Phil’s 210G Reef

[payas0]

Been meaning to get this going for a while… I am just going to start doing posts here and there until I catch up to present.

Here’s a recent pic of tank in it’s current state.

I had originally setup a 150g in early 2016. I had just moved and was hitting the reset button. I was originally FOWLR and reefing was not really something I wanted to dive into yet. So my 150 was setup with FOLWR in mind and no plans for Reefing. A few months later I wanted to reef and didn’t have the right setup for the afterthought. It was a lot of work to maintain as such and ultimately I decided I wanted to upgrade and also move the tank at the same time. This was my tank before it came down.

By this time I already had new tankitis and this one was starting to suffer.

So we are in around October 2019 and my 210 was purchased used from a local reefer and the planning stages begin. I decided I was going to take my time with this build. About a month later I bought my first brand new sump. (My 150 I had a DIY sump made out of a 40g breeder). I picked up a Trigger Systems Sapphire 39 and immediately fell in love with the blue and decided on blue plumbing.

Not much happened for the next few months. Holidays came and being married and a father of four, the funds got a little tight. Around February 2020 I bought some lights and also ordered my plumbing. Plumbed up the tank and started collecting rock around March 2020.

From here COVID came and funds got tight again. I finally got everything ready and together during the summer. n August 2020 I went to work on getting this thing up and running.

I spent day 1 of August (also my birthday) building a floating canopy. I knew I wanted a canopy but I also know how hot my house gets since I don’t have AC. I opted to make a floating canopy to help keep the top of tank exposed. Canopy up along with the Aquatic Life T5 Hybrid fixture along with 4 Radion XR30 G4’s.

To be continued…

 

[payas0]

The rest of August I kicked it into high gear and had made myself a deadline to be filled with water by end of the month.

I decided to do a couple things that would make my reef life a little easier.
I made myself a mixing station to make my salt and RODI water. No more mixing in the house and forgetting I left the rodi line on overflowing my mixing tub. The mixing station sits in my patio about 6 feet from my tank in the house.
The other thing I did was install 2 GFCI outlets and run fresh electrical lines to the breaker box and put these on their own breaker. My house is older and we trip breakers.

I buttoned up the rest of the sump area and hooked up all my gear. I had a buddy come help me aquascape and then got this bad boy filled on 8/31/2020.

To be continued…

 

[DaddyHook]

The rest of August I kicked it into high gear and had made myself a deadline to be filled with water by end of the month.

I decided to do a couple things that would make my reef life a little easier.
I made myself a mixing station to make my salt and RODI water. No more mixing in the house and forgetting I left the rodi line on overflowing my mixing tub. The mixing station sits in my patio about 6 feet from my tank in the house.
The other thing I did was install 2 GFCI outlets and run fresh electrical lines to the breaker box and put these on their own breaker. My house is older and we trip breakers.

View attachment 29004
View attachment 29005
View attachment 29006
View attachment 29007

I buttoned up the rest of the sump area and hooked up all my gear. I had a buddy come help me aquascape and then got this bad boy filled on 8/31/2020.

View attachment 29008
View attachment 29009
View attachment 29010
View attachment 29011
To be continued…

Very Nice! Can’t wait to see more!

 

[payas0]

Tank was cycled using Bio-Spira. By mid October ammonia and nitrite came down to zero and I added my first fish (an Achilles Tang). I also made some DIY screen lids because I decided I was going to also want wrasses. Now from here I started to make some bad choices that sent me deep into the rabbit hole. I got the ugly stage and then after about 30 days of rust colored rocks it all cleared up and I foolishly added another fish from an LFS. I told myself no shortcuts this time around and this time I needed to do everything the right way. The one shortcut I still took was not setting up a quarantine tank. And to be honest even though I tried to reverse that and catch all my fish and throw em in quarantine, I will probably never setup another quarantine tank for fish again. I’ve learned a lot this go and I would rather practice ich management versus ich eradication.

Also in November I started moving over coral from my 150. It was at this time I also decided I was going to let my 210 run fallow for 90 days and came up with a plan to convert my 20 gallon quarantine tank into a frag tank and convert my 150 into a large quarantine tank for all my fish. This worked out great for for the fish but after starting to establish a bio-load in my 210 and then removing said bio-load almost instantly I had another mini cycle coming that pumped up the volume on my stress. Tank broke out in a nasty hair algae. It was vicious. Also around Christmas time I bought my first torch (NY Knicks) and instantly fell in love with torches. I had mostly only cared for and liked SPS.

Things got really hairy and I started listening to other people on how to fix. I am not one who likes to add additives to my tank. It is something that I would rather not do and figure out a more natural way to do things. I should have trusted my gut. All the so called chemical remedies did absolutely nothing for me. The last option I tried was Vibrant and a couple doses in, I decided I didn’t want to do that and opted to start manual removal and add fire up my refugium in hopes of out-competing the hair algae for nutrients. At this same time I has bottomed out on my No3 and Po4 and corals were losing color rapidly. Also because there was no fish there was no fish poop and no bioload. Things were looking bad.

To be continued…

 

[svreef]

awesome tank!

@PeetaJai check out the floating canopy!

 

[PeetaJai]

Thanks @svreef
Yea that looks simple enough... I hope I can do it haha.

 

[payas0]

Thanks @svreef
Yea that looks simple enough... I hope I can do it haha.

It’s pretty easy.. just make sure it’s level, in the studs and double check and triple check your measurements.

 

[payas0]

Towards the end of December 2020, I decided to add a reactor. I wanted to plumb it directly into my manifold and put in the skimmer chamber with skimmer. My current skimmer SRO3000INT Cone was a little too big with the external pump to allow both to fit. I ended up striking a great deal on a RSK-900 that has a much smaller footprint.

I had also been wanting to check my par so my buddy brought over his par meter and we mapped out my par.

In January 2021 decided I was disgusted with my wire management and decided to build a controller box.

Towards the end of January, I had been putting a large dent in manually removing the hair algae. I also installed a 57watt UV sterilizer to help me out some. But I was really frustrated with the corals losing color and my nutrients bottoming out and ended up giving in and putting all my fish back in. This was another mistake and my impatience got the better of my common sense. My bioload went from nothing to essentially heavy overnight and as such I lost a bunch of coral… but the at least the hair algae stage ended lol.

I ended up losing more than half the corals from my 150 but most of the newer frags held up ok. I began doing what I know best and started my road to stability by doing weekly 40 gallon water changes. Things improved drastically and my refugium became crystal clear and looked really thriving. I saw pods everywhere and colors were beginning to pop again. Then I had a nice growth explosion and corals looked great.

To be continued…