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jlanger's 120gal Arts and Crafts Inspired Reef Build (1 Viewer)

I need to get my build thread back on track, so I took this quick pic.

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This section of my reef is quickly becoming my new favorite area after the re-boot.
Situated right in the base of the chasm, there is plenty of random current that causes the LPS corals to sway.
And the clownfish pair absolutely love having a number of places to settle into; even the big female will lay amongst the new torch coral at times.
The alveopora coral in the foreground is recovering nicely after suffering a lot of damage during the temporary move.

And check out that clean, sexy sand bed!
 
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I'm quickly filling up my dosing pumps!
This morning, I added the four bottles from the Red Sea Coral Colors Program to my dosing schedule.



Thanks to David (Grigor), I was able to do this easier than I was planning. I had been searching for the tubing adapters that came with my dosing containers to use with the stock bottles with very little results. When I asked David where he thought I could find some, he said to just use the tubing and skip the adapters. Some times my OCD makes me overlook the simplest of solutions.
So I just drilled a 3/16" hole into the caps of the bottles and pushed the rigid tubing through; leaving enough for the flexible tubing to attach to it.

Over the next couple of weeks, I be testing the water to dial in how much of each supplement I will need.
I have past results from about a year ago but with removing all of the montipora, I'm sure those doses have changed.

I would have liked to have been able to dose the Red Sea Energy Program supplements, but they need to be refrigerated. Marty had mentioned AcroPower. Since those are similar additives, I may try dosing the AcroPower instead. I left some room on the right end for a bottle of that.

My corals are doing just fine without all of this extra dosing to the system, but I would really like to see a boost in growth (and some colors).
I want to see all of these frags become colonies!

And once I get all of the pumps filled, I will be focusing on cleaning up the tangled mess that all of this tubing has created.
Yep... my OCD strikes again.
 
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Just wondering do you need a tiny pinhole in the lid as well. If pretty air tight wouldn't the bottle start to suck in if no air can replace the fluid ? Just wondering. I'm not sure it that will happen or not.
 
At my work I am designing an ink handling system using peristaltic pumps with 2 liter containers of ink. We have to put a pin hole in to allow air to replace the fluid that is pumped out of the container. David is correct, you will need to allow air to get in unless you do some kind of collapsing bladder system.
 
I have not had an issue of a vacuum being created as I do not have the caps completely tightened on the bottles themselves.
The bottle of NO-POX has been running the longest and has used over half of the contents with no pinching of the bottle. So there must be enough of a gap for air to enter the bottle.
Thanks for the concern; and a valuable warning to others.
 
I always worried about he methanol evaporating if there was too much air exchange, pin hole, loose cap ect. All accomplishes the goal. That's part of the reason I switched to vinegar (then you'd have to worry about water evaporating and increasing the conceration of the acetic acid stuff... Ohhh the humanity of it all!!!)
 
Marty... you always worry.

I just did a battery of testing and I'm liking the results.

My alkalinity (10.08 dKH) and calcium (477ppm) have remained relatively stable over the last three weeks (both using Hanna Checkers). I've been slowly raising my alkalinity up from an initial 7.672 dKH (immediately after resetting up the tank). I would like it to be stable around 9.5-10dKH so I have been gradually tweaking the dosing program to find that stability point. The calcium level is higher than the targeted 450ppm, but that could be due to the fact that I just did a 35gal water change yesterday. And since I have strictly used Reef Crystals salt mix, it has always seemed to be high in calcium.

My nitrates tested out near 0.00ppm (Red Sea kit) and the phosphates were between the 0.00 and 0.25 (Red Sea kit). This is the lowest I've seen these results in a long time. But I have to admit that I hadn't tested for them for some time; this was the first test since resetting up the tank.
I have always been leery of the Red Sea Phosphate Test Kit as they had issues of some kits always reading at 0.8ppm; and I had one of those kits. Maybe I should look into using the Hanna Phosphate Checker; any thoughts/recommendations?

If I get time, I may run the Red Sea Colors Pro tests.
Too bad those tests aren't as easy as the others; otherwise I would be testing those more often.
 
Happy 2nd Birthday!!!

So... my 120gal Arts and Crafts inspired system has reached it's second birthday this week!
I thought I would celebrate the event with some new pics!

One of the biggest events to happen to my reef system this year was the new carpet installation.
Since I was able(forced) to tear down the system completely, I was able to make some changes and upgrades.

The first change was to remove the coral rubble from the sand bed.
I think the new look is great! But there are a couple of stragglers that I need to pick out every now and again.


I really like how this section of the sand bed turned out.
The sand gets moved around a bit from the clownfish pair as they prepare nesting spots.
The way the sand rests amongst the live rock creates a nice transition from the sand bed to the reef.


And here's just a nice panoramic shot!


This is what was pulled out from the original sand bed.


It's amazing how fast this past year has flown by.
If I get some more time this week, I will try to take a few more pictures documenting my reef as it has turned two years old.
 
Congrats on the two year! The sand porn is almost too much to bear. I didn't realize that we started our tanks at almost the same time, probably because you had some grown out coral from your previous tank. I use the Red Sea Pro test kits for everything except Phosphate because people have reported trouble getting good readings with that kit.
 
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jlanger said:
I'm quickly filling up my dosing pumps!
This morning, I added the four bottles from the Red Sea Coral Colors Program to my dosing schedule.



Thanks to David (Grigor), I was able to do this easier than I was planning. I had been searching for the tubing adapters that came with my dosing containers to use with the stock bottles with very little results. When I asked David where he thought I could find some, he said to just use the tubing and skip the adapters. Some times my OCD makes me overlook the simplest of solutions.
So I just drilled a 3/16" hole into the caps of the bottles and pushed the rigid tubing through; leaving enough for the flexible tubing to attach to it.

Over the next couple of weeks, I be testing the water to dial in how much of each supplement I will need.
I have past results from about a year ago but with removing all of the montipora, I'm sure those doses have changed.

I would have liked to have been able to dose the Red Sea Energy Program supplements, but they need to be refrigerated. Marty had mentioned AcroPower. Since those are similar additives, I may try dosing the AcroPower instead. I left some room on the right end for a bottle of that.

My corals are doing just fine without all of this extra dosing to the system, but I would really like to see a boost in growth (and some colors).
I want to see all of these frags become colonies!

And once I get all of the pumps filled, I will be focusing on cleaning up the tangled mess that all of this tubing has created.
Yep... my OCD strikes again.
Click to expand...
Funny I just did the same thing, just will different equipment.
 
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Here's the official two year FTS.
I wanted to get a shot with as little interference from the fish so I could showcase more of the reef itself.
The fish are all still in there, but most are hidden behind the rocks.

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I'll post more photos as I get more taken.
I even took some video with my new iPad Air I received for Christmas; not the Apex but still a great gift.
If I can figure out editing that video I may post that also. Then you can see the fish!
 
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