2 month old sps tank

[fritz]

Here's my 2 month old tank. I started it using the Ultralith System from Fauana Marin. It's a zeolite system like zeolith but has less additives and seems to be less fanatical about levels and dosing. It also comes in handy "starter packs" and you can run it in a phosban reactor, so I figured I'd give it a try.

So far I like it. If nothing else it has allowed me to keep many sps colonies in a tank with zero coraline algae. The corals are all growing and with the exception of one or two they've all kept their color. That's got me pretty impressed being that this is such a new tank. I only had one algae outbreak and I attribute a lot of it to overdosing one of the components of the Ultralith system (you do NOT need four drops of bacteria a day!) All in all I'm happy with so early a stocked tank, conventional wisdom tells me that I shouldn't even have fish in here yet!

Pics

Right
Center
and Left

 

[Blue02celi]

looks crystal clear
nice aquascaping, if I didnt see the fish I wouldnt have even though there was water in the tank. care to do mine
what size is that tank?

 

[home wrecker]

yes very clean lookin ......i

 

[jhale]

fritz can you please explain the zero coraline algae part

the tank looks great, but does that mean the rocks won't be purple?
what's the rest of the equipment on the tank, more specs please

 

[fritz]

I used 100% dead rock which is why there is no algae, including coraline. In my last tank if I slacked with water changes, or let my levels get out of whack I would get all manner of pests creeping out of my rock. Algaes that I had never seen before, hydroids I hadn't seen in a year, etc. I felt like there was so much life deep in those rocks that there would always be some nuisance animal or plant in there somewhere. It felt like a never ending battle.

That caused me to try 100% dead rock on this tank. I took all of my old rock, cooked it and decided that it couldn't be trusted. I let it dry out in my basement for a full month. I got some rock from another reefer (thanks again ) that was in his garage for over a year. When I first put all the dead rock in it had to cure, and it was NASTY! I just kept the skimmer running, ran a reactor of carbon and two reactors of phosban to help the curing. I honestly was surprised that there was a curing process at all with dead rock. I though curing was due to die off and since this rock was dead I figured it was clean. Apparently even dead rock has matter in the pores that will begin to decay in water.

The green on the rocks was caused by a combination of what I assume was my "new tank syndrome" green film algae and overdosing the bacteria supplement of Ultralith. Too much of it will give you cause you to have to clean the glass twice a day. I've stopped dosing it and the algae is gone from the glass.

Oh yes is it crystal clear! I must say that is the most staggering effect of the system. Those pics were taken with roughly 60X turnover and every pump was on!

It's a 90 gallon AGA RR tank with a 20 Long sump. I use two vortech pumps at about 80% mounted on the back glass. The return pump is an eheim 1262 throttled at about 80% as well. I use an ATI Bubblemaster 200 for protein skimming and two phosban reactors daisy chained, one with carbon the other with Zeolite stones. Two icecap 250s running EVC 10ks, Fulham Workhorse running two UVL actinic T5s. I have a 10 gallon RO/DI ATO and use 2 part with IO salt.

 

[Blue02celi]

I used 100% dead rock which is why there is no algae, including coraline. In my last tank if I slacked with water changes, or let my levels get out of whack I would get all manner of pests creeping out of my rock. Algaes that I had never seen before, hydroids I hadn't seen in a year, etc. I felt like there was so much life deep in those rocks that there would always be some nuisance animal or plant in there somewhere. It felt like a never ending battle.

That caused me to try 100% dead rock on this tank. I took all of my old rock, cooked it and decided that it couldn't be trusted. I let it dry out in my basement for a full month. I got some rock from another reefer (thanks again ) that was in his garage for over a year. When I first put all the dead rock in it had to cure, and it was NASTY! I just kept the skimmer running, ran a reactor of carbon and two reactors of phosban to help the curing. I honestly was surprised that there was a curing process at all with dead rock. I though curing was due to die off and since this rock was dead I figured it was clean. Apparently even dead rock has matter in the pores that will begin to decay in water.

The green on the rocks was caused by a combination of what I assume was my "new tank syndrome" green film algae and overdosing the bacteria supplement of Ultralith. Too much of it will give you cause you to have to clean the glass twice a day. I've stopped dosing it and the algae is gone from the glass.

Oh yes is it crystal clear! I must say that is the most staggering effect of the system. Those pics were taken with roughly 60X turnover and every pump was on!

It's a 90 gallon AGA RR tank with a 20 Long sump. I use two vortech pumps at about 80% mounted on the back glass. The return pump is an eheim 1262 throttled at about 80% as well. I use an ATI Bubblemaster 200 for protein skimming and two phosban reactors daisy chained, one with carbon the other with Zeolite stones. Two icecap 250s running EVC 10ks, Fulham Workhorse running two UVL actinic T5s. I have a 10 gallon RO/DI ATO and use 2 part with IO salt.

I dunno what that all means... but its CRYSTAL clear!!

 

[Josh]

You don't want to seed any coralline?

 

[fritz]

I'm not against it but I must say that not having any has been nice.

 

[mshur]

Very nice set up Fred. I think in a couple of month tank will be covered with coraline. FM back makes water very clear,they same in zeo system


m

 

[autoponicz]

looking good fritz....barebottom also......how do u have ur sump setup?....
ur tank looks fairly stocked for a 2 month old tank........did u glue the rocks together?

 

[tosiek]

Nice work Fritz!:thrash:

 

[DEEPWATER]

WOW i can see the fish

Nice dude

 

[jhale]

interesting. what do you think will happen on the rocks as far as algae growth? I always thought coraline helped suppress other algae from growing on the rocks. I would like to not have to scrape the glass.
be careful any incoming frags on rocks will have coraline on it

 

[pecan2phat]

Dude throw some coralline in there already

 

[Quang]

haha! i remember having green rocks like that fritz. sorry to say but it'll go away in time bro...
crystal clear tank btw!

 

[bad coffee]

Cool fred. Nice clean rocks you got there.

B

 

[TimberTDI]

So if you have no coralline, what's gonna cover that back glass?

 

[jhale]

Apparently even dead rock has matter in the pores that will begin to decay in water.

yes! to be safe even dead base rock should be cooked.
you have no idea where it was, or what's inside it. cooking it for a couple of months will get all the crap out and you'll have nice clean n pure rock to start with. otherwise roll the dice and hope for low po4

 

[pnoyreefer]

Nice and I do agree you need some coraline on you rocks

 

[cali_reef]

The green rocks are not too hot

What's the four orange dots in the lower right in the second picture?