Serbusfish's 75 Gallon Sumpless progress thead

[serbusfish]

I thought I would start a progress thread for my new 75 gallon reef setup. I am new to saltwater and im still quite worried about jumping into it, but with the amount of money I have already spent on gear im not turning back now!

The story so far...

I have been keeping fish for around 2 years, I have a 27 gallon freshwater planted tank and I feel the experience looking after this will help me with the reef tank. A pic for reference:



The new reef tank was the family freshwater tank which my dad got sick of looking after, so I offered to take over if it could become a reef tank. It is a Juwel Rio 300. I decided early on not to include a sump as it would involve a lot of hassle setting it up, drilling, etc and would require modifying the Juwel cabinet which my dad didnt want to do. I figured all that extra work just to hide some equipment was nowhere near worth it.

After all the fish, gravel and water were removed I had to deal with the built in Juwel filter box and foam background. They came out fine, except the background left horrible silicone marks all over the back wall which I could not remove, so we have fitted a black piece of acrylic onto the back wall which looks much better.

Next I added an extra Juwel light unit so I could have 4x T5 bulbs, I chose to use JBL Marine Day + Blue bulbs as I have had a good experience with their freshwater bulbs. I also added 4x Juwel T5 reflectors.

Here is a recent picture of the tank:



This is a 10 gallon tank I had custom built which i'll use as an auto top off reservoir:



And finally I am using a Deltec MCE600 protein skimmer. To fit it onto the side of the tank I had to make a slight modification to the length of the intake pipe as it stuck out too far which lead to a T5 getting in the way, and I also cut the Juwel flaps so it could fit:



...and that is it so far. The plan now is to buy saltwater on Thursday (19th March) to initially fill the tank, add my sand (I have Caribsea Fiji Pink live sand) and then to add live rock on Friday. I have an RO/DI unit ready to make the water for my water changes. Once the tank is filled with water I will install my powerheads (2x Jebao WP25's), heater and the auto top off unit (TMC V2 ATO).

[Cymonous]

Nice Tank. I would suggest adding your stuff in reverse of what you said. Rock, sand, then saltwater. Adding rock first before sand makes sure your rock won't collapse if you get any livestock that moves sand. Adding sand before water is easier to lay out. Adding rock and sand after water means more water displacement and you either have to remove water if filled completely or guessing beforehand on how much water to add initially.

So, Rock, sand, then saltwater.

[serbusfish]

Originally Posted by Cymonous

Nice Tank. I would suggest adding your stuff in reverse of what you said. Rock, sand, then saltwater. Adding rock first before sand makes sure your rock won't collapse if you get any livestock that moves sand. Adding sand before water is easier to lay out. Adding rock and sand after water means more water displacement and you either have to remove water if filled completely or guessing beforehand on how much water to add initially.

So, Rock, sand, then saltwater.

Unfortunately I only just saw your message, I did water, sand, then rock. However I pushed the sand to the edges so the rock is on the glass, then I pushed it back to surround it. Also I had to have water in the tank before the rock or it would have become dead rock!

The tank was super cloudy from the sand so ive been running white sponge media in my skimmer to remove it. The only problem now is the skimmer is filthy, but at least the tank is looking clear. I purchased 200L of saltwater on Thursday (19th) and heated to 26'c. Then on Friday I purchased 31KG of Live Rock.

A few pics of the process:

I first put it all in the tank just so it was all underwater (please excuse the dirty marks on the glass):



Then I messed with the scape. Here it is still a bit cloudy:

:

And tonight when it had finally cleared up:



Thoughts on my aquascape? Im considering getting another piece of rock to put on the right island as I feel it should be a little larger than the island on the left.

[serbusfish]

Updated the aquascape today, moved a piece and added an extra 2.5kg:



The rock I put in from my LFS is fully cured, I tested my parameters and im getting 0 ammonia, 0 nitrite, and nitrate 5. The main bulk of my rock has been in for 2 days. Is this common? My LFS told me to wait a week and they will test my parameters and give me a clean up crew if all is good, yet on the net I see a lot of people having to wait weeks for the cycle to complete. Do people generally not buy cured rock?

[3dees]

adding all live rock from your lfs could result in a short cycle. I had live rock shipped from Florida and it only took my tank 10 days to cycle. I like the scape. I also went for the two islands. mine looked a lot like that when I started. before and now. pics came up reversed but you get the idea.

[serbusfish]

Originally Posted by 3dees

adding all live rock from your lfs could result in a short cycle. I had live rock shipped from Florida and it only took my tank 10 days to cycle. I like the scape. I also went for the two islands. mine looked a lot like that when I started. before and now. pics came up reversed but you get the idea.

Very nice setup you have, how many gallon is that tank?

The only thing that concerns me is if the cycle is done wont I need to keep the bacteria fed with an ammonia source? Or will it be ok for a week until I add my clean up crew?

[3dees]

120 gal. (48x24x24). keep your tank cycled by adding some flakes.

[Cymonous]

You could always add about 2ppm of ammonia to make sure you are cycled. If it goes away in 24hrs, you are cycled and your bacteria is fed. If it does not go away in 24hrs, then you just started your cycle.

[serbusfish]

I dont have any flake or ammonia to add.. i'll be going to the LFS on Friday to test the water and hopefully get the CUC, do you think the bacteria will be OK until then?

Also an update, today I discovered some aiptasia! I found 1 on a very small piece of rock rubble so I took the rock out and binned it, but then I saw another on a much larger rock, so I used aipasia-x and it seems to have disappeared, only time will tell!

[Cymonous]

You can get some pure ammonia at the store. What about any fish food?

[serbusfish]

Originally Posted by Cymonous

You can get some pure ammonia at the store. What about any fish food?

I dont like the idea of dumping fish food into it as it will surely make a mess? Ammonia no problem except none of the shops around me sell it (I had to get some from amazon when I cycled my freshwater tank).

The tanks at LFS that hold live rock dont have any ammonia going into them and the rock stays seeded, so surely my bacteria will be fine?

[serbusfish]

I have moved the rockwork slightly to make more caves, treated 3x cases of Aiptasia (I hope there's no more!) and today added 6x Red Leg Hermit Crabs and 6x Trochus Snails:

[Cymonous]

I think your tank is too new to add any clean up crew members. Unless you have quite a bit of algae on your rocks, your hermits and snails will not make it.

Have you tested your parameters again recently?

[serbusfish]

Originally Posted by Cymonous

I think your tank is too new to add any clean up crew members. Unless you have quite a bit of algae on your rocks, your hermits and snails will not make it.

Have you tested your parameters again recently?

LFS tested them before I got the CUC.

Ammonia 0
Nitrite 0
Nitrate 5
Phosphate 0.1
SG 1.025

I have put phosphate remover in and now that is down to almost zero, and yes I do have a lot of crap on the rocks as it is all live rock from the LFS.

[smittysmith2]

Thanks! This helps me. I'll be setting my tank up in the next few weeks.

[serbusfish]

Originally Posted by smittysmith2

Thanks! This helps me. I'll be setting my tank up in the next few weeks.

Awesome

If you want to do it like I have just make sure you get all your live rock from a LFS, if you get it shipped or choose to use dry rock naturally your cycle will be longer and the way you do things will need to be a bit different.

[serbusfish]

First coral added, played it safe and went for something that should be easy to keep:

[serbusfish]

For some reason my toadstool coral wont open its polyps, it was fine for the first 2 days but since then it has stayed shut. There are no problems with my water parameters, and apart from being closed up the coral looks healthy. I have moved it from the sand bed onto the rockwork and increased my water flow to see if that is the problem. I have also set my tank temperate a little lower (it was at 28'c/82F, now it is set to 26'c/78.8F.

Apart from that all is going well, I added my first fish and a cleaner shrimp on Thursday 2nd April, and all are still doing well as of Monday 6th:

[serbusfish]

Its been a while since any update, and I have done quite a bit since I last posted actually.

My nitrates have dropped from 8 to 0 which has impressed me, however I am currently experiencing a lot of diatoms and some hair algae, I wipe the glass clean and 2 days later it is clouded with diatoms again! Same goes for when I vacuum the sand.

I have discovered two small white starfish, hopefully they wont cause any problems. I also have to deal with occasional Aiptasia popping up, but so far they have been very easy to deal with (aiptasia x sorts them out pretty fast).

But apart from that I am pretty happy. Over the last few weeks I have added 2 more fish and a number of corals:

Plate coral:



Torch coral frag:



Australian Elegance Coral:



Firefish and Royal Gramma Basslet:



I also have a Clove coral which is pretty nice, as well as a small mushroom frag. They look especially good under blue lighting, no pictures at the moment though. No money left either!

[Nina51]

don't worry about the diatoms. it's a normal part of a new tank and they will eventually go away on their own.

you have never said anything about a quarantine tank so i assume you aren't using one. hopefully, all of your fish additions are healthy but it would be something to think about.

good luck!

[serbusfish]

Originally Posted by Nina51

don't worry about the diatoms. it's a normal part of a new tank and they will eventually go away on their own.

you have never said anything about a quarantine tank so i assume you aren't using one. hopefully, all of your fish additions are healthy but it would be something to think about.

good luck!

They look so ugly though! I want to show off my corals, but the backdrop of yellow ruins the aesthetics

Well I was planning on setting up a quarantine tank, but decided against it as I am unable to provide one that I would consider comparable to a display tank. The most I could do is a 10 gallon, which I dont consider big enough, and I want to limit stress on my fish as much as possible, and dont consider a small unfiltered 10 gallon tank with no decorations or rocks to be a stress-free environment.

My LFS dont use copper in their systems, and their salinity is kept at 1.026, as long as the fish seem healthy, swim normally and are eating I feel reasonably safe buying them. Stress is what causes fish to get sick, so I am aiming to avoid as much stress as possible.

[apolloreef]

+I use a 10 gallon filled with PVC (two small 3-4" pipes and two large joint pieces) plus a couple tall column (Roman/non-conspicuous) to give plenty of hiding places. My fish have been very calm and healthy in it while I have housed them in there. They all have hiding spots and show no aggression or stress. The clown pair even laid eggs while inside. The entire setup cost about $100 and allows for disease free fish in the display (potentially saving well over $100 if an outbreak were to happen). It's tempting to start without a quarantine but 4 dead fish to ich or another disease will quickly kill the buzz. Learned this the hard way/limited space way. A 10 gallon only takes up the space of a night stand.

[apolloreef]

+I use a 10 gallon filled with PVC (two small 3-4" pipes and two large joint pieces) plus a couple tall column (Roman/non-conspicuous) to give plenty of hiding places. My fish have been very calm and healthy in it while I have housed them in there. They all have hiding spots and show no aggression or stress. The clown pair even laid eggs while inside. The entire setup cost about $100 and allows for disease free fish in the display (potentially saving well over $100 if an outbreak were to happen). It's tempting to start without a quarantine but 4 dead fish to ich or another disease will quickly kill the buzz. Learned this the hard way/limited space way. A 10 gallon only takes up the space of a night stand.

[jstephens24]

subscribing to your thread. I have the same setup so looking forward to seeing your progress.

[Jay_R]

Following along also.. Lovely tank, and like what you've done with the rock. For height I like to use acrylic rods and I drill my rock and slide over the rods. Pretty cheap online to buy, and keeps everything from toppling over. Made my own;

http://www.charterhouse-aquatics.co....mm-p-9426.html

All i'll say at this stage is take your time. Let the bacteria in your tank evolve.. Too many fish too soon will result in high nitrates and algae issues along the way.

Tips;
1. Check out vodka ( Carbon ) dosing.
2. You may experience some gunk accumulating on the water surface over time due to the lack of surface skimming.
3. I'd recommend a diamond watchman goby to keep your sand-bed maintained - although the plate may get buried. I have a single goby in my Trigon 190 and he does a sterling job on the sand.
4. Keep an eye on the Elegance coral.. They have a high mortality rate.

Good luck and keep us posted.. You're going to have some issues.. but perseverance is key