My 180g Build Thread - Finally!

[jamesw]

Well, after a 5 year hiatus from reefkeeping - I'm back!

Tank Specs:

• 180g Eurobraced from Aquarium Obsessed - dual external rear overflows w/ Durso standpipes
  Sump: 60+g acrylic with baffles and drilled for 3 bulkheads
  Lighting: 1 400w Ushio and 2 250w Phoenix lamps. Actinic supplementation by 2x 96w PC
  Skimmer: Vertex 250
  Calcium Reactor: Original old-school K2R w/ CO2 Solenoid control and pH controller
  Water Motion: Iwaki 30RLT for tank return, Iwaki 55RLT for Closed Loop plumbed to an eductor. KR4 and MJ1200 w/ Propellor Mod. Max external powerhead
  Topoff: I have a sink in my fishroom and plumbed my RO/DI directly into the supply side and the waste line into the drain. The RO/DI supplies a reservoir that i keep filled with Kalk and this is fed to the sump by a float-switch and powerhead. I use kalk for all my topoff in order to precipitate out any phosphates left in the topoff water.

Hardscape:

120lbs of Alor liverock air-freighted from Indo
80lbs of Arragamax and 60lbs of Seafloor

Corals

• S. Hystrix (Birdsnest)
  M. digitata
  M. capricornis (Red, Green, Purple)
  Acropora Sp. Purple
  Acropora Sp. Green
  Acropora Sp. Green (Bali Slimer)
  Zooanthids
  Pulsing Xenia
  Green Star Polyps
  Green frogspawn
  Green/pink hammer
  Red chalice
  Green/brown chalice
  All sorts of funky stuff on the live rock

Inverts/Clams:

• 2x L. amboiensis
  T. Gigas (Captive grown and raised in captivity for 5+ years obtained from a local)
  T. Crocea (Bright blue, purple, and gold)
  Captive raised rose bubble tipped anemone
  Small H. magnifica (Ritteri) purple w/ red base

Fish:

• Purple Tang
  Chevron Tang
  Pseudanthias squamipinnis (2) (One turning into a male)
  2x McCosker's Flasher wrasse
  C. exquisitus - Exquisite fairy wrasse
  Mystery Wrasse
  2x captive grown clown gobies
  Randall's goby
  Yellow watchman goby
  Hi-Fin goby
  Female mandarin dragonette

Discussion:

I set this tank up at the beginning of October 2009. I got it from Brandon Klaus (hope I spelled that right Brandon) - a local reefer who wanted to upgrade to a bigger system. The tank came predrilled for a closed loop, and with an excellent overflow and return setup.
I prefer to use external pumps so I drilled the sump and installed 3 one inch drains. I have tried my hardest to use used and recycled equipment for this tank and I think I've achieved my goal. The only pieces of new equipment are the lamps, and the skimmer.
All of the corals I have so far are captive raised, as are the clams and the bubble tipped anemone. The H. magnifica and most of the fish are wild caught.

Here are some images of the tank while the live rock is curing. During the curing process, I used an ETS800 Gemini skimmer driven by an Iwaki55RLT. It did an amazing job of removing decaying organic matter from the water.

In this image you can see all of the rubble that came with the liverock. I kept it together to serve as a breeding ground for 'pods and other cryptic stuff.

Sump - right side

Sump - left side

After the rock was cured and the tank cycled, I switched over to a less intrusive and power-hungry skimmer - and got a Vertex250 in-sump. This works great, as the sump was set up by Brandon to have the skimmer on the right, and a big refugium in the middle.
Around this time was the fall Frag-Swap for MARSH - when I picked up about 10 SPS frags, and some LPS - to try. Fortunately, all did well!

All of the photos were taken w/ a 5DmkII and either a 24-70L or Sigma 150mm Macro lens.

Cheers
James Wiseman
www.reefpix.org

 

[Anonymous]

Awesome, James! Glad to see so many old-schoolers back in the game!

The tank looks amazing to start.

Peace,

Chip

 

[NKT]

looking good!!!! Hey, who u calling old....

 

[jamesw]

Thanks Chip.

Here's the December Update:

I've got almost all of the fish on my "wish list" now and have tried to get some photos of everything.

On the left side you can see I plumbed everything w/ true union ball valves now. The calcium reactor is now set up and I can monitor/control it using the pH controller. Brandon built a great little chamber onto the sump to catch the effluent and create a reservoir to off-gas CO2 and measure pH.
Also on the left side is the Iwaki pump for the closed loop, the skimmer collection cup, etc.

On the right side, you can seek the Vertex skimmer and the empty refugium section.

Under the hood - I've added some PC's

Here are some full-tank shots, and photos of the fish and corals:

Full Tank Shot - notice how the aquascape is set up with 2 bommies and the big clam in between.

Left side bommie

Right side bommie

Giant healty Gigas clam - obtained from local reefer Clint

Crocea clam

Incredible corraline algaes on this Alor rock...

This montipora is actually red...

Purple Montipora sp.

An Acropora sp. from local reefer LesD

Bleached RBTA clone from a local reefer. Doing well w/ feeding.

Mystery wrasse

One of two McCoskers wrasses

Yellow watchman goby

Randall's goby

Small chevron tang

S. hystrix

Frogspawn

Hammer (bleached) w/ buds underneath

M. digitata frag

Green/brown chalice

Bali slimer frag

Hitchiker nudi - E. crispata - GREAT algae eater

Unknown hitchiker nudi

A bad picture of ANOTHER hitchiker nudi

Tangs and anthias

Cheers
James

 

[Len]

Surprised how much hitchhikers and life you got on your rock. Big difference between air and ship freight.

 

[leftovers]

Air freight makes all the difference in the world. My air-shipped rock had snails and corals, nudies, crabs and a few small pistol shrimp, some of the corals are still alive today.

 

[kevindub]

That is only 120 lbs of rock?

 

[Anonymous]

Nice start. Did you go to LesD's house? I live in the same neighborhood.

 

[jamesw]

Thanks guys,

Yeah, I forgot to mention that I can see two colonies of hitchiker SPS corals on the rock - they survived the cure and everything. I'll try to get pix eventually.

Hmm - yes, I ordered 2 60# boxes of rock, but I remember now that I did put in some cured base rock underneath to help w/ the structure - about 40 lbs.

Wazzel: I picked up the frags at the MARSH frag swap - so I haven't been to see LesD's tank yet. I hope to check it out soon though, and Quoc's too.

Cheers
James

 

[Anonymous]

Looking good James although I'd dump those reflectors and get LumenArcs or a knock off brand like the LumenMax.

 

[jamesw]

Gresham: if you want to send me some Lumenarc reflectors to try out, I'm game.

Cheers
James

 

[Anonymous]

This tank reminds me very much of my old 300G. With the seperate rock structures with a nice big T. Gigas in the center.

Very nice.

Louey

 

[Petsolutions]

Nice build! Whenever I see someone setting up a new tank, it puts me in the mood to want to set one up at home again. That big clam sure is a nice focal piece in the tank, for sure. I agree on the air freighted rock quality, it really does make quite a bit of difference. I've seen a many tons of rock come and go over the years, and air freighted rock always makes me feel a bit like Christmas morning when you open a box because you never know what is going to come in on it. :lol:

 

[blackcloudmedia]

B-E-A-utiful.

 

[Anonymous]

Gresham: if you want to send me some Lumenarc reflectors to try out, I'm game.

Cheers
James

If I were made out of money I surely would but unfortunately that's not the case I also wonder if you have enough room for LA's in that hood?

 

[jamesw]

Oh I've got plenty of room in there My hood is HUGE - almost scratches the ceiling.

Cheers
James

 

[jamesw]

A quick update: I got 4 clams from clamsdirect on Friday - 3 maximas and a squamosa.

The box arrived by Fedex Priority right around 10am and the clams/water didn't feel too cold. They looked to be in good shape.

Here's a photo of them down on the sand "acclimating" to my lighting:

This photo was taken under 14k's through the front glass - the way we usually look at our clams - not top down. From the top, the colors are incredible.

A word to the wise is to check all of your clams/frags before adding. These had a number of small aiptasia on them that I cleaned off w/ a toothbrush (thanks for the heads-up Len!)

Cheers
James

 

[jamesw]

Well, in keeping with my captive grown/buy locally plan, I've been holding out but finally picked up a bunch of frags this past weekend.

After gluing in all of the frags, I also decided to up my flow regime by making a few tweaks. I am now running all of the flow on my closed loop to one 1" eductor (it used to be split 1/2 eductor and 1/2 standard return locline). I also closed off one of the return lines and sent all of the sump return through a 3/4" eductor. Things are REALLY moving in the tank now - but most of the flow is on the right-hand side bommie - which was my goal. Most of the acros have been mounted on the right bommie and most of the montis on the left.

Here are some photos of the frags.

30K Acro lokani

Oregon Blue Tort

Bali slimer and purple Monti

Teal acro turaki

Black mamba acro - looks like A. millepora

Tubs mystic blue acro

Tank grown blastomussa

Tyree bali tricolor

Superman monti. danae

Purple montipora sp.

Purple "Grimace" monti.

Blue bottlebrush acro

Yellow A. millepora

Green/yellow monti, or anacropora

Most of these corals were raised under 20K and are very light. I think they are going to darken up a lot and change color under my 10/14K combination - but we'll see.

Cheers
James

 

[Len]

Very nice James.

The frags will definitely change colors, but I'm not sure they'll get darker under 10K/14K compared to 20K.

 

[jamesw]

Here's a new FTS with all the frags glued in:

You can see I had to move Mr. Gigas over to the left - the flow in the center seemed to be pissing him off a bit.

Here are some closer shots:

This is the right side that gets a LOT of flow. I had to pour some crushed coral on top of the sand in the right corner to keep it in place. That seems to work well.

This is the left side that gets remarkably lower flow.

The frags that I got on Oct 19th have encrusted their bases now and are starting to grow new branches. And they have colored up a lot too!

You can see the frogspawn is coloring up nicely. It was clear/brown when I started.

And here's an anemone I bought as a "ritteri" which it certainly is not. The base has verrucae (or whatever those bumps are called) that stick to the rock and it is staying plastered to the rock (but eating happily). I think it's an H malu

And these are the American DJ switch panels recommended by d2mini on MARSH. These things are awesome! Super cheap and super easy to turn on/off pumps for feeding, water changes, etc. I love it! I got an 8-switch and a 4-switch.

And lastly, the PM CaOH reactor I got to use w/ my topoff system. Now I can get rid of my semi-sealed "bucket" system I was using lol.

Cheers
James