My 125 gallon sps tank

[nasotang]

Happy new year!

I've lurked on this site for a number of years now and thought I'd start 2015 by starting some tank threads here.

Last spring, my 90 gallon tank was packed with sps colonies so i decided to upgrade to a 125, its an older tank with interesting dimensions in a monster stand. 48" x 30" x 20", starfire glass (although its kind of old so its got some water stains) eurobraced, on a 48" stand so its eye level. Looked like this when i started

This was the old tank i was transferring livestock from

The "new" tank has a monster sump built by an old friend of mine who died a few years ago, larry montgomery. He did some glass work, had a business called "waves in glass" out of oceanside.

Its got a huge fuge compartment, my return is a speedwave dc adjustable pump and i plumbed it to allow water changes from the return. The drain is just durso into a t so i can feed the fuge as well as a filter sock. Bubble magus 200p skimmer i got from my good friend john (tylbart), he helped me break down this sucker and move it from san diego up to temecula. Could not have set this up without his help.

 

[nasotang]

Plumbing looks something like this

I built some rockwork out if marco rock, kind if ugly but i made some nice platforms for my sps. I tend to mount sps frags and colonies on base rocks that i can move around at will, so flat works well for me

Heres how it looked in the display when i was done

As usual, i did a somewhat small upgrade, so my tank was pretty much full from day one. Doh!

 

[nasotang]

Details on lights and flow.

I set up the canopy on this tank with 3 ai sols, and 4 t5s for the edges and for supplement on spectrum. Tank is wide and shallow. 6 months later and im still trying to figure out how best to light across 30" with the ai sols. But it has produced some good growth over time, and now im working on reducing light schedule and blue channel to improve coral coloration. I get alot of green and blue from my coral, i think this is a feature of using ai sols. Cant afford hydra 52s or radions yet.

A ton of flow in here. In addition to strong return on eductors, tunze 6205, mp40 and a wp40 provides flow. Its pretty chaotic, but the corals and fish dont seem to mind.

Cant find a good pic of my canopy but looks like this

Old center

Old left

Old right

 

[nasotang]

Today its looking different, as ive gotten rid of alot of coral to make more space. Dumped some of my bigger colonies that I was bored with but i'll pull some historical shots so you can see some if the livestock. Currently have a yellow tang, purple tang, melanarus, yellow chest throat wrasse, sailfin blenny, clown hosting huge welso brain for years, and a filefish im trying to catch before he starts munching coral.

These are some highlights from about month 4. At some point i put a rowaphos reactor online, and honestly, i dont think any of these corals look as good as they did then. Had some issues with alk swings and gfo getting intonthe water column that irritated the corals but i'll get some new pics this weekend when my wife gets her new canon t3i in the mail.

 

[Confuse]

Awesome tank man!

 

[Tangwich]

Great stuff...thanks for sharing the build with us.

 

[Kimle]

Nice nice!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[mark.a.smith405]

I have seen this tank in person. It is freakin incredible. Looking good dude!

 

[nasotang]

Thanks guys. My wife wants me to replace it with something not quite as tall and dark. Maybe a 5'x2'x2' but i'd need to change the lights up for that. Is that a 150?

 

[rudog01]

Wow very nice....

 

[xmas_one]

Very nice! I'm definitely going to steal some of your ideas for my new build, especially the waterchange off of the return! 5x2x2 is a 150, (24x24x60)/231=150.

 

[nasotang]

Thank you. Now if i can just figure out how this new tapatalk update works...notifications dont work for me anymore like they used to. Ugh...

 

[e92Monster]

very nice!, how long have you had those colonies for?

 

[peter]

Wow thanks for making me feel worse about my fugly tank lol.. love the blues on your sps.

 

[nasotang]

Well the colonies in the pictures are just 1-2 years old. Ive had some huge colonies that i recently sold that ive had for 4-5 years. One in my tank right now ive had for more than 5. They have been in a 50, a 75, then a 90 and now the 125. [MENTION=3315]peter[/MENTION], ive definitely got some corals that are struggling right now too, it happens to everybody. Ive been lucky, maybe only 1-2 crashes in the past, but ive had every pest known i think. Nudi eating montis, aefw, red bugs, had em all.

 

[ERIC1975]

Looking pretty sweet John! What's the name of the acro in the 4th pic down? Yellow with red polyp? Looks like the Reef Raft Pink Floyd?

 

[nasotang]

Nah its just a pink lemonade. Grows good, doesnt have the best color right now. Ive got a second piece from a different source, but they look the same. The frag in the last pic looks totally different now. It went all pink on the corallites, white skin and green base. Im in the process of turning down my lighting schedule and reducing my blue channels to see if i can bring the pop back. That yellow tort monster i had, that was all green? I put it in someone elses tank and under halides it went completely yellow. So i figure its my leds that gives me the greens and blues. Probably need to swap out my t5s too, they are on about 9 months and only 1 fan in my canopy...

 

[pandimus]

And what about that blue one right under it? What's that called?

 

[nasotang]

Heres some shots from today, dirty glass, mid day light shadows and all. I added a kessil on top of my 3 aisols and 4 t5s justbto illuminate my frag rack, might be second guessing that decision...

 

[nasotang]