TXMAVERICKMH's 57 GAL Illuminata

[txmaverickmh]

Hey guys,

I hope everyone is doing well. We finally moved to Houston in June so that I didnt have to travel anymore for my job, and I have setup a new reef tank that I wanted to share with all of you guys.

I bought the setup from my good friend and business partner at Gulf Coast Reef & Aquaculture, Dr. Mark, and it is a 57gal Oceanic Illuminata. I have a Current light fixture with 2X250w MH (Phoenix 14k bulbs), I have a large sump with refugium, Lifereef 30" talk skimmer, Mag 7 return pump, Current 1/4 HP chiller, TWO Vortech MP10s and everything is monitored and controlled by my Apex controller.

The tank was setup second week of June and has fully cycled, I sent my water off for testing, and everything is perfect except for low potassium, low calcium (289 but corrected with dosing), and I still had high silicates due to the old sand that I used. I am hoping to correct the potassium and silicates with weekly water changes now that the tank has cycled.

In the past two weeks, I have added some "tester" livestock to the tank including two green chromis, a small cleanup crew of scarlet hermits and various snails, a small frag of Xmas favia, a blasto, some palys and a nice chalice frag. All of these are healthy and doing well, and while visiting Fish Gallery in Houston this week, I picked up a beautiful pair of snowflake clowns!!!! I love these guys, beautiful colors and very active.

I have added two fans (one clip-on in sump and a beautiful 6-fan on the surface of tank to keep temperture in check at 78 degrees, and with the addition of these fans, my chiller never turns on which is great because it is loud and HOT! Therefore, it is plumbed in to be in case of emergency only.

I plan on going to Corpus Christi in the next couple of weeks to retreive the rest of my corals and fish which are in my old tank that I moved up to GC Reef.

Anyways, I just wanted to say hello and share my new adventure with all you guys, hope you enjoy and give me some feedback!

Best,

Michael

[psteeleb]

looking good

thanks for posting

[melonz]

hello maverick! so far so good. lets see how it'll actually look once you transfer everything. where did you get your snowflakes btw?

i see your on marsh as well. you should hit me up on marsh sometime

[txmaverickmh]

I actually got my snowflakes from Fish Gallery of all places, was shocked by the good price at $120 with marsh discount!

What part of Houston are you in?

[txmaverickmh]

Hello everyone,

I finally got some time to go down to Corpus Christi today to retrieve my corals from my old tank and add them to my new tank here in Houston...everything with the move went pretty well minus some small pieces chipping off, but all are open/opening and seem to be pretty happy.

I am horrible at aquascaping, but this is my first attempt and I am very open to suggestions! I am really going for a low profile rock formation, no major stacking since all the corals are sitting under some very powerful lighting.

Enjoy!

Michael

[txmaverickmh]