Reef Madness 75gal. Build Thread

Reef Madness 75 gal. Mixed Reef


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Setup
Standard 75 gal. Tank
~140 lbs LR (started almost all dry)
~1" Sandbed
2- Boost Led Mu Series 100 led's
SWC 160 Cone Skimmer
30 Gal. Sump
Mag 7 Return
200 micron filter sock
~10 gal. fuge
-low flow, 4 in. Sandbed, Chaeto, Clip on light
BRS biopellet reactor
-Mag3, ~1/2 cup pellets *7/26/12
Innovative Marine spin stream return
JBJ Quad. Wavemaker
2- Hydor Evo. 1500's
2- Hydor Evo. 750's
2- Marineland 750's (behind rock)

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Parameters
SG- 1.026
Temp- 78
PH- 8
Cal- 440
Dkh/Alk- 8
Mag- 1380
Nitrate- 0
PO4- 0

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Livestock
2- Picaso Clowns
2- Black Clowns
1- Hippo Tang (wives choice stay away tang police)
1- Flame Angel
1- Mandarin Dragonet
1- Fire Shrimp
CUC from standard 75 reefcleaners crew

Corals
2- Tourch Corals
2- Hammer Corals
1- Frogspawn
Few Zoa's
Few Ric's
Few Mushrooms
1- BTA
1- GSP
1- Giant Headed Cloves
1- Blue/Green Sympodium
1- Lime Green Mille
1- Metallic Teal Birdsnest
1- Billy Club Stylophora
1- Assorted Acro

This is a work in progress just felt the need to finally start up a build thread. I will add Pic's as soon as I can.










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This space reserved. I would like to be able to keep a nice clean overview of the setup on page one so anyone visiting could get the basic's without going through the entire thread.

 

sweet!

 

Recent activity: I completed a 10gal. WC which brought my salinity up from 1.023 to around 1.0245ish, glad to be getting this back on track can't believe it had gotten that low.

Also, I hate to jump the gun on this one, but things seem to be moving really fast with the recent addition of the biopellet reactor. Around day 3-4 my wife came home and was like "Wow, the tank looks super clear." I had also observed the same thing, but hadn't said anything because I figured I was just watching the tank too much/wishful thinking.

Better yet, I've tested the water x2 times for nitrate now and I'm reading between 5-10, I would say around 7... I know that I just completed the 10gal WC, but I haven't seen a reading that isn't 20 in some time on the same test kit.

Not going to attribute these changes to the biopellets yet, but I'm glad to see the changes, whatever the cause. Other then that no major updates. I'm wondering when I will see a change in the skimmate, I know that I've read alot of accounts of skimmate being darker with the addition of the biopellets but I'm not sure what the typical time frame is.

 

Obviously I'm horrible at updating a tank thread . So after a couple weeks of running the biopellets nitrates dropped to 0! Since then I've started feeding a ton. I'm currently feeding half a cube of mysis and cyclopeeze and a few squirts of reef nutrition: phyto, Oyster eggs, and roti each day. This would have been a disaster prior to the reactor.

I've also removed the filter sock in hopes of a more constant nutrition flow. Just boosted my mag level to 1380 in hopes of more stable alk. Since the addition of biopellets I have noticed that my DKH fell pretty rapidly, and I've had to dose much more then before (still trying to figure out what will be best for daily dosage).

Things are going great and seem to be taking off much faster now. Glad that the Mandarin seems to be happy and eating well .