all! Ive been around these forums for a few years now and thought it was time to share my current tank with the community.
Im going to be setting this up as my build thread and also want to tell my story about my journey through the hobby, my ups and downs, and everything that led up to this current tank in its current state. I will be providing more details, background, etc., but felt that I should start with just a brief overview of the tank. I will note that I’ve been battling a severe outbreak of vermetid snails – ill go into this a bit more in subsequent posts, but even though they are EVERYWHERE, I seem to be seeing less and less of their webs which makes me think they are dying back a bit.
With that said here is the current state of the tank and some details of the equipment:
Display: Red Sea Reefer 625XL G2 (approx. 5 feet long, 2 feet deep, 2 feet tall, and 130 gal. volume)
Sump: DIY remote sump built with 3 Tamco tubs (approx. 40 gal. volume)
Lighting: T5 / LED hybrid – 48” Aquatic life DX18 T5 hybrid fixture with 3x Red Sea Reef Led 160s LEDs.
Skimmer: Tunze 9410 DC
Rock: Aquaforest AF rock – this stuff has been pretty good – seems a bit more porous than carib sea liferock, with the downside being that the shapes aren’t as interesting as the carib sea offerings.
Filtration: Red Sea Reefmat 1200 – this thing is the best advancement in the hobby of the past decade – I seriously love this thing and could never go back to filter socks…
Control: Apex EL and GHL profilux 4 (got an incredible deal on the GHL that I couldn’t pass up and tired of Apex low quality hardware…) I will discuss my opinions on both of these in subsequent posts.
Flow: 2x Ecotech MP40, 3x Tunze 6095 wide flow, 1x Tunze 6055
Return: Abyzz a100 and Sicce Adv 10
Dosing: Kalkwasser dosed via continuous drip using an Ecotech Versa pump – will eventually need to add 2 part dosing
Supplementation: Not dosing much – using red sea traces added via weekly water change, and also dosing Brightwell NeoNitro (mixed in with my kalk) as I can’t get readable nitrates
Testing: eXact iDip – using this after Chris Meckley (of ACI aquaculture) recommended it on reefbum podcast. I really love this thing for testing Alk and Calcium – don’t use it for anything else currently. I really only test nutrients using ICP tests, not ideal but I don’t get a ton of value/consistency testing nutrients at home and have been using the coloration of my corals as a guide for now…
ATO: kind of a diy setup I guess, but using the AVAST diaphragm pump connected to their pressure sensor tube. Im really limited in what I can use since my water mixing station is about 15 feet away from my sump. I’m using 2x of these for redundancy
That’s pretty much it! Ill go into more detail later but feel free to let me know if you have any questions in the meantime.
-John
Im going to be setting this up as my build thread and also want to tell my story about my journey through the hobby, my ups and downs, and everything that led up to this current tank in its current state. I will be providing more details, background, etc., but felt that I should start with just a brief overview of the tank. I will note that I’ve been battling a severe outbreak of vermetid snails – ill go into this a bit more in subsequent posts, but even though they are EVERYWHERE, I seem to be seeing less and less of their webs which makes me think they are dying back a bit.
With that said here is the current state of the tank and some details of the equipment:
Display: Red Sea Reefer 625XL G2 (approx. 5 feet long, 2 feet deep, 2 feet tall, and 130 gal. volume)
Sump: DIY remote sump built with 3 Tamco tubs (approx. 40 gal. volume)
Lighting: T5 / LED hybrid – 48” Aquatic life DX18 T5 hybrid fixture with 3x Red Sea Reef Led 160s LEDs.
Skimmer: Tunze 9410 DC
Rock: Aquaforest AF rock – this stuff has been pretty good – seems a bit more porous than carib sea liferock, with the downside being that the shapes aren’t as interesting as the carib sea offerings.
Filtration: Red Sea Reefmat 1200 – this thing is the best advancement in the hobby of the past decade – I seriously love this thing and could never go back to filter socks…
Control: Apex EL and GHL profilux 4 (got an incredible deal on the GHL that I couldn’t pass up and tired of Apex low quality hardware…) I will discuss my opinions on both of these in subsequent posts.
Flow: 2x Ecotech MP40, 3x Tunze 6095 wide flow, 1x Tunze 6055
Return: Abyzz a100 and Sicce Adv 10
Dosing: Kalkwasser dosed via continuous drip using an Ecotech Versa pump – will eventually need to add 2 part dosing
Supplementation: Not dosing much – using red sea traces added via weekly water change, and also dosing Brightwell NeoNitro (mixed in with my kalk) as I can’t get readable nitrates
Testing: eXact iDip – using this after Chris Meckley (of ACI aquaculture) recommended it on reefbum podcast. I really love this thing for testing Alk and Calcium – don’t use it for anything else currently. I really only test nutrients using ICP tests, not ideal but I don’t get a ton of value/consistency testing nutrients at home and have been using the coloration of my corals as a guide for now…
ATO: kind of a diy setup I guess, but using the AVAST diaphragm pump connected to their pressure sensor tube. Im really limited in what I can use since my water mixing station is about 15 feet away from my sump. I’m using 2x of these for redundancy
That’s pretty much it! Ill go into more detail later but feel free to let me know if you have any questions in the meantime.
-John
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