180 The Simple Way

[ReefLady]

Well, setting it up was no walk in the park, but my intent is to keep this one simple as far as equipment.

What I mean by that is, it seems like a lot of bigger tanks go for the whole "automated SPS heaven" thing, and that's just not what I'm looking to do.

A lot of that has to do with my passion for LPS and softies. I like some SPS, but don't want to make the sacrifices or go to the trouble of setting up a system for lots of acros, etc. I'm happy with a couple of caps, some digitata, and a nice pink seriatopora.

I'd like to keep this down to the basics as much as possible- lighting, skimming, water movement.

I do see a new sump in the future, when I can afford one (next time a FAMA check rolls in maybe ) because the rubbermaid tub just isn't cutting it long-term. I knew it wouldn't.

Anyway, here are the specs at start-up:

Tank:

180 RR 2" drain and 2x1" returns, all in one corner overflow box

Lighting:

2x250 MH (ARO e-ballasts) running 10,000K XM bulbs
2x110W VHO actinic off an icecap 660

Filtration:

ETSS 800 clone skimmer driven by Iwaki 40 RLT pump

Current
Mag 12 return pump
4 MJ-1200
1 Seio (the big one)

Substrate

I went for a shallow sand bed this time, it's about 3/4" on average. Only about 70lb. of dry Southdown (yardright). I tried going barebottom, hated it, so I'm going to try this. I got a sand-sifting star and will probably get one or two more. I don't care if it's dead, I just want it clean. Also some nassarius snails, maybe a dozen now but I'll increase that with the fish load. If it starts leaching PO4, I figure removing and replacing the sand will go much smoother without a DSB and noxious gasses lurking below the surface of the sand like I had last time.


Other
I did hook up a phosban reactor, which may conflict with the "simple" approach but I've been fighting PO4 and hair algae, I assume from my LR, since I had sand bed issues nearly a year ago. I have fed close to nothing and kept a light fish load for most of that time, and the hair algae is definitely in recession but waiting for an opportunity.

Pro-Heat 350W heater. I may add another for safety when it gets colder, but temp has been holding at 80-82 so far.

Livestock

Right now, 4 green chromis, 1 Clarkii clown are the only fish. I hope to take it slow.

For corals, lots of them- the contents of my 55 that was jam-packed with corals, and some of the zo's from the prop tank. You can see in the pic, most of that is on the pile of rock on the right-hand side. Two good-sized branching hammers, a frogspawn and a green torch are the highlights.

Suppose that's it for now. Here's a pic of the tank, I'll load the thread up with some pics of the setup process a little later. It's bed time.

 

[ReefLady]

That pic is after 1 week of running BTW. I had about 70-80 lb of LR in the 55 that was very mature, no signs of a mini-cycle. The other 100lb was Lr I got with the tank, it was infested with aiptasia so it became base rock. It's ugly now but I hope to get the coralline going soon.

T

 

[VINA DEL MAR]

You say "Ugly now"?You gotta be kidding me!That's a nice set up.
I cant wait for the rest of the pics.I always admired you for been the best pics taker in the whole world.
When you get a chance can you take some macro pics of your corals?TIA

VINA

 

[Cougra]

Very nice tank! I would love to be able to afford a saltwater tank that size!

 

[Woodstock]

How exciting! It is looking great Travis. It will be fun watching it mature and I am sure you will keep us updated with awsome pictures of it

 

[mps9506]

It's going to look awesome Travis. You have the right idea going and you know what you want.
Might I suggest some cerith snails and sand cucumber (like a tiger tail) to help prevent the buildup of visable detrius in the sand. Apparently ceriths are great poop eaters also.
I think the phosdban reactor is a great idea. I doubt you will see any problems running it since it's been hooked up from the start. Just make sure not to use too much.

Can't wait for the pictures to start rolling in from the tank.

Mike

 

[proud2bcanadian]

Beautiful tank Travis!! That's just amazing!!

 

[ReefLady]

Thanks guys! Vina, I meant the rock was ugly. The tank looks pretty good in person, just lots of open space.

Mike I forgot to mention I got a cucumber in there already. And I'm a huge fan of cerith snails, I just have to jump on them when I can find them locally.

I also have 3 fighting conchs, about 3" each.

T

 

[dgasmd]

Travis:

Your set looks good. If you want to add invertebrates and go cheap, do what the rest of us do: buy them online via reeftopia.com
Very cheap and good. Never had a DOA with hundreds literally of stuff shipped.

Softies and LPS are great and certainly have very different requirements than acros. I personally don't see SPS tanks as being better than softies or LPS, but rather just something different. Keeping LPS very colorful and growing/spreading is also just as hard as keeping acros colorfull and happy. Given what you intend to keep, I would have chosen 175 watt MH insteaad. Save electricity or put 3 lamps instead of 2. Although the initial cost and bulb replacement is very similar in all wattages, it suits better the softies especially. Just an opinion.

Post some pictures of the sump and closer to the tank.

 

[mkpaulson]

congratulations on getting your tank up and runing, looks like you did a fantastic job!!

 

[ReefLady]

OK, here comes more equipment shots than you want:

Day 1, Apr 4 '04

My back still remembers moving that sucker. The tank alone probably weighed 400 pounds. Ahhh, what a fun day.

I went to work sanding down some areas of water damage and re-staining, then adding two layers of clear coat, to the stand and canopy. Here's the stand completed, Apr 15:

This was the blonde naso that came with the package, along with about ten other fish. Unfortunately, none made it to the tank being set up again- mostly due to the honeymoon disaster where someone had put soap in the top-off water I made for the neighbor to dump in while we were away. All the fish died. It sucked. Moving on...

A bunch of boring equipment shots before set-up:

Hellolights MH reflector w/mogul:

The Iwaki skimmer pump

Here are the bulkheads set up under the overflow box. The nut of the 2" drain bulkhead was frozen on from sand. It took several days of messing with it before I finally drilled several holes in the nut until it came apart, allowing me to remove the bulkhead. I had to do this because it was frozen in a loosened state, couldn't tighten it, couldn't take it off. Stuck. The limited working space made this one of many frustrating tasks.

250W ARO e-ballast, I got two of these.

Here's the wiring diagram for the ballast, note there are actually two yellows, not 1 blue and 1 yellow. I was told either one could go to either wire of the mogul, so far it has worked fine

The skimmer. I ordered an ETSS 600 clone, got an 800 clone instead. It's a beast. Working very well now that it's dialed in and I keep my grubby paws off of it.

The sump I got from a friend. Didn't work with the skimmer. That sucked too.

Durso standpipe and return plumbing for inside the overflow box

A pretty clam macro to break the monotony:

Inside the sump area, plumbing almost done. I went with a rubbermaid sump for now. It ain't fancy but it works.

I used spa-flex tubing from Home Depot, and that's a 3-way 1.5" wye fitting from customaquatic. 1.5" for two reasons:
1- I thought the return bulkheads were 1.5" when they were actually 1", and because Melev strongly recommended that you use return plumbing 2X the diameter of the output of any mag pump. Melev knows his stuff, so I went with it. You can see some extra plumbing near the bulkheads to convert 1" bulkhead to 1.5" tubing.

Spa-flex is NOT the most agreeable stuff, that's its strength and its weakness. It won't king, it probably won't budge at all as a matter of fact. It does feel nice knowing my hoses are held on by PVC cement rather than a hose barb as well.

Here's the tank, stand, sump, plumbing and Iwaki for the skimmer:

It doesn't look like much, but getting to this stage took a lot of time and effort for me. I had to learn as I went, made some mistakes, and pouted a lot.

Here are the lights hooked up:

I spaced the halides very strategically considering the large overflow box and huge pane of glass over the center divider of the tank. I knew what I wanted to keep, so I left the area in front of the overflow box fairly low-light, for some softies and stuff, lots of light in the middle-left and middle-rught for stony corals, and less dim than on the left since there was more space on the right edge, for moderate lighting but I was thinking it would be a low-flow area.

I bought an icecap 660 used with four 110W actinic bulbs, but ended up only using two. Space wasn't working out well- why have a VHO stuck under halide relfectors? Also, I was concerned about the power draw from one 15A breaker shared with my entertainment center.

Here's where I hit a major issue: Leaky bulkhead. I wound up siliconing it after much, much, much frustration and probably undoing a lot of the clear coat I put inside the stand.

Here it is, Nov. 1, finally filled with water. That took about a week.

Here's "mount LPS", the large mound off to the right. It looks much better now, it has adjusted to the lighting well.

And here's the same shot I posted on the first part of this thread, the tank after 1 week. More updates to come!

T

 

[ReefLady]

OK if you've suffered through all the equipment stuff, let the eye candy commence.

First, my beloved torch. I lost two of the three heads to brown jelly. I went to extreme lengths to save the last head... after the second came down with the stuff very soon after the first head expired, this being one of my favorite corals if not my favorite, I took a tablespoon and carved out every last bit of flesh from the second infected head. I mean ALL of it. No hoping the head would pull through, I've learned my lesson with this brown jelly stuff. I sacrificed the head to save the colony. To my surprise, the third head pulled through.

Next, my new Rose. This was a tough dilemma. I know full well that a tank shouldn't house anemones until it has matured, say 6 months or so. On the other hand, to make the anemone's transition easier on everyone (including the anemone), there should be lots of open space for the anemone to roam and find where it likes. I decided to add the anemone while there was nothing else on this mound, consisting of about 60lb of LR I would guess. The anemone came from a lower-light environment, and I would suspect higher nutrients than one would like. It has been adjusting well, in that it hasn't died. It hid, it came out, it moved a little, but it has overall done well (knock wood) in the 10 days since I've had it.

A macro of one of my branching hammers, both colonies are now doing EXTREMELY well under the new lighting (and honestly, better husbandry conditions) than they had in the 55.

Here's a bubble that took a lot of abuse over the last 6 months while I was setting this up, for an LPS this is one extremely hardy coral. And apparently doesn't need much light. (whoops)

Finally, an ugly montipora digitata. I had this stuff thriving and growing fast under my 96W PC's until the soap went into the tank. I lost ALL my digitata, purple, green and orange. But I noticed a little tiny shimmer of life when moving stuff into the 180...

From a bleached-out colony that wound up buried under the rockwork came this, and on several other pieces as well:

 

[Tarasco]

Sweet! Keep the updates coming. Looks like all the frustration and hard work paid off.

 

[mps9506]

Thanks for the pictures Travis, I knew you would eventually post em
Looks good, I know that tank is going to look great in about 6 months to a year. That hard work will pay off.
Mike

 

[Maxx]

Travis, Looks great! You've definately been working hard on this. I certainly empathize when you say

getting to this stage took a lot of time and effort for me. I had to learn as I went, made some mistakes, and pouted a lot.

Just getting my plumbing done was a major accomplishment in my eyes, and probably one of the biggest hurdles. I dont like Spa-Flex and will probably avoid that stuff like the plague for my next set up.
Good job T!
Nick

 

[ReefLady]

Thanks guys.

Maxx, I like spa-flex for some things, like the main return line. But anything that requires flexible tubing is best done with something else. Maybe it should be called "non-flex" tubing.

 

[VINA DEL MAR]

Travis thank you for giving me the little dose of your macro pics I asked you before.
Sorry about the fish death,but is not your fault Right?Hope to see more pics and keep the good work.

VINA

 

[ReefLady]

Update time.

Here's the full tank shot:

You'll notice the colors are different from left to right. One of my stinkin' 10K XM bulbs blew after about 2 weeks in service. I got a temporary replacement, a Hamilton 14K. Guess which is left and which is right? That should be easy. I'm actually enjoying the color of the Hamilton much better, but I have a replacement 10K XM on the way. My friends at the logical reef always take good care of me.

Some of the frags from the prop tank broke out with algae. Actually, I should back up- last week, I got my diatom bloom. Snails were doing a good job, and it seemed to be fading. Then the hair algae just took off on these frags and a couple pieces that had it in the 55. For some reason, what seemed like different types of algae took the form of bryopsis in the new tank...BLECH!

Well, I've dealt with bryopsis before. No fun. But I have a secret weapon...

This is my new Foxface. My third one. Hopefully I can keep this one happier in the 180, my two previous ones didn't do well in the 46, although they were smaller. He's already making a big dent in the bryopsis, as long as I keep my nutrients under control and keep the skimmer running well, I expect (hope) the hair algae issues to be gone in a few weeks. I have managed to keep it isolated and it doesn't seem to be spreading, so I just have to let the foxface do what he does best. Eat anything and everything algae.


Softie city on the left side is shaping up nicely... all the softies seem to appreciate the 14K more than the 10K bulb (or technically, the lower PAR probably). I'm seeing better extension from all of them and enjoying the nice glow effect from the bulb, especially on anything green

The rose has been an issue. The rock it came on was infested with aiptasia and had to go. The poor rose was enjoying the 14K more as well, when I so meanly took it out of the tank and busted its rock so the anemone was on a very small, aiptasia-free piece. It decided that would be a good time to move... to somewhere I can barely see it.

Note the sliver of life growing fast on this purple digitata.


I moved the pulsing sinularia, one of my most rare and favorite corals, over to softie city. It seems very happy.

On to mount LPS... everything is extending and happy looking under the 10K XM now. You can see some of the bryopsis on the right. Those are zoanthid frags buried in the stuff.

I'm thinking about fragging up one of my two large branching hammers...

Here's a side shot of Mount LPS

And a side shot of softie city

Equipment: I forgot to add a pic of how I rigged up my phosban reactor. It's supposed to be level, but there was no way to do that on the side of the rubbermaid sump. A bungee cord and a little ingenuity later, this was the result:

Finally, a couple of frags I'm bringing to the DFWMAS frag swap on Saturday, along with more anthelia frags than you can shake a stick at:

(The oranges ar recovering from a shaded spot in the 55, they'll be nice soon I promise)

That's it for now! Sorry for the pic quality, still fighting micro bubbles and didn't get too fancy trying to correct the white balance, so some of them have a color cast. Snapshots I suppose.

T

 

[Maxx]

Travis,
Looks good. Sorry to hear about your XM bulb troubles. I have been admiring the Hamilton 14K's for awhile now, but I bought four AB 10K DE's for my tank when In-Reef had them on sale for $50.00 a piece. I couldnt pass that up. But Hamilton's look good to my eye.

I had to laugh when I saw this pic. The astrea snail on the right side looked like a tiny moon setting over mount LPS.

Nick

 

[ReefLady]

Update:

Flatworms. Ugh.

Broken XM 10K. Ugh.

Oceanic salt- ugh. CA 550, Alk 2-2.5 meq/l at 1.025. Ugh.

Flatworm exit and a new bulb in the mail.