A reef in the North -133G sps/lps

[selje]

Well, I lost to aiptasia again. This is my 3rd re-boot of this system. And now I will do it properly. Here is my previous build: http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2484119

Here is some information about the tank and equipment.

Tank:
Aquarium: Acrylic tank from Schuran in Germany 112x75x60 cm, 12mm thickness, 504 l (133 G)
Sump: Glass 65x50x45 cm, 8mm thickness, 146 l (38 G)

Equipment
Light: ATI Powermodule Hybrid 4x39w T5 + 2x75w LED
Skimmer: Royal Exclusive Bubble King Double Cone 200
Circulation: Maxspect Gyre XF150
Water Filtration: 5 litre Siporex + Active carbon in bag
Additives: None yet, but will try either ATI Essentials or Triton

Fish
Acanthurus Leucosternon / Nigricans Hybrid Tang (on hold at LFS, not in tank yet)

Corals
None - yet

[selje]

Here it begins

Clean up my old ****






Buy some litres of Hydrochloric acid:




Dump LR full of Aiptasia and **** in a plastic container:




Pour in the acid, PS - be aware of the foam. A minute after the image the foam took off and poured over my terrace :




Rocks in ice bath (yes it was cold here when I did this):




Clean up the sump and equipment and find out that the Red Dragon impeller is broken :

[selje]

Nice and hopefully clean rocks:




Aquascaping in progress:

[selje]

I've had my tank for over 3 years now. And an acrylic tank get scratches just by looking at it. So I found a polish which is called Novus.




The Novus polish is a 3 step program. For the best result I should have sanded down the tank with sand paper. But I just used the Novus and the result was actually pretty good.

Here is the tank after the polish:




Aquascape from above:




And finally start the filling of RO water:

[reefmutt]

following...... again!
good start.

[Scorpius]

There were several times I was tempted to redo my tank. I'm currently dealing with Bryopsis and I've put so much time and effort into my current setup, restarting would be heart breaking.

[echopiece]

Originally Posted by Scorpius

There were several times I was tempted to redo my tank. I'm currently dealing with Bryopsis and I've put so much time and effort into my current setup, restarting would be heart breaking.

Have you looked into Fluconazole? Do a google search, I've heard some great success stories using this method.

[selje]

Originally Posted by reefmutt

following...... again!
good start.

Thanks mate! Your tank is so insane. That Icefire just blew me away

Originally Posted by Scorpius

There were several times I was tempted to redo my tank. I'm currently dealing with Bryopsis and I've put so much time and effort into my current setup, restarting would be heart breaking.

Yeah it's a lot of work. I hope it is worth it now. I have never cycled only dead rocks so this will be fun. I hope I doesnt get any more pests. I probably had almost 1000 aiptasia. They ate 38% vinegar for breakfast

[selje]

I made me this siporax stand from black eggcrates. Was kind of fun.






But stacking the Siporax was not that fun. I think it took me 2 hours to get them stacked nicely. It's 5 litre Siporax in there.




I finally got my new ATI Powermodule Hybrid. Mounted it up a couple of days ago. I love this light already. I sold my old Orphek Atlantik v1 and went for this one.

[selje]

Here's the final aquascape result:




Two days ago I got some turbo snails and added live copepods. Havent seen any pods today so not sure if it was successfull. I also got a fish on hold at my LFS. I was so lucky to come by an Acanthurus Leucosternon/Nigricans hybrid (powder blue/whitecheek tang). I'll pick it up when I get my skimmer up and running. Can't wait to get something to look at

[reefmutt]

Beautiful scape.
Really nice!

[Joe Kelley]

Love your aquascape!

[Alex Costa]

Love the scape.....But I ratter glue the rocks together than tie them up..

[selje]

Originally Posted by reefmutt

Beautiful scape.
Really nice!

Originally Posted by Joe Kelley

Love your aquascape!

Thank you guys! Im pretty satisfied with the result.

Originally Posted by Alex Costa

Love the scape.....But I ratter glue the rocks together than tie them up..

Thanks. But trust me. Not possible to get this scape without the strips. They wont be that visible when the stones start to get corraline algaes.

[selje]

This was my previous scape btw:

[reefmutt]

Beautiful as well.

[sahin]

Hello Andreas. Fresh setup looks good. How is the spread of light on the ATI compared to the Orphek?

[selje]

Originally Posted by reefmutt

Beautiful as well.

Thanks Matt! I was really satisfied with the old setup. Too bad the aiptasia ruined it

Originally Posted by sahin

Hello Andreas. Fresh setup looks good. How is the spread of light on the ATI compared to the Orphek?

Hi Sahin! Thank you! The spread is awesome. This lamp suits my setup perfectly. Much better than the Atlantik. Thank you for the program xml. I'll try it this week.

Now I have this bulb combination (the bulbs was included with the lamp):

ATI Blue Plus
ATI Purple Plus
--LED--LED--
ATI Blue Plus
ATI Blue Plus

This combo is way to blue for my taste. I will try this combination out when the system is ready for some sps:

Red Sea Reef-Spec BlueWhite 15k
Red Sea Reef-Spec Pink
--LED--LED--
Red Sea Reef-Spec Actinic or ATI Blue Plus
Red Sea Reef-Spec BlueWhite 15k


Yesterday I got a reading of 0.5ppm Nitrate so the cycling is on!

[selje]

I had a Leucosternon/Nigricans hybrid on hold at my LFS. But the poor thing died to a clogged pump which no one noticed before a couple of days later

Lucky enough they had a Nigricans so I took that with me home along with two cleaner shrimps.



I have to get my UV on soon as the fish has some stress ich at the moment.

[HuskerBioProf]

I really like the aquascape. I am planning a similar 2 island + lots of dead space setup.

[selje]

Thank you It looks better now when I have sand. Will take a new FTS when I clean up the brown algae which is exploding right now.

I bought this yesterday by the way. Never used UV before so this will be interesting.

[Superpuma]

Hi. I have the same uv. What are your intentions with it? If it's for parasite " zapping " mine worked with a flow rate of 800-1000 liters per hour going through it, ball park figure is 200 liters/hour for every 10watt of uv.
I bought mine when l had issues, l had the supply pump for the uv hovering just over the sand, l figured the parasites were more likely to head for the sand than to the overflow and down into the sump, it worked a treat.
Mike

[selje]

Hi Mike, thanks for your tips! Good to hear that it worked

I bought it mainly so I have the possibility to kill some parasites and help keeping them down when I introduce ick-magnets like some of the Acanthurus tangs. Less floating algae and clear water is a bonus Not sure if I will run it 24/7. Haven't started it yet. Seems like the Nigricans have a lot less ich now. I also have the two cleaner shrimps who helps out a bit. Still waiting for the supply pump. If the tang is in the condition it's in now I'll keep the supply pump in the sump i guess.

Update: Looks like the brown algae has stabilized a bit. Waiting for the green now The tang is still scared, so it's impossible to get a decent picture of it.

[lynchmob3000]

I'm curious why you add the meanest fish first with a short cycle?


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[selje]

Thats a good question. First of all I needed a fish for the cycle. And I couldn't find any of the fish I was looking for. Got a good deal on this one and went for it. Ammonia and Nitrit is not measurable, so shouldn't be any trouble. Won't have many fish and this is probably the only tang, so I'm not that scared of a potential aggressive Nigricans. But time will show!