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

UPDATE

So things have been moving slowly. In some ways I suppose that is a good thing lol ;D

So the sump has been up and running for a little while now. I finally got the bulkheads installed correctly. Deep blue professional sent me some higher quality bulkheads (for free), and they worked much, much better. I must conclude that it was the bulkheads, and not me, that was the problem.




Finally got the doors made and installed for the stand and canopy. They look pretty nice considering we made them ourselves. I must give Brian all the credit here lol.




We had some problems with our LEDs. I will skip the details, but I learned how to solder and I fixed them ;D We hung them with chain so we can raise them up and down fairly easily. We also threw in these metal bars so we can slide them back and forth when working on the tank. They have only been on the tank for less than 24 hours, so I obviously haven't seen the effects just yet.




Got the skimmer on. I must say, thats some pretty nice skimmate lol.



Most of the corals have successfully endured the stress of the move. We lost a couple though for various reasons. I just took these pics this morning.. I must say that it is much harder to take good pictures under LEDs.






Mounted the dosing pump, but we have been doing 25% weekly wc's, so I havent had the need to turn it on just yet.



As of now, we have one problem that is worth mentioning, and that is bryopsis. We have always seen bryopsis in our tank, but due to the very low nutrient levels, we have always been able to control it easily. Lately however, it is becoming a problem. I am relying on manual removal at the current time, but it is hard to keep up with it. I am considering the mag treatment.. I will let you guys know if I actually go through with it.

 

tank is looking good, nice clean look
fast question what skimmer are you using i have never seen that before.

 

Thanks! I actually just cleaned the coraline off the glass for the picture. It also looks clean because it isn't very established yet (only 4 or 5 months). I actually like the established look much better lol.

The skimmer is an aquamaxx hob-1. Very good skimmer. My only problem is that I only have 3 small fish in my 90g. Thus, there is normally very little to skim, and it often looks watery. However, when I first turn it on (and there is a lot to skim), it collects it very well. It is also very quiet.

 

cleaning the venturi will help with skimmate. If I skim too dry it just builds up and not in the cup. Bryopsis is pretty easy to get a handle on, and tech M can know it out for a good while. Good luck and check the TDS on your RODI, my membrane is going out and I'm seeing some growth right now at ~30ppm TDS

 

My RO/DI normally reads 2 or 3 ppm. Thats likely from leftover salt residue in the bucket. I only rinse them once with RO/DI after a WC. Occasionally I will rinse a cup several times with RO/DI and then fill it up and test that. It reads zero those times. I figure if it is staying consistently 2 or 3 ppm (in the bucket) and is not increasing, then the actual value is probably still zero.

I also have lots of GFO tumbling in my reactor (over half the BRS recommended amount), and I have only been manually feeding every 2 or 3 days, if that. My T5 bulbs were getting old as well, just put on the LEDs yesterday. If you looked at my tank up close, you probably wouldn't even notice the bryopsis for 5 minutes, unless I pointed it out to you lol. There isn't much at all besides on 2 or 3 frag plugs that I am about to dip in H2O2, and a few hairs on the rock. Zoas seem to be able to tolerate this in a 50/50 salt water/H2O2 mixture for 5 min. I even tested a birdsnest frag and it seems to be recovering. After I dip them, I throw them in a frag tank (more like a fragless tank lol) with lights out for two days because they probably couldn't handle light right after. I have been trying my hardest to keep up with it. This is by far the hardest type of algae to battle.

 

I think you and Brian have done an outstanding job on the tank and the sand with canopy.

I like the scape very much. Looks like you guys have a done of frags going, cool.

 

Sounds like you got it handled. I dont think its a big deal except on my zoa frags, but thats what h2o2 is for. Great looking system!

 

Thanks! I think we still need to play around with the rock scape a little more though. It looks okay in the picture, but it looks kind of stupid when seeing the tank in person.

As far as the LEDs go.. I know it may be too soon to say this, but I am already seeing better coloration of the SPS in the tank. Maybe its just a result of the better lighting (aka the colors haven't actually changed, its just a visual thing). However, I'd like to think that they are having a positive impact on the corals! ;D At least I can say that there are no signs of bleaching/browning out as of now! The whites are currently set at the lowest power (they are dimmable) and the blues are at about 25% power (about four clicks up out of 20 total).

 

We have had another tank setup for months with a damsel and a starfish in it and thats it... doing water changes on it too.. omg lol

Thank corailline! we appreciate the compliment. Hopefully the corals will take to the led's and we also have a few frag swaps coming up too! Cant wait to get to these swaps! havent bought any corals in a while!

 

So I believe it has been a week since the LEDs were added. Here is the report thus far. The corals have not lost an ounce of coloration! No signs of browning out or bleaching. I thought I saw STN or RTN on one acro, but it wasn't. I fragged it and everything but the white part of the original base did not spread. It may have been there for a while or something. It didn't get burned because there aren't any corals within 5 inches of it (besides blue cloves - which only ever bother zoas, not SPS).

I may be imagining this, but the corals may actually be coloring up already! The second we turned them on we immediately saw more color. This was obviously just a visual thing, not a change in the corals coloration. But since then, I feel like they are gaining more color! It is difficult to notice small changes when you are staring at them every day lol. But at least the corals aren't getting burned or anything of that nature!

I may turn the whites up one click. There are 20 levels that I can set them to. Right now the blues are 4 clicks up and the whites are 1 click up. I am thinking of raising them 1 click per week. Does that sound reasonable? Sorry, not very familiar with the LED terminology, so I will just call them "clicks" lol. Not sure how much to turn them up before I leave them be. I did borrow a PAR meter from my local reef club. But then the LEDs broke and it took a few weeks to fix them. By that point, we had to give the par meter back because someone else needed it.. I don't want to accidentally turn them up too much and burn them or something.. There is a detailed description of the LED setup in my first post in this thread. Any recommendations for how high I should raise them before its time to stop?