reef keeper
Super Active Member
i had decided to restart my reef, after making a huge mistake and allowing Gelidium to overrun the tank. It came in on a frag plug, and eventually spread to cover ever single lit surface.
The way my rocks were placed also made getting adequate flow to all the sps and didn't really leave as much free swimming space as I might have liked.
Yesterday, @bart84 came over, and we finished fragging the colonies that needed fragging to remove the frag plugs and put them on new plugs. My 3x5 frag system is pretty full right now!
We pulled the substrate, and drained the sump and cleaned the glass.
We then brought about 200 lbs of some amazing and HUGE Tonga branch and Tonga shelf down from the garage and placed it all in the now empty reef.
The middle branchy piece took both of us to get it in the tank. It probably weighs between 70 and 80 lbs.
I changed my substrate out to tropic Marin reef flakes, which are a bit bigger than the normal substrate, but is heavy enough to not blow around. I had 2 30 lb bags here, and have 1 more in Buffalo. I'm going with a shallow substrate, of maybe an inch or so depth. The third bag will fill in any gaps under the rocks.
@bart84 is a real champ when it came to designing the layout, and the rock work is very open, with a ton Of room to grow corals, yet lots of space to have the fish swim and be comfortable. I think with this new layout, I can get away with fewer power heads to achieve the same type of flow and encourage the colonies to grow fat and heathy branches.
Right now I'm filling the system with fresh RODI, 100 gallons at a time and will circulate it for 2 or 3 days just to make sure everything in there is totally dead and get me a pest free reboot.
Will update as we progress!
The way my rocks were placed also made getting adequate flow to all the sps and didn't really leave as much free swimming space as I might have liked.
Yesterday, @bart84 came over, and we finished fragging the colonies that needed fragging to remove the frag plugs and put them on new plugs. My 3x5 frag system is pretty full right now!
We pulled the substrate, and drained the sump and cleaned the glass.
We then brought about 200 lbs of some amazing and HUGE Tonga branch and Tonga shelf down from the garage and placed it all in the now empty reef.
The middle branchy piece took both of us to get it in the tank. It probably weighs between 70 and 80 lbs.
I changed my substrate out to tropic Marin reef flakes, which are a bit bigger than the normal substrate, but is heavy enough to not blow around. I had 2 30 lb bags here, and have 1 more in Buffalo. I'm going with a shallow substrate, of maybe an inch or so depth. The third bag will fill in any gaps under the rocks.
@bart84 is a real champ when it came to designing the layout, and the rock work is very open, with a ton Of room to grow corals, yet lots of space to have the fish swim and be comfortable. I think with this new layout, I can get away with fewer power heads to achieve the same type of flow and encourage the colonies to grow fat and heathy branches.
Right now I'm filling the system with fresh RODI, 100 gallons at a time and will circulate it for 2 or 3 days just to make sure everything in there is totally dead and get me a pest free reboot.
Will update as we progress!
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