- Location
- NJ bergen county
I've had this tank up and running for about 4 months now and it has just been a pile of rocks and dead coral skeletons. for the first 3 months or so I just ran the tank and let the water mature and the copepods and amphipods have at it. a few weeks ago I got rid of the wet/dry filter and added a custom 6' long 80 gallon sump that I modded to having socks and a nice size fuge with 80 pounds of Ecosystems Miracle Mud and some chaeto and culerpa lit by a 4 bulb t5 strip. Running it is an Iwaki 70 pressure rated pump and I added (forgot what they're called) jets to both returns to gain some free circulation. I will be adding some mp's and powerheads in the future but today I just got sick of looking at a pile of rocks.
I was letting the tank get a little funky for a while without having a cleaning crew in there as of a few weeks ago I added some serpent stars, peppermint shrimp and tons of snails and hermits and I haven't had to clean the glass at all for 3 weeks.
I also have been waiting for a nice amount of dead dry rock that I got my hands on to cycle in a seperate system. I wanted to start with dead rock for this build but used the cured rock originally in the tank to cycle the system. The dead rock that I had was some of the nicest stuff that I've seen in a long time so it was an easy decision.
Yesterday I emptied the tank and began aquascaping with most of the rock that was dead. I completely emptied it out and had about 600-700 pounds of newly cured rock to work with. I began yesterday and finished about 2am or so and today I moved corals from one of my other tanks into it.
I haven't piped in my skimmer yet as Ecosystems says that it isn't necessary with their Miracle Mud and I had some hammers and shrooms living in there before so I'm going to go with it for a while until I see otherwise.
As of now, every coral in there is moving nicely with the current in the tank.
So.... lemme know what you think........ I've attached some pics....... as you can see, I like the minimalistic look :approve:
I was letting the tank get a little funky for a while without having a cleaning crew in there as of a few weeks ago I added some serpent stars, peppermint shrimp and tons of snails and hermits and I haven't had to clean the glass at all for 3 weeks.
I also have been waiting for a nice amount of dead dry rock that I got my hands on to cycle in a seperate system. I wanted to start with dead rock for this build but used the cured rock originally in the tank to cycle the system. The dead rock that I had was some of the nicest stuff that I've seen in a long time so it was an easy decision.
Yesterday I emptied the tank and began aquascaping with most of the rock that was dead. I completely emptied it out and had about 600-700 pounds of newly cured rock to work with. I began yesterday and finished about 2am or so and today I moved corals from one of my other tanks into it.
I haven't piped in my skimmer yet as Ecosystems says that it isn't necessary with their Miracle Mud and I had some hammers and shrooms living in there before so I'm going to go with it for a while until I see otherwise.
As of now, every coral in there is moving nicely with the current in the tank.
So.... lemme know what you think........ I've attached some pics....... as you can see, I like the minimalistic look :approve:
