Northernmichiganreef 120gallons of sps

[Tonycass12]

Welcome to my build thread.

I guess this is more of a "tank journal" at this point since the build is complete.

TOTAL SYSTEM VOLUME- 150ish gallons
TANK- Modified dual overflow 120gal 2'x2'x4' (now only has 1 overflow because I wanted a peninsula)
SUMP- 40gal breeder with Fiji sump kit
SKIMMER- Reef Octopus classic 200INT 8"
OTHER FILTRATION- I use felt pads in the beginning of my sump and also run a dual reactor with carbon.
DOSING- Red Sea A,B,C and Acro power via a Red Sea ReefDose. I also manually dose coral booster, flatworm stop and coral snow by Zeovit intermittently.
TEMP-78' Monitored by an inkbird with dual 200w titanium heaters from brs.
FLOW- 2 Vortech MP40s.
LIGHTS- 36" Reefbreeders Photon V2 and 2 Radion gen5 XR15s

FISH
Tangs- Regal, Sailfin, 2 spot bristletooth.
Rabbit fish- Magnificent Foxface
Butterfly fish- Copperband
Wrasses- 6 line
Other fish- Green clown goby, Mocha clownfish

INVERTS
-Cleaner shrimp, Sand sifting starfish, Harlequin shrimp, 2 Maxima clams, various hermits and snails

CORALS
SPS dominant system. I love my sps corals although they are a constant challenge. I think I've got around 30 various sps corals. I'll get around to listing then all one day.

 

[Gumbies R Us]

Great looking tank!

 

[Tonycass12]

Updated a little more information and added some fish pictures

 

[Tonycass12]

My tank about 1 year ago. I moved to the 120 in February this last year, so its only been running for about 8 months. Previously i had a 35gal waterbox and a 40breeder growout tank attached to the same sump i use now.

 

[Tonycass12]

Little morning walk-around of the tank today.

 

[Tonycass12]

Early Sunday morning shots. My favorite time to watch the tank is early in the day before my wife and dogs have gotten up. Im going to attempt to slowly bring down my phosphates again starting this week. They usually ride around .7 supper high. Last time i tried bringing them down things started looking bad and corals began loosing tissue from the base up i got them down over the course of just a few weeks. Im going to try to just barely nudge it down even if this takes a couple months or more this time. The goal is to get a little more color out of the corals. I regularly trade frags with others around me and folks running lower nutrients get their frags to color up better then the colonies they came from in very little time. We will see how it goes im going to get my reactor cleaned out this evening and start with a very small amount of gfo.

 

[Tonycass12]

Figures, shortly after my last post one of my xr15 figures died on me. Light just went out and has no power. Getting in touch with ecotech support tomorrow. Going to hold of on my plan to start gfo until I get a light back on and things back to normal.

 

[Tonycass12]

Got my radion working again. Had a power supply go bad. Things on the tank are feeling dialed in right now and I found out yesterday that I got second in Battlecorals Bloodbank battle! I am super excited to get another batch of corals from Adam this next week.

Oh almost forgot, I added another clownfish this last week. I had gotten him from a local about a month ago and just finished quarantine with him. After an evening of fighting with our other clown things have calmed down.

 

[Tonycass12]

Couple new additions to quarantine system this weekend. 2 convict tangs that will eventually go into my rock cooking bin for my eventual upgrade 1.5-2 yrs from now. And 2 bangaii cardnals. Hopefully ive got at least 1 male and one female between these 2 and my current cardinal because i would like to give a try at breeding them.

Little top down of the display from thismorning.

 

[Tonycass12]

New corals from a battlebox I got for my 2nd place prize in the growout contest.

 

[Tonycass12]

Home sick for the past few days so the tank is getting lots of extra attention.

 

[basshead808]

Looks great!

 

[Tonycass12]

Things are doing well, calcium got a little high at 550 but turning off the doser for a couple days got that back down to about 420 where I like to keep it. Corals are growing nicely right now and it's making it a little hard to keep up on my alk. Been floating around 7.6 when I like to be around 8.5. Slowly increasing my dose to get that back up but it's a good problem to have I guess.

 

[Gumbies R Us]

Love seeing the updates of your tank!

 

[Tonycass12]

Thanks

Love seeing the updates of your tank!

 

[CRABDADDY]

Awesome looking tank. I've got a tank of the same footprint, just 3 months old that will also be an SPS reef.

I've got some questions about your lighting/flow.

How long do you run the Radions vs the led bars for? I'm using 2 XR30s and T5s and I'm trying to determine how long I want to run each when I reach peak lighting.

Also, I see you have 2 MP40s. I have 3 in my tank, but I was concerned I didn't have enough flow in the right places. I have dual corner overflows, so that adds some challenges, but it looks like you're getting by just fine with the 2 powerheads. What settings are you running them on?

 

[Tonycass12]

Awesome looking tank. I've got a tank of the same footprint, just 3 months old that will also be an SPS reef.

I've got some questions about your lighting/flow.

How long do you run the Radions vs the led bars for? I'm using 2 XR30s and T5s and I'm trying to determine how long I want to run each when I reach peak lighting.

Also, I see you have 2 MP40s. I have 3 in my tank, but I was concerned I didn't have enough flow in the right places. I have dual corner overflows, so that adds some challenges, but it looks like you're getting by just fine with the 2 powerheads. What settings are you running them on?

Thanks @CRABDADDY, my 2 radions and my reefbreeders fixture run on the same schedule for the most part or at least as close as I could get them. I run my lights 8am-12pm with about a 4 hour peak. The reefbreeders fixture is really the powerhouse light over this tank. I actually had to turn it down after taking par readings in August and finding I was pushing over 400 par over nearly all the lower rock and sand and was 650-700 at the top of the rocks. Now with them turned down a bit im closer to 300par at the sand to 500par just over the tops of the corals. Im hoping to change up my lighting this winter with a new reefbreeders fixture and some of their new led bars. The radions are nice they just don't pack as much of a punch in my opinion at 24"deep.

Now as for the flow I only more recently added my second MP40. Before I was running just one and 3 Nero3s in the tank. The Nero 3s sadly are not reliable so I got the other MP40. The two pumps are set up in a parent child configuration running opposite of one another with reef crest running at 80% during the day and lagoon mode at night. The pumps are slightly staggered from one another on each end of the tank to help make the flow more chaotic. Ive also still got 1 Nero 3 hidden up in the corner on the back glass that runs random at 90% to help push water around the tank. Right now this is more then enough flow for sps anywhere in the tank. My goal is to move volume and these pumps push a serious amount of water from one end to the other and around the tank. I have a few videos over on my Instagram that you can really see my elegance blowing around. In the future I would like to lose the remaining Nero 3 and add 2 mp10s lower in the tank to help push a little more water but that will wait until the corals fill in a bit more. Hope this all helps you! Best of luck with your new system.

 

[CRABDADDY]

@Tonycass12 Thanks for taking the time to write that up! I appreciate it.

I agree with the Radions not punching deep enough in a 24 inch tank. I didn't want to run them alone. I got the t5 fixture from the guy I bought the tank from and I'm excited to try those. An LED bar fixture was my next choice.

I'm interested in your choice to run lagoon mode on your pumps at night. Any reason for that?

Your clams and corals look great. I really want to try a clam when my tank is more mature.

 

[Tonycass12]

@Tonycass12 Thanks for taking the time to write that up! I appreciate it.

I agree with the Radions not punching deep enough in a 24 inch tank. I didn't want to run them alone. I got the t5 fixture from the guy I bought the tank from and I'm excited to try those. An LED bar fixture was my next choice.

I'm interested in your choice to run lagoon mode on your pumps at night. Any reason for that?

Your clams and corals look great. I really want to try a clam when my tank is more mature.

I run lagoon at night just to give things a little break. You still get surges and pulses they just aren't as intense, plenty of water still moving for the sps. I feed phyto to the tank right when the lights go out most nights as well and I feel the lower flow gives the corals a better chance to catch anything in the water column.

 

[Tonycass12]

Happy Friday