Hello all, as the title states my name is James. My current tank is about 5 months old now and beginning to really come to life. A year and a half ago I had started another tank and that one ended in disaster after 3 months. The bulkhead holes were to close to the tank's rim and this caused the bulkheads to not be flush. Water worked it's way around the bulkheads and I lost a goby and some Banggai cardinals. This past January I decided to give it another go, bought another 75g aquarium from Petsmart, and put in the synergy reef shadow overflow using the template. Five months later everything is going perfectly and I now have a banded sleeper goby, and 4 banggai cardinals. There are also 3 peppermint shrimps, 3 turbo snails, 4 top crown snails, 5 conehead snails, 5 red tip hermit crabs, and 2 emerald crabs. I have also added a birdsnest coral that was on discount at my LFS and it seems to be doing fine quite surprisingly. The sps was a gamble as my first coral but so far so good. I built my own stand for the tank following RocketEngineer's stand at Reef Central. I also built a custom sump for the aquarium as all the manufactured ones I could find were one inch too tall for my plumbing design. As far as equipment goes, everything is operated through the Reef Keeper Lite system, and I have two power bars for it. The only things I have in the tank are the Tunze Turbelle Nanostream powerheads (3x), Everything else is in the sump. I have a Super Reef Octopus 2000 internal protein skimmer with an automatic neck cleaner for it. It sits on some ceramic biomedia plates to achieve it's target depth. In the same chamber I have two Cobalt Easytherm heaters, they're connected to a third, non reefkeeper power bar. On that power bar I have a small, cheap pump that circulates water in the middle chamber for chaetomorpha. So the pump is only on when the heaters are on, instead of all the time. I know it's bad for the pump but that's why I emphasize the word cheap on the pump. The chaeto grows off a Kessil H80 on a gooseneck, and while the growth rate isn't as vigorous as I was hoping, it seems to be doing a decent job. The return is a QuietOne Pro 2200 which I did not feel was doing enough to turn over water, so I got a Sicce Syncra Pro rated for 1500 gph. That should arrive later this week. I also have the BRS carbon reactor which I butchered from the two stage with GFO so I could try and leave the phosphates for the chaeto. The system is lit with two Kessil A360w lights. I use the HW Wiegandt reefer salt, and I have the Red Sea Reef Foundation program on it's way with the new pump. So far I've only had one failure and that was one of the heaters seemed to break at it's connection and had intermittent power. Thankfully I bought four for the first tank I had, and I still have one leftover for back up. Over the next few months I plan on adding more corals, and more fish to really bring the tank out. My gameplan is to only get 5 more corals since it seems that most oceanic reefs have a lower density of corals than what I've seen in a lot of reef tanks. I want to grow out the 5 corals I get so they dominate the tank. Overall I want a stylophora, an acro, and a pocillopora, green starburst polyps, and yellow fiji leather. I want to achieve a Fiji inspired reef tank. So yeah that's the tank and the gameplan going forward, and I'm glad I found a good Colorado forum for reefers.
My name is James
- Thread starter Sour137
- Start date
Welcome to the club! Sounds like you are on your way to a great start. If any problems arise, don't hesitate to ask! There is a great group of people here and a really large wealth of knowledge.
When you get ready I have some of the really bright green star polyps if we are talking about the same ones (I could probably frag off a section like 2in x 2in. pretty easily) I'm in Loveland if you ever want to swing by and check out the polyps.
When you get ready I have some of the really bright green star polyps if we are talking about the same ones (I could probably frag off a section like 2in x 2in. pretty easily) I'm in Loveland if you ever want to swing by and check out the polyps.
