Zachtos 300G SPS reef build (Wisconsin)

[zachtos]

Are you not concerned about cycling the large tank with anemones?

Nope, I could care less about the anemones. I have 12! I put the clowns in the QT tanks after the cycle. Was not much of a cycle that I saw since the rock was cooked already and feed during the cooking last month or so.

 

[McPuff]

How do you take those screen tops off? It looks like the return lines go over the top and through the screen... but the frame is "trapped" by those returns. Am I seeing this wrong? Curious because I just made my screen tops as well and had to create notches in the tops for the sides. One to accommodate the return (I just have one) and the other for the overflow box access/cords from pumps. My tank is more like a peninsula though I am not running it as such. At some point I'll post some photos. :0)

 

[zachtos]

How do you take those screen tops off? It looks like the return lines go over the top and through the screen... but the frame is "trapped" by those returns. Am I seeing this wrong? Curious because I just made my screen tops as well and had to create notches in the tops for the sides. One to accommodate the return (I just have one) and the other for the overflow box access/cords from pumps. My tank is more like a peninsula though I am not running it as such. At some point I'll post some photos. :0)

Yep, the left and right screen are 'trapped'. The PVC returns are not glued for the spout, so those can pull off (not easy). The tunze pump cords can be pulled through too. BUT, I can lift up like a hinged door on either side, and still have enough access to the tank. I may come up with something later, but I could not find enough people with covered tanks to provide ideas on how to get around over the top returns or cords. No way am I notching the plastic brace of the tank, not for the money it cost and I'm scared to upset the integrity. It's already at least a few years used, moved 2+ times and I'm putting a 1.5" wave into the tank all day. Probably unwise already.

 

[McPuff]

No way am I notching the plastic brace of the tank, not for the money it cost and I'm scared to upset the integrity. It's already at least a few years used, moved 2+ times and I'm putting a 1.5" wave into the tank all day. Probably unwise already.

Ah, no no no... I strongly agree... do NOT notch the brace of the tank. Sorry, that's not what I meant. I created a screen frame that has a "notch" in it of sorts. Basically just using a few more frame connectors to make a gap in the screen frame itself. So instead of a rectangle, it's a rectangle minus a small square in the corner, or the middle of one side. It doesn't affect the rigidity of the frame much but it is harder to get the frame perfect. But if you can "hinge" it out of place then I think that will work pretty well too, provided you don't need full access on the regular. For those times you DO need full access you'll just have to pop off those over the back returns. Sounds like it'll work fine. I was just curious. FYI, I now have saltwater, sand, heat, and flow in mine. Planning to transition everything over this weekend.

 

[zachtos]

I finished building the front cover for the tank. The build is pretty much complete now. The tank is much quieter with the access panels in place. All three doors swing up to provide plenty of access. It is kind of a pain to remove the screen covers, and the doors do not stay up by theirselves, but this can all be changed later if I wish.



My parents built the doors offsite, and varnished the trim. We then cut the trim at my home, and had to come up with a mounting method for the doors. It took a few days to figure it all out, but I think we did OK. It does look like a nice piece of furnture built into the wall of my house now. I am very pleased with the results and how quiet the tank is, barely noticable.



The doors were coated with pond shield epoxy to prevent warping on the back/edges. Each door weighs about 8 lbs.





Trim was air nailed onto the doors and around the tank. The trim around the tank has a 3/4"x1" piece of oak air nailed to the back to help fill the gap between the glass and the drywall. I then siliconed the rest of the gap so water drips would not make it behind the drywall. All of the trim is stained with minwax pecan and varnished with 3 coats of helman minwax. I touched up all the surrounding paint/drywall/baseboard after the doors were complete.



I added an overflow pipe to a bucket because my skimmer is very frustrating. Because the sump is not staying perfectly same level, the skimmer will go crazy sometimes, and dump water on the floor, now it will just put it back in the tank. It's because the overflows in the display need to be brushed of debris so the tank level stays consistent. OR I need to make a bucket or something that keeps the skimmer the same level, which will be a pain in the *** now that I'm done with the build.

 

[zachtos]

Turf scrubber is still pulling out a lot of stuff, I suspect this is the liverock leaking nutrients, which is fine, I'd rather get it all out now than later. The tank is clearing up slowly, and I'm starting to see tiny flecks of corraline. Another 2 months I suspect before corraline starts to go crazy.



I also made DIY frozen fish food for some regal angel fish coming next week. I bought fresh clams, oysters and crabs. I also got frozen raw shrimp, krill, scallops, cuttlefish, squid and about 14 sheets of nori. I mixed them all in about even proportions. Maybe next time do fresh shrimp and increase ratio of crab, clam and oyster. Did not go as far as I hoped. I personally hate seafood, so this was a gross experience for me using fresh. The bonus was chasing the pregnant wife with a live crab.








I blended and poured about 2.5cups into 1 gallon bags x 2 with light diffuser to create cubes. The fish seem to like this so far, but we shall see if the coming regal angel will eat it.





I am approaching 2 weeks of quarantine now with good success. Prazipro x 2 treatments and about 0.5ppm of cupramine. I did a 1 hour pre-aerated bath of formaline on all fish for 50 minutes with no problem. I am treating the yellow tangs for finrot (1 seemed to have it?), using maracyn 2, nearly done now. I am very inexperienced with quarantine still, but have had good luck this time using live aquaria. I bought 5 yellow tangs, 2 flame angels, and 1 hippo tang. I lose a blonde naso after 11 days that was very finicky to eat, but no question refun from Live Aquaria. I hope to add fish to my tank maybe next week if all looking well (2-3 week mark for QT).

Stock Plans keep changing, but I'm going for larger fish instead now:

• 2 Regal Angel fish (trying for juvenile so they morph sex M/F)
• 5 yellow tangs (all adding same time)
• 1 achilles tang (or powder brown tang if not stock)
• 2 Hippo tang (both will be very small)
• 2 flame angel dwarf
• 6 coral beauty (hoping all juvenile to morph sex to a harem?)
• 1 blonde naso tang
• 1 harlequin tusk wrasse
• *1 dsjerni sailfin tang (maybe)
• *1 foxface rabbit fish (maybe)
• *1 white tail bristle tooth tang or tomini tang (maybe)
• 2 percula clownfish
• 1 purple firefish
• 1 purple pseudochromis
• 1 cleaner wrasse
• 2 green clown goby
• 2 mandarin dragonette (6 months later)
• **maybe 2-3 more very small fish for fun (anthias, royal gramma, blenny)
• -- SPS corals (montipora, millipora, stags), green star polyps and/or ricordia. Maybe starting coral in January/February. I need to feel comfortable with the tank stability first.

 

[zachtos]

made another batch of fish food. I bought a food processor this time, and pulsed it much less, so I have larger chunks of food. I ruined the first batch I think, it's like a milk shake, too fine, so using that for tiny fish in QT only.


plenty of live shrimp, crab, clam and oyster this batch. I estimate $30 for 4-6 month food supply for heavy feeding (not counting nori which is $70/year)


had to swap the direction of the hot water recirculation pump, it was affecting showers


Chormis, foxface, kole tang and copperband butterfly in 40G QT




coral beauty in 20G QT with cherub pygmy and potter's angel

 

[zachtos]

So a bunch of fish have left quarantine. I'm on my 3rd QT rotation and should be done by the end of December with fish, then invertebrates then corals. The tank is doing a fine job of growing corraline algae on the glass and rocks now, so I think it's getting closer to maturity for corals. The water has a haze to it now though, I suspect it's very dirty. I register no nitrate/ite or ammonia. Ca untested, SG 35ppt and alkalinity around 8-9kh. The algae turf scrubber makes a ton of algae weekly. I have yet to figure out how to calibrate the skimmer, it either overflows with nearly clean water, or barely dribbles into the bucket, rarely able to get it just right, as it changes daily...


automatic feeders, I opened them up and soldered to the PCB a switch that turns them on with a remote microcontroller. Basically 3 times a day, the tank turns off all pumps and throttles back the MP60s, then 10 seconds later the drums of the auto feeders will rotate and drop food into the tank. After 10 minutes the pumps turn back on and no food is wasted down into the sump. I can manually press a button to turn off pumps and feed as well. The foods rotate channel A and B (pellets then flakes), so flakes 1 or 2 times a day and pellets 1 or 2 times a day.

Updated fish stock

• 5 yellow tang
• 1 blond naso tang
• 1 hippo tang
• 1 achilles tang
• 1 kole tang (in QT)
• 1 foxface rabbitfish (in QT)
• 1 copperband butterfly (in QT)
• 2 regal angelfish
• 1 flame dwarf angelfish (in QT)
• 1 coral beauty dwarf angelfish (in QT)
• 1 cherub dwarf angelfish (in QT)
• 1 potter's dwarf angelfish (in QT)
• 1 flameback dwarf angelfish (coming soon to QT)
• 9 green chromis damselfish (in QT)
• 6 lyretail anthias (coming soon to QT)
• 1 purple pseudochromis
• 1 purple firefish
• 1 cleaner wrasse
• 2 mandarin dragonette (at 6-12 month mark)

The pair of regal angelfish are still juvenile, and seem to get along quite well. They had to be seperated during QT, so did the achilles, but once in the tank, no fighting observed. The yellow tangs do fight a little bit, but seem ok. One yellow tang is VERY thin, seen him picking for food the other day, but unknown if he will survive if he does not eat like the rest, no one seems to show aggression towards him though. I did lose one flame angel after introduction to the DT, the smaller one was getting beat up though, so either he is well hidden, or disolved into oblivion. I am currently feeding flake/pellet 3 times daily (quite heavy), and one very large amount of frozen food (6 cubes?), and 8x11 sheet of nori, so I think already 12-14 cube bioload, which is about what the ATS was rated for, and I believe it. I don't think I will ever increase the feeding though, I'm just feeding heavy to get the tank used to it, and keep everyone healthy and fat to start. By the time coral rolls around, I hope to have the tank fairly clean. Coral trade shows are in January/February, and our new baby daughter is due in January, so that will be a busy month.

 

[McPuff]

It looks great so far! You've done a great job getting those fish in the display... much faster than me I'd say. :0) I have yet to add a new fish, though I do have two of them in QT now (a blonde naso is one of them!).

 

[zachtos]

All the fish are finally out of quarantine. I also added invertebrates, but I only quarantined them for a few days, as they all looked very clean, not even algae on their shells. I did lose one yellow tang, he just refused to eat and hid for weeks until he died paper thin. Everyone else is eating like pigs and have grown quite a bit within a short few months.






I am feeding very heavy, probably the equivalent of 6-8 frozen cubes per day, and 3qty 8"x6" sheets of nori per day. Also 4 feedings per day from the auto feeders of flakes and pellets. I still read 0 nitrates and the ATS gets very full each week.

 

[zachtos]

The water clarity is very bad right now, even though I see no nuisance algae or nitrates, it is just plain milky in color and a good amount of sand like debris floating in the water. I will try 100 micron filter socks soon to see if I can get the debris out that just won't break down. Water changes and vodka dosing 10ml/day seem to have no impact, so I think it's just debris from over feeding. Maybe it could get better with coral feeding on the micro debris? doubt it but I will find out next week with 100 micron filter socks over a few of the sump outlets.



All the fish are very active, and I attribute that to quarantine and the heavy frequent feedings. I shut the wave makers off during dark periods now, just 8 hours per day to save electricity and give some rest to the smaller fish. The achilles tang never stops swimming. The regal angels are hogs. I have seen little aggression in the tank aside from minor fighting after an additon, mostly just the yellow tangs chase each other now and then, but nothing fierce. The only fish I may add would be tiny things, like mandarin dragonettes after my pod population rises.

Final Livestock List
4 yellow tangs
1 hippo tang
1 achilles tang
1 blonde naso tang
1 kole bristletooth tang
1 foxface rabitfish spot
2 regal angelfish
1 flame dwarf angel
1 brazillian flameback dwarf angel
1 cherub dwarf angel
1 potters dwarf angel
1 coral beauty dwarf angel
9 green chromis
4 lyretail anthias (all Female for now)
1 cleaner wrasse
1 purple pseudochromis
1 purple firefish
2 ocellaris clownfish
--
50 cerith snail mexican
25 nassarius snail
25 trochus snail
10 mexican turbo snail
1 cleaner shrimp
3 peppermint shrimp (MIA)

*future add 2 green mandarin dragonette
++50-100 SPS frags coming February-May 2017



I left one 10 gallon tank up for quarantine/hopital just in case, it's only 10-20 watts to keep it alive, so I think worth it for those impulse buys.





I see alot of coraline algae now, and I know I'm ready for corals. I have prepared the 20G to become a frag tank. I can turn off the valve from the main tank, then it is self heated with a small power head and good light with decent live rock. I think that should keep corals OK while I observe. I will likely do bayer insect dip then glue to new plugs to minimize risk. QT for a week or so until I find time to add to tank. I think over next 3-4 months I will acquire 50-100 frags of SPS, mostly millipora, digis, montis, some stags... maybe green star polyp or ricordia for the HDPE starboard bottom.



I am also starting a nanochloropsis phytoplankton culture with red LED light in a 2.5G tank to feed a 40G brine shrimp culture tank. I think it would be fun if I can get the brine shrimp huge then feed the fish a continuous culture supply of food. If it fails, no biggie, just fun to try something new. I would hope it could help lower waste food into the tank if it stays alive until eaten.

 

[McPuff]

Just a great assemblage of fish... I can't say that enough. How are the pygmies all doing together??

Was it difficult to acclimate the Achilles? I have wanted one for a long time but I'm nervous about getting it to eat. Did you take any special steps? And where/how did you acquire it?

 

[zachtos]

I have seen no fighting among the dwarf angels past day 2-3 of introduction. They mostly work their way in and out of all the caves/rockwork all day.

Achilles no problem. He was very aggressive in quarantine, but fine once in the big tank. He LOVES LOVES LOVES flow and wavemaker. I've owned one before, and it was the same story. He was acquired from live aquaria at a fairly good size. I kept in quarantine as above mentioned for 2 weeks with copper/prazipro and formalin dip. I fed a lot of nori and algae from my turf scrubber. I fed a bit of meat daily, but he mostly just ate hair algae. I would have done a powder brown if unable to get an achilles, but the achilles I think is a step down on aggression.

 

[zachtos]

I picked up about 30 frags so far. I plan to get about 10-20 more frags in the next few weeks. The goal is about 40 vertical growth milli/stag type corals, 5 or so encrusters for the front of the tank, and 5 or so monti caps to make shelves near the bottom/back for fish to hide. I'm trying to keep 6 inches radius around each coral this time, and staying at least 8-10 inches from the front glass for mounting. I know what a pain it is when cleaning glass with coral too close, and the annoyance of corals growing into eachother. I may cram the tank more full in the future, but I'm trying to minimize cost if a coral crash happens.

I throttled main LEDs down to 65% which gives 200-350 PAR in most coral locations (90 on bottom). I'm afraid to kill the new corals with too much light right now, some are all getting kind of pale. Too soon to say anything about growth, barely 1-2 weeks old.

I took the advice of Quinn, a local reefkeeper, and throttled down the turf scrubber lights (16 hour day) to 115 of 255 light intensity. Now my nitrate is measurable, any higher on the lights and it goes to 0 pretty fast. Still running 4 cups or so carbon 2 x month refresh. The skimmer maybe makes 2 gallons/week dark skimmate. Feeding 15 cubes food daily (counting nori as 5 cubes, frozen 6 cubes and 4x daily auto dry feeders as 4 cubes).

I am still getting to know my tank and trying to figure out how the 3 part dosing works.
I am using Randy Holmes Farley 'An Improved Do-it-Yourself Two-Part Calcium and Alkalinity Supplement System' recipe #1. http://www.reefkeeping.com/issues/2006-02/rhf/
The current dosing rate is
-35ml Alk 4 times daily.
-25ml Ca 4 times daily
-25ml Mag once per 6 days
I calibrated The dosing pumps, 180 - 190 = 100ml per Jebao pump v2. I don't know why my alk drops faster than my calcium. I'm trying to keep 10-12 alk, 450ish calc, 1350ish mag.
NO3 = 1-2ppm (salifert)
KH = 10 (api)
Calc = 450 (salifert)
PO4 = 0.24 (hanna) //not super exerienced with these
mag untested

The RO maker seems to have trouble in winter, it slows to maybe only 10gpd while wasting a ton of water. I meausred the ratio and it's still 4:1 wasteroduct but only while it's warm, it slows down. I am buying a booster pump in hopes that it will fix the winter issue. I know the other fix is a pre-heater in a bucket, but that I think maybe more expensive overall, and a booster has other benefits. My old booster is rusted or broken I guess.

My experiment with growing brine shrimp failed. I got tired of dealing with it and nothing survived after a month past tiny eggs. The 40G stunk like sewer. I don't know how to raise brine to maturity in a dense culture. I did find one huge one in my phytoplankton culture, and it's almost lost all color in the culture because of it.

I added 3 final fish
-red, green, blue mandarin dragonettes. I got them at a swap for a good deal. I put them in quarantine only 7 days with cupramine and prazipro. I didn't go full 2 weeks because they were experiencing ammonia poisoning from baby brine shrimp I added. They ate like hogs, but something must have went wrong, because the tank stunk today and the fish were gasping. So I acclimated them, hoping there are no parasites.

One of the female lyretail anthias is turning into a mail already. A very dark brownish red color now. I also lost one chromis, to be expected. Hopefully the last 8 chromis make it! I'm only running the wave maker at night now, for fear that it is too turbulent for the fish to sleep, and power savings.

 

[McPuff]

How is your Potter's angel doing? Does it eat pretty much whatever you put in the tank or is it picky? I know they are constant grazers and some will eat only sponge. I thought about getting one but 1) the aforementioned difficulty, and 2) I don't want it to eat all my sponge. :0) I'll probably stick with a cherub or possibly a trio of them.

 

[zachtos]

How is your Potter's angel doing? Does it eat pretty much whatever you put in the tank or is it picky? I know they are constant grazers and some will eat only sponge. I thought about getting one but 1) the aforementioned difficulty, and 2) I don't want it to eat all my sponge. :0) I'll probably stick with a cherub or possibly a trio of them.

Potter's seems fine. He still has that spot on his fin, but not sure what it is, been there through all quarantine treatments. He eats mostly just the meat and pellets I put in the tank. Not too interested in nori or hair algae. I do have a lot of sponge though for some reason, but I don't see him eat anything else. All the angels pretty much the same on diet so far. All fat and growing. I think I did see the flame angel nip at some of the new corals already though, so we shall see.

 

[McPuff]

I think I did see the flame angel nip at some of the new corals already though, so we shall see.

This is my main concern over adding angels. I'm hoping that large colonies (upon the fish's entry) will be fine and can take the occasional nip. There are certainly many people that successfully keep large angels (and triggers even) in large reefs. Frags are another matter and I certainly had a rough time keeping pygmies in with smaller frags/mini colonies. Hopefully they stop picking for you... or at least pick infrequently enough.

 

[Mishri]

I have the winter RO/DI problem as well, being in Montana.. water is too cold. I put about 50ft of line in between my faucet and the ro/di unit and put that in a garbage can full of warm water(warmed with aquarium heaters).. that fixes the problem for the most part.. however.. I need to up it.. I think 100ft and a few heaters are necessary to keep it warm enough.. I think Ideal temp for the ro/di unit is around 75 degrees i think, i can't remember.. but it's basically the same as our tanks. As long as you make RO/DI water in large batches you can turn off your heaters and save power that way. (Although the heaters shouldn't run much when you aren't making water if you choose to leave them on)

Nice job on the rapid progress.

 

[zachtos]

KH - 9.5ppm
Calc - 450 ppm
Mg - 1380ppm
NO3 - 1.0-2.5ppm (all salifert tests)
SG - 35ppt
Temp - 79F
PO4 - untested

I've added a few fish, but mostly done with coral and fish for now. I picked up a lot of corals from Quinn, a local reefkeeper, as well as Dale (tech9) and the remainder from the annual Michigan frag swap and Madison, WI frag swap. I mostly am keeping Millis and montis. I won't bother naming off the corals, I'll just wait until they get big and color back up. Many lost color due to acclimation shock I think. I'm still trying to figure out the LEDs, but I've been raising the lighting from 65% to 100% slowly week by week, I'm at 80% so far. I have lost a few corals from light shock, but I think 45 of 50 or so frags are doing fine and starting to encrust.

I did add a few mandarin dragonettes, but lost one to a vortech pump. There are tons of pods, so they should do fine. Maybe someday I'll get around to taking nicer photos of everyone with the underwater camera, and spend some time getting good fish candids. I'm mostly in grow out phase now, just watching everything go and getting to know my 3 part doser. I'm at around 25ml/day so far on Alk/Calc/Mg using randy's advanced 3 part dosing type 1 recipe.

I can't say if 3 part dosing is better that a calcium reactor yet. It is very nice to not have to deal with paramaters getting out of balance like they did with the Ca reactor!

I've stopped dosing phytoplankton, mostly because the cultures kept crashing. I'm still keeping a few rose anemones until they **** me off. No aggression with the fish really, a bit of light fighting with the dwarf angels, but nothing past occassional nip/chase. No noticable coral nipping yet either. I do have green star polyps on the bottom/HDPE right now, but I plan to keep it isolated on the base.

 

[McPuff]

You came all the over to MI for the frag swap?