn't work w/ zeovit system. Bought a cheap 3 liter zeovit reactor and installed. Still fighting flatworms, but corals dont mind. Corals are growing very fast and have great coloration. Water heater tank heating system works great, as does my 24,000gph storm drive. Have not needed to touch either of those in two years. The zeovit system has been running for one month. 3 liters cliniloptilites, 3drops daily bacteria Zeo, 3ml daily pohl extra zeo, 6 ml daily Vodka, sugar, vinigar mix.
gary faulkner
New member
Looks great, unbelievable growth in 2 years!
Powederblue
New member
love all the millis
zachtos
Active member
thanks, I think the tank is officially more filled in now then it was 2 years ago when it crashed because of the water heater mishap. I don't have all the zoanthids anymore because the angelfish eats them, and I dont' have alot of green star polyps on the backwall beacause they just don't like the high flow I have on that back side. The SPS corals grow all the way on the sand bed, whereas when I had T5, they would not grow below 16" depth. I believe my SPS need about 350 PAR minimum to grow. I get 1000 to 400 PAR at most all locations in the tank. I do feel that 400W MH is better then T5 after using both now. Mostly because I can grow at depths over 16" and I get more vibrant tips on the corals. BUT, I don't get the more full coloration that I seemed to get w/ T5's. They are both viable with good water quality and flow.
zachtos
Active member
Full tank shot June 2011, 2.5years of growth from 1" frags
from side
right
middle
left
75G anemone tank, doing great, now has two true clowns
Additions:
Flame angel to main display
2 true clown fish to anemone tank
Added and lost:
cleaner wrasse, mandarin dragonette (w/in a week?, other one is fine), coral beauty angelfish.
DIY zeovit system has produced no noticable results. Flatworms still annoying but not causing any real problems. Dosing 2ml Vodka/sugar/vinegar daily and 3 drops of bacteria. Also adding POHL EXTRA about 10ml/week or so. Iron chelate 10ml/week. Potasium Chloride 1/8cup monthly. Magnesium Chloride 16 cups monthly. Baking soda/Calcium Chloride as needed. Still using a CA reactor and strong skimming (about 5 gallons of skimmate per 2 weeks). Feeding pellets to fish mostly, and frozens about twice monthly, 1/2 nori sheet daily. Biweekly 60G water changes. 10 cups carbon monthly. 8hour lighting period w/ the 400W halides and 8 hours w/ the 250W DE halide on the anemone tank. Halides are still 900+ on PAR, so I have decided to keep them another year until I see a reason to waste $250 on new bulbs. Tank is basically auto pilot, and is actually quite boring lately. Hard to stay interested in the hobby when I don't have anything new to do to the tank.
zachtos
Active member
full tank shot - finally cleaned the coraline off the acrylic, use a razor blade and a mag scraper. Not ideal, but I tried everything and I gave up. Some new scratches or not be able to see the bottom 8 inches of the tank? Not a hard choice anymore. I'll try to keep on top of it now using a 'magic eraser' melamine foam (basically sands the tank).
The palmer blue milli is ready to be fragged next swap now.
Anemone tank still kicking, infested w/ green mushroom crap and green star polyps.
* Flatworms are ALL DEAD. I used levasole powder (pig deheartwormer medication available for $25 at many farm supply stores). Mix the powder at 1 teaspoon with 500ml of RO water. Then treat the tank once every 10 days at a dosage of 1ml/gallon of tank water. Watch all planaria flat worms die (red worms, not coral eating variety mind you). I did 20% water changes a day or two after the first treatment, and no other water changes until the final treatment. I lost maybe 2 or 3 coral colonies and nothing else. The colonies lost were already very weak and small (they never thrived). It browned out the corals a bit, but that was from the phosphates from all the death. As you can see, tank still looks pretty darn good. I'm back to my old reeflux 12k bulbs too. I still get 600-200PAR pretty much everywhere w/ 400W MH reeflux 12k bulbs that are 1 year old. My 1 year old XM10K gave 1000 to 300PAR everywhere, but the color kind of sucked, but they worked great to grow the tank out fast.
I'm currently playing w/ ideas to switch to the balling light method (dosers to dose mag flake, dow flake and baking soda in water). Also thinking of installing some LED moonlights and maybe building a small 24LED setup for testing purposes. LED is starting to be more viable financially at replacing 400W MH.
zachtos
Active member
moonlight strip I wired up for my main tank
top side of heat sink
bottom of heatsink
microcontroller gear I had laying around, not wired up yet
Secret LED projects. Not sure how I will integrate these into the system quite yet. PAR readings and testing to come over the coming weeks. This is all a test to see about fully converting in the future.
zachtos
Active member
current of neutral whites
current of royal blues
highest temp w/o fan
wattage w/o fan
top view w/ fan
done w/ controller and assembly
LED over main tank in center for testing
LED over the anemone tank for now
Done. PAR results are not fantastic for the money. 1000 PAR at surface w/ mounting at 10" height. Coverage is only 24" x 12" at best, very spotty. 12" depth = 600PAR, 24" depth = 300 PAR (approximations, changes based on distance from center or heatsink.
My rule of thumb now, 36 LED on two 16" x 6" heatsinks will cover 12" x 24" w/ 400W MH intensity at 14K with around 110watts. 72 LEDs per 2 foot square is best, and split on two heatsinks. So 8 fixtures to cover a 8 foot tank that is 2 foot wide, will run you around $2000 more or less with around 40 hours of labor. 4 year payback vs 400W MH and 12 cents per KWH and 1.5 year bulb change schedule. You get better color, control and longevity, but double upfront cost if DIY path. I suggest 60/40 royal blue to coolwhite if possible. 2:1 ratio is too much and lose a lot of PAR with blues for the money. For simplicity sake, may be best to do 50:50 with the 72 LEDs on 6 ballasts and just tone back the whites since you will have too much PAR, then you will have the blue color you want. Worth it definately, but my funds are depleted at the moment. I just wanted a prototype to test for the future.
zachtos
Active member
Reference photos because I'm nice. I've run just about everything on this tank over the last 5 years now. Honestly, I think the T5 works great, but you should not overdrive the bulbs, and squeeze in as many as possible. 400W MH gave faster growth, but I liked the growth pattern and overall coloration better with T5. T5 was more expensive IMO because of bulb changes. MH bulbs hold PAR for atleast 1.5 years w/ minimal degradation. So for best bang for the buck, 400W MH is the way to go. Next step down is T5 (atiblu plus and 10K). LED is possibly the best financially, but it's so much money up front ($2K to re-light this tank properly).
zachtos
Active member
full sump shot
Rose Milli
Palmer Blue Milli
Dark Red Milli
Red Planet - ORA- (similar to a milli)
Cactus
Everything still going fine. I'm still recovering from a nitrate/phosphate issue after nuking the flatworms 4 months ago. I removed the zeovit crap because it did nothing over a year except waste time/money. Water changes, skimming, macro algae growing and careful feeding is the real key to water quality control. I'm running granular ferric oxide 1/2lb per 2 weeks to assist with phosphate removal for a few months. Still doing 6 cups carbon / 2 weeks and filter socks. Also up to 8ml vodka/sugar/vinegar each day. XM10K bulbs at 1.5 years old and going strong.
3G Scott GT
New member
Thanks for documenting your project in its entierty. It's great to be able to see all these methods implemented on one system and seeing the variouse results. I'm glad to see such a great recovery from your mishap.
RobsReefs407
In Memoriam
Wow you set up is crazy man I hope mine looks like this one day how long has it been setup
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Sent from my LG-P999 using Tapatalk
