My New 75 Gallon Reef Journal

[garagebrian]

Hello all,

I thought I would start a thread to share the progress of my 75 gallon reef from day 1. Here are the basics of my system:

75gal Oceanic reef ready tank with 20gal long AGA modified as a sump/refuge.

Equipment:
1 - 150 Watt heater
1 - 100 Watt heater
1 - maxijet 400 powerhead(PH) 100gph
1 - Rio 1700 PH 642 gph
2 - Powersweep P-40 PH 250-300 gph
1 - Top Fathom 110A protein skimmer run by Rio 2500
1 - Eheim 1060 Return Pump - 602 gph
1 GFCI outlet with 2 powerstrips
1 - DIY glass scrapper with human motor

Lighting:
DIY Canopy with:
2 - 175 Watt Metal Halide bulbs with magnetic ballasts
1 JEBO 48" power compact(PC) fixture:
110 watts of 10,000 PC bulbs
110 watts of blue PC bulbs
DIY Moonlights with 7 working LEDS

Water/Additives/Test kits:
Spectra Pure MD-60 RO/DI unit that makes about 50 gpd
(still need to test TDS)
Kent Marine Sea Salt
Kalkwasser and Ms. Wage's Pickling Lime will be used
Kent Turbo Calcium
Sailfert pH, Calcium, Alk
SeaTest Ammonia, Nitrite, Nitrate

Livestock:
1 - hairy green mushroom(currently in quarantine)
50# Live Rock - premium corraline rock from www.floridaliverock.com
40# Live Rock - of deco rock from www.floridaliverock.com

For anyone who didn't follow my DIY thread on how all this came together:
http://www.marshreef.com/modules.php?na ... pic&t=4359


Day 1(01/27/2005):

Tank Conditions:
Foggy from 1/26 sand blizzard
Temp: 78
Salinity: 1.024
pH: 8.0-8.3
Alk: 6.1 dKH or 2.17 meq/L(probably a little higher, I "read" the test too soon
Calcium: 450-480ppm

LR arrives tomorrow and the fun can begin! I'm planning a mostly softie tank (zoas, shrooms, ricordia) along with some LPS and monti caps. I might put in a couple SPS just for variety.

I'm putting in 2 clownfish and probably a lawnmower blenny. Any suggestions on other fish? I want to stay away from fish that are known to jump or cause trouble in a reef. What about a threafin goby and pistol shrimp pair? I'm planning on having some kind of anenome based on my clownfish choice.



B.

 

[Oceans Ferevh]

Yay! You're are going to have so much fun The best part is when you have a blank slate with so many oportunities available. Be careful and don't rush (I know it's hard to do). Research everything before hand too.

 

[Oceans Ferevh]

I look forward to watching your tank gorw

 

[garagebrian]

02/08/2005 Update

I received my live rock on 01/28/2005

I have been diligently keeping after my tank and had a major ammonia spike to around 8ppm that killed off some of my hitchhiker cup corals. I finally found the source, which was a large "rock" covered in clams that turned out to be a decomposing sponge covered in clams. Everything has been looking much better since that sponge was removed and ammonia is now down to less than 3ppm. Boy did that sponge STINK!!!

Here are a few pics for the progress:

 

[Oceans Ferevh]

Nice hitch hickers! Yeah that sponge smells something awful dousn't it. Keep the skimmer running constanlty or it will turn into a sesspool. Glad to hear everything's going well though. Are you using a mantis trap for those suckers? Yellow tangs are very nice looking and don't seem to cause much trouble in a reef tank.

 

[garagebrian]

I'll probably use a mantis trap once I start feeding the tank. I've target fed the anemones a couple of times, but no general feeding yet (I figure it has enough ammonia as is

I have caught 1 mantis by using a hypersalinity dip. I basically made up a bucket of about 2 1/2 gallons of salt water to 1.026 and then added another cup of salt which shot the salinity reading off the chart. I then dipped the rock I knew he was on and he squirted right out.

I have another mantis isolated in my sump and will try to remove him with hypersalinity dip once my friend is ready to take him. I know I have at least 2 more mantis in the main tank and hope to do the hypersalinity dips once I know which rocks they are on. If that doesn't work I'll go with the traps.

Thanks for the tip on the yellow tang, I am considering one, but I am planning on mainly just corals and hopefully a mated pair of clownfish with a host anemone, and a few shrimp/snails. Of course the wife might want a more colorful selection of fish, so we'll see

B.

 

[garagebrian]

02/22/2005 Update - Day 25

My tank has finished cycling and I'm ready to start adding corals I'm going to wait another 3 months for fish in case I have fish parasites.

Temp: 78-83
Salinity: 1.025
Ca: 440-470
Alk: ~8
Ammonia, Nitrite, Nitrate: All zero with cheato growing good.

My first addition will be a green hairy mushroom this week. I finished working on my fuge/QT and have a couple of pics of the setup. Also one picture of the hitchhikers on my LR

Mantis War:
Brian: 3(caught and sold)
Mantis: 1(taunting me!)

Mantis Capture Tip:
Best way to capture mantis EASY, find out what rock they are in and in what hole they spend most of their time. Buy a 50 cent bottle of seltzer water and remove the rock, hold over a bucket of mixed saltwater and squirt the seltzer in their hole with a turkey baster and the mantis will FLY out. I captured two of them in about 2 mins using this method. Removed two mantis that the hypersalinity dip did not find. Just make sure the seltzer water doesn't touch any life you want to keep. Mantis survive it no problem as they quickly drop into the bucket of saltwater. The rock will thank you being spared the hyper salinity dip(which I think was responsible for some of my tube coral croaking).

 

[Bojangles]

WOW you had alot of life on your rock! Mine didn't come with barely anything that would survive except aiptasia and one blue leg hermit crab :?

Anyway how did you know you had so many mantis...did you see them all?

 

[garagebrian]

Where did you get your rock? Yeah, I love my live rock, I have about 30-35 clams, around 40 cup corals and even though the cycle killed a lot, I still have about 20 colonies of tube corals. I have urchins, crabs(porcelin), 1 cucumber, and what look like trocus snails. I would HIGHLY recommend floridaliverock.com The one caution is to check for dying sponges, that caused quite a cycle in my tank.

I knew I had so many mantis because I think the mantis I got were a few corals short of a full reef Only the last one not caught yet has made any attempt to hide from me, the rest liked to watch me. I placed my live rock all near the front of the tank and carefully listened for the mantis. They made it really easy bashing their holes(homes) and being able to identify each rock they were on. Then it was just a matter of watching the rock or rotating it slightly so each hole was visible to watch. Eventually you see them poking out of their home and then the rock is off to the sump to be de-mantised.

B.

 

[garagebrian]

03/01/2005 Update - Day 32

Tank remains very stable except temp, PC lights seem to heat the tank being so close to the water and inside a mostly enclosed hood. I've decided to swap out the PC lights for VHO. I liked the PC lights, but they were partially blocked by the overflow, didn't fit my hood properly, and blocked 5 of my 7 moonlights and 20% of my MH light so the back of the tank was dark. So that switch should happen this weekend.

I went out visiting fellow reefers this weekend and picked up two frags and they went in my QT along with my green hairy mushroom. Found one hitchhiker snail and was originally worried it ate zoas(since it came on zoas), but looks like a harmless one after ID.

Purchased/Traded Livestock list now:
1 green hairy mushroom
1 orange centered zoa frag(3 large, 2 baby polyps)
1 green skirt, yellow centered zoa frag(26 polyps)
2 scarlet hermits
2 black turbos
1 bumblebee snail
2 nassarius snails

 

[Anonymous]

Hey..Heres a suggestion..try to keep those mantis shimps..post in the Mantis forum that you will give them up for shipping cost...I think there are a few people looking for them...or you can even charge a small fee on top of shipping to make a buck...Just an idea instead of killing them..Considering the rock is from Florida? Those mantis shrimps could easily be G. Smithii or N. Wennerea..fairly small mantis shrimps that make good pets in small tanks..I house my mantis in a 5.5 gal tank with a choco star a couple large turbo snails, a small brittle star and an Ocellaris clown..all peacefully co-habitating together...

Just a thought

 

[garagebrian]

Thanks for the suggestion on the mantis. So far I've been able to trade all of them locally(3), but I think I have 1-2 more still in the tank and when I get my second shipment of LR I'll probably get another 1-3 more. So I might need to ship them now as I think I've currently saturated the local market for mantis

My biggest fear though is not packaging them right, I would want them to survive shipping. I guess a big plastic bag(doubled) with a small amount of water and mostly air would be the best?

B.

 

[Bojangles]

I only buy locally...but dont they put heat packs in the boxes as well?

 

[garagebrian]

Yes they put heat packs if it ships via air. I was hoping I could sell all mine within one or two days of houston and just use UPS ground. The weather in April should be warm enough that heat packs won't be needed or would actually hurt. But if I have to ship via air, probably would need heat packs since the airplane cargo hold is usually not heated.

B.

 

[Reefarchitect]

Hello, I am new to this forum and Bulletin Booards in general. I am planning on setting up a 75 of my own and currently have about 147 pounds of dry Fiji and Tonga as well as a 175 MH, an Icecap 660, Top Fathom TF 100a w/ViaAqua 3300, 2 Maxi-jet 1200s on a wavemaker and a LittleGiant 2-mdqxsc. My question is about the return pump. I will be using an AGA 75 with the Mega-flow option. It handles 600 gph, but I am concerned that the little giant won't be enough. It puts out 640 gph @ 3ft of head. I appreciate any advice you could offer, especially about using the dry rock, this will be my first attempt at it.

Thanks and tank sounds great.

 

[Bojangles]

Hello, I am new to this forum and Bulletin Booards in general. I am planning on setting up a 75 of my own and currently have about 147 pounds of dry Fiji and Tonga as well as a 175 MH, an Icecap 660, Top Fathom TF 100a w/ViaAqua 3300, 2 Maxi-jet 1200s on a wavemaker and a LittleGiant 2-mdqxsc. My question is about the return pump. I will be using an AGA 75 with the Mega-flow option. It handles 600 gph, but I am concerned that the little giant won't be enough. It puts out 640 gph @ 3ft of head. I appreciate any advice you could offer, especially about using the dry rock, this will be my first attempt at it.

Thanks and tank sounds great.

You should post this topic in the "General" or "New Reefkeepers" section for best results and feedback.

 

[garagebrian]

Hello, I am new to this forum and Bulletin Booards in general. I am planning on setting up a 75 of my own and currently have about 147 pounds of dry Fiji and Tonga as well as a 175 MH, an Icecap 660, Top Fathom TF 100a w/ViaAqua 3300, 2 Maxi-jet 1200s on a wavemaker and a LittleGiant 2-mdqxsc. My question is about the return pump. I will be using an AGA 75 with the Mega-flow option. It handles 600 gph, but I am concerned that the little giant won't be enough. It puts out 640 gph @ 3ft of head. I appreciate any advice you could offer, especially about using the dry rock, this will be my first attempt at it.

Thanks and tank sounds great.

Sounds like you have a decent amount of equipment already. I agree with bojangles that you should post in either general reefkeeping or new to reefkeeping forums, Member's Tanks specifications isn't read that much and commented even less.

A couple of questions:

1. Do you have just a single 175W MH bulb? That really won't cover a 75 adequately, but with the 660 you could cover the tank with VHO or T5(I would personally stay away from PC)

2. I'm assuming you'll have a sump/refugium? You should measure how much distance it will be from the return outlet of your pump to the top of your return pipe, including any horizontal distance and any 45 or 90 angles in your piping. Reefcentral (www.reefcentral.com) has a head loss calculator on their main page that might help you. I had about 4.5' of head on my tank with a 75 that is 20 inches tall.

Feel free to ask more questions.

B.

 

[garagebrian]

03/09/2005 Update - Day 40

Tested tank parameters Sunday, all within normal ranges. Nitrate was zero again and my cheato is growing like mad. I'll need to trim it back some soon I think.

After a freshwater dip my first two zoa frags and green hairy mushroom went into the 75 and they appear to be doing fine. I rescued my last captured mantis to mrlimpet and I have not heard or seen my other suspected mantis for about 2 weeks now. :?

I have 3 new zoa frags in my QT now(Thanks mrlimpet and boosted98!!)
I've attached some pics from last night.

A question for all you zoa keepers/fraggers. Both of my orange and pink centered zoa frags have a decent number of polyps underneath, looks like the mat grew onto the underside of the mat above it. Is it possible to peel the stuff off from underneath, or will I need to cut it away?

Brian

 

[Reefarchitect]

I thank you both for the advice and I apologize for posting in the wrong thread. I'll still be looking on this thread for additional pictures of what sounds to be a killer setup.

Thanks again.

 

[garagebrian]

No problem, and feel free to ask questions too, I just don't want to claim to be an expert, as I'm not Just suggested other forums as you'll soon find out that the more responses you get and the more opinions you hear the better your ideas will get.

I'm hoping this turns into a killer setup, so far so good. More LR on the way in April and more 4 more frags in April/May after the cycle is over

What part of Florida are you from? I have some friends in Orlando, Miami and Tampa.

B.