My Reef Thrived During The Summer

[SchnitzelReef]

Great looking tank. Sps and angels is no easy task!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[maikoa02]

Amazing setup - keep up the great work! Your setup is every reefers’ dream with SPS-dominant and angels. I’ve been trying to get there myself but only a year in so still lots of frag.

You’re also very modest but you can share your tank’s setup (I’m thinking a potential TOTM, hint hint @Jimbo327) that would be awesome.

Again, congrats!

Thank you for the kind words. Got a chance to look at your FTS of your tank and I think you're being modest. Those acros are going to be colonies within a year and your collection of angels is very impressive. I believe I saw a Blueface, French, Queen, Passer, and Imperator. I've never seen a Passer in a reef tank. The ones I've had in the past are the meanest angels. But when they're juvi's...the coloration is pure wow.

 

[maikoa02]

Great looking tank. Sps and angels is no easy task!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

What's up Nick, long time. Talk about great looking tanks, to this day your 300 gallon was one of the best I've seen. Huge colonies growing out of the water, and you had alot of the pieces that I had collected also from the golden time at Age of Aquariums with Brian Fahs. You gotta get back in bro, your skills are too good not to be in this hobby.

 

[bakbay]

Thank you for the kind words. Got a chance to look at your FTS of your tank and I think you're being modest. Those acros are going to be colonies within a year and your collection of angels is very impressive. I believe I saw a Blueface, French, Queen, Passer, and Imperator. I've never seen a Passer in a reef tank. The ones I've had in the past are the meanest angels. But when they're juvi's...the coloration is pure wow.

Thanks - you have very good eyes! That Queen is actually a Blue (I bought it as a mistake). I would like to swap it for a Queen one of these days. The Blue is actually the meanest fish in the tank but the French keeps him in check! I have enough tangs that will keep the angels’ aggression down. Feeding them multiple times a day might have helped as you know.

If you don’t mind, please share your setup: light, flow, dosing schedule, etc?

 

[maikoa02]

Thanks - you have very good eyes! That Queen is actually a Blue (I bought it as a mistake). I would like to swap it for a Queen one of these days. The Blue is actually the meanest fish in the tank but the French keeps him in check! I have enough tangs that will keep the angels’ aggression down. Feeding them multiple times a day might have helped as you know.

If you don’t mind, please share your setup: light, flow, dosing schedule, etc?]
Sorry for the really late reply as I've had to deal with a few issues including a slab leak which resulted in a whole house repipe. Not fun at all.

The tank is 180 gallons 6x2x2. I acquired the tank, stand and sump from Smite (he has a write up on the build) late November 2020. Water in and system started 12/26/2020. Great deal btw, thanks again Matt! Total water volume is around 206 gallon.

I try to not complicate the system and I used alot of old gear from my previous 90 gallon reef that was running for over 13 years. Lots of old live rock from Fiji, Tonga, Indonesia, and Marshall Island at least 1/2 dating back to 1995. As far as flow, return line is a Fluval SP6, split to return in right and left back wall. I also use a Fluval SP4 to go to a Pentair 40 watt UV sterilizer, and a JBJ 1/3 chiller. A tunze stream 3 pushes flow along the back wall from right to left. A tunze 6105 is on the left plane pushing left to right pretty much 1/2 way up the tank. And finally an Ecotech MP40 on the right side. I've got 3 more tunze 6105's and 5 6095's as backups and to add more flow as the colonies get bigger. Which I probably should add 1 or 2 very soon.

As far a lighting, on the left side is an old 48" 8 bulb T5 Tek fixture using a combo of ATI bulbs, mostly Blue +. On the right side is a Radion G5 pro to cover the remaining 24". Dosingwise, I dose almost 200ml of Alk and 200ml of Ca daily with a 15 year old Bubble Magnus doser. Magnesium I dose as needed, according to my weekly test. I use a filter sock, which is changed every 2-3 days. Also using a 17 year old Cone S protein skimmer that is rated for a 120 gallon system but has worked flawlessly for me. Clean the collection every 4-5 days. I use an Alkatronic to closely monitor Alkalinity, which helped me tremendously to keep alk stable. And as previously mentioned, I utilize the Reef Moonshiner method for I believe over 4 years, and have not done any water change during that time.

I think that is it. You're more than welcome to come and check out the system, just PM and I can give you my contact info.

 

[bakbay]

All good - life happens and hope your house is ok — slab leaks are horrible!

You’re very old-school and I love your proven method of reefing. I’ve been struggling with slow/no growth so definitely might need to consider moonshiner or go back to 2-part one of these days.

Might consider taking your offer to check out the system lsoon since it’s very frustrating getting very slow growth. Well, at least Kalk is speeding up my SPS growth so can’t complain….