My New 75 Gallon Reef lots of pics

[Stkef9]

So finally getting this thread posted. Its been a very busy last few weeks and Ive been meaning to post this but life just gets in the way. So I went from a 27 gallon cube and a 27 gal bowfront to this 75 gallon which I love so far! The space alone is awesome and now having a sump instead of canister filters feeling much more at ease. Anyways heres all the info and some pics.

Tank:
- 75 gallon Reef Ready bottom drilled with durso standpipe 1 1/4 drain, 3/4 return
- Homemade stand and canopy

Lighting:
- Odyssea 2x250watt DE metal halide and 4 T5 bulbs along with moonlighting
- Currently running 14k pheonix mhs and stock crap t5 bulbs Upgrade MH Ballasts

Sump and Misc equipment:
- Vortech MP10W and Koralia 750 Plan on picking up another MP10W in the near future
- Hydor theo 300 watt heater
- ASM Mini G Protein skimmer
- Mag 7 return pump for now getting a Smartwave DC pump soon

Pics:

Getting the tank setup after sitting in the spare bedroom for about 4 months


Fillin her up


Dusty mess thanks to not rinsing the dry sand better.... regretting that alot


Finally cleared up threw some seeded rock in there to help with the cycle


After 3 weeks the cycle was complete, slowly added a bit more seeded LR as time went on first setup


3 hours after moving the rest of the rock.... everything is well acclimated and start placing coral and fish


Everything in place


A couple of my favorite zoas Magician, rastas, and candy apple greens, and my sad looking rainbow monti.... moved him close to the bottom to see if he bounces back.


Everything opened up and looking great.


Cant believe the size of my hammer and frogspawn on the right, about half the size in the old tank. Went from 150watt sunpod to 716watts....


Diamond Watchman guarding his and the pistol shrimps home


Another shot of the guardian with my little baby bubble tip.


A week goes by and back to hosting this hammer. They were pretty ticked at first


Side Shot


Sump


About 3 weeks after setup and getting it all tuned right and im getting nice dark skim 3/4 of that has been in the last couple days


Light acclimation system... kinda cheesy but it works very well


Need some opinions of a better system than this. its a total pain but it works alright for raising the canopy


Corals:
Reverse Sunset


I believe these are rastas... color has changed a bit since I got them

 

[Stkef9]

A couple updates I had to move a handful of stuff around because the light was too intense and polyps were coming out and it was starting to bleach a bit. Now all is well with that but a few pieces of sps are starting to recede from the bottom up. Trying to figure out what it could be. Would raising alk too fast cause a problem like that? Had some problems about 2 months ago because I was dosing something similar to purple up without adding anything for alk and it dropped to about 4. After losing about 6 pieces of sps I finally brought my levels up pretty steadily. Current goals on levels im looking to get are Alk 12 dkH, Cal. 450ppm and Mag 1500.

Test results 2 days ago
Alk: 9.6 DkH
Cal: 470
Mag 2 weeks ago last test: 1600 ppm

Test results tonight
Alk: 10.5 dkH
Cal: 450 ppm
Mag: 1300 ppm

Im currently using Reef builder (alk) and Reef Advantage Calcium by Seachem and seem to get good results but doing have anything for Mag. I was thinking about picking up Seachems Advantage Mag too since Im already working with their other products. Ive grown fond of Red Sea products as Ive also had good luck with test kits and excellent customer service. Anyone have any recommendations. Im trying to figure out how often I will need to dose since it didnt take much in my 27 gallon. Also just finished my first bucket of salinity salt and not sure how much I really like it as it can be a pain getting the salinity right being that we use cups and its "about a 1/2 cup" and it fogs really bad when mixed. Thinking about Coral Pro salt by Red Sea can get a 5 gallon for about the price of a 3 gallon of salinity might actually be a bit cheaper.

And lastly Im thrilled to say that I believe my last couple dips with RPS All Out got rid of the rest of the nudis dipped once more before transfer and didnt see a thing and I searched with a flashlight for quite a while. That stuff is incredible and I highly recommend to anyone looking for a great dipping solution. Even wiped out the nudi eggs that were everywhere, left them on the zoas just to see and sure enough got and no more nudis!

 

[seedlessinseattle]

Nice looking set up, lots of color, what's the time frame from 1st to last picture, overall nice tank keep up the good work

 

[Stkef9]

Thanks it was a lot of work getting things moved over and placing everything back into the tank. Total time from start till now is about 2 months. When I set it all up I used LR that had been in my other 2 systems for 6 months in one tank about 9 in the other. Used some one and only bacteria in a bottle and I have to say I was skeptical before but that stuff works very well. In 2 weeks the mini cycle had finished. Got a diatom bloom and that lasted a few days and went away. Was testing every day and once everything dropped to zero I placed coral and fish in.

 

[Stkef9]

So last night I went over to kpiotrowski's and checked out his 300 it is awesome! Also got a ton of info and we even built a new return line to keep my single overflow from plugging and flooding my house. Gonna try to finish that all up tomorrow. Finally got my RO/DI unit back thanks to Mike from OBD. Will try to get some pics posted up of the changes tomorrow as well.

 

[mfinn]

Nice variety of corals.
I'm starting to get more into a mixed reef myself.

 

[Stkef9]

Thanks I'm definitely still new at sps and trying to figure out dosing for alk, cal and mag but I enjoy a variety to look at. Haha just got done blending up some pe mysis, krill, seaweed and threw some zoo and phyto in tree along with a multi vitamin so we will see how it turns out. Looking forward to the psas making your own food event at obd next month.

 

[trido]

Great start to a nice mixed reef.

 

[Stkef9]

Thanks! Couldn't have got where I am without the help of a lot of local reefers and the guys at OBD and barrier reef. Lots of very knowledgeable people around here. Hoping to meet many more locals soon. Kinda sucks living where I do being in the hobby. Closest local I have met is still about an hour away. Closest quality lfs is an hour and a half

 

[Stkef9]

Here is my new little guy. By far the nicest one ive seen at the LFS. Ordered some pods that will be here wednesday, its so cool watching him hunt. Dont mine the cyano currently having a little outbreak.... quite annoying.

 

[xxkenny90xx]

Here is my new little guy. By far the nicest one ive seen at the LFS. Ordered some pods that will be here wednesday, its so cool watching him hunt. Dont mine the cyano currently having a little outbreak.... quite annoying.

He looks awesome, very nice tank as well

Sent from my HTC Vivid using Tapatalk 2

 

[Stkef9]

Thank you very much. I'm still learning being I've been into saltwater for about 9 months and now getting into sps I have more to learn. Aside from a little cyano I've been able to stay on top of everything else. Much happier with this 75 than my previous 27 gallons and my biocube 14

 

[Mark2]

So last night I went over to kpiotrowski's and checked out his 300 it is awesome! Also got a ton of info and we even built a new return line to keep my single overflow from plugging and flooding my house. Gonna try to finish that all up tomorrow. Finally got my RO/DI unit back thanks to Mike from OBD. Will try to get some pics posted up of the changes tomorrow as well.

What did you do to the return line?

 

[Stkef9]

I haven't had a chance to get to it yet because of work and school. But the tank has 2 holes bottom drilled. 1 1/4 drain and 3/4 return. I was told that's bad news without regularly checking and cleaning the drain pipe so if it were to clog it would drain the sump ruining my brand new pump and flooding the tank with about 3 gallons of water. I'm going to change to a herbie style. 1 1/4 will be emergency right at water level and 3/4 I'm gonna try to step to 1" and that will be primary drain about 2-3" below water surface. Should quite the system up. Then Kpiotrowski helped me build the return. Used 1" PVC to a t with pipes going to each corner of the tank stepped down to 1/2" loc line to increase flow. Have to modify the canopy and come up with a clamp to hold the new drain to the back of the tank. Ill post progress pics once I get to it. Maybe this weekend.

 

[Tureefik87]

Love Mandarin Goby's, nice set up btw.

 

[Mark2]

I haven't had a chance to get to it yet because of work and school. But the tank has 2 holes bottom drilled. 1 1/4 drain and 3/4 return. I was told that's bad news without regularly checking and cleaning the drain pipe so if it were to clog it would drain the sump ruining my brand new pump and flooding the tank with about 3 gallons of water. I'm going to change to a herbie style. 1 1/4 will be emergency right at water level and 3/4 I'm gonna try to step to 1" and that will be primary drain about 2-3" below water surface. Should quite the system up. Then Kpiotrowski helped me build the return. Used 1" PVC to a t with pipes going to each corner of the tank stepped down to 1/2" loc line to increase flow. Have to modify the canopy and come up with a clamp to hold the new drain to the back of the tank. Ill post progress pics once I get to it. Maybe this weekend.

I see what you mean. Yea, i thought about doing the same and set mine up with 2 drains but I haven't found a secure way of placing the return lines over the top. I don't have a canopy over my tank so I'd have to find another way to "clamp" it down. Post up pics once you've set it up.

 

[zip70]

very nice set up. thanks for sharing. good color choice.