Critique my setup please

[redrooster]

I'm just looking for any weaknesses the resident experts might see with my setup, and then I have 1 or 2 specific questions based on my setup. I'm not exactly new to the hobby, but I am finding that until now I had received a pretty large amount of bad info.

Tank 75 gal with about 1" in of crushed coral and live sand bottom. approx 115lbs of live rock(don't know for sure got it with the tank but sold 20 lbs once and didn't even put a dent in it) Tank has been set up with my for 3+ years. They guy I got if from had it for 8 years. I moved the whole setup including the water as he lived relatively close.

Lighting- Hood purchased from Marine Depot. 2x250W MH 14K Hamilton bulbs(need to replace the bulbs soon any suggestion?) & 2x40W flouro actinic with 2 cooling fans.

Filtration- Red Sea hang on skimmer for up to 100gal. plus 3 powerheads just for more flow. No refugium. Tank is not "drilled" I do a 5 gal water change every week, once a month I will change 10 gal.

and this is what is in the tank

Fish- yellow tang, 2 gobies(forgot species name), six line wrasse, yellow tail damsel, clarki clown, gold stripe marron clown (will be gone in six weeks giving him to my dad for a fish/invert only tank) I'm thinking this is too much?

Inverts- Coral banded shrimp, Cleaner shrimp, about 20 blue leg hermits, 5 turbos, 12 nassarius snails, about 15 other misc snails (astrea etc..), green bristle star (Large), black/red bristtle star (med), orange linkia. I had a lot more crabs/snails at one time but many have died as the tank settled in. I'm thinking I had two many and not enought forage base for them all?

Corals-misc various mushrooms and zoo's, yellow polyps, neon green spaghetti leather, orange fungia plate, red lobo, purple lobo, green pavona, maze brain, superman montipora, sun coral, several trachy brains, cabbage leather, and some misc type of stick sps that I am not sure of. basically a random hodgepodge.

The one specific question I have is for a 75 gal about how many inverts are a good number. A lot of the companies sell like a 100 piece cleanup crew and a one point I had about that number, but after not having any algae for about 2 years it just seems like I have all I can support. I used to occasionally dump in another dozen snails or hermits, but it seems like they just die off back to the number I had. After adding no new ones for 9 months I doesn't seem like any more are persihing.

Any advice is greatly appreciated as always. Thank you and happy reefing!

 

[lizardarm]

unless you're really going to be diligent about cleaning that sand bed, i would either take it all out, or add another two inches. the reason being is that you're in the no mans land in between bare bottom and deep sand bed. it's not necessarily against the rules to have one inch of sand, but it's not deep enough to support the full array of aerobic and anaerobic bacteria needed for biological filtration. so, it'll need to really be cleaned frequently else it becomes a detritus trap and nitrifies your water. it looks nice though.

as far as the correct number of inverts for your 75, that is a mystery. in the end the right number is going to be the number that the population naturally thins down to based on nutrients in your tank. IMHO 100 of anything big enough to be seen is too much for your aquarium.

 

[redrooster]

Understood. Thank you. I am on the high side as far as feeding goes so that probably compounds that problem. I stir up as much of the bottom as I can biweekly, but I think I will add more substrate as per your suggestion as I do not like the bare bottom look.

 

[bripen]

unless you're really going to be diligent about cleaning that sand bed, i would either take it all out, or add another two inches. the reason being is that you're in the no mans land in between bare bottom and deep sand bed. it's not necessarily against the rules to have one inch of sand, but it's not deep enough to support the full array of aerobic and anaerobic bacteria needed for biological filtration. so, it'll need to really be cleaned frequently else it becomes a detritus trap and nitrifies your water. it looks nice though.

as far as the correct number of inverts for your 75, that is a mystery. in the end the right number is going to be the number that the population naturally thins down to based on nutrients in your tank. IMHO 100 of anything big enough to be seen is too much for your aquarium.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought that the minimum effective depth for a deep sand bed was 5"

 

[lizardarm]

i've heard five also. i've heard three as a minimum. i've used three in the past with success.
the real point i was trying to get across wasn't so much about adding this exact amount of sand, it was more about moving in one direction or the other (bare or dsb), or understanding and commiting to the maintenance required for a shallow sand bed.

 

[ReefJunkie]

If you are limited to just a hang-on skimmer, you may want to look into an AquaC hang-on. I was running a Red Sea on a 55gal and replaced with an AquaC. Made a big difference.

 

[Krish]

Your setup sounds good man...I don't know much about the skimmer so can't really comment there. If it is doing it's job, then I'd keep it.

When it comes to inverts, I think you have it figured out. Your tank will only support (as you can see) a certain number of certain species. Not enough algae for the herbivores, then the numbers die off and so forth. There are other inverts you can add like certain shrimps etc that don't require algae as such to grow, but when it comes to a clean up crew, I think it's best to stick with what you have seeing it has balanced out already for you

Oh yeah, the bulbs...Do you like the blue look or prefer crisp white with good coral growth? I ran 20K XM's (dual 250's on my old 75gal) and it was really blue! I've also tried out a Reeflux 12K which I couldn't tell any difference with in terms of spectrum up next to my 20K. I've tried the Hamilton 14K which you have and then I've tried a 10K XM which was really crisp white! No yellow in that at all and has great PAR for growing corals. So I guess it is up to what you want to get out of it. The bluer spectrum looks more appealing, but usually you get slower growth from the corals under it

 

[Sk8r]

Crushed coral can prove problematic in the long run: it can turn into a brick, losing all ability to process nitrates.

The coral banded shrimp may be aggressive toward other inverts.

Keeping leathers with stony coral can stunt the growth of both. Leathers emit a chemical keep-away warning that prevents polyp extension on the stonies. If you're getting good polyp extension, however, it shouldn't be a problem. If none, look at what's upwind of the coral in the flow.

HTH.

 

[Krish]

Crushed coral can prove problematic in the long run: it can turn into a brick, losing all ability to process nitrates.

If in a ssb, no matter what you use for a substrate it won't be able to process nitrates/ denitrify because there are no anaerobic zones in a ssb. That's why they say 5-7 inches or so for it to perform denitrification which is done in a dsb. However, they do say that crushed corals, because of all the air pockets etc, can drive up nitrates because of all the ditritus that can get trapped in there etc. I used crushed corals in my first setup and it didn't work so well for me, but then again, works great for others. One thing that you can do to prevent it from turning into "brick" is to stir the sand bed a few times a week or get critters to do it for you.

 

[burning2nd]

i have about 1-2" of CC, and i dont have any problems at all. just stirr it every once and a while.

you would prob be better with a new skimmer (aqua c remora) if you dont have a sump.

might find that useing a more efficent skimmer will reduce some of you water parameter problems

 

[redrooster]

Thank you for all the responses. First off regarding the skimmer. I unfortunately just bought this one in Aug as the old one burnt out. It was the same model and lasted 8 years. Oddly Red Sea hasn't made any changes as the new one was identical to the old one. But when it comes time to replace it I will certainly look at the Aqua C. I would have never guessed that a 3-5" bottom was recommended, but I certainly believe you guys. When I move in the next year I am going to deepen my sand bed, but as this has worked for me and the previous owner for 8 years then I guess I won't sweat it. I used to have a drilled PVC pipe running through the sand bed with a power head attached, basically a reverse flow undergravel, but when I moved the tank in August it was clogged so I just tossed it. Maybe I will build another one of those. I do stir the sand bed that I can get to weekly or biweekly and the nassarius snails do a pretty good job of mixing it up. Also one of the gobies is a gravel filterer. I am setted up a 47 gal hex for my dad next weekend. I will go with 4" on the bottom and see how that goes.
I kinda figured that the range of coral species wasn't working in my favor. I am going to have to decide if the beauty of the coral garden look is worth the loss of growth. I used to have no outlet for my extra corals, but now a buddy of mine does maintenance locally and he has customers looking for stuff so I will have to give this some thought. Maybe I will sell/trade off either the softies of the SPS and get more specific.
Regarding the inverts thank you for the responses. I sounds like it is confirmed that I have found my max sustainable load as far as these go. The overload of verts may have been worth the money thought as I have had ZERO algae for two years.
I checked my levels for the first time in 15 months last week. PH was 8.15-8.2. Nitrate/Nitrite was 0, PH was .05-.07 PPM, Alk was in the middle range on my test (Must be a crappy test you guys have test that give an absolute number) and Calcium was 425(I don't have a reactor, but I manually dose daily along with Iodine, Stront, and Moly, and trace) Since I do water changes weekly it may be overkill that I am dosing all this stuff dailiy?? I also alternate between DT's and Cyclopese on a daily basis.
Finally does anyone think I have too many fish. I kinda think I do so I am giving my dad one when his tank is ready. My levels are a little less than perfect and removing a fish or two I think might make the diffence.

 

[Krish]

I think your bio-load is fine once you don't add any more fish. Atleast that's where I'd probably draw the line...People are different though. I personally like small bioloads so I only had 1 yellow tang, 2 small clowns and a baby wrasse in my biggest tank (90gal) Now I have only 2 clowns in my 24gal Aquapod

 

[Fast Fred]

With few exceptions, crushed coral is only going to create problems for you in the long run. It traps too much debris. If you use substrate, oolitic sand is better than CC. Bare bottom isn't so bad either. Eventually, the bottom glass gets a nice layer of coraline on it and it sorta looks like sand. As for processing nitrate, your live rock is doing that, and you have plenty.

As for your lighting, I persoally like the 250w 14k bulbs you have. Xm 10K are nice too if you like a whiter light.

I agree with the others about your skimmer. I had the same one for over a year, and when I replaced it with a better skimmer (LifeReef), I saw a big difference.

You may want to consider buying an overflow kit and building a sump. This gives you a place to hide all the 'ugly'.

As for your livestock, I'd use caution with those 2 clowns in a tank that size. I'm glad to hear that you're giving one to your dad. The CBS may or may not get along with the cleaner shrimp.

As for the corals, SPS and softies don't get along. The softies emit toxins to inhibit SPS growth. IMO, pick one or the other for the greatest success.

Good luck.

 

[redrooster]

Thank you again everyone. I have only the Pavona that is SPS really and it is doing great. I tried a piece of Acro a while back and it died (One of my few casualties) I was figuring that my water just wasn't clean enough, but now I'm not sure. Maybe it was killed by softie chemical warfare?

If I get my greenhouse and start growing in there I will definitely try the no substrate on the bottom method as looks won't matter and it will just be that much less cost to build.

Getting rid of one of the clowns will help greatly. No even so much from a bioload perspective, but the fact that the one chases the other one a lot and they disturb the corals. It's kinda funny how he ignores all the other fish, but hates that other clown!

 

[Fast Fred]

Also, you mentioned about doing a 5g water change weekly, and 10g once a month. I feel that this is on the low side of being enough. I would recommend doing a 10-15% water change every week to 10 days. 10-15% for you is 7.5g-11.25g per week. I have found that if i do them less frequently, I'm more prone to algea problems. I personally change 32g per week in my 200g system.

 

[Paul B]

I personally would leave the crushed coral where it is and replace the RUGF. I would not add any more crushed coral. A RUGF should be run very slow with a sponge or some other strainer attached so very little detritus is pushed under the gravel. I pump 50 gph down each lift tube to the RUGF and in 36 years of continous running my gravel is just as loose as the day it was installed. No clumping and no clogging.
Your animal load seems fine.
Paul

 

[redrooster]

I finally got some pics to follow up.

 

[redrooster]

And some more

 

[Krish]

Nice pics!!! BTW, are you as sad as me that the Bears lost today? :doubt:

 

[redrooster]

Yeah I can't say I'm too happy about the bears game. I am happy I found the right size battery for the camera, and the pictures came out pretty good. It seems to take much better pics when I focus in on one particular piece. I just turned off the pumps, used auto focus w/ no flash. No tripod. Any suggestions on taking better pics?