OddFish's 90g predators tank, need improvement

[OddFish]

This is the biggest from a several tanks I have, others are here: http://www.reefs.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=1184581#1184581

Low end, as any other on mine.
Finished thread with tank's specifications is here: http://thereeftank.com/forums/showthread.php?t=91647

While I'm able to keep most of corals and filter-feeders alive and well, I have to change setups (and add the new nano-tanks) to fit their needs, not set the tank and fill it with animals who will survive there.

Or I have some mental blindness, or the usual way to set and keep the tank don't work in some situations. Detailed advice will be highly appreciated.

Please, meet the fish, for whom all this was done:
- Odd fish, sargassum-looking, drab, but highly sympathetic, Chaetodermis Penicillgerus, or tasseled filefish. Now 6"+, adult size - up to 1 ft in the ocean.

- antennata lionfish, 4" now, exotic dancer with fans and regal habits:

- and the small ones: Valentini puffer, most intelligent and considerate fish I know, Mandarin dragonet - big disappointment, and scooter blenny (dragonet too) - no 2 males even in 90g, one has to go to 10g tank.

Plus clownfish, sold as percula - disappointment too - wiggles, it's all.

Here most fishes are together:

Now about the tank setup:

Jan 6, 07.

- 90g undrilled BB Perfecto tank with center brace, located in the low-ceiling basement, that can handle tank's weight and near the southern window, where tank can get some additional light.

- 15g Perfecto tank, used a a sump. Minimal size to fit ASM G-3 protein skimmer. ASM G-3 with Sedra 5000, still can't adjust it to work properly. Advice? Side-by-side with main tank, because of low ceilings, easy access, and low chance of the flood. Passive inflow through U-tube, 1", into 100 micron (or less - after cleaning) sock, changed daily, return pump- Eheim 1250, ~300 gph.

- 5g bucket with chaeto as a refugium, same water level as a main tank. 27W 6500K light. Flow - unfiltered water from main tank, using Maxi-Jet 600, ~160 gph. Will be 900. Passive return through 1" tube.

- additional filtration, Fluval 404 canister filter (I know, I know), cleaned twice a week, ~300 gph. Outflow was too forceful. Added LifeGard customFlo spraybars. Filter media was changed: foam, 2x layer of bonded file floss, 2 backets of ceramic biomedia (original cylinders and Seachem Matrix), cleaned every few months with toothbrush, and the last backe - with phosphate remover (PhosGuard, double dose, changed in turns). Ribbed hoses were replaced with clear vinyl tubing, you know why. Fluval does the work - no ammonia or nitrites ever.

- 2x Seio 620, ~600 gph each, to keep detrius suspended for removal by filtration, as required for BB (bare-bottom) tanks.

- light: 4x55W PC, actinic:10,000=1:3. AH supply retrofit kit. Total 220W, usually works only half of this - strong light bothers fish.

- 2 Visi-Term Stealth heaters, 250W each, in the different corners of the tank.
- CGFI outlets, grounding probe in the sump, power back-up Noma, 400W, 2 independent circuits for a tank equipment - if one fails, the second will work.

Here are picture in progress, when plumbing and aquascaping wasn't obscured:

This fish don't like light and need hiding places, re-aquascaping with CPVC rack. Still need tips on aquascaping for a tassle filefish.

The hand, again, is not mine - everybody was participating. My grateful thanks.
Results - fish in the cave:

More usual hang-out places:

Basket serves as a sleeping place for filefish, shelf for protection from ligh (other hiding place), and as a higher light coral tray.
Side view:

Will continue.

 

[OddFish]

Clean-up crew:
~6 turbo-snails, 1 tiger cowrie,
~20 hermits, half of them big, zebra, blue-legged, maroon,
- I, with battery-operated vacuum-gravel cleaner, elongated turkey baster and a loooong plastic forceps, every other day, rarely longer. Ready to trade places with another member of clean-up crew.

Medicine man in the cave (hermaphrodite really):
THE blood shrimp (now 2, both pregnant), choosen by all the fish, instead of cleaner wrasse. Surface cleaning, including raiding on the fish's side; deep-throat operations (you should see it by yourself: couldn't photographed it - it's short in duration and they can be easily startled). Emergency: what signals they give to each others, I don't know, but shrimp had run forward as the lion approached the cave entrance, only then he opened mouth and operation started.

Corals:
- planned to place there big open brains, bit the fish is not safe for them. Have to make setup for them now (see another tanks and advice),
- sun coral, Tubastrea, moved here because equipment of the other tanks was incapable to handle bioload. Fed 3 cubes of Ocean Plankton twice a week. Spawned twice: in this tank (few survived and attached to the rock), and before that in 1g (re-glued them by CA glue and returned half in 90g tank). Is high on the rock because of necessity of an easy access.
- 2 kinds of branching hammers and branching frogspawn, close to the light, not fed especially,
- Capnella, or a Kenya tree, was white at purchase, otherwise wouldn't bought it. Now big and brown, takes over red mushrooms and white xenia - beware. 2 trees x 6" diameter, likes light and flow. Fuzzy has a good time fragging it: chop-taste-drop. Done - in a day attaches to everything.
- Red mushrooms, indestructible and low light for everybody else, one of the high-demanding for me.
- White xenia, good-looking and was supposed to grow fast and help with nutrient export. Not in this tank. Why?
- Chili coral, 2 kinds, non-photosynthetic, in a very high flow and very well fed tank. Recovers, but could be better.
- White lemnalia, not sure in ID; low ligh, very high flow, smallest polyps, has to be in well fed tank; pronounces spicules inside the body, but not dendronephthya.
- Pink Scleronephthya in a soap holder, rather what was left from it; but is alive. Have it close to 1 yr. Most lovable coral for me.
-yellow polyps, GSP, BSP, Anthelia in the backet. Fish will taste all, that looks like worms.

Other invertebrates:
- Porcelain crab.

Feeding:
Fish - 2 times daily until the stomach starts bulge slightly, the middle-day snack - less. Chopped seafood, krill, ocean plankton, marine cusine, nori; mysis for dragonets, sea-food fed ghost-shrimp for a lion. Corals catch what they can or want, no special care. Same for the hermits and snails.
Shrimp - 1-2 days daily the same food as for a fish.

Maintenance:
The bigger tank - the bigger troubles (or it just me):
- 3 times daily feeding (fish requires it), water drops removing;
- maintaining feeders FW tank, 18g;
- cleaning bottom, washing micron sock, adding top-off water, emptying protein skimmer cup - daily, rarely every second day;
- cleaning canister filter - twice a week;
- bi-weekly 20% water changes, refugium cleaning (need to increase flow);
- monthly - sump cleaning.
- powerheads - now and then. Glass - as needed, except the back - will be covered by coraline.

Plans for a near future:
Advice welcome!
- insufficient filtration, canister started to leak. Ordered Sequence Dart external pump, 3000gph, to make an intermittent high flow filtration, 3 times daily for 15 min into micron sock, other flow this time- off. Have no idea about undrilled plumbing for it, digging.
- reaquascaping - have to make more place for a swimming, probably part of the rock will come into the sump.
- have troubles with setting corals into the valleys in LR, fish and hermits drop them frequently. Don't want to attach permanently, because as corals grow and tank setup changes, have to move them in the more suitable place.
- unreasonable organization and too much work in general, it was a slow way to make the things work, now is the time to make it less time-consuming in inexpensive way.

Water parameters:
ammonia, nitrites - 0
nitrates - 20-40 ppm, phosphates - 0.25 - 0.5 ppm, (I know, I know, already ordered),
alkalinity - 9-11.5 dKH, pH - 8-8.4
calcium - 390-420 ppm, magnesium - 1200-1350 ppm (was-targeting).
Instant Ocean salt mix, 09/03, tap water, Prime, adding Ca and Mg into the new water.
Heaters are set on 79F.

Water flow:
Total is around 2000 gph.
Sump intake for 100 mk filtration ~300gph,
Canister intake for cruder mechanical filtration - about the same.
Not enough for filtration and too much for a fish.
The whole concept of bare-bottom keeping is to remove waste out, before it starts to decompose, by making enough flow (without dead spots) to flow the big and heavy waste to the front, where it will be removed by weekly siphoning, and keep the small particles suspended.

1. The uneaten food (some pieces are lost) drops at the bottom and the hermits are not 100% pickers. This should be removed daily or at least every second day.
How to keep my hands out the tank? What is an alternative?

2. Small particles become suspended after the rock basting, filters' intakes unable to handle this, and all drops onto the bottom and LR again.

I thought about increasing flow through the filter.
There was an article about intermittent high-flow filtration in a 45g barrel-shaped tank. http://www.reefland.com/rho/1105/feature7.php
- Couldn't find how to do plumbing with flow dividers;
- should they be at the top only, or go to the bottom too; powerheads are more flexible.
- should the loop be separate from the all-time running return pump? I can't even imagine the other way to solve this.
- already ordered Sequence Dart pump (external), analog of the used in the article, ~3000gph. Also have Ocean Runner PH 2500, ~600gph, may be replace Eheim 1250 with it's 300gph?

How to make flow distribution, many small outlets on different levels of the tank, that will keep detritus suspended and will not bother my slow-moving fish?

Where these outlets should be located, to make reasonable good flow and, again, not exclude this parts of the tank from fish's use?

What I have now - is not efficient and not acceptable for a fish. A lot of tank's space is excluded from the use:

Description:
- Seio PH blows along the front glass to the sump's intake, close to the bottom;
- the back is covered by the sump return: down and along the back, toward canister filter intake;
- the other Seio PH, directed to the front glass on the top, makes the surface to move, facilitating oxygen intake, and, after reflecting, blows between 2 main rock masses to the back.
- CustomFlo spray bars on the back are just dissipating Fluval's outflow, toward the back of the LR.

The last is, that ASM G-3 skimmer don't skim efficiently. And I can't now start spending on modifications. Any ideas, how to make it work? Now trying different variants, not one worked so far.
After 10-15 tries I can adjust skimming to produce dark skimmate - only around half-cup a week. Tank water becomes visibly dirty.
If wet skimmate - the tea-colored thing, water becomes cleaner, but: daily or once in 2 days emptying cup and adjusting again, 10-15 times the riser tube, is quite irritating. Nobody else have this problem, apparently. What is wrong?

Summarize:
- filtration flow, probably, is not sufficient;
- it's too high to bother slow-moving fish already;
- how to make undrilled side plumbing for a new 3000 gph pump;
- how to redistribute this new flow (and the old one too) to not bother fish;
- skimmer ASM-G3 (Mini - the same) doesn't work properly, needs constant adjustments. How to make it work?
- how to re-aquascape to make more space for a fish, still keeping a few hiding places for a two the big ones?

Please, who can, try to work this out with me.