nim6us
Well-Known Member
I've been putting off making a thread forever because I thought a tank thread should start off from the build phase and follow it along the journey. However seeing other's tank threads I wish I had a catalog of my tanks evolution, so even though this system is 5 years old.. better late than never!
While I can't/shouldn't go play by play the past 5 years, I do want to speed run some of the early days to share where I started.
Here she is freshly setup in 2019, I had just upgraded from a 2 foot 55 gal tall tank that I had for a year, and this felt like my first real big boy tank. I was thoroughly impressed when I made my mega arch!
I also got really inspired to do my own custom manifold pipework, here's my V1 sump setup. I had a reactor setup for carbon, and I plumbed in a second one but I didn't know what I was going to use it for. Eventually it became a cheato reactor.
Sadly my mega arch didn't last. I can't remember if I bumped it or if it just gave way but it broke and I made it into two smaller arches. Knowing what I know now it's good it happened, that mega arch would have a lot of issues if I'd have tried to keep it.
This is where we enter the dark times...
I put in a handful of fish and corals, but shortly after I began descending through the numerous levels of reefer hell. Diatoms turned into GHA, which turned into cyano, and then final formed into dinos! I threw the kitchen sink at it! Again looking back I put my tank and it's inhabitants through absolute torment. Potions and bacterias, powders, and peroxide. Just everything you can think of I did it to my tank. As a result the tank never had stability, the biome struggled to form as I dropped nuke after nuke on the tank.
As you can imagine I didn't take a lot of pictures, or if I did I deleted them. I'm not going to lie I got super depressed. The tank and the equipment, all the maintenance, it was SO time consuming and SO expensive and that tank just looked like sh#t! My mrs hated it, I hated it, I felt like an utter failure and I just wanted to quit.
Then after 17 months I made it to the other side. I beat the dinos and the tank finally started bringing me some joy! Here's a pic as I just finished the last little bit of dinos.
Once I started to see some success 6 months later I upgraded my lights from my Kessil AP700 to Radion XR15s.
Once I understood the fundamentals, and learned some VERY hard lessons, the tank finally started hitting it's stride early 2022.
Then success built on success and just 6 months after the above picture things started exploding!
Holding the ship steady, looking even better 1 year later in 2023
Sadly near the end of 2023 I had a massive RTN event that took our some gorgeous colonies. But I've been rebuilding and filling in the gaps but hoping to get more coral planted soon.
And here's a look under the hood for what's going on in the sump.
One of the best changes I made was switching out my Gyres for MP40s. The cleaning is a breeze now! I trimmed down my massive purple stylo to something much more manageble. Also I'm rying to add a bit more rock to add more LPS and encrusters, it's bone white in this picture but it's gone purple now so I'll add an update soon.
And I think that's it we're up to date 5 years! Oh also here's some tank details.
Skimmer: Maxspect Jump MJ-SK 400
Flow: x2 MP40s
Heaters: x2 250w Titanium heaters
Computer Control: Neptune Apex A2 2016
Lighting: x3 Radion XR15 Pros w/ Diffusers and High Intensity Lens
Nutrient Control: Skimmer, Red Sea Reefmat 500
Additional Equipment: Ozone 90 min each night for water clarity
Dosing: Kalkwasser + Balling Hybrid (Calcium chloride w/ K+ Elements, Sodium carbonate w/ A- Elements, TM Part C Balling)
Tank Specifics
Calcium (Ca): 430
Magnesium (Mg) : 1350
dKH : 8.5-ish
Nitrate N03: 10ppm
Phosphate P04: 0.08 - 0.13ppm
Temp: 77 F
pH: 8.1 - 8.4
Water Changes: 20% once a month
Most recent ICP result: Triton ICP Result
While I can't/shouldn't go play by play the past 5 years, I do want to speed run some of the early days to share where I started.
Here she is freshly setup in 2019, I had just upgraded from a 2 foot 55 gal tall tank that I had for a year, and this felt like my first real big boy tank. I was thoroughly impressed when I made my mega arch!
I also got really inspired to do my own custom manifold pipework, here's my V1 sump setup. I had a reactor setup for carbon, and I plumbed in a second one but I didn't know what I was going to use it for. Eventually it became a cheato reactor.
Sadly my mega arch didn't last. I can't remember if I bumped it or if it just gave way but it broke and I made it into two smaller arches. Knowing what I know now it's good it happened, that mega arch would have a lot of issues if I'd have tried to keep it.
This is where we enter the dark times...
I put in a handful of fish and corals, but shortly after I began descending through the numerous levels of reefer hell. Diatoms turned into GHA, which turned into cyano, and then final formed into dinos! I threw the kitchen sink at it! Again looking back I put my tank and it's inhabitants through absolute torment. Potions and bacterias, powders, and peroxide. Just everything you can think of I did it to my tank. As a result the tank never had stability, the biome struggled to form as I dropped nuke after nuke on the tank.
As you can imagine I didn't take a lot of pictures, or if I did I deleted them. I'm not going to lie I got super depressed. The tank and the equipment, all the maintenance, it was SO time consuming and SO expensive and that tank just looked like sh#t! My mrs hated it, I hated it, I felt like an utter failure and I just wanted to quit.
Then after 17 months I made it to the other side. I beat the dinos and the tank finally started bringing me some joy! Here's a pic as I just finished the last little bit of dinos.
Once I started to see some success 6 months later I upgraded my lights from my Kessil AP700 to Radion XR15s.
Once I understood the fundamentals, and learned some VERY hard lessons, the tank finally started hitting it's stride early 2022.
Then success built on success and just 6 months after the above picture things started exploding!
Holding the ship steady, looking even better 1 year later in 2023
Sadly near the end of 2023 I had a massive RTN event that took our some gorgeous colonies. But I've been rebuilding and filling in the gaps but hoping to get more coral planted soon.
And here's a look under the hood for what's going on in the sump.
One of the best changes I made was switching out my Gyres for MP40s. The cleaning is a breeze now! I trimmed down my massive purple stylo to something much more manageble. Also I'm rying to add a bit more rock to add more LPS and encrusters, it's bone white in this picture but it's gone purple now so I'll add an update soon.
And I think that's it we're up to date 5 years! Oh also here's some tank details.
Skimmer: Maxspect Jump MJ-SK 400
Flow: x2 MP40s
Heaters: x2 250w Titanium heaters
Computer Control: Neptune Apex A2 2016
Lighting: x3 Radion XR15 Pros w/ Diffusers and High Intensity Lens
Nutrient Control: Skimmer, Red Sea Reefmat 500
Additional Equipment: Ozone 90 min each night for water clarity
Dosing: Kalkwasser + Balling Hybrid (Calcium chloride w/ K+ Elements, Sodium carbonate w/ A- Elements, TM Part C Balling)
Tank Specifics
Calcium (Ca): 430
Magnesium (Mg) : 1350
dKH : 8.5-ish
Nitrate N03: 10ppm
Phosphate P04: 0.08 - 0.13ppm
Temp: 77 F
pH: 8.1 - 8.4
Water Changes: 20% once a month
Most recent ICP result: Triton ICP Result
