My 65 Gallon Mixed Reef

[biggles]

I had initially planned on having a pure SPS tank but since returning to the hobby recently i have been super impressed with the large number of very nicely colored LPS now available at my LFS's. With that in mind i decided to share the trials and tribulations of my new reef tank at the 2 month point since adding water here in the Reef Discussion forum.

• DT: 65 gallon euro braced (40" x 24" x 18")
• Sump: 40" X 20" X 14" ( 25 gal running )
• Skimmer: Deltec SC 1455
• Biofilter: 70 pounds liverock, 1" sand bed, 25 pounds LR in sump
• Carb/Phos: 1/2 cup of Rowaphos in a mesh bag, no carbon yet
• Return Pump: Eheim 1260
• Water Circulation: Tunze 6045 x 1, modded 6025 x 2
• Lighting: 1 x 250W Radium, 4 x 39W T5's
• Calcium / Alk / Mag Dosing: Randy's Two Part with bulk additives
• Auto Top-Off: Small manual float
• Heating / Cooling: 200W heater, air conditioned room - no heat issues

I initially had the 25lbs of LR that now resides in the sump also in the DT but after looking at some of the minimalist and aquascaping tips threads i removed it to open up the tank and leave lots of room for coral growth rather than the 200lb rock wall i had in my last tank.

This is basically what it looks like at the moment after 2 months with water and lots of things on the to do and buy list, the end shot is accurate in where the corals are currently placed.







I finally have a skimmer as of yesterday and considering i took it out of the box and put it straight in the sump i'm very impressed with 12 hours break in skimmate production, it's also a bad reflection of how filthy my water really is despite no food and only RO water added since day one.
I should have placed more importance on purchasing a skimmer as you can certainly cycle and run a tank without one but it makes dealing with algae issues etc a pain in the ......
My last skimmer was a 30" beckett which was brutally efficient but loud by nature. As this tank is in my lounge room and 10 feet from my couch potato position i went for a needle wheel and i can't hear it at all despite still not having built any doors for the cabinet.

1st 12 hours of skimmate:



My corals all have good PE but i know i have starved them as a few have lost some color and darkened up despite high light postions. I purchased some Reef Roids at my LFS and will now try target feeding the corals after lights out now that i have a skimmer running. I also plan to add 2-3 fish and a couple of cleaner shrimp, i'm a strong believer in fish poo coral food and i have always wanted a blood shrimp along with a skunk. My last tank had a CB shrimp who was basically a murderous sneaky critter assassin. He would also perch high up on a rock with his claws outstretched inviting the fish to come over and as soon as they got close he would have a swipe at them - i often swore at him when i saw him doing it but i don't think he cared much what i thought...........

Along with the skimmer i purchased a Tunze 6095 but i still need to buy a 7096 USB controller along with another 6095. My equipment list was dealt a severe blow by my dentist requiring a holiday and deciding i was the one to fund the trip, i hate spending money on anything now that is not related to my reef. I'm a bit worried that running the 6095 at 100% until i can get a controller will blow everything to hell in the DT but of course i will give it go nonetheless but i want to siphon most of the algae lawn sand bed out first. It's 1/8th" grain and i want a larger particle size as i want to run 2 x 6095's and the 6045 in the DT eventually.

I had intended to run 2 x 250W radiums but since running one along with the 4 x 39W T5's i am now inclined to grab a 400W Radium as i have a ballast for it and raise the reflector up 2". The spread is very good and the T5's add a ton of light to areas that would normally miss out. I think i will try the 400W and if i don't like it i will add the second 250W bulb.

That's about it for now but hopefully i can have the tank in a much better condition over the next month now that i can export the filth from my water. Currently i have the following parameters testing with Salifert, my alk, cal and Mg all stable with the dosing.

Salinity: 1.025
Temperature: 79 °F
pH: 8.0 - 8.2
Calcium: 450 ppm
Alkalinity: 8.8 dKh
Magnesium: 1350
Phosphate: No idea tbh - need to get a Hanna meter
Nitrate: 2-3 ppm
Nitrite: 0 ppm
Ammonia: 0 ppm

[Handil]

Very nice!

[james30ct]

+1 looks good.

[biggles]

Thanks for the nice comments guys
So i spent 3 hours cleaning out the DT of the algae on the walls and sand bed now that i have a good skimmer to export nutrients rather than letting the algae keep my water clean. Still need to siphon out all the 1/8" grain sand and replace with a larger grain size - i added the 6095 with the 24V jumper and lets just say my sand bed moved - a lot lol.
On a positive note the water was full of crap blowing around for hours until the skimmer and a sock removed it, the massive increase in circulation basically blew all the loose crap on the rocks and sand bed into suspension where it could be removed mechanically. Have a 6095, 6045 & modded 6025 running now and will swap the 6025 for another 6095 and 7096 controller in a month or two when funds permit. 45X turnover in the DT is ok for now

Here's some better pics of a much cleaner DT than the last pics i posted - please note the few mushrooms on the sand bed - mixed reef....... They make great PAR meters btw when you want to check how much light is hitting the sand.

[dendrobated]

Colours are outstanding, and love the room for the scape to grow

[Michigan Mike]

The 400w radium won't help much unless you run it overdriven. Its only 360w unless its overdriven past 400w but it dont last as long.
I think I would add another 250w if I wanted better spread, but your tank looks real nice the way it is now.

[biggles]

Originally Posted by dendrobated

Colours are outstanding, and love the room for the scape to grow

Thanks mate, most of it has only started to regain some good color in the last week, since i started feeding they are lightening up and colorful pigments are starting to develop at a nice rate - i kinda knew that they were dulling due to starvation but i was stuck without a skimmer. I was dosing 25ml calcium and 35 alk a day but in the last week it has risen to 35ml cal and 55ml alk to remain stable and most things are sprouting new growth all of a sudden.
I really need to get those frag racks out as they look horrible and spoil the open look of the tank - mental note, must buy timber for frag tank stand

Originally Posted by Michigan Mike

The 400w radium won't help much unless you run it overdriven. Its only 360w unless its overdriven past 400w but it dont last as long.
I think I would add another 250w if I wanted better spread, but your tank looks real nice the way it is now.

Thanks Mike, i have decided to order a second 250W ballast and run 2. My ballast drives the radium at 400W and if i have to lift it (which i will) i will have to raise my T5's which i don't want to do. I am only really covering 2/3rd's of the tank with SPS quality lighting so i will add the second 250W radium to make every inch of the tank 'happy land' for my corals. I basically have to wait 4-6 weeks for any coral to settle in as everything is wild and going through a big adjustment - i do have my one pride and joy 1st ever purchased frag but it's recovering after i smashed it placing the stupid pink pavona which has now turned orange I blame the pavona and not myself for the mishap.........

[biggles]

Tried a few top downs with my iphone now that some of my SPS are really starting to color back up after becoming acclimated to life in captivity. Going to attack the sump this weekend as it's a filthy mess and needs a total overhaul.

Cherry red tips are returning on this one after 7 weeks sulking.



This one was cream with rusty red polyps when i purchased it - it's now turning solid pink all over. The blue purple frags finally have good PE at night so i hope they start some growth soon.



Small SCC branch has encrusted like crazy, you can see 3/4" growth in 7 weeks - hardly any upward growth yet so i took a frag and placed it high under the radium, you can see the frag in the first pic.



This one has very cool structure and is slowly turning green with red tips, very solid branches with small branches sprouting out that stay short.




Probably bored you but i was surprised at how well the iphone pics turned out.

[biggles]

Went to the LFS for water and couldn't resist one acro branch that was glowing under their blue/white shop LED's. Pics are under 2 x B+ 39W T5's - it has insanely fluorescent yellow tips with great PE within minutes of hitting the tank. It was one branch until i slipped with the dremmel while whittling it's base down to fit in the rock hole and hit my finger with the cutting disc, dropped the branch onto the kitchen bench breaking it in two. After much swearing and cursing i ended up with two at different heights which i like and will hopefully grow out as two tabling branches

[Michigan Mike]

2 is better than 1 !
Looks cool.

[biggles]

3 month update, everything is going fine but as soon as i added a 6095 i knew the sand bed grain was too small so i've removed most of it and will replace with a larger grain. Wasn't happy with the amount of rock and scape so i removed more and found permanent homes for the corals.
I added a skunk cleaner shrimp and wanted to buy a pair of percs but no one had any
Stopped running the 6 tablespoons of Rowaphos in the bag in the sump so just the skimmer now, took it out when i saw all the snails were having to chase algae on the glass rather than the rocks. Haven't seen the need to run carbon yet but will when i start adding non SPS corals.
Have done 2 x 25L water changes since starting and a few weeks ago i began target feeding the corals reef roids. Everything is still acclimating to different degrees as it's all wild except for my one and only prized stylo frag which a snail knocked onto the pavona - didn't end well for the stylo...... The only acro that took to tank life as if it was captive raised is the small 3" SCC branch, it's the prettiest acro i've ever kept so i fragged it as i want 2 colonies in the tank.
Even though i haven't been able to afford a lot of equipment as yet i will hopefully be able to add another 6095 and more importantly a 7096 to randomize the flow over the coming months, i'm really enjoying getting back into this hobby despite a lack of funds
That's about all so i'll update again at the 6 month mark when there should be some sand, new SPS, LPS, better colors and growth - and some percs hopefully........

[sahin]

Thats a beautiful tank tank mate. Any tips on getting good colour out of the SPS?

[biggles]

Originally Posted by sahin

Thats a beautiful tank tank mate. Any tips on getting good colour out of the SPS?

Thanks for the kind words mate, i appreciate the reply I've only been back in the hobby about 4 months and previously used ATO kalk to maintain my levels so i'm still getting used to 2 part dosing but close to 60ml a day required now tells me my corals are growing, i have very little coralline growth which suits me fine.
I always keep nitrates at zero and i haven't been able to get phos to register (Hanna) despite removing the Rowa phos and feeding 10 pinches of reef roids every 24 hrs. I have hundreds of mysis swimming all over the bottom and in the rockwork of the DT along with large amounts of pods so i'm confident the reef is just starting to hum with micro life. 2 weeks ago i had a thought about adding organic phos to the tank which is lacking due to no fish-food-wee/poo cycle so i've been adding 1ml twice a day of liquid organic waste just for the hell of it - you don't want to know where i get that lol.......

[secrest]

Wow you have an awesome tank. I was reading some posts you made in the sps forum, glad I stumbled across them otherwise I might have missed this thread.

[sahin]

Originally Posted by biggles

Thanks for the kind words mate, i appreciate the reply I've only been back in the hobby about 4 months and previously used ATO kalk to maintain my levels so i'm still getting used to 2 part dosing but close to 60ml a day required now tells me my corals are growing, i have very little coralline growth which suits me fine.
I always keep nitrates at zero and i haven't been able to get phos to register (Hanna) despite removing the Rowa phos and feeding 10 pinches of reef roids every 24 hrs. I have hundreds of mysis swimming all over the bottom and in the rockwork of the DT along with large amounts of pods so i'm confident the reef is just starting to hum with micro life. 2 weeks ago i had a thought about adding organic phos to the tank which is lacking due to no fish-food-wee/poo cycle so i've been adding 1ml twice a day of liquid organic waste just for the hell of it - you don't want to know where i get that lol.......

Thanks for the reply. The reason I asked you was because generally these Australian SPS corals that we get shipped over here are very hard to get coloured up. And it seems like you are doing very well.

And from reading the other thread, I now know that you are quite a pro at SPS corals with many years of experience.

[Bello]

Just found your thread! Looks great! Love the aquascape. Missing the sandbed though

[biggles]

Originally Posted by secrest

Wow you have an awesome tank. I was reading some posts you made in the sps forum, glad I stumbled across them otherwise I might have missed this thread.

Thanks for the kind words secrest, it's a long way from awesome through my eyes but i've learned to be patient with wild SPS from years of watching them go through their 1-3 month sulk and expect them to start coloring up much better now that i'm no longer starving them lol.

Originally Posted by sahin

Thanks for the reply. The reason I asked you was because generally these Australian SPS corals that we get shipped over here are very hard to get coloured up. And it seems like you are doing very well.

And from reading the other thread, I now know that you are quite a pro at SPS corals with many years of experience.

Hi mate, the only thing i'm a pro at is keeping SPS on a shoestring lol. I have noticed the numerous mentions here of troubles with wild and maricultured SPS failing to acclimate well color wise and have never experienced this personally other than the odd acro that has sulked for 3-4 months before getting it's happy face on.
I can only tell you what i have experienced over the years and now apply to all my new additions, i've purchased about 150 - 175 wild SPS specimens at a guess. I do what most do and place new SPS on the bottom until i see PE which is usually 1-2 days. I then place the coral as high as needed to stop any darkening of the tissue and prefer it to pale from mild light distress as long as i still see PE after lights out. The faster i stop any darkening of the corals branch tissue the faster i will see colorful pigments return. The last thing i want to see with a wild acro is deeper richer coloring on the branches which typically occurs during the normal slow rise in the light acclimation process. If i cause it to lighten i see consistently good results over much less time than when i used to follow the normal acclimation process many moons ago. That's just the way i do it and don't for a minute suggest it is the solution to your problems, it just gives me much better results than when i used to do it the normal way.

Originally Posted by Bello

Just found your thread! Looks great! Love the aquascape. Missing the sandbed though

Thanks Bello i think my many years of bonsai keeping makes the job a lot easier as the same principles apply in how to best display a tree oddly enough. I also use bonsai branch grafting techniques on acros to shape colonies and increase the number of growing tips, thus speeding up the growth of my corals. Trust me when i say, if we both had the same colonies to start with mine would look much more advanced in growth than yours 6 months later regardless of natural tank growth - basically i cheat in growing out my corals lol. I can take some pics of what i do next time if you like so you can see what i'm talking about.
The only bare bottom in my house is mine when i'm in the shower - picking up 20lbs of a larger grain size white sand this weekend as i don't want my upside down growing green porites going any browner from lack of reflected light.

[Bello]

That was a very informative post....well, apart from your bottom in the shower

I've often pondered the same with regard to your placement theory. I have a couple brown pieces now that I'd like to experiment your theory with...at my risk of course.

Have 2 different systems running at my house at the moment, one is lower nutrient, and the brown pretty much sheds off in this tank in days. This doesn't seem to work on all acros though, would guess that some need that additional light blast also

I'm very curious about the implementation of the bonsai techniques in reef aquaria. Would greatly appreciate it, if you could post your methods and its subsequent effects

Would love to hear your take on this... in the spirit of discussion
While, I enjoy the current trend of minimalistic and iwagumi style scapes. Do you believe that the same principles that apply in bonsai, would apply if you were trying to duplicate a reef scene that you saw? , say in my case, a bommie? or a reef crest? or would it apply more in terms of coral placement?

Will definitely be following this tank

[knight2255]

Great tank!

What's a good instructional thread/post that talks about using kalk in the ato?

[RFLKPTR]

^^ I'm with Bello.

I've been into bonsai for many years now, and have myself wondered if I could adopt the pruning practice for aquarium use. Are you simply speaking of pruning off the tips of branches?

Great looking tank, man! Can't wait to see further updates. Followed you over here from the thread about tank maturity.

[biggles]

Originally Posted by knight2255

Great tank!

What's a good instructional thread/post that talks about using kalk in the ato?

Thanks mate This is the first time i have not used kalk but previously i used it to maintain alk and calcium very successfully up to the point where 2 gal a day saturated top off along with 1 teaspoon mixed in a cup of RO and poured slowly into the tank each night was unable to meet demand and then i would supplement with turbo calcium and baking soda as levels dropped - i really needed a calcium reactor but had no money so you do what you can afford to lol. Here's a couple of good links i think.

http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2005-01/rhf/index.htm

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2276957

Originally Posted by Bello

That was a very informative post....well, apart from your bottom in the shower

I've often pondered the same with regard to your placement theory. I have a couple brown pieces now that I'd like to experiment your theory with...at my risk of course.

Have 2 different systems running at my house at the moment, one is lower nutrient, and the brown pretty much sheds off in this tank in days. This doesn't seem to work on all acros though, would guess that some need that additional light blast also

I'm very curious about the implementation of the bonsai techniques in reef aquaria. Would greatly appreciate it, if you could post your methods and its subsequent effects

Would love to hear your take on this... in the spirit of discussion
While, I enjoy the current trend of minimalistic and iwagumi style scapes. Do you believe that the same principles that apply in bonsai, would apply if you were trying to duplicate a reef scene that you saw? , say in my case, a bommie? or a reef crest? or would it apply more in terms of coral placement?

Will definitely be following this tank

Originally Posted by RFLKPTR

^^ I'm with Bello.

I've been into bonsai for many years now, and have myself wondered if I could adopt the pruning practice for aquarium use. Are you simply speaking of pruning off the tips of branches?

Great looking tank, man! Can't wait to see further updates. Followed you over here from the thread about tank maturity.

Glad you guys are interested in using bonsai techniques because many similar principles are easily applied. Take for example using wire to force a branch to grow at a certain angle - change the wire to water flow and you can easily influence the growth pattern of a coral. I use two different methods to force more axial growth tips and thus speed up the expansion of the colony.
The first i discovered by accident when i smashed 3-4 branch tips on a yummy blue tipped acro with the back of my hand trying to recover an ugly frag that fell down the rocks - it was lucky it didn't go lawn surfacing as a couple have when they p*ssed me off over the years, btw golden retrievers like to chew on acros and i actually chased my dog down to recover one once lol..... sounds bizarre now but i didn't think it was when i was prying the acro from her mouth - i do weird stuff at times
Within 2 weeks of crushing those tips the entire stub ends had encrusted back over with pure tip pigment and rather than producing a single new tip they all produced 3-4 new tips from the end and since then i routinely crush the tips on branches to force faster multiplication of branch numbers.
When i say i graft a branch i mean i cut 1" branch tip, grind the base to a concave shape that fits the rounded form of another branch and then glue it directly to the side of the branch attached to the colony. The cut area encrusts and heals within a few weeks and you would never know it was the result of manual intervention.



You see the green stag frag in the middle of the pic, it is two different pieces glued together 2 weeks ago and you can see the encrust line where the healing over is almost complete. I do this to test that it won't result in ugly swelling at the graft point which can occur with some acros sp. prior to actually grafting the colony. When i placed the stag i had to cut a few branches off to fit it against a ledge and rather than grow them out as frags i am going to graft them back onto the colony just like i would if i was grafting a tree branch. I'll take pics this weekend when i carry out my frankenstein acro grafting.
The three frags on the right recently went through light stress as they were very dark almost brown with zero pigment anywhere, you can see how they now look unhealthily pale brown. They have been out of high light for about 5 days and if you look at the edges of the encrusting bases you can see blue pigment appearing - that will occur at the tips shortly and then they will go back into more light. That's what i mean when i talk of light stressing a coral to force faster appearance of pigmentation in wild stock. That's what i do but i don't suggest it is based on science just my experience and as i said earlier i do weird things to corals at times to make them pretty in faster time lol.

My name is Andrew and i'm a coral abuser..............

[Bello]

Thanks for the reply!

I didn't understand the first method correctly. Do you mean crushing the acro tip with your fingers/pliers and leaving them be, as opposed to slicing a tip off? Understood the second frankie method

Could you elaborate more on your light stress observations for colouration? Assuming you received a new brown coral, as you said before, you would first it place on the bottom and observe PE. Once PE observed in a couple days, do you choose to place it in higher light or in the above case, in lower light?

This is very interesting

[biggles]

Originally Posted by Bello

Thanks for the reply!

I didn't understand the first method correctly. Do you mean crushing the acro tip with your fingers/pliers and leaving them be, as opposed to slicing a tip off? Understood the second frankie method

I crush them and leave as much tissue as possible because the more deformed and irregular the end is the larger the area is to be encrusted with tissue. Small bumps etc at the newly encrusted tip quite often result in new growth tips forming from the 'bumps' - i hope you get what i'm describing. If you slice them cleanly off i found the result is normally a single new tip. To crush them i just use my metal bonsai/coral cutters and lightly smash the tip flat.

Could you elaborate more on your light stress observations for colouration? Assuming you received a new brown coral, as you said before, you would first it place on the bottom and observe PE. Once PE observed in a couple days, do you choose to place it in higher light or in the above case, in lower light?

This is very interesting

The process i described is what i do to healthy looking corals, not browned out corals such as the one on the left edge of the back frag rack in the pic i posted before. This is what it looked like when i bought it - resembled a turd tbh lol.



Even though it was dull brown with zero PE and looked like a waste of money i knew it was a coral that would color up with fluorescent pigments so for $20- i knew it was a bargain. How did i know it was worth buying and contained fluoro pigments - easy since the advent of cell phone cameras. I took a pic in the store of the coral and as camera phones typically skew the light to the blue spectrum used in reef bulbs giving actinic results which we all hate normally but which display any fluoro pigments amazingly well. Even though i just took this pic it was a similar result when i took the pic in the store just less bright.



It's very easy to do and works on any coral under reef lighting whether faded, brown or colorful - take your phone next LFS visit and give it a try, especially if they have a bargain section for crappy looking SPS they are dumping cheap. I always ask permission to take pics and explain why i am doing it and they never say no because they want you to buy the sickly SPS before they die and usually want to see the results on your phone lol.
That acro took 3-4 weeks from memory before i saw the slightest PE even at night - it was seriously unwell and remained very brown. It stayed on the bottom in good flow and after a week of PE it went to the top third of the tank and over 3-4 days it paled considerably and you can see the difference between the before and after - even though much paler due to the shedding of zoo it showed zero pigment. That was about a week ago and it was placed back down to where it is now and if you look at the bottom left side of the recent pic you can see the fluoro green pigment rapidly developing already rather than taking months to slowly raise it and achieve the same results.
I hope i explained it better this time Bello

I would like to make it clear that i have been experimenting like this for years and i don't advise anyone to rush into following my example unless you have a good deal of experience keeping SPS alive and healthy. Remember also that i always run ULNS tanks and i have always used radium bulbs supplemented with blue spectrum fluoros. At the very least i hope you give the cell phone trick a try when you next visit your LFS - bit hard to do it with online purchases however lol.

[Bello]

Thanks for the explanation, I believe that I've understood the rationale behind the method

No doubt, your experience coupled with your lighting and tank conditions, must be kept in mind before trying this out, but the logic seems sound. And I've already observed the same on one of my pieces. All the more reason to try it out . I will probably make a frag of the next piece before the attempt though.

I don't quite have the experience yet, but working on it . At the moment, the tank is fairly ULNS, 95% of Acropora have decent PE, although, Colours are another story. Greens & pinks come out fine. Blues are pale, purples are a mystery. I'm pretty sure you'd describe some of the frags to be "deathly pale". Working on increasing feedings to improve colours. I'm running LED's, which are nowhere as proven a light source as the Radiums. The tank is about 7 months old, and I'm afraid I've made too many changes too soon, and not allowed it to mature properly. Also working on that at the moment.

The cellphone trick is really neat! Unfortunately, i have no other choice but to order online. ALL of my purchases are online, and I would say about 50% arrive a beautiful shade of crap brown . I have to pretty much order by looking at coral structure, and guesstimating. Basically, while I'd love to get the colours right at some point, but, for now healthy, growing and NOT BROWN, will suffice.

I will be trying out the growth and colouration methods shortly . Really appreciate your reply

[sahin]

Wow, this is such an interesting and informative thread.

Andrew, please keep the posts going. Makes for quite a refreshing read.