Hey guys… So lately I’ve been posting questions here and I thought it would be better to centralize all of these questions into one build thread that has all the information you need to help me 
So a little bit about me. My name is Roi, I’m 27 years old, I live in Israel, I’m married and have 2 awesome dogs. I started a couple of years ago with a small goldfish pond in the backyard… which rolled into a planted tank in the office… after we bought our house I really wanted to build a Koi pond (already imported a Rotary Drum Filter from Holland for a 10,000 gallon pond, talk about a waste of money).
But due to some Issues, a lot of which are strongly related to a lack of money, I couldn’t go forward with the pond… So I decided to get an aquarium, and eventually decided on a reef.
So without knowing much I setup my first reef tank (that’s just the kind of guy I am) and after 2 months I tore it down. I got a yellow tang that died from white spot that really killed me, so I decided to tear it down and do it right.
So, I’m just going to disregard that awful first try and call this my first try (cheating?).
So moving on to the interesting part, I have a 90 gallon display tank (which i got second hand, with an overflow and only 1 hole drilled. and a 25 gallon sump which i built.
The Tank is about 3 and a half months old at this point.
The display tank is located in my living room, but the sump and all of the equipment is in my kitchen (a slow clap for the wife would be appropriate). I also added a full siphon line to make a herbie overflow. (was too chicken to drill the glass).
The Aquascape is very simple. It’s just 3 pieces of fake rock that i found in my LFS, It’s supposed to be very porous (made from some kind of foam) and good for reef. It is as heavy as a real rock.
For flow I’m using a chinese 6000 LPH pump and a jebao CP-40 wave maker. For lighting I have a couple of chinese 165W black boxes… I run the blues at 70% and white at 30%. The blues are on 11 hours a day, the whites are on for 9 of them.
Now for the filtration:
The water drains from the display to the first chamber of the sump which cascades onto a polyester filter floss shelve (I change the filter floss about twice a week), from there it goes under then over into the skimmer chamber (Bubble Magus Curve 5, connected the airline to draw air from outside and added a valve for more control), which also houses a pump that sends water to the algae scrubber.
Some of the water goes to the algae scrubber, and some of it continues from below to a chamber with some siporax media.
The rest of the water (from the siporax chamber and from the algae scrubber) continues to another compartment with some siporax media and then to the return area (with a bag of GAC) and back to the display via a 1” line.
My Algae Scrubber is an awesome little project, water is pumped up from the sump and sprays over a couple of mesh screens that are lit each from one side with 20W red led flood lights (12 hours a day). The algae scrubber also has a herbie style drain. (coz i’m obsessed with noise).
*what you see in the picture is about 4 days growth. Usually I will clean it after 14 days. The reason I put 2 separate algae screens is so I could clean a different one each week, keeping the algae scrubber working at near full capacity all the time
This was designed by the way so that the pods that are produced by the algae scrubber will be able to live in the siporax chamber and slowly get released to the display via the return pump.
Next to the sump I have my freshwater and saltwater barrels and my RODI unit is connected to each one so it’s fairly easy to make water.
The freshwater barrel (15 gallons) is connected to an auto top off unit (with a backup switch). And the saltwater barrel (30 gallons) is connected to my Jebao DP-4 dosing pump to perform an auto water change. Waste water goes out to the yard… I change 150ml, 24 times a day (about 1% a day). So I need to make a new batch of saltwater once a month roughly…
Stocking List - Fish :
Stocking List - Coral :
For Inverts I have a fire shrimp and like 10 turbo snails.
My Water Parameters (I test weekly, Red Sea test kits, and add cal/alk/mag as needed):
I’m feeding about 2-3 cubes (enriched brine, mysis, lobster eggs, red plankton) and some Prime Reef Flakes and a sheet of nori, every day.
I also add Reef Energy A&B (8 ml each) every day.
On the most part I think everything is feeling ok in the tank, All of the corals are opening up ok and look fine. Other than 1 chromis that died at first I haven’t lost any of the new additions and they all seem happy.
I do have some challenges and questions that I have, so I’ve made a list of issues I’m facing and would love some help on :
Anyways, If you’ve made it this far then I want to personally thank you for investing the time to look into my project and I would love to get any feedback on my system.
I am really new at this hobby and only have this saltwater tank for 3 and a half months (and the other attempt of which we shall not speak again). Everything I learned came from youtube and forums (praise google the one and only true god). And while I have learned a lot of theoretical science, I am sure there are still a lot of practicality for me to learn…
Let’s finish up with some tank shots and may the force be with us all…
*a lot of these are taken at night because it’s night right now… and also because I can’t film with the blues on without burning the whole picture.
So a little bit about me. My name is Roi, I’m 27 years old, I live in Israel, I’m married and have 2 awesome dogs. I started a couple of years ago with a small goldfish pond in the backyard… which rolled into a planted tank in the office… after we bought our house I really wanted to build a Koi pond (already imported a Rotary Drum Filter from Holland for a 10,000 gallon pond, talk about a waste of money).
But due to some Issues, a lot of which are strongly related to a lack of money, I couldn’t go forward with the pond… So I decided to get an aquarium, and eventually decided on a reef.
So without knowing much I setup my first reef tank (that’s just the kind of guy I am) and after 2 months I tore it down. I got a yellow tang that died from white spot that really killed me, so I decided to tear it down and do it right.
So, I’m just going to disregard that awful first try and call this my first try (cheating?).
So moving on to the interesting part, I have a 90 gallon display tank (which i got second hand, with an overflow and only 1 hole drilled. and a 25 gallon sump which i built.
The Tank is about 3 and a half months old at this point.
The display tank is located in my living room, but the sump and all of the equipment is in my kitchen (a slow clap for the wife would be appropriate). I also added a full siphon line to make a herbie overflow. (was too chicken to drill the glass).
The Aquascape is very simple. It’s just 3 pieces of fake rock that i found in my LFS, It’s supposed to be very porous (made from some kind of foam) and good for reef. It is as heavy as a real rock.
For flow I’m using a chinese 6000 LPH pump and a jebao CP-40 wave maker. For lighting I have a couple of chinese 165W black boxes… I run the blues at 70% and white at 30%. The blues are on 11 hours a day, the whites are on for 9 of them.
Now for the filtration:
The water drains from the display to the first chamber of the sump which cascades onto a polyester filter floss shelve (I change the filter floss about twice a week), from there it goes under then over into the skimmer chamber (Bubble Magus Curve 5, connected the airline to draw air from outside and added a valve for more control), which also houses a pump that sends water to the algae scrubber.
Some of the water goes to the algae scrubber, and some of it continues from below to a chamber with some siporax media.
The rest of the water (from the siporax chamber and from the algae scrubber) continues to another compartment with some siporax media and then to the return area (with a bag of GAC) and back to the display via a 1” line.
My Algae Scrubber is an awesome little project, water is pumped up from the sump and sprays over a couple of mesh screens that are lit each from one side with 20W red led flood lights (12 hours a day). The algae scrubber also has a herbie style drain. (coz i’m obsessed with noise).
*what you see in the picture is about 4 days growth. Usually I will clean it after 14 days. The reason I put 2 separate algae screens is so I could clean a different one each week, keeping the algae scrubber working at near full capacity all the time
This was designed by the way so that the pods that are produced by the algae scrubber will be able to live in the siporax chamber and slowly get released to the display via the return pump.
Next to the sump I have my freshwater and saltwater barrels and my RODI unit is connected to each one so it’s fairly easy to make water.
The freshwater barrel (15 gallons) is connected to an auto top off unit (with a backup switch). And the saltwater barrel (30 gallons) is connected to my Jebao DP-4 dosing pump to perform an auto water change. Waste water goes out to the yard… I change 150ml, 24 times a day (about 1% a day). So I need to make a new batch of saltwater once a month roughly…
Stocking List - Fish :
- 5 small chromis
- 2 small bengai cardinals
- 1 bicolor blenny
- 1 yellow tang
- 1 melanurus wrasse
Stocking List - Coral :
- Sinularia Leather
- A couple of Zoanthid rocks
- Goniopora
- A couple of Octospawns
- Yellow Star Polyp Rock
- Rainbow Pectinia (favourite)
- Tube Anemone (not coral but still here)
For Inverts I have a fire shrimp and like 10 turbo snails.
My Water Parameters (I test weekly, Red Sea test kits, and add cal/alk/mag as needed):
- PH: 8.1
- Temp: 78-79 F
- S. Gravity: 1.025
- Alkalinity: 9.2
- Calcium: 440
- Magnesium: 1340
- Nitrate: 0
- Phosphate: 0.08
I’m feeding about 2-3 cubes (enriched brine, mysis, lobster eggs, red plankton) and some Prime Reef Flakes and a sheet of nori, every day.
I also add Reef Energy A&B (8 ml each) every day.
On the most part I think everything is feeling ok in the tank, All of the corals are opening up ok and look fine. Other than 1 chromis that died at first I haven’t lost any of the new additions and they all seem happy.
I do have some challenges and questions that I have, so I’ve made a list of issues I’m facing and would love some help on :
- My water is cloudy… not a lot, but a little. This has been going on since the tank started and the water has not cleared out yet… I guess it’s a bacterial bloom, but it’s like that for 3 months now. I’ve ordered a cheap chinese 36W UV sterilizer which did absolutely nothing, disconnected it after about a week of running non stop.
- I get 0 Coralline algae growth… what gives?
- My Pectinia coral has a hole in it. I think I was burning it with too much light but has since then gave it an iodine bath, moved it to a lower location and it seems much better now (colors are back, tissue looks fat and expanded and opens up every night like a clock.) But that hole doesn’t look like it’s going anywhere
- My Nitrates are 0, and I know that’s not a good thing but I’ve really tried everything… I’m feeding a ton, I’ve cut back the algae scrubber to only 12 hours a day.. And still I get 0 on the red sea test kit, that’s lower than 0.25… That’s pretty low… I really don’t want to shut down my algae scrubber coz it’s awesome I get no green algae in the display (only brown stuff that doesn’t bother me or any of the animals in the tank). Should I dare shut down the skimmer?
Anyways, If you’ve made it this far then I want to personally thank you for investing the time to look into my project and I would love to get any feedback on my system.
I am really new at this hobby and only have this saltwater tank for 3 and a half months (and the other attempt of which we shall not speak again). Everything I learned came from youtube and forums (praise google the one and only true god). And while I have learned a lot of theoretical science, I am sure there are still a lot of practicality for me to learn…
Let’s finish up with some tank shots and may the force be with us all…
*a lot of these are taken at night because it’s night right now… and also because I can’t film with the blues on without burning the whole picture.
