Reefmack's Red Sea Max

[Reefmack]

Well, since I've had mine tank since April 2007, it's a bit late to start a build thread, so I'll start one here and update it as things change.

The beginning - 24 lbs. of live rock from Reef Science:



The rock was fully cured, and as a safeguard I added Bio-Spira live bacterial innoculant with each batch of rock, another 25 lbs. added within a week, and fish added about a week later. Using multiple test kits I've never had a measurable cycle since day one - no ammonia, no nitrites, just some nitrates. I attribute this to the fully cured rock, and the use of Bio-Spira.

Although fully cured, the rock had coralline on it, and a lot of life (good types) that were hitchhikers. This was taken a few hours after the first rock went in - zoas opening, several bright red mushrooms, and some green star polyps. I was amazed how much life was still on the rock and that I saw no die-off.



After the second 25 lbs. of rock, and after adding 2 clowns, 2 pajama cardinals, and a Diadema Pseudochromis. As I said, even after adding fish, no ammonia, no nitrates - I was a happy camper!



I suffered through a diatom stage for a couple weeks, but never had anything but a very minor amount of green hair algae. I have no grisly looking pictures of my rockwork covered in green hair, thank goodness!

The tank at about 2 months, after adding some corals:



I went though a lot of early mods on the RSM skimmer. This was one of the mesh mods on the skimmer pump impeller. None of these or other mods ever did much to improve RSM skimmer performance:



The tank at about 7 months. I replaced the RSM hood with a Current Outer Orbit Pro HQI/T5 fixture to open up the back section to different skimmers, and ATO, etc.



An older picture of the back of the tank with the raised hood off - I went with a Aqua C Remora HOB skimmer that performs great, and Tunze ATO sensors. The blue thing was a DIY mechanical filter I built. I'm now running a 3 tiered media basket (purchased from StevieT) to the right of the Remora. It's a bit tight back there now, but it all fits, and the media basket solved a lot of problems with media placement and mechanical filtration.



A few days output from the Remora. I doubt I got this much gunk out in months of running the stock skimmer! The stock skimmer works well for some, but the one I got was depositing all of the gunk in the upper skimmer body and neck of the skimmer cup, nothing much ever in the cup.



Jumping way ahead, this is pretty much the look I had till a few months ago:



My diadema dottyback - I've had it from the start and it's still one of my favorite fish. A bit aggressive but none of my fish have ever physically hurt one another - just occasional displays of dominance:



At about 9-10 months I had an outbreak of pesky Bryopsis algae that was starting to overgrow some of my corals. I tried pulling it out, but tough to remove & grew right back. I tried elevated magnesium levels but saw some negative effects on some of the polyps. Although the fish will eventually get too big for the tank, as a last resort I bought a small Foxface. The Bryopsis was gone in a week, and hasn't reappeared!



In April I bought a small 9g Aqua Medic tank and moved the top rock and corals from the RSM to furnish the 9g nano. This gave me a clean slate on top to get some new rock on top, move things around and try for a new look, and new coral types. The bare top back in April:



I'm now trying SPS, Acropora, Montipora, Pocillopora, and some new lps types (Blastomussa, Duncans, etc.). I'm begining to like the look of the tank again, and even now prefer it over the "old" look.

Under the 20000k HQI metal halide:



And under only the 420/460 actinics - I love the way the corals fluoresce and "pop out" under actinic lighting! A totally different appearance:



And here's a couple of other actinic close ups. I didn't realize it till looking through old Photobucket pics that my light green acropora has grown a good inch in about a month. The montiporas grow even faster. And my 3 week old green & blue Duncans are already putting out baby heads all around the stalks. Amazing how quickly some of these things grow, while others can be impossible to keep alive.







Pocillopora damicornis - another SPS type I'm having good luck with. But, these are semi-agressive so it may be a problem as it grows. I've tried to avoid aggressive corals in my latest setup, but I didn't read up on this one first - one of those impulse buys!



A Blastomussa wellsi I won on Ebay a week ago. One polyp so far, but that one polyp can expand to over 2" across:

Under actinics:



Under the metal halide:



I got tired of pink pictures from 16 months of coralline growth on the sides and back. This picture was with a 9 month old 20 k metal halide lamp:



Major Coralline Attack #1 - and new 14k metal halide bulb in - I couldn't get at the coralline on the left side of the gate with my 6 inch wide Aqua Medic Razor Scraper:



After yesterday's attack with the new razor scraper that's the width of a single edged blade. I broke a corner off 2 blades, but was able to retrieve them:



The gate is still covered, but to me it looks much better. Sorry all you coralline lovers, but I've learned to hate the stuff! If you don't want a pink tank keep after it before it gets too thick. I've learned my lesson!

I then moved a large piece of rock with a nice green zoa colony to the right side (not visible), moved some things around on the substrate to get better flow and get rid of some cyano. Things were too cramped, plus I have a tendency to overfeed. Having my timers get messed up after a recent all night power outage resulted in my MH lamp being on for 12+ hours instead of 7 - I noticed that mid week. Put all these together and they promote cyano. Top left is a small magnetic frag rack.



My new frag of neon green Palau Nepthea - hard to photograph fluorescent green corals - too bright I guess. Liveaquaria wants $80 & shipping for this size frag. I got mine for only $19.



Some new Montipora digitata. The orange piece on the right broke off while mounting it, so I mounted it on the right side of a new purple digitata in the middle. In just a bit over a week there are new branch shoots popping up on both the orange and purple, Lower left is a German blue digitata only a few weeks old & doing great. Bottom middle is a superman monti that has doubled in size in 3 weeks - much prettier than the pictures show.



In the frag pack with the above new digitata I got a piece of nice green Monti cap - mounted it below my orange piece that is starting to form plates after only a few weeks. The orange Monti was only a square inch piece when I got it. Montipora grows fast!



Green & Orange digis about a month old and really growing!



The other two Montis in the frag pack were two encrusting types - I think the first is a M. danae type, with hard to see small, bright blue polyps, and no idea what the one in the second pic is. Pics are a bit fuzzy but I was in a rush to eat dinner at thde time.





I guess that's it for an update on where I'm at with my tank. Stay tuned.

[blue_eyes53813]

Very Nice, The colors in your tank amaze me...

[Reefmack]

Thanks very much blue eyes53813! The wife has always complained I didn't have enough color in the tank, so I used that for an excuse to change things and pour some more $$$ into it. Anything I can do to help her enjoy the tank as much as I do works for me! I just jumped to the end of your chronicle - your tank is beautiful!

[Scooterman]

Very nice Indeed!
Your tank has come a long way & is looking great!

[Reefmack]

Thanks Scooterman! Lottsa changes in 16 months, and I've learned a lot, and still learning. Some of the things I've tried have worked out well, and others not so well. A lot of work, but it's been fun and enjoyable.

[SeahorseBT]

Lookin' good. Lokks like you have some good growth going there.

[Reefmack]

Hi SeahorseBT. Yep - my Montis are really growing. The Nepthea has also really grown since I remounted it with a rubberband.

[gotcha]

how do you do a water change with everything virtually at the top xD?

Beauty of a display.

[Reefmack]

gotcha - Welcome to Reef Sanctuary! Thanks! No problem on the water changes. When I do one of about 4 gallons weekly the corals don't get exposed, and even if they did get exposed it would only be for a minute or two. They can handle being exposed for a short time with no negative effects. They were probably out of water for a longer period when I was getting them ready to glue/epoxy onto the rock - they're more hardy than you may think. You obviously don't want to let them dry out though, so the shorter the time is that they're out of water the better.

I just have to be careful that I don't knock any off with the end of the siphon hose, but there's a good bit of space in front of the rocks so that's not a big worry.

[todd03blown]

looks outstanding, beautiful!!

[Reefmack]

Thanks todd!

[cbrownfish]

Great job man, looking really nice. Are you manually dosing Ca? You must be running through it! Please Describe your dosing regimen and how you add it to the tank. I wish I could get my actinic shots to come out that good!

[Reefmack]

Hey - thanks cbrownfish! I'm dosing manually. Started with Kent Tech CB 2-part, and although the 1/2 g bottles lasted a long time, I recently switched to the Bulk Reef Supply stuff to save some money by making the 2-part myself. I'm daily adding about 11 ml of the Ca part, and 4.5 ml of the Alk part. It took a while to tune it in, but I'm now getting my Ca to consistently stay right around 450, and my Alk about 9.5. I picked up 14x2 oz. small Nalgene plastic sample bottles from the chem lab that I used to manage, and I make up a week's worth of doses by pipetting the ml amount of Ca & Alk into the bottles (7 small bottles Ca, 7 Alk), then filling the bottles with RO/DI. Every morning before I leave for work I slowly add a bottle of Part A (Ca) to my back filtration compartment, and 15-20 minutes later a slow add of the Part B (Alk). Too much of a PITA to be pipetting when I'm only half awake, and this is a pretty easy system for me. I usually dose about 20 ml of Mg with my weekly water change (but I haven't checked Mg lately and need to!).

[cbrownfish]

Cool, thanks for sharing. Sound like you need a medical doing pump so you can sleep in for an extra 15 minutes!

[Reefmack]

Nah - I'm up getting ready for work during that 15 minutes anyway. Too much money already spent on this addiction!