Derek's Custom 180G SPS Reef Tank

[jroovers]

Thanks guys. That is a Wavebox on the far right. Not sure if I am going to run it or not though. I wish I decided to move my one return line further away from the side of the tank so I could have put the wavebox in the back corner. Right now, I am stuck with it on middle of the side panel which is not the most asthetically pleasing....

I have been fighting off some phosphate issues recently as well. No problematic algae thankfully, but, my phosphates did reach .25ppm. So, I bumped up my bio-pellets and started running GFO / Carbon. My phosphates are now down to .06ppm so I hope to get rid of it completely within a weeks time. The phosphates caused some browning of some of my SPS but all the colours are starting to come back. Some have even come out better than I have ever seen them before. A few more weeks and everything should look 100% again.

Hi Derek, nice thread you have here, your setup looks awesome.  If I could do my 120 over again, I would have gone 180.  The extra 2 feet of run would have been nice.

I too like you have been battling phosphates.  Just don't bring them down too fast.  I started skimming heavily (once I got it kicked in) and also did quite a few water changes after interceptor treatment, combined with extra GFO, and completely bleached one piece and faded several others (stripped too many nutrients too fast).  Now back to feeding more, dosing AA's, and night time coral feedings to bring things back! 

 

[spyd]

I definitely stripped the phosphates down very fast. I went from .25 to .06 in 3 days.  : Saying that, I have not lost anything or have had any bleaching. Some of my LPS did not appreciate the reduction, however, I have been feeding them during the transition and all seem happy. My SPS though look like a million bucks now. A lot of them were browning out and I can see a HUGE difference all ready. All my colours are coming back better than ever. The only thing I lost was one Milli frag of mine. It was only a $10 orange Milli frag, although it had potential.... But, I think that was caused from adding too much flow in my tank. I started running a 3rd Tunze powerhead and I think it was in the path of too much flow because it RTN'd on me by the next morning.

All in all, I am much happier with how my tank is looking now. I may try dosing some AA just to see if I can colour up a brain that I had bleached out on me a month ago. I did not read up on it enough as this particular type needs a long time to properly acclimate to your lighting. It is in full shade now and the purple is slowly coming back. I just feed it lots in the mean time.

 

[Salty Cracker]

I definitely stripped the phosphates down very fast. I went from .25 to .06 in 3 days.  : Saying that, I have not lost anything or have had any bleaching. Some of my LPS did not appreciate the reduction, however, I have been feeding them during the transition and all seem happy. My SPS though look like a million bucks now. A lot of them were browning out and I can see a HUGE difference all ready. All my colours are coming back better than ever. The only thing I lost was one Milli frag of mine. It was only a $10 orange Milli frag, although it had potential.... But, I think that was caused from adding too much flow in my tank. I started running a 3rd Tunze powerhead and I think it was in the path of too much flow because it RTN'd on me by the next morning.

All in all, I am much happier with how my tank is looking now. I may try dosing some AA just to see if I can colour up a brain that I had bleached out on me a month ago. I did not read up on it enough as this particular type needs a long time to properly acclimate to your lighting. It is in full shade now and the purple is slowly coming back. I just feed it lots in the mean time.

This is why I love the wavemaker so much.  I lost a few corals early on because I was blasting them with powerheads.  Blasted the tissue right off them.

Oh and welcome to the wonderful world of GFO.  I still can't imagine why some people don't run it. 

 

[spyd]

Definitely too much flow. I was just experimenting between running an additional power head and using the Wavebox. The Wavebox is just too bulky and since I couldn't get it in the back corner I figured I would try the power head. Needless to say, it looks like I am going back to the Wavebox.

As for GFO, I ran it on my 75 gallon constantly. This time around, I am running bio pellets so I tried to see if I could just get away with the pellets alone. Turns out, I need both. I like to learn from personal experience as there is all ways conflicting information out there.

 

[Salty Cracker]

Definitely too much flow. I was just experimenting between running an additional power head and using the Wavebox. The Wavebox is just too bulky and since I couldn't get it in the back corner I figured I would try the power head. Needless to say, it looks like I am going back to the Wavebox.

As for GFO, I ran it on my 75 gallon constantly. This time around, I am running bio pellets so I tried to see if I could just get away with the pellets alone. Turns out, I need both. I like to learn from personal experience as there is all ways conflicting information out there.

Yeah I run pellets but I doubt I will ever go without GFO and carbon as long as I want to have sps.  I think that if I went to a softie tank I'd get rid of either the pellets or the GFO....

 

[Poseidon]

hey salty, would you do that with lps too?

 

[Salty Cracker]

hey salty, would you do that with lps too?

I might.  When I had a DIRTY tank, I could grow leathers, candycane, etc. As the tank got squeeky CLEAN I found that LPS didn't do as well at all unless consistently spot fed.  I've got an awesome acan colony that only grows if I feed it, the lighting does next to nothing for them on its own.  But stuff in some mysis and you see growth quickly. 

I would likely do without the pellets, continue the GFO and keep up on the spot feedings.  I look at the pic of my tank below and wouldn't want to go back to that... candycane, finger leathers, frogspawn and palys/zoas did fine, but I can't even look at it.  I think I'll always run carbon though, the water clarity is great.  Same tank, same camera, but no comparison to me.

here's a shot of the tank from back in the dirty days.  Great growth on some things, but ick.

 

[Poseidon]

[quote author=Brandon link=topic=2295.msg28034#msg28034 date=1350503163]
hey salty, would you do that with lps too?

I might.  When I had a DIRTY tank, I could grow leathers, candycane, etc. As the tank got squeeky CLEAN I found that LPS didn't do as well at all unless consistently spot fed.  I've got an awesome acan colony that only grows if I feed it, the lighting does next to nothing for them on its own.  But stuff in some mysis and you see growth quickly. 

I would likely do without the pellets, continue the GFO and keep up on the spot feedings.  I look at the pic of my tank below and wouldn't want to go back to that... candycane, finger leathers, frogspawn and palys/zoas did fine, but I can't even look at it.  I think I'll always run carbon though, the water clarity is great.  Same tank, same camera, but no comparison to me.

here's a shot of the tank from back in the dirty days.  Great growth on some things, but ick.
[/quote]


hey thats cool with the comparison pics... ill have to do that as well...

 

[spyd]

LPS and softies definitely like a dirtier tank and will thrive. A mixed reef is very difficult to keep up. SPS love a super clean tank so you are all ways trying to balance the two. This results in more target feeding for the LPS to grow while keeping a close eye on phosphates and nitrates that will be produced by the extra feeding and cause negative reactions with the SPS.

I am picking up a Flame BTA this week or early next week. I will update some photos this weekend as well. My once white rock is not so white anymore. More green now... Not covered in problem algae or anything but it did not take long to go from white to green. I have to syphon the sand bed and am going to add a Sandsifting Goby and Conch to keep things cleaner. I do have some mild diatoms in the sand but it is going away pretty quick here and should be done within a week by the way things are progressing.

 

[Poseidon]

LPS and softies definitely like a dirtier tank and will thrive. A mixed reef is very difficult to keep up. SPS love a super clean tank so you are all ways trying to balance the two. This results in more target feeding for the LPS to grow while keeping a close eye on phosphates and nitrates that will be produced by the extra feeding and cause negative reactions with the SPS.

I am picking up a Flame BTA this week or early next week. I will update some photos this weekend as well. My once white rock is not so white anymore. More green now... Not covered in problem algae or anything but it did not take long to go from white to green. I have to syphon the sand bed and am going to add a Sandsifting Goby and Conch to keep things cleaner. I do have some mild diatoms in the sand but it is going away pretty quick here and should be done within a week by the way things are progressing.

now that you guys are saying this though, im not to sure about putting the bio pellets and gfo online in my tank.... i dont want to kill my softies or lps... there all doing amazing...
i just wanna get rid of my algea issues.

 

[spyd]

I would still run GFO regardless. Phosphates aren't needed in the tank. The GFO will help eliminate the algae problem. Low nitrates are not that bad for your specific tank needs. If you do run bio-pellets, just run a 1/4 of the recommended amount. If you find you need more, then bump it up. Maybe start with GFO, see how things go, and then add bio-pellets if the GFO isn't effective enough. You should find great results between running GFO and your new skimmer.

 

[Poseidon]

I would still run GFO regardless. Phosphates aren't needed in the tank. The GFO will help eliminate the algae problem. Low nitrates are not that bad for your specific tank needs. If you do run bio-pellets, just run a 1/4 of the recommended amount. If you find you need more, then bump it up. Maybe start with GFO, see how things go, and then add bio-pellets if the GFO isn't effective enough. You should find great results between running GFO and your new skimmer.

well i already ordered both

but the new skimmer isnt a sure thing yet... the lady hasnt got back to me :/

 

[unibob]

Tanks looking awesome, how come I see it on kwas POTM but not here? Hmmm hmmm haha. Keep us updated on how things go.

 

[Darryl_V]

now that you guys are saying this though, im not to sure about putting the bio pellets and gfo online in my tank.... i dont want to kill my softies or lps... there all doing amazing...
i just wanna get rid of my algea issues.

Great tanks can grow algae too.  Why do you think that some really nice tanks can have refugiums or Algae scrubbers (not that Im a fan of either)?  A bit of algae is normal (although lots can be a sign of problems).  A good judge is the overall health of your tank....if the corals are doing well but you have a bit of algae than it's likely that water quality is fine.  Some algae can grow in very clean water like bubble(valonia), hair (byropis) and red cotton candy algae.  In the instance where its not so much a water quality problem causing the issue I recommend a good clean up crew consisting of algae eating fish (love tangs) and snails.  Also important is to manually clean your rock, mostly I use a turkey baster for this once a week but I have been know to use a brush on the rock as well.  You will be surprised how much crud comes out of the rock......

 

[Poseidon]

[quote author=Brandon link=topic=2295.msg28072#msg28072 date=1350561777]

now that you guys are saying this though, im not to sure about putting the bio pellets and gfo online in my tank.... i dont want to kill my softies or lps... there all doing amazing...
i just wanna get rid of my algea issues.

Great tanks can grow algae too.  Why do you think that some really nice tanks can have refugiums or Algae scrubbers (not that Im a fan of either)?  A bit of algae is normal (although lots can be a sign of problems).  A good judge is the overall health of your tank....if the corals are doing well but you have a bit of algae than it's likely that water quality is fine.  Some algae can grow in very clean water like bubble(valonia), hair (byropis) and red cotton candy algae.  In the instance where its not so much a water quality problem causing the issue I recommend a good clean up crew consisting of algae eating fish (love tangs) and snails.  Also important is to manually clean your rock, mostly I use a turkey baster for this once a week but I have been know to use a brush on the rock as well.  You will be surprised how much crud comes out of the rock......

[/quote]


very true.. but i first need to get my hermit crabs out... i think there almost done eating ALL 25 of the banded trochus snails i added

but i do have red slime and lots of cynno because my nitrates and phosphates are ridiculous... i think ill just run both on see what happens. If my corals start to decline, ill adjust the amount of stuff ill use.

 

[Darryl_V]

I get cyano and my tank is pretty dang healthy..... dont consider cyano a sure sign of a nutrient problem.

 

[Bill@IA]

I get cyano and my tank is pretty dang healthy..... dont consider cyano a sure sign of a nutrient problem.

True.

When your water is nutrient poor and chemically balanced, it is believed to be more of a Bacterial Imbalance.

 

[Salty Cracker]

I get cyano and my tank is pretty dang healthy..... dont consider cyano a sure sign of a nutrient problem.

I haven't had cyano in over a year, but I feed very light.  I've been considering upping my coral feeding so I find this interesting.

You do feed fairly heavily, could it possibly be the cyano getting hold of some of the excess before it is exported? 

 

[jroovers]

I definitely stripped the phosphates down very fast. I went from .25 to .06 in 3 days.  : Saying that, I have not lost anything or have had any bleaching. Some of my LPS did not appreciate the reduction, however, I have been feeding them during the transition and all seem happy. My SPS though look like a million bucks now. A lot of them were browning out and I can see a HUGE difference all ready. All my colours are coming back better than ever. The only thing I lost was one Milli frag of mine. It was only a $10 orange Milli frag, although it had potential.... But, I think that was caused from adding too much flow in my tank. I started running a 3rd Tunze powerhead and I think it was in the path of too much flow because it RTN'd on me by the next morning.

All in all, I am much happier with how my tank is looking now. I may try dosing some AA just to see if I can colour up a brain that I had bleached out on me a month ago. I did not read up on it enough as this particular type needs a long time to properly acclimate to your lighting. It is in full shade now and the purple is slowly coming back. I just feed it lots in the mean time.

That is good that overall things are good.  Too bad about your milli frag.  I've found that my milli's are one of the few corals that will tolerate fairly direct blasting... not a good thing though if bleached or already stressed.

Do you find dosing AA's helps your LPS?  I've assumed in my tank it doesn't... this morning I put in a few drops of AA's for my SPS which are still on the pale side, but I also fed Cyclopeeze more for my LPS - I've always assumed that things such as AA and Oysterfeast where too small to feed LPS and are more for SPS.

 

[Salty Cracker]

I spot feed lps with mysis, the problem being the shrimp, crabs and starfish tend to get it out before the corals can close around the chunks.  I don't see them catch the cyclopeeze very well.