Tank of the Month - March 2004

[usagolf]

Very SWEEEEEEEET looking tank.
Nice Job

[Mr. Slippery]

That is one beautiful system. It's nice to see another great(local) tank. Congratulations!

Matt

[cman]

Can you come to Cleveland for a weekend and duplicate yours in my 100?

Sorry but my wife thinks I'm crazy enough! A visit to Cleveland is not in the cards. LOL

How are youi feeding them with your canopy? Do you have doors on it that you can open to refill your Eheim or maybe I do not know what a Eheim feeder is

The extended part of the canopy is attached to the original canopy with a set of door hinges on the back. There's a picture in the article that shows it open. The Eheim is an automatic flake food feeder. It actually sits over the sump in the basement. The flakes get dumped into the section above the return pump and get delivered to the tank via the return plumbing.

What sort of circulation do you have behind the rocks?

The return is split in two and pointed toward the two front corners of the tank. I have three powerheads that are hidden behind the the live rock to create circulation back there.

[MtnDewMan]

Very nice TOTM ... Congrats Carl ...




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[Mantisshrimp248]

Hey cman,

Very Very Nice tank!
As people have said before, it looks much larger than a 90g.
I'm planning on setting up a 90g or sumthing around there, I hope it will be half as good as yours.

I know in the article it said about feeding, but what other maintenance is required?

[daveisrael]

Beautiful tank. I've always been a bigger fan of LPS and softies than SPS. It's nice to see a tank like this recognized! Your 90 looks a lot bigger than my 110. Great ideas on chilling the tank too.

[antpal01]

Carl, Beautiful set up. Congrats. The corals are incredibly intense and healthy looking. You are doing a few things right, that's for sure.

had a question about frequency of water changes and total fish population. How many of the types of fish do you have in total?

I have an AGA 90 as well with a fairly heavy bioload, but need to do @ 20 gallon water changes every week to keep things in check. And I feed only two cubes of mysis or brine/ day. I have only a 30 gallon sump, so I am thinking that may have something to do with it.

Any feedback is appreciated.

Again, beautiful set up. I enjoyed your article! Congrats!

Anthony

[ReefJerk]

At 10' that pump still pushes about 1300 gph. that is amazing that one overflow is handling it. I thought the max was like 1100 gph. I have the same tank and would love to get a 2400 gph pump on my system. You have given me inspiration. Oh, yes, super sweet 90 ya got there, buddy!!!!

[spsfreak]

Very nice, rbaker covered it when he said "a man after my on heart, a mixed reef." I love a tank with a wide diversity of life. Again super tank.
Matt

[cman]

I know in the article it said about feeding, but what other maintenance is required

Water changes. Cleaning the front glass every week. Testing your water parameters every few weeks. Other than that, most of time I spend on the tank when I add something new.

had a question about frequency of water changes and total fish population. How many of the types of fish do you have in total?

I change about 35% of my tank volume every 3 or 4 weeks. Most of the fish I have in the tank are not very large. The largest is the hippo tang. I probably have a dozen or so fish. Replacing the 20gal sump with the sump/refugium in the basement almost doubled the water volume. This allows me to stretch out the water changes a bit.

At 10' that pump still pushes about 1300 gph. that is amazing that one overflow is handling it. I thought the max was like 1100 gph. I have the same tank and would love to get a 2400 gph pump on my system.

When I first set up the basement system and added the Mag24 I needed to choke it down with a ball valve. For whatever reason (pump losing efficiency) I no longer need to do that.

[fmuakkassa]

Congrats.....What a beautiful tank!!!

I started like you 3 years ago because my wife wanted an in-wall aquarium and I ended up doing everything and getting in the hobby. Started with FO and dead coral, moved to live rock and corals, upgraded to MH added a refugium (Miracle Mud and caulerpa), added a calcium reactor, added a top off system (Tunze) and finally added a protein skimmer, have an Eheim self feeder with flakes, use 1 cube mysis shrimp and 1 cube brime/or other daily......BUT I DON'T HAVE YOUR RESULTS (Envy).

Two questions
1) What substrate do you have in the main tank and how deep is it (looks shallow and it seems your refugium is your DSB Berlin system)
2) Do you target feed your corals or just thaw the frozen food cubes and drop in the main tank?

[Zig]

What a beautiful and inspiring tank, great TOTM. Looks like a pretty simple setup, with a lot of research we can benefit from.
Thanks for sharing your victories and lessons learned along the way, Carl. Thanks also to Reef Central for featuring another mixed tank. Some of us love the softies and LPS corals.

I'm curious about that good looking urchin. Does he do any feeding on inverts or does his grazing rearrange your landscape for you? I want one of those, maybe

[Deb Colella]

Fantastic system, really! My question is simple: How many pounds of live rock do you have in your system? Any particular kind of live rock you fancy?

I'm looking to upgrade my tank from a 55 to a 100+. I've got all softies in there now, but would like to add some LPS corals as well. You have a wonderful mix in your tank.

[cman]

1) What substrate do you have in the main tank and how deep is it (looks shallow and it seems your refugium is your DSB Berlin system)

I had started with crushed coral and over time added about 50lbs. of live sand. It's averages about 3" deep in the display tank. You are right, the refugium has southdown sand and is about 4-5" deep

2) Do you target feed your corals or just thaw the frozen food cubes and drop in the main tank?

I don't target feed any of the corals. They get fed by whatever is in the water column. The anenomes get target fed a few times a week

I'm curious about that good looking urchin. Does he do any feeding on inverts or does his grazing rearrange your landscape for you? I want one of those, maybe

It's a tuxedo urchin. I've had it for 2 years and have never had a problem with it.

How many pounds of live rock do you have in your system? Any particular kind of live rock you fancy?

I have about 80lbs. of live rock. I think it was all Fiji live rock. Can't remember since it was 3 years ago.

[MikeyNice]

Congrats!! Beautiful tank!! I cant believe theres only 80lbs of LR in there. You wouldnt happen to have a pic with just rock??

[juststartingout]

Carl, very nice setup! I am a newbie and I am in the starting stages of curing LR. I think for many reasons the idea of your sump/fuge in the basement is great. I currently have a 125 that was given to us, and after reading your article from TOTM, I would like to relocate that tank into the basement and partition it off to make a sump/fuge, and buy a 135 or 170 for my show tank upstairs. Do you have any advise? I did a search and was unable to gain anything. What would you do differently? PM me if you could,as not to change direction of this TOTM thread.

[Radicaljbr]

Ok I have another question?

I made my own Durso standpipe like the one you are using.

Do you use that space for anything now? I was thinking of perhaps putting some sand in my overflow and add some macro algea. Are you using that water filled space in your overflow for anything of the like?

John

[melev]

Originally posted by Radicaljbr

Do you use that space for anything now? I was thinking of perhaps putting some sand in my overflow and add some macro algea. Are you using that water filled space in your overflow for anything of the like?

John

John, that isn't a good idea. If you ever have to deal with the plumbing there, or the bulkhead, you'll have to get all the sand out just to get a new good seal.

Accept that as dead space, and enjoy your reef.

[cman]

You wouldnt happen to have a pic with just rock??

One of the things I regret the most is that I never took pictures of my tank as I was setting it up. Mostly becuase I didn't have a digital camera at the time. So... unfortunately I don't have a picture of just the live rock.

Are you using that water filled space in your overflow for anything of the like?

I agree with melev here. I have had to work in the overflow section a few times and can't imagine if it were loaded with sand. As far as the macro goes, I would think it might get sucked into the Durso and clog your overflow pipe. A bad thing!!

[gwies]

Congrats, Great Tank!

[nancysnuwave]

Hi..
What food do you feed from your eheim?
Chris

[Radicaljbr]

EEWWWWW!!!!!

Good point!

Dead space wins

[ken495]

Beautiful tank....will inspire me as I progress through this hobby/obsession! Someday I would like to add a sump in the basement as you did. What kind of pipe/tubing did you use for the drain and return? Can you hear any noise from the rushing water going through your walls and floor?

Thanks,

Ken

[cman]

What food do you feed from your eheim?

A mixture of Ocean Nutrition

What kind of pipe/tubing did you use for the drain and return? Can you hear any noise from the rushing water going through your walls and floor?

I used the flexible tubing you can buy at Home Depot. If you adjust the Durso pipe high enough in the overflow you can really minimize the noise. The noise from the overflow and return pipes under the tank and in the floor is almost not detectable.

[Marcelo_Brasil]

Really Great Tank,
It´s Awesome how it looks bigger than 90!!!
With your permission i´ll duplicate your photo on a Brazilian Fórum, with the link to people come see the post here.