Chromis’s 90g Acropora tank

[Chromis]

Quick tank info:

Water parameters:
Alk 7.5-8.5 dKh
Salinity 33-34ppt
Nitrate between 0.1 to 0.5ppm
Phosphate between .04 to .08ppm
Temp 76-79F
Mag between 1280-1400 ppm
Ca between 390-480 ppm
other parameters see latest ICP test posting in the thread

Equipment:
Red Sea Reefer 450 aquarium
Skimz skimmer (run 1-2 days per week for 4 hours)
H80 Sump light
2x Maxspect Gyre XF250 power heads
2x Kessil AP700
2x 4’ T5s using actinic and blue special bulbs


Livestock:
Yellow tang (added 2017)
chromises (last ones added ~2018)
2 ocellaris (from old tank added ~2014)

Feeding schedule:
Flake fed 4x daily by autofeeder
Hand-feed frozen 1-2x daily (rotation of spiralina brine shrimp, mysis, spirulina mysis, and PE Calanus)
Reefroids: 1x weekly to monthly depending on tank nutrients
Aminos: about 20ml Acropower once a week
Carbon: no longer dosing carbon sources like vinegar because nutrients have been too low


Water changes:
20-40% per month, Fritz, Red Sea, or TM salt
Trace dose using Red Sea ABCD

—————
The goal of my new setup is to give my acropora space to grow into large colonies, allowing the corals to create a natural aquascape.

Starting with a RedSea Reefer 450, we added a custom RO water feed, emergency drain, and light canopy.

We had to relocate a floor vent from the tank area, and used the opening to route RO and emergency drain lines through. Here is the bottom part of the stand getting lined up:

To avoid any single point of failure, we built a lot of redundancy into the RO feed: the RO is fed by a drip line timer, there is an RO shut off valve between the timer and inlet, and a float valve in the the top off tank that came with the Reefer. We added an emergency overflow bulkhead to the RO container so if all that still doesn’t work, RO will overflow to the drain instead of our tank. The top-off water container is connected to the sump by the provided float valve. We installed a similar overflow bulkhead to the sump. Here is the first test - the RO shut off when the sump/ATO tank were full as hoped:

 

[Chromis]

Moving the tank would have been impossible without suction cups, thanks @flagg and @Ibn! The RO I picked up from @OnTheReef got the water off to a good start! Mountain View water showed ~60TDS but after RO was down to 0-1 TDS.

 

[Coral reefer]

Woo hoo!

 

[Vhuang168]

Are you having the RO/DI feed the reservoir directly?


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[Chromis]

The tank filtration is basically chaeto and pukani rock. The skimmer is just there to remove soaps and other contaminants that chaeto wouldn’t absorb. As an example, I accidentally dissolved a whole clump of emarco into the new tank water. So much for 0 TDS water! The water was a grey cloud:

The skimmer seemed to get most of it though - I was dumping grey slurry out of the skimmer cup a couple hours later. I’m really happy with this Skimz SN143-QP. It has only a 6”x6” footprint and works reliably. I felt the tank was finally online after moving the chaeto over from my old 40g sump - in my mind it’s the engine of the tank. So far it’s not getting into the skimmer intake. The chaeto is lit by a Kessil H80.

 

[Chromis]

A couple other scary set-up moments: the trochus snails seemed to be bailing out for the first 36 hours. I worried there might be something wrong with the water, but everything else seems happy. I guess they were just trying to get back to their old 40g “tide pool”?

 

[Ibn]

Nice to see water in the new tank. Can't wait to see what this looks like over time.

 

[Coral reefer]

A couple other scary set-up moments: the trochus snails seemed to be bailing out for the first 36 hours. I worried there might be something wrong with the water, but everything else seems happy. I guess they were just trying to get back to their old 40g “tide pool”?

Maybe water was cold?

 

[Gablami]

I bet they’re trying to spawn. With changes in tank conditions they’ll crawl up as high as possible and “let loose”. I have a lid on so they can’t get too high, but sometimes they would be partially out of the water.


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[Gablami]

The tank filtration is basically chaeto and pukani rock. The skimmer is just there to remove soaps and other contaminants that chaeto wouldn’t absorb. As an example, I accidentally dissolved a whole clump of emarco into the new tank water. So much for 0 TDS water! The water was a grey cloud:

The skimmer seemed to get most of it though - I was dumping grey slurry out of the skimmer cup a couple hours later. I’m really happy with this Skimz SN143-QP. It has only a 6”x6” footprint and works reliably. I felt the tank was finally online after moving the chaeto over from my old 40g sump - in my mind it’s the engine of the tank. So far it’s not getting into the skimmer intake. The chaeto is lit by a Kessil H80.

Great start! Consider a sump divider to separate your skimmer and your fuge. Part of it is to keep the detritus and chaeto from entering your skimmer, second is your skimmer body is going to get a bunch of algae growing in it with the light bleed.

A divider can block the light and keep the stray chaeto bits from entering your skimmer. I personally like to have fuge first, then skimmer, but you could go either way. I feel better about fuge first because I’ve started going sockless.

Just some thoughts.

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[Flagg37]

I’m so happy for you. It’s been such a long time coming. Overflowing the ato to a drain is genius. Does your ro system do an automatic flush to get rid of tds creap?

 

[Chromis]

Are you having the RO/DI feed the reservoir directly?

Yes. I have a 24GPD unit dedicated to keeping the the top-off reservoir filled.

 

[Chromis]

Maybe water was cold?

I did set it up a degree or two cooler than the old tank, on purpose to avoid shocking things too much. Figured I’d raise the temp again later. Seems like corals get less upset going from high to low temp/alk instead of the other way around?

 

[Chromis]

I’m so happy for you. It’s been such a long time coming. Overflowing the ato to a drain is genius. Does your ro system do an automatic flush to get rid of tds creap?

Yea the tank’s been sitting in my garage for months. Some of the corals I had been collecting for the new tank had overgrown their plugs a bit... one benefit of acrylic frag racks is corals pop right off:

What I decided to do was cut the plug off with the bandsaw to make the bottom flat, and then just lay the coral on a flat rock with a little superglue.

 

[Chromis]

To separate the other SPS corals from my old rocks I used a combination of dremel with grout remover bit and a chisel. Here is a another scary moment where it looked like the frog spawn was melting as I was trying to remove acroporas from the zoa-infested rock it sat on. Here it is the next day:

 

[Chromis]

Great start! Consider a sump divider to separate your skimmer and your fuge. Part of it is to keep the detritus and chaeto from entering your skimmer, second is your skimmer body is going to get a bunch of algae growing in it with the light bleed.

A divider can block the light and keep the stray chaeto bits from entering your skimmer. I personally like to have fuge first, then skimmer, but you could go either way. I feel better about fuge first because I’ve started going sockless.

Just some thoughts.

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We’ll see what happens, I like your solution.

 

[Chromis]

Full tank shot. Went with two Maxspect Gyres, and they’re quieter than my old MP10. The return pump (Skimz quiet DC pump) is quiet except for a very high-pitched hum. Has anyone else heard a high pitch noise coming from their return pump and does it go away?

 

[Gablami]

Full tank shot. Went with two Maxspect Gyres, and they’re quieter than my old MP10. The return pump (Skimz quiet DC pump) is quiet except for a very high-pitched hum. Has anyone else heard a high pitch noise coming from their return pump and does it go away?

In my case, I was running a powerful pump with a less-than-ideal manifold pvc diameter (ie excessive head pressure). Are you reducing your return pipe at all?


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[Chromis]

In my case, I was running a powerful pump with a less-than-ideal manifold pvc diameter (ie excessive head pressure). Are you reducing your return pipe at all?

I took your advice and ran the pump with no output fitting (facing down so it wouldn’t create a fountain) and the noise completely went away. The pump came with three barbed output fittings, 5/8” , 3/4” and 1”, and I have the 5/8” installed with silicone hose to the Reefer return. What’s weird is I just looked up the pump info and it’s not supposed to come with this smaller 5/8” fitting:

So maybe like you said the reduction at the pump output to 5/8” is causing all the noise? I’ll order some 1” silicone hose since this also fits the Reefer 450 and see if that cuts out some noise. Thanks!

 

[Gablami]

Yeah for a 1000gph rated return pump 5/8” is pretty small. I would go as large as possible, and I bet that at 1” it would be quieter, you would get more efficient flow back to your DT allowing you to run it lower and transmit less heat to your tank.


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