My 125g mixed reef dream

pandn1021 · Aug 11, 2023

Hello all, just starting out on this journey of sharing my hobby and tank with anybody and everybody who is wanting to come along. I've been keeping reef tanks for just over 20 years and have been quite alone in my journey. I have no local LFS, closest is 170 miles away, but that hasn't stopped me from driving 3 hours each way for a urchin I needed for some pesky algae or that wild hair trip to do a coral trade with another reefer.

I love keeping reefs, growing corals, troubleshooting things when you know something's just not right, and can't wait to discuss, answer questions, or just talk about my system and all the dedication and knowledge that's simply trapped to myself that I can have shared experiences and share with everyone.

Feel free to ask away and I've got tons of pics and progress etc. Type stuff to share

blaxsun · Aug 11, 2023

Q: What's the lit portion of the sump? Is that a refugium, somewhere you're growing coral or just more live rock for your system?

pandn1021 · Aug 11, 2023

blaxsun said:
Q: What's the lit portion of the sump? Is that a refugium, somewhere you're growing coral or just more live rock for your system?

So yes that my fuge section. The whole sump is a old 75g acrylic display tank I believe. It's euro braced so my plumbing goes thru with bulk heads. About 7 years ago I built this sump by adding 4 pieces of acrylic and sectioning it off. From the middle support to the right and about 3 inches from the surface is my refugium I'd guess about 35 to 40 gallons. It's got a deep sand bed and about 4 softball pieces of live rock. I'm using grape calerpa, calerpa mexicana, and chaeto. Also I've got frag racks with chalice, ZOA's, and recently a rainbow bubble tip that split and was stinging a green Monti digi. Also I've got a mini wave maker in there just for extra flow and yes I'm running a Chinese black box at about 25%power mostly colored for algae growth but enough blue to not dull the corals or nem.

pandn1021 · Aug 11, 2023

To explain better I guess. The return splits in half right under the overflow, half the water goes left to the skimmer section and half goes to the refugium. This is controlled by a ball valve on the refugium side of the return. Then both the refugium side and skimmer side both overflow to the middle where my return section is where it's sent back to the tank. I'm running a Nyos Quantum 160 skimmer sat up on an eggrate platform, then the water goes under the first baffle over a second and then through a 1x1 by 24" piece of filter foam then under the third baffle which connects to the floor but has weir teeth so nothing accidentally gets sucked into return pump that might of made its way down. My return pump is a jebao dc pump with 10 speed options running at 8 or 9 with a random flow generator on it.

pandn1021 · Aug 11, 2023

Here's a pic of the whole sump about 4.5 feet long 30 inches tall and 24 wide. Second pic is the skimmer and return side as one half the other half plus a couple inches taller is all the refugium side lit counter my tank to keep the caluerpa from going asexual and help with ph swings. Last pic is just a look at some of my macro

pandn1021 · Aug 28, 2023

Here's the tank as of two days ago. Keep sending any questions you might have. Thanks for taking a look.

pandn1021 said:
Here's a pic of the whole sump about 4.5 feet long 30 inches tall and 24 wide. Second pic is the skimmer and return side as one half the other half plus a couple inches taller is all the refugium side lit counter my tank to keep the caluerpa from going asexual and help with ph swings. Last pic is just a look at some of my macro