140 Gallon DSA Build

[FORTINNL]

T Diddy thats an awesome tank. Great job. I'm planning to use your setup in my 75g. Thanks for the inspiration

[d-man]

ask grimreefer in the lighting forum for bulb config.

[T Diddy]

Rainman69...I still have the broken tank. I guess it was too much trouble to bother with shipping something that was already broken. Many thanks to DSA for taking care of that issue!

FORTINNL...thanks for compliment. One word of advice would be to use the more rigid black eggcrate. The white stuff from the box stores is too flimsy to place that much rock onto. I've had some of my resin/aragonite coating flake off from where the foam bent and the coating didn't.

d-man...I swapped out the MH for a (6) T5 and (16) royal blue LED combo. The T5 bulbs consist of (3) ATI Aqua Blue Specials, (1) Fiji Purple, (1) UV 454, and (1) Blue Plus. I'm happy with the color, I just wonder if this set up can actually grow coral. Only time will tell. One cool feature is the sunrise/sunset capabilities that I didn't have with the MH, plus the lack of heat and less than half the wattage.

I'll try to get some recent pics up tomorrow.

Thanks for viewing!

[Frogmanx82]

From what I've seen of Grim's suggestions, he pretty well stays with one ATI purple plus which is the same as a the Fiji Purple, then its either 3 or 4 blue plus and 1 or 2 ATI aquablue.

I run 2 blue plus 2 aquablue and a Fiji purple in a 5 bulb set up. I could have gone 3 blue plus for one of the aquablue, it was a nice affect too. You could try just 2 aqua blue and add another blue plus on the next change out.

[T Diddy]

Here is a full tank shot with the previously mentioned T5 and LED lighting. A couple of my corals aren't happy about being in the dark for so long, but I expect they'll bounce back...

[T Diddy]

Update time. The T5/LED lighting seems to be holding up fine. I really like the lighting progression throughout the day. The lighting schedule now looks like this:

10:00AM - 8 Royal Blue LED
10:30AM - 8 more RB LED
11:00AM - Aquablue Special, UV454
11:30AM - 2 more Aquablue Special, Fiji Purple, Blue Plus

They turn off in the reverse order beginning at 8:30 PM

Here is a current full tank shot:

[T Diddy]

The porite has me a little worried. It had been in the relative dark for two weeks with one of my MH fixtures blown. It has lost a considerable amount of color, but still is hanging in there. I've moved it back up to its original location where it was under MH to begin with.



Here is a before shot with a flash:

[T Diddy]

I recently added a couple of new pieces of base rock...disregard the nasty bloom on them, it'll go away

Here's a new acro. I broke a couple of tips off accidentally. Notice the blue zoanthids. They are growing out onto surrounding rocks now. I was thinking of grafting a few to speed the spreading



Meteor shower is still growing...



Acans are encrusting the surrounding rock. I can't see the plug at all anymore. I rearranged the orientation of the acan's rock, so this is a different view than before



This guy got moved to a higher location where I couldn't seem to keep anything under MH. It seems to like this spot with the new lights

[T Diddy]

Still have nice growth here. This one has colored up a bit since switching from the MH...in fact, nearly all of my corals have.







This pipe organ has grown, too. Hard to get a clear picture though

[T Diddy]

This is a new zoanthid colony I picked up. It's slowly coming around...I haven't decided on placement, so it is just in the tank for the moment.



Another shot of the new acro. I'm still unsure as to the placement...we'll just see how it does.



My little Christmas wrasse is growing up. She's usually not very shy, but she doesn't like to be photographed.




Thanks for viewing!

[T Diddy]

This is the purple goniopora. It seems to be doing well despite the nasty bloom surrounding it. I also added an orange fungia that I couldn't get a decent shot of.

[T Diddy]

I bought some aptasia x today in hopes og killing the few that resulted from a failed blowtorching (my fault). It seems I didn't cook enough of one of the pests for fear of thermal spread killing my cyphastrea. It turned into several and they quickly migrated to places I cannot easily remove from the tank. I might try to use it tomorrow when I have more time.

I also added a sailfin tang and a porcelain crab today. I had hoped for a couple of ocellaris clowns, but I'm afraid they would beat up my frogspawn. That's the only coral suitable for hosting at the moment other than my acan. Either way, I don't want to risk it. Is there any guarantee that clowns will respond to an anemone better than LPS or mushrooms/leathers?

Pics will come tomorrow. For now, it is time for a water change.

[T Diddy]

Sailfin won't let me get a good pic...I may have to put him on video. The porcelain crab was dinner for my Christmas wrasse. Strange seeing how he doesn't bother with the mithrax.

Anyway, no update yet on the aptaisia-x treatment. I do have some pics of my fluffy (diatom?) outbreak. It is beginning to look unsightly, and my CUC isn't interested in it.

[endlessblue]

Hey man great idea with wall rock very inovative and fresh idea, build is very well done nice and clean congrats enjoy. That meteor shower coral is amazing size they are very hard to come by in my LFS, never seen one that big amazing.

[AaronM]

My preference is live rock, followed a long way back by dead rock, the even further back artificial/constructed rock, but dude you did well. Very natural/realistic.

Hopefully your naturalistic eye isn't limited to rockwork!

[T Diddy]

endlessblue, thank you. The meteor shower has grown well. They are not readily available at my LFS either unless you want a small frag.

Originally Posted by AaronM

My preference is live rock, followed a long way back by dead rock, the even further back artificial/constructed rock, but dude you did well. Very natural/realistic.

Hopefully your naturalistic eye isn't limited to rockwork!

AaronM, I too prefer using live rock (or have in the past). This is my first reef tank in a while, and I wanted to do something different. It is my favorite tank yet because of the swimming room for fish and growing room for coral. I simply couldn't do this tall of a tank with stacked LR. As time passes, this artificial/base rock wall is becoming more and more live. It has been a rewarding experience so far.

Thanks for posting

[T Diddy]

I actually broke down and bought a skimmer today, as well as the plumbing and fittings to add the refugium. The HA problem has become ridiculous...so bad that a pic would be embarassing. I added one small and one XL sea hare to the tank for immediate gratification (and a lawnmower blenny). Interestingly enough, the water looks great according to API. Perhaps the old rock I added is leaching nastiness and is being sucked up quickly by the HA. In any case, this HA problem will get licked one way or another...

[D-Nak]

Have you considered running a GFO reactor to help with the HA problem? I had a mini algae outbreak, hooked up the GFO reactor --starting with way less GFO than the recommended amount -- and my algae is no longer an issue.

The tank is coming along nicely!

[T Diddy]

The hair algae is still a HUGE issue, but I am taking steps to resolve the problem. I've cut way back on feeding, added a precision marine skimmer, and have almost got my monster refugium up and running.

The skimmer has been hooked up for a week, but still no skimmate...any thoughts?

I've also virtually silenced the overflows by modifying the plumbing. Each overflow had a return and a durso drain. Now, the return runs up and over the top of the tank. All four holes in the overflows are drains. I still have a durso in each, but they now only handle very little flow. The former returns are running full siphon, each with an in-line ballvalve to restrict flow a little. Hopefully this means an end to the ridiculous amount of micro bubbles in the DT.

[Powederblue]

love the meteor shower.

[T Diddy]

Originally Posted by Powederblue

love the meteor shower.

Thanks PowderBlue


That meteor shower is one of my favorites.

The hair algae is beginning to go away. My sea hare has been working overtime, I have reduced feeding, done a water change here and there, and changed up the flow a bit. All of these things have helped, but I still have a ways to go. The skimmer I added is still churning away, but very little if any skimmate has been collected. I seem to have the skimmer sitting too high in the sump. Dropping the skimmer a couple of inches may solve the skimmer problem. Right now there is a dirty ring around the riser tube, but no dry foam makes it into the cone.

Speaking of the skimmer, the adjustments I made to the plumbing in my overflows have made the skimmer the noisiest single item in the set up. What an improvement that was. I haven't posted any pics recently due to the embarassing amount of HA, but I'll have some updates soon.

[T Diddy]

Well it has been a little over two months since I changed to the T5. The initial color of everything was great. However, now I am beginning to think that the T5 revealed the color of my coral grown under MH...the T5 was not the reason for the color.

I say this because the corals in my tank are looking less than stellar. Yes they are all doing fine and most are still growing (at a reduced rate). But I am afraid that my high light requiring pets are suffering. ALL of the corals seem to have lost the great color that they had immediately after switching from the MH to the T5. The porite and a small monti digitata seem to be slowly fading out.

This is not to say that T5 is not good enough for coral. My problem is water depth. The arrangement I have prevents me (and this was by design initially) from placing corals up high in the aquarium. The water level is 5" higher than the top of the viewing window. I did it this way for aesthetic reasons, and went with MH due the need for PAR at depth. I chose to switch to T5 after a light malfunction that scared me.

Either this fixture, or T5s in general, are simply not capable of producing any significant PAR at this depth. I don't have a PAR meter, but I don't think I need one to figure out what is happening here. I'm not going back to the MH, but the T5 won't support some of the critters I have or want in the future (not at this depth). I am looking into supplementing the T5 with some real live LEDs, not the over rated trulumen mistakes I have there now.

Sorry for the long post!

Does anyone have a recommendation for where to purchase a DIY LED kit?

[T Diddy]

So does anyone have any thoughts on the LED/T5 set up? I was thinking of using my T5 fixture for nothing but blue + and fiji purple. If going that route I would add my LED in white only.

Has anyone ever done this?

[cbrwheelieguy]

Hey man, I just ordered a DIY LED kit from Rapidled.com, They have kits you can buy and the customer service is really good. you can browse the site or you can email them and tell them what you have and they can rec a set up for you....its expensive to set up but you will save so m uch they will prolly pay for themselves in the first year. i cant wait to get mine and build it. There are videos on youtube.com just search ricketts reef LED on you tube and he builds an entire fixture in a few videos. I am also waiting on rocks to build a rock/foam wall. I cant wait! You can email me direct or give me a ring if you want more info or to BS....cbrwheelieguy@msn.com 219-712-1948

Love your wall btw one of the 2 best Ive ever seen!

[T Diddy]

cbrwheelieguy,

Thanks for the info. I did buy the ultra 24 kit from rapid with a 1:1 mix of cool whites to royal blues. I'm in the process of building the new light rig now. I'll be using the T5 and simply adding the LED to it.