Johnny’s 75 g reef tank

[Bamaspeedy]

Hello All! Finally took the leap and started my first saltwater tank after 15 years of contemplation. This is a 75Gallon Marineland corner overflow tank with 60 lbs Marco purple rock and 60 lbs special grade live sand.
For equipment I have the following:
Trigger system Ruby sump
Simplistic DC120 skimmer
Simplistic DC1600 return pump
IM Helio 400 W PTC heater
Maxspect Gyre XF330
2x Noo-psyche K7 Pro 3
Apex EL
Neptune ATK
Aqua Gadget 15 gallon ATO reservoir.
BRS 5 stage RODI

I’ve probably broken every rule. I did a fishless cycle using Turbostart and Nitrocycle. At day seven with 0 Ammonia and Nitrites I added 2 Black Ocellaris Clowns and a small Blue RegalTang(I know he will eventually outgrow the 75). The lights came on the day following fish addition. I measured Ammonia daily to ensure I didn’t have a bad spike. On day 14 I added a Flame Hawk, pistol shrimp and a small Watchman Goby. I also got a couple of test corals, an Aussie Green Hammer and green candy cane. Also started the refugium with a baseball size bunch of Chaeto lit by a GE horticulture bulb and clip on reflector from Tractor Supply. On day 16 I had my first Diatoms. On day 18 I put in the 65 gal Reef Cleaners suggested CUC. I thought the recommended 75 gal was too many critters. Diatoms were gone overnight. After Diatoms green powdered algae began to form on glass surfaces which require cleaning every couple of days. I’ve done two 15 gallon water changes and changed filter socks every three days. Chaeto has doubled in size in two weeks.,
All of my critters seem to be loving life except for the Watchman Goby. I have not seen him since initial release.

I am keeping temp 77.5-78 F salinity at 1.026 and NO3 is slowly dropping and is now getting close to 10 ppm. I’ll start testing everything else next week. PH swings from 7.8 to 8.2 as expected.

 

[TX_REEF]

Welcome, 15 years of contemplation is way too long but we’re glad you made it! Let us know if you have any questions

 

[Gumbies R Us]

Hello All! Finally took the leap and started my first saltwater tank after 15 years of contemplation. This is a 75Gallon Marineland corner overflow tank with 60 lbs Marco purple rock and 60 lbs special grade live sand.
For equipment I have the following:
Trigger system Ruby sump
Simplistic DC120 skimmer
Simplistic DC1600 return pump
IM Helio 400 W PTC heater
Maxspect Gyre XF330
2x Noo-psyche K7 Pro 3
Apex EL
Neptune ATK
Aqua Gadget 15 gallon ATO reservoir.
BRS 5 stage RODI

I’ve probably broken every rule. I did a fishless cycle using Turbostart and Nitrocycle. At day seven with 0 Ammonia and Nitrites I added 2 Black Ocellaris Clowns and a small Blue RegalTang(I know he will eventually outgrow the 75). The lights came on the day following fish addition. I measured Ammonia daily to ensure I didn’t have a bad spike. On day 14 I added a Flame Hawk, pistol shrimp and a small Watchman Goby. I also got a couple of test corals, an Aussie Green Hammer and green candy cane. Also started the refugium with a baseball size bunch of Chaeto lit by a GE horticulture bulb and clip on reflector from Tractor Supply. On day 16 I had my first Diatoms. On day 18 I put in the 65 gal Reef Cleaners suggested CUC. I thought the recommended 75 gal was too many critters. Diatoms were gone overnight. After Diatoms green powdered algae began to form on glass surfaces which require cleaning every couple of days. I’ve done two 15 gallon water changes and changed filter socks every three days. Chaeto has doubled in size in two weeks.,
All of my critters seem to be loving life except for the Watchman Goby. I have not seen him since initial release.

I am keeping temp 77.5-78 F salinity at 1.026 and NO3 is slowly dropping and is now getting close to 10 ppm. I’ll start testing everything else next week. PH swings from 7.8 to 8.2 as expected.

Love the aquascape!

 

[Bamaspeedy]

Love the aquascape!

It turned out better than I expected for my first attempt. There are plenty of hiding spaces for my little Flame Hawk. He is the coolest dude.

 

[Justin Allen]

It turned out better than I expected for my first attempt. There are plenty of hiding spaces for my little Flame Hawk. He is the coolest dude.

Love to see some pics with it full!

 

[Seansea]

Off to great start. Good luck going forward

 

[fishface NJ]

Welcome to R2R! Like the rock scape....best of luck with the tank

 

[lil sumpin]

Happy reefing in 2024

 

[Bamaspeedy]

Love to see some pics with it full!

It seems I made the Hammer mad yesterday when I was playing with the lights in manual mode. He was missing some green when I got him.

 

[Tbhf]

Welcome to the addiction! Good luck with the tank.

 

[Bamaspeedy]

Week 6 Update
This week has been an adventure. First off.. my Chaeto is doing well. It started as a handful around a baseball size. It’s now the size of a volleyball maybe. My skimmer is working good as well which I have to dump daily. I am changing filter sock every Weds and Sun.

My hammer coral was having a hard time so I started checking Alk and Phos as well as my nitrates. I discovered my alk was 5.6 to go along with .03 phos and 30 nitrate. So I started dosing 1tsp soda ash daily. And it is staying right around 8 now. It seems my tank is somehow consuming .5 dkh per day. Interesting side effect of the soda ash is my ph is now hanging around 8.2 in the day and 8.0 at night. That’s much better than the 7.8 to 8.1 swing I was having.

In a failed attempt to lower nitrate I have been using strips of the Accurel nitrate reducing pad in the little rack before the return section of sump. It has had no effect on Nitrates. However it did cause another problem. These pads don’t flow so well and after three days it restricted the flow to return pump chamber. This caused ATO to slowly overfill sump. I have a fifteen gallon reservoir. Luckily I noticed that the pump was running for longer periods than usual. Usually it shuts off in maybe 10 secs but the log showed it running 30- 40 secs per hour. I also have plenty of room in the Ruby sump even if it pumped the reservoir dry I’d be good except for the salinity change. My salinity only dropped to 1.024. A good 20 gallon water change fixed that and got me back to 1.026.

I still want to figure these Nitrates out. I feed very sparingly. I rotate 1/2 teaspoon Mysis Feast with either a small pinch of pellets or a small pinch of freeze dried Mysis which my Flame Hawk seems to love the best. It may just be because I’m only on week 6 with dry Marco rocks and live sand. I have so much to learn and to think I was trained to maintain water chemistry in the navy. I’ve gone from adding lbs of phosphate to trying to nearly eradicate it.

 

[noobreefer2]

I have the same tank! Following!