UPDATE 9/16 - Gabby and Brian's 90g Reef

Over the past few days, we have been busy transferring our 37 gallon reef tank to a 90 gallon. Additionally, we moved to a new apartment last week.. Talk about chaos! I share the hobby with my boyfriend Brian (bbrian189).

We plan for this 90 gallon reef to be SPS dominant, with a few LPS corals and zoa’s here and there. The majority of the coral in our last tank was SPS, so we have a good amount of experience in that department.

I will start off by describing our current progress.

Parts list:

Equipment
1. 90 gallon reef ready aquarium (new) (Deep Blue Professional)
2. Stand

• The tank is being supported by four 4x4’s
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3. Canopy - Build in Progress - Will Update
4. Powerheads totalling 5050 gph (~56x)

• Koralia 600 gph
• Koralia 600gph
• Koralia Evo 1050 gph
• Koralia Evo 1400 gph
• Koralia Evo 1400 gph

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5. Lighting - RapidLED Build

• 48 Cree xp series LEDs
• Two 14"L x 6"W heatsinks - Each have 8 XP-E royal blue, XP-E 8 blue XP-G 4 neutral white, and 4 XP-G cool white LEDs.
• 80* optics on all.
• Runs off 4 dimmable meanwell drivers
• RapidLED daylight controller for dimming control and sunrise/sunset control
• It is important to note that the LED’s will not be added until the canopy is complete, as they will be mounted inside. Right now, only the left side of the tank is lit with a sideways 4 bulb T5HO fixture.

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6. Return Pump

• Rio 2500

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7. Sump

• 29g sump/fuge build in progress

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8. Heaters

• Aquarium Aqueon Pro Heater 200 Watt
• EHEIM Jager Aquarium Thermostat Heater 150W
• Aquarium Aqueon Pro Heater 150 Watt

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9. Neptune Apex Lite Aquacontroller

• Temperature Probe
• pH Probe

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Filtration
10. Aquamaxx HOB-1 Skimmer

• Rated for 75g
• This is our skimmer from our 37g. I am hoping it will be good enough. We do not have a lot of fish, so the bioload is pretty light.

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11. GFO Reactor
12. 60 lbs Aragamax (sugar-sized) Sand

• Will seed this with sand from current tank (1-2 cups)

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13. 50 lbs Dry Rock (Marco)
14. 50 lbs Live Rock

• From current 37g system
• Established for over 2 years (purchased as LR)

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Water Chemistry
15. Dosing pump (Marine Color) for Calcium, Alkalinity, Magnesium

• Consists of 3 peristaltic pumps
• Dosing using BRS recipe 1
• Will be purchasing generic supplements after using the remainder of the BRS materials (i.e. Magflake, Epsom salt, baking soda, Dowflake, etc.)

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16. Salt - Instant ocean reef crystals

• Normally kept at approximately 1.024, measured with a cheap hydrometer
  
  [*]I know I know, we need a refractometer or conductivity probe! But we also need curtains, rugs, silverware etc. for the new apartment (i.e. money is tight).​

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17. Water - RO/DI

• “Home-made” RO/DI
• Using customized RO/DI unit
• TDS = 0

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18. NO other additives will be regularly added to the tank (except medications if need be)

So all of our livestock is currently in a 37g tub on the floor, and has been in there for about a week.

Luckily, almost everything and everyone is doing well.

Additionally, some of the rock (without coral) were exposed to air for a little bit longer than we had hoped, so that is in a separate rubbermaid tub with a heater and powerhead (in case it cycles).

Regarding the 90g’s status…
The dry rock (50lbs) was rinsed in RO/DI, then added to the tank. It was placed on top of small pieces of egg crate to prevent damage to the glass base. The sand was rinsed several times with tap water, then once with RO/DI. The sand was then added around the rock. Trash bags were placed on top of the sand while adding around 20 gallons of freshly mixed salt water. 5 gallons of water change water from the tub was also added, along with a cup of old sand, and an old medium sized rock from the cycling tank (approximately 5 - 7 lbs). A powerhead and a 200 W heater were also added. This setup was left overnight to allow the sandstorm to run its course.





The following day, more water change water was added to the tank. About a gallon of dirty water from the cycling rock tub (with suspended detritus) and two more small rocks were added to the tank (it looked like it needed some life). Another heater and some more powerheads were also added. A few hours later, the water was tested:
Salinity: 1.024
NH3: 0 ppm
NO2: 0 ppm
NO3: 0 ppm
Ca: 440 ppm
Alk: 10.2 dKH
Mg: 1320
PO4: Not yet tested
pH: 7.9
Temp: 77.5-78.5 degrees (stable)

All levels were decent, so why not test it out with a little coral? It wasn’t urgent because the tub on the floor was doing pretty well and seemed stable. Birds nest, birds of paradise, stylo, zoa (bam bam’s), and blue clove frags were added. These frags were all ones that had copies in the tub, so it wasn’t the end of the world if we lost them. After a few minutes, the polyps were out and the zoa’s were back open!





Success! Everything is still doing pretty well. There are no signs of stress. After another day of observation, some more corals will be added (while keeping the tub on the floor running).

I plan to continue filling up the tank with water change water from the tub and fresh saltwater (a 50/50 ratio) over the next day or two.

The apex was also setup somewhere along the way (including the pH and temp probes).

Issues:
My first problem is the sand. It is much more powdery than was my old sand. Every time I add water, the tank gets cloudy. I am slowly scooping the water in (vs vigorously dumping buckets). The powerheads, which are pointed horizontally for the time being, even seem to be stirring it up. Is there any way to stop this (i.e. adding a layer of more coarse sand on top)?

I am also questioning whether or not it was alright to add the sand before the water. I am seeing small pockets in the sandbed..

Is this alright? I suppose the pistol shrimp (when added) will take care of this as he constructs his “under-layer”.

The sand is only about 1.5” deep. Will this be a problem for my melanurus wrasse?

I believe that the pH probe is supposed to be transported in a pH 4 solution. However, we transported it in a bag of tank water. Should I recalibrate the probe? It was calibrated about 4 months ago.

That’s the majority of the issues I can think of for the time being (unless you guys can think of anything else). Please tell me now if I have made any mistakes along the way. It will be much easier to fix them now, vs. later, for obvious reasons.

 

Awesome post! Excellent detail. The 4x4's in the stand rock.
You didn't do any harm adding sand before water. The pockets look like that of the gas pockets being released from a DSB doing it's denitrification thing but since it's too early for that to be possibe I just assume it's still settling. It should be fine if you wanna "pop" them I assume...

Keep up the good work, I'm gonna follow this thread.

 

looks good, makes me want a 90 already!! looking forward to seeing it completed.. beautiful stain choice on the wood too..

 

I just added some more water, leading to more cloudiness. I would "pop" them, but I think I think I will wait for the sand to settle... I'm assuming more sand will irritate corals (as does everything else!). I'll either do it tomorrow, or let the pistol shrimp do it for me!

Thanks, I appreciate it!

Thanks! Us too ;D

On another note, We are thinking of getting a 29g sump. We bought a 40g one off someone who was breaking down their tank, but I think it is just too big. It fits inside the sand, but leaves room for nothing else (i.e. top-off, gfo, and anything else I want to add on down the road).

Any suggestions for a return pump? I am thinking of getting a Rio 3100 (900 gph). It has pretty good reviews, and Rio has worked well for us in the past. We bought a more powerful iwaki pump from the same guy, but later realized that we would have to drill the sump for this.. Originally, I wanted an external pump for several reasons, but drilling the sump is one project that we do not need at the moment. I also wanted to build the sump myself.. But now we are looking for a prebuilt one, because thats another project we do not need. Brian works full time, and I am starting a PhD program very soon. With the new tank and new apartment, its barely leaving us enough time to eat!

Actually.. I still want to build the sump myself. Buying a pre-built one takes all the fun out of it. We'll see...

 

I would get a return pump that runs no more than 10 times your SUMP'S volume. This allows your skimmer and other filtration to be at their most efficient IME. I have a 40B for my sump, it has about 30 gallons of water in it and I use a Rio 8HF as my return pump. At head I have 250gph to 270gph.

Everything is looking good. The sand is going to be a pain. You could put a coarser layer on top and that should help. If you choose not to then you will need to change out the 1400s for 1050s. Your tank and corals will not suffer for the flow change with as many pumps as you have.

Congrats on the new place and tank.

 

Ohh. I thought it was 10x the volume of the DT. Good thing I asked. Will do.

I think I will go with the coarse sand option.. I definitely don't want to go with the powerhead option. It would be one thing if I wasn't planning the tank to be SPS dominant, because if theres anything that I've learned about SPS, its that they love their flow. I'm trying to replicate the conditions of my old tank because SPS did great in there (it just ran out of room to grow..).

Any idea what grain size I should look for?

 

So this morning, corals are still alive. I turned all but the 1050 gph powerhead off to ease the sand storms until I get new sand. I hope to get a 15 lb bag of coarser sand to lay on top. I'm just not sure what grain size will not blow around as much, and also will not hurt the fish (aka wrasse).

I was thinking either:

CaribSea Dry Aragonite Fiji Pink Reef Sand :
0.5-1.0 mm diameter grain size

CaribSea Dry Aragonite Special Grade Reef Sand:
1.25–1.95 mm diameter grain size

CaribSea Dry Aragonite Flamingo Reef Sand:
1-2 mm diameter grain size

Any suggestions? I'm not sure if there is a better brand..

 

congrats on the new tank!

 

Thanks! I don't know if you remember, but for my last tank (in my last apartment) I had trouble with the email alerts from the apex. The router was across the room, so I was using a gaming adaptor to make it wireless. The email alerts worked fine when the apex was plugged directly into the router, but didn't work when plugged into the gaming adaptor. Everything else worked with the gaming adaptor (i.e. I could connect to the apex though the internet, both at home and remotely, and manually control the system). We spent weeks trying everything, but nothing would make it work. Good thing we unintentionally decided to put the tank next to the router this time, so I will finally get my email alerts! It works! ;D I had the whole thing setup in ten minutes! Besides mounting the thing in the stand..


Its neater than it looks. There is also a power strip on the other side. I will probably have to add one or two more once I start adding more equipment. The LED's take four outlets alone. Not to mention the skimmer, GFO pump, return pump, 3 additional powerheads etc. By the way, I have no idea what that thing on the wood is, to the right of the Apex Display. It only shows up with the camera, I can't see it just by looking. Weird.

 

Awesome build thread!! I didn't see if you added any LR to the new tank? This is most important as this is were your bacterial colonies live. Using old water will have little to no effect so I would not use any more and just go with fresh SW.I would start adding as much LR as possible to the tank if you have not already done so as this is what will stabilize the tank.Also try aiming the two most powerful PH's toward the surface and you should be able to keep the sand from blowing around. It may take some time to get it just right but I have found by placing the two on opposite sides of the back wall of the tank about 1/3 to 1/2 way down angled up and towards the center helps. Good luck. Looking forward to your progress!!Subscribed.
P.S. also it is important to feed these bacterial colonies so if you have LR stored in a container with no live stock it is important to add a little fish food to keep the colonies alive.