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Grigor's 75g Soft Coral Dominate Tank Build (1 Viewer)

That is unbelievable! Bummer on the scratch. A big one too.

Do you know if Starfire glass resists scratches better at all? That would be the only thing that could motivate me to specifically buy Starfire...
 
LowersMyBP said:
That is unbelievable! Bummer on the scratch. A big one too.

Do you know if Starfire glass resists scratches better at all? That would be the only thing that could motivate me to specifically buy Starfire...
Click to expand...

I've heard starphyre glass actually scratches easier.
 
Nothing major to report. Mostly just waiting for things to grow and fill out. No algae issues, tank has been stable and doing well the last couple of months. Had a couple of clowns die but they must have been poor quality to begin with as they have always been sickly the 2 years I've had them.


A few additions since last time:

1. Convict Tang ( added just to get acclimiated and eating aggressively but haven't decided yet if I want to move to the 180g ).
2. Copperband butterfly ( the same, not meant to be long term just getting it to eat well. I think I'm going to just round robin this guy from tank to tank to keep aptasia and little feather dusters at bay )
3. Pair of regular scooter blennies. I like them and eat well but wishing I held out and got a pair of the red ones from Vossen ).
4. Some green ricordia and a medium rock of blue/purple mushrooms. ( Surprisingly, I've had a real hard time keeping mushrooms. Seem to do fine for a while but eventually they just fall off the rocks and float around only to get stung by the tube anemone. ).
5. Yellow coris wrasse.

Total fish now = 8, couple of green chromis ( which were rejects from the 180g school ), 1 kupang damsel ( another reject ) and the others listed above. The yellow tang was moved back to the 180g show tank before adding the convict as I didn't want any aggression. Since tank starts lost lawnmower blenny ( unknown was eating well, looked fat, ate nori right off the clip), 2 clowns ( both sickly from the beginning, perhaps inbreeding or something ), exquisite wrasse ( jumped before I got the back of the canopy all secured ), 1 green chromis ( was a reject from the 180g school then got picked on by the 75g group ).



Maintenance still consists of 25% water change per week ( recycled/used saltwater from the 180g show weekly water changes that overwise would just be going down the drain ).
Siphon the sandbed on every water change.
Clean ATS screen which has never produce much but no algae issues in show so I don't really care.
Use 1/2 cup of carbon weekly.

Full shot:

apr_full_shot.jpg

apr_full_shot.jpg


Left Side:
apr_left_side.jpg

apr_left_side.jpg

Right Side:
apr_right_side.jpg

apr_right_side.jpg

 
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Those rock pillars really look great with all the softies on them.
 
Wow David, the updated pic really looks good. Everything looks so meaty and healthy. Nice job.
 
Tanks is doing great. No issues whatsoever.

ATS is finally dialed in, Single Sided waterfall style. It was installed 1/19/2015. So it's right at 4 months.

Screen sized: 8" Long X 10" High.

Flow: Feed directly from the Herbie overflow. After bumping up the flow on the DC return pump one more notch about 6-8 weeks ago. Setting 5 out of 6 on the Speedwave DC3000, keep in mind it is also powering my Carbon reactor, no sure what exact flow is.

Lights: This is all red LEDs. 8 120 degree LEDs at 700mah. Light cycle in 7pm-7am ( 12 hours ).
From now on if I build another LED ATS, I'm going to skip the blue leds altogether, I think they are more trouble than they are worth to get screen going.
Feeding: 3 times a day. Twice with selcon/vitamin enriched mysis or frozen food, One 1/4 sheet of Nori ( round robin between brown, green, purple ).

Frequency: I'm two days late harvesting becuase of the Holidays so this is 9 days growth instead of the normal 7.

75g_ATS_screen_9_days.jpg

75g_ATS_screen_9_days.jpg


Rinsed and sweezed it's right at baseball sized wadd.

75g_ATS_harvest_9_days.jpg

75g_ATS_harvest_9_days.jpg

 
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I forgot to try to feed some to the tangs in the show tank see if they like it or not. I'll try that next week.
 
RIP: Copperband was getting thinner despite feed more often. Overtime started to get more and more picky at the size and shape of mysis it would strike. Last few days wasn't doing its normal hunting and pecking at rocks. This morning is was dead. No outward appearance of any diseases. Must have been internal.


On a positive, I traded some soft corals and got my Coral Beauty back that I had for many years from Frank. It is now in the 75g soft tank.

Tank itself doing great, no algae issues, corals are doing well. I complete gave up on adding Actinodiscus type mushrooms. Other types like ricordia, yuma, rhodactis all do fine. I've tried on at least 6 occasions to add Actinodiscus, they start to shrivel then detach from the rock within about 2 weeks. Perhaps will try again in 6 months or so.
 
He was still fat as all heck too :) Really glad you were able to find a spot for him David. and thanks again for the awesome softy starter kit.
 
9 Month status:


Tank is doing well, just letting it grow out for the most part. With the added humidity of summer my DIY Led isn't working out too well. Shorts out from the moisture. Don't really want to put glass tops on it in addition to the canopy. The light isn't enough anyways, ricordia and many others are expanding too much from lack of light intensity. To make it work I'd need to invest more $ into this one and essential double the # of LEDs and would require larger heatsink and ballasts. I decided I'd rather put the $ toward another fixture. I really like the 10K 27" Razors on the frag tank but the cost savings going with a 48" Photon is just too great to be ignored and should sufficient amount of light for the tank. I pulled the trigger and ordered the 48" Photon for $499 vs $899 on the Razor.



Added two fish from Steve/Dataloss: A yellow tang and bangaii cardinal. Both acclimated very well. I was very surprised the Convict Tang didn't show any signs of agression towards the yellow tang. ATS is fully dialed in and pretty sure it can handle the larger fish.


Quick and dirty pic with phone camera:

75g_July.jpg

75g_July.jpg

 
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Beautiful and was the inspiration for me to turn the seahorse tank into a softy tank. Yours looks nicer lol.
 
48" Reefbreeder Photon w/ standard led config and 120 degrees reflectors, arrived and installed. I really wanted to get the 48" Razor but they decided not enough demand for the 10K version and were not going to make them. Only after I ordered the Photon did Chris @ coralvue mention he could mod a 16K to become a 10K. Oh well. But in the end this is a good choice as will do everything I need for this tank and nearly half the cost.

Still plan to use the canopy becuase tank is on the same wall as TV and sitting on the couch the leds would be too much of a distraction. Mounted with little to no mods needed, I just took off the hinged top and mounted some L brackets to hold it up.

The other nice bonus this frees up 3 of the 4 ports on my Apex Jr. so I was able to put the Tunze controllable on the outlets ( previously just the variable speed controlled by Apex and pumps were just plugged into a powerstrip ) and got rid of a timer by putting the ATS light on the last port.

75gg_photon48.jpg

75gg_photon48.jpg


75g_photon_mount.jpg

75g_photon_mount.jpg


Initial reaction with both channels at 100%, It's way too blue for my liking and also has a pnk/purple tint I don't really care for. Really looking for more of a ice white w/ just a hint of blue ( which with my old DIY LED I was able to do pretty well ). I can't really dial in what I really want becuase the UVs are on the same channel as the whites so it has some pink/purple tone so just can't get that Ice white I'm looking for. Eventually may swap out some of the blues and/or UV that are on the white channel so I have more control. Of the 98 leds only 24 of them are day LEDs, I think I'd really prefer less of the royal blue and more 10K/4.5K LEDs.


Aethetically, I like 30% Blue Channel and 100% White Channel but can't really do that and still get Par #s in the range I want. So for now I settled with 50% Blue and 100% White as the peak.

Here is a tank shot with some rough PAR #s with the max setting I will be using to get the color I want ( 50% Blue, 100% White channels ):

75g_photon_par.jpg

75g_photon_par.jpg




Here is the Custom program I'm going with initially and see how it goes Ramps up to Noon stays until 2pm and ramps down the exact same settings. Morning starts out blue and works it way to more white as the day goes on.

Par Measurements in the below chart where measured at the location in the substrate on right side ( where the 205 reading is on the full tank pic ):

Columns are:
Sunrise/Sunset Times Blue%/White% Measured Par at the Bottom

05:00AM 003/000 002
05:30AM 005/000 003
06:00AM 010/000 036
06:30AM 015/002 058
07:00AM 020/010 074
07:30AM 025/020 088
08:00AM 030/030 107
08:30AM 035/040 124
09:00AM 040/055 140
09:30AM 045/070 166
10:00AM 050/080 175
10:30AM 050/085 180
11:00AM 050/090 185
11:30AM 050/095 192
12:00PM 050/100 205
12:30PM 050/100 205
01:00PM 050/100 205
01:30PM 050/100 205
02:00PM 050/100 205
02:30PM 050/095 192
03:00PM 050/090 185
03:30PM 050/085 180
04:00PM 050/080 175
04:30PM 045/070 166
05:00PM 040/055 140
05:30PM 035/040 124
06:00PM 030/030 107
06:30PM 025/020 088
07:00PM 020/010 074
07:30PM 015/002 058
08:00PM 010/000 036
08:30PM 005/000 003
09:00PM 003/000 002

Average Par for the light cycle at the point measured = 110par
 
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