120 in the Wall

[Wildechild_01]

So yesterday the rock found its way into a bucket of salt water with a heater and some power heads for flow lets get in cycled and in the tank was the plan.... Got home from work today and could smell the rock cooking as soon as I walked in the house haha. Ammonia levels are off the chart in the tub and water looks pretty nasty. Going to leave it for a few days and then do a water change in the bucket just to remove some of the solids floating around but I guess for now I just let the rock cook


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[Ginu]

If you're not far in the soaking process, I'd recommend taking your time with the rock... Its beautiful, light super porous but full of stuff which will leach for some time to come
Acid bath then cure for a month is even better.

My rock from eli is in a bucket and it's been there for at least three month . I still expect a nice hair algae circle once it makes its way in the displa .

[Wildechild_01]

Yeah, the tank is doing well how it sits right now, the real trick for me at this point is patience, just keep telling myself "nothing good happens quick when it comes to reef keeping". The time will give me a chance to keep researching lights and what corals I hope to keep, and where to put it.

[Wildechild_01]

Okay, so while I now wait for my rock to be ready to add to tank I have been doing a lot of reading, these are some of my current thoughts, curious if anyone has any feedback

Lighting:

To have the tank I want I will eventually need to upgrade lighting, I am impressed with the Evergrow IT2080's and the price point is a little gentler than some of the other options. Reading on the Hybrid light fixtures though got me second guessing, then i realized I have a few T5 fixtures kicking around. Sure they don't dim, but no reason The can not run off a regular on/of timer if i decide i want them for colour on the corals.

Dosing:

Well if current results on my Calcium levels are to be believed, I should get on this sooner rather than later. I started my first tank with man made rock the seller claimed would slowly leach calcium into the water and for quite a while it seemed to be the case. With changes and a move there is very little of that original rock still in the tank. This along with my admittedly lax tank maintenance for the last year well, lets just say I think i may be lucky my corals are as healthy as they are, also might explain the random loss of a few corals this last year.
POint of all that... wondering if anyone has any experience with the Red Sea reef care line, it looks to be slick package of tests and supliments designed to make the process easy. I worry that cost could get a little crazy as reef grows but thinking it may be a good easy place to start with entering the world of needing to dose my tank to keep the reef happy moving to bulk products down the road for cost effectiveness down the road, likely staying with a two part product to keep Ca and alk in line.

Living in a world of automation would also need to look into the world of dosing pumps, have not looked into this much at this point, but probably have some time to do some reading, the automation can come after getting things back in line manually if needed.

Coral:
Okay im thinking when i am ready most of my initial sps coral is going to come from Coral Master here in Calgary, stuff looks amazing and peoples reviews are great.

Will always be on the look for great stuff everywhere though.

Need to set up a frag tank.... not sure where that is going to go at this point, may need to re arrange my pretty small fish room or get permission from my other half to set it up somewhere else... then i need to frag a few things and find homes for them. I have a lot of zoa's that i just don't need or want at this point, well... really would like fewer of the ones i have and add some more variety.

anyway, thats where my head is at as far as my tank goes lately so thought i would share

comments thoughts and ideas always welcome

[Ginu]

I think the most cost effective would be to use some sort of a two part system controlled by dosers. I tried looking around but didn't see anything in regards to an aquarium comp, are you using any?

For example I'm using apex which does the monitoring and in that I have two dosing pumps from BRS and they dose alk and ca. I dose mg manually as it takes quite a bit to dent magnesium.
In my new system I'm going to dose zeo products which will be done manually.
I've also preordered a apex dos which will take care of water changes so I recommend looking into that as well.

Also dosing systems are good although I've never used one, but a bubble magus or vertex or any other reputable brand will do the trick.

In regards to lights, that's a huge topic and it all depends on budget and preference so its tough to pick one.
The new trend I see is LEDs and t5 although some reefers love their halides so its very debatable.. On my 34g cube I had a 150mh producing a ton of heat, on my 75gal I went with two radions which I liked but hated taking pictures under and on my 120 I'm going to try a ati 6 bulb fixture, would like a ati6 bulb hybrid with LEDs, but that ain't cheap...

[Wildechild_01]

Originally Posted by Ginu

I think the most cost effective would be to use some sort of a two part system controlled by dosers. I tried looking around but didn't see anything in regards to an aquarium comp, are you using any?

I am not currently running any form of aquarium monitoring equipment if that's what you mean. It is something I have considered a few times just never actually gotten around to researching and justifying cost to myself.

Originally Posted by Ginu

For example I'm using apex which does the monitoring and in that I have two dosing pumps from BRS and they dose alk and ca.

Does this monitor your Ca and Alk and dose as required? Because that would be kind of awesome... provided it works properly.

Also just reading on the DOS as well and that looks pretty crazy awesome..... hmmmm.... looks like i need to ask for cash for christmas so i can spend it on the reef.


Okay next item. Currently my Ca is lower than I feel it should be (360ppm @7dKH) which would explain why my corals are just kind of hanging out as opposed to growing like the used to, and the lack of Coralline growth as well

My thought is that I should go ahead and pick a product for my 2 part dosing and manually bring things up to where i want them and continue with the manual until I sort out lighting options and get around to adding more corals at which point i will need to set up the automated dosing since the tank will likely require daily dosing at that point.

Thoughts? Ideas? Product recommendations?

[DSlater]

My 2c on the lighting...

I picked up one of the Evergrow D120 full spectrum LED fixtures a while back and it does a decent job on a small tank but I wasn't overly impressed. You would probably be happier with a DIY if you go LED. If you have a controller you can also pick up some dimmable(0-10V) T5 ballasts. I had a supplier mess up an order of office fixtures and they had to supply me dimmable ballasts at cost, they were only 20 bucks each. Based on your work you might be able to leverage the same kind of deal...

[Wildechild_01]

Yeah I have been considering going DIY with LED fixtures and funny you mention the dimmable T5's as just yesterday i fired an email off to a few of our wholesalers at work to see what they could do for me. Looking into home lighting automation stuff too... there is some amazingly affordable home automation stuff out there now for lighting, heating, and window coverings... haha but that is a whole different thread.

Back to functionality... what if i went custom sump build... took advantage of being under a 6 foot tank and had a chamber probably mid way through sump to house frags... kind of solves the where do i put it question, but then can't double as QT for new tank additions........

[DSlater]

I'm way happier with the DIY LED, light quality just does not compare. As soon as I bite the bullet and pick up a controller, I'm adding a couple t5's and going with a hybrid setup.

The only reason I wouldn't put a frag tank on your main system is that if you start to have water problems, there is nowhere to put your corals. Our 220G has some larger tangs so we have had problems keeping the phosphates/nitrates low at times. Ended up setting up a separate 45G tank that is way easier to control those levels in, especially through the summer months when these things get a bit neglected.