Jerone's 155 gallon reef tank

[jbfloor]

New additions for the tank were added recently

School of five Longspine Cardinalfish (or Blue Eye Cardinalfish):


They are eating well which I heard is a major issue with these fish.

Also, after a very long search I found a McCosker's female. Turns out the LFS had one that had jumped tanks and was hiding in one of the coral tanks. When I asked the guy if he was a she, he said yes and told me nobody ever wanted to buy her because the males look better... Little do they know that males look even better when females are around.

Finally a Zoa I picked up a month or two ago.


As you can see the battle with green cyano is still raging. Oddly enough the stuff grows in the shade and does not seem to be able to take hold on the top of rock. I am slowly winning the war (I hope) with water changes, blowing rock, wet skimming and GFO.

[kandaym]

you used eheim for return pump? is it can be used outside the water? sorry for this question, because i also have eheim pump compact 2000 for my 35 gallons reef tank, but im afraid to put it outside the water, so i keep it inside. that's why i want to ask you. is it okay for the pump? tq for your answer

[rlpardue]

Did you end up catching/removing the peppermint shrimp? One time I came home from a vacation to find my pepps eating my acans too.

[jbfloor]

Originally Posted by kandaym

you used eheim for return pump? is it can be used outside the water? sorry for this question, because i also have eheim pump compact 2000 for my 35 gallons reef tank, but im afraid to put it outside the water, so i keep it inside. that's why i want to ask you. is it okay for the pump? tq for your answer

The Eheim Compact 3000+ is in the return section of my sump, so it is in the water. I use a different pump for my closed loop system which is a Danner Mag-Drive Sumpreme 9.5. This is out in the open.

Originally Posted by rlpardue

Did you end up catching/removing the peppermint shrimp? One time I came home from a vacation to find my pepps eating my acans too.

I have removed the two big ones and banished them to my sump (where they are happily hanging out). The two little ones I have been unable to catch, but they do not seems to be the culprits as my Acans are doing much better now. I actually do not know if these two are peppermints. They remain less than half an inch big, have bright blue markings on top of the regular peppermint pattern. They are not Camel shrimp, but I do not know what they are. I think Live Aquaria sold them as Candy Cane peppermint shrimp, but they are supposed to become 2" big and mine have remained tiny.

[kandaym]

Originally Posted by jbfloor

this is what i asking for, it placed outside the water

[jbfloor]

Ah, yes, I replaced that one with the Danner pump later. I think I did it because the Danner has a higher flow rate (and the fact that I cracked the pump cover and my replacement came in).

On a side note, I finally managed to catch the two remaining "peppermint" shrimp last night. I decided to leave the inverted bottle trap in the tank all night with some food pellets and lo-and-behold... They were both trapped this morning . Although they left my Acans alone for a while, they attacked one on Saturday night, which caused me to put the trap out again.

So, as a warning... be careful with peppermint shrimp. I don't think I will ever add them again. As much as I like them... I like my Acans more.

[ZaPPPa]

(sorry, used wrong handle)

[jbfloor]

(ZaPPPa is an old handle that I didn't know still existed on this forum)

Wow, I just realized that tomorrow it will be exactly one year since the tank was first filled with water. After twelve months the tank is still the very first thing I look at when I walk in the door after coming home from work and all our friends love it.

The tank is not quite where I want it though. I have been battling little bits of green cyano for months now and the corals are not colored up and growing the way I want them to. Although my phosphates and nitrates read 0.0 on all my test kits, I do believe it is water quality that is causing it. Therefore I have ordered a major upgrade to my skimmer which will arrive next week.

Also, to celebrate the first year anniversary I have ordered a package of new inhabitants that will arrive tomorrow. It will contain a Mandarin pair and more McCoskers. (Pictures will follow, of course)

Some things I learned in the last year:

- Test often and learn the characteristics of your tank (I have learned exactly how much Kalk to and am now able keep my Kh between 9.0 and 9.5 without the need for daily tests)
- ATO is your friend!
- You will spill water... lots of it...
- Careful where you buy your shrimp.. Not all Peppermint shrimp are alike (or Peppermint shrimp at all) and some shrimp are pure evil.
- Hermit crabs are cute, but seem to have coral-tipping as their favorite hobby.
- Banggai Cardinals make clicking sounds!
- Wrasses will find a way out of your tank and in your overflow box or worse.

[jbfloor]

New pictures:

[jbfloor]

The cavalry has arrived in my battle with the last remnants of cyano:







This is the only skimmer that is rated for my size tank and will fit my refugium properly while still allowing me to still replace the filter socks.

So, for a quick first impression of the unit:

Interesting how this does not come with any form of proper manual. The only thing the pamphlet says is to "install as shown", which shows a very basic drawing of the unit. Even IKEA does a better job at explaining what part goes where. Also, the package material is very weak. The Styrofoam comes apart very easily and some of it had broken off and gotten stuck inside the pump housing. For the price of this skimmer, I'd expect a good solid box and a professionally printed manual.

The unit itself is solidly made. I think you can use the cone as a weapon for intruders and do major damage to the opponent with minimal damage to the unit. The collection cup is a bit weaker, but should hold up with daily/weekly handling.

The controller looks nice with bright LED's for speed settings and on/off switch. It is clear all R&D and manufacturing money went into the unit itself, rather than the packaging, which is what matters most.

The pump is silent, so silent that at first I thought it was broken until the bubbles started to appear. Even at max speed the pump itself makes almost no noise. The same cannot be said for the air intake which gurgles at high speed settings. I have read before that this is a common problem that can be resolved with mufflers which I'll look into. Still, I am happy I don't have the problems one of the other ReefCentral members has with the unit. I installed mine at about 6.5" water level and it runs smoothly.

The amount of bubbles produced by this unit compared to my Marineland Pro 100 skimmer is enormous.Where the marineland produced maybe one inch of bubbles above water level (when starting up), the DC1 produces easily 4 inches and the smooth cone shape really helps condensing the air bubbles. I can't wait to see the goop that'll come out of this thing once it has broken in.

In addition to the skimmer another inhabitant made it into the tank.


I ordered this little guy/girl as a pair, but unfortunately the other one arrived with a severely sunken belly and did not survive more than a day. Concerned about the health of his/her mate I put this one in the main tank to allow it to hunt for copepods which my QT tank has very few of. After a day his/her belly has filled up nicely and I am confident (s)he will pull through the ordeal and survive.

The nice thing about MarcoRocks Key Largo rock is that they are so porous that you won't need a copepod farm. There's plenty of space deep inside the rock where copepods can reproduce without fish being able to reach them.

[jbfloor]

24 hours worth of skimmate.. Not bad for a brand new skimmer that has not even fully broken in yet.

[houssic]

Glad to see the update. I have studied your thread avidly over the past few months and want to say that your thread has been the inspiration for my current build. I am following it pretty closely even down to inspecting my pier and beam construction. Fortunately where the tank goes, we have a large cement cross member down the whole house.

Going with a 100g DSA with 2 1" drains and 2 .75" returns and a custom stand and canopy. DSA stand is a little short for my skimmer and have a local aquarium builder, ADG, designing a stand and canopy to fit our modern decor. Of what I have seen around Houston, their stuff looks amazing. I only have 2 48" exocentric LED strips. May double it up if I have to. RKE Digitial Aquatics controller, 1200 gph return and a Skimz 201 skimmer. Still working on a 30 or 40 gallon breeder sump/refugium.
I am ordering the tank and stand in the next week or two so will keep you informed.

[houssic]

Still figuring out photobucket! sorry.

[ojonas81]

Looking good!

[jbfloor]

@houssic
I just saw your build thread. Looks very good. Yeah, you really can't go wrong with a DSA tank. I agree that the stand is a little low and the canopy may be fine for freshwater tanks (less maintenance generally), but does not give enough room for saltwater. I like the rock sculpts you're making, should give a good contrast of light and shadow.

[ifarmer]

very nice.
Light gives really nice color

[ifarmer]

For the LED. I think if you wire them in parallel, you could get away with fewer drivers (3-4 is all you need for 96LEDs).

[jbfloor]

As for my tank, the new skimmer broke in and is working well. I normally have to clean the front glass at least every other day, but I haven't cleaned it in four days now and it is still clean. I hope the corals start coloring up soon now that the new improved skimmer is taking care of all the gunk in the water.

I also upgraded my netting over the tank to keep the wrasses from jumping. This was built using basic Home Depot screen door frames with Bulk Reef Supply 1/4" netting. The standard screen door screens block way too much light, so I strongly recommend getting the netting from BRS.

[jbfloor]

Originally Posted by ifarmer

For the LED. I think if you wire them in parallel, you could get away with fewer drivers (3-4 is all you need for 96LEDs).

True, I took more drivers for more precise dimming. The minimum dimming percentage on a MeanWell PWM driver is 11%, which is quite a lot with these LED's. I am currently running a 4 channel typhon controller on 8 drivers, but am still working towards building an 8 channel custom LED controller unit (using either Arduino or some other controller). This should allow me to dim all the way down to one string of 12 blues before the tank goes dark. Right now the transition from lowest dim to night is a bit too much and the fish don't like it.

[jbfloor]

Originally Posted by Bdial

Awesome wife! Good luck on the build it appears you are already in the right direction. My only opinion right now is that your shouldn't have wasted money on that skimmer.
What direction are you going with the tank? Fish only or reef?

That was post #3 in this thread..

And this, boys and girls, is why you should listen to what people on ReefCentral tell you..... (after doing some research and getting it from multiple sources of course)

[houssic]

Hysterical!

[jbfloor]

The wine cellar is the only way I can convince my wife to give up a room in the house as an equipment room . She'll have a nice space to relax and chat with her friends and I have a nice space to look at my reef tank (without the sound) and plenty of room in the equipment room to put all my stuff.

I am thinking about a 72"x36"x24" (270g) tank with a 100g sump + frag tank. It will probably take at least two years before I can get started. We'll first have to pull the trigger on putting the second story on our house...

[houssic]

You are a man amungst boys, Jerone!

[houssic]

I had a question about your break-in/QT tank. Now that your main tank is set up would you have done anything differently which would have helped your break in time or would you have not included anything? I am thinking about doing the same thing to get things started before my tank arrives.

[jbfloor]

After adding the sand and pieces of live rock from my QT tank I never detected a cycle in my DT, so I think the method worked great. Though, I only put two baby clown fish and a goby in a 155g DT and did not add anything else for a couple of weeks.

Just make sure you carefully check your live rock (if you get some) for unwanted hitchhikers.