My 90g + 20g sump mixed reef

[OttawaFolkFestivum]

Tagging along here. Nice looking tank.

[salvini55]

let me know when its a good time. Im out of town for a few days.

[mikerobart]

Here's a really short, poor quality phone cam vid for you guys. Compression was pretty messed up but hey I put it to a nice song so hopefully you enjoy! Oh man how I want a dslr that shoots hd video, with a nice quality macro lens... could do some insane stuff.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wucTBExx_f4

[mikerobart]

Oh, and thanks for the kind words. I wish I had more time to make the changes I want with the tank... Hopefully over the holidays and in the new year I can really get it looking how I want. I finish my university programs this december so things are really crazy right now.

[FocusFin]

Here's a really short, poor quality phone cam vid for you guys. Compression was pretty messed up but hey I put it to a nice song so hopefully you enjoy! Oh man how I want a dslr that shoots hd video, with a nice quality macro lens... could do some insane stuff.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wucTBExx_f4

They look like an old married couple

[mikerobart]

Yeah, it is so cool how the shrimp will keep an antenna on the tail of the goby.. and if you approach the tank too fast or the goby is apprehensive, he will flick his tail a bit and the shrimp goes back in the hole. They are both pretty timid so usually I use a turkey baster to get some food right into their den, where that happens to be at the time (it moves frequently). Oftentimes though, the 4 cleaner shrimp catch on and harrass them. It's funny seeing the goby trying to eat with 3 or 4 clean shrimp literally standing on him also trying to get at the food. Sometimes the goby will eat right from the turkey baster.. very funny.

[mikerobart]

I have added a pink-tail trigger and filefish, as well as a sandsifting star. Have also added to the CUC. New EVC 20K 250W DE bulbs should be coming next week, and I'm hoping they are blue enough for me. Sanjay's charts indicate they should be bluer than the Phoenix and have pretty decent par for a 20K.

I added about 10lb of LR, and did a water change recently that was long overdue. The tank is doing well, other than nuking a few pieces of sps here and there knocking them into things. I need to be more careful when I have my hands in the tank!

One thing that pissed me off was when I was doing a water change... the water level changing inside my next reef reactor suddenly and me not positioning the filter pad that keeps the carbon in...it pumped out carbon granules which were later taken into the display... the sand now has a nice peppering of carbon chunks. Doesn't seem to be causing any problems so far.... might stir the sand slightly and try to bury it !

I'll try to get some pics up later tonight, hopefully the fish will be out of hiding. Unfortunately the filefish has a little hat on the spine, made of fish net that got caught on him and had to be cut off. Pretty funny, maybe will fall off eventually. Mainly I am hoping he will eat the aiptasia I am finding from time to time.

[mikerobart]

 So the EVC bulbs arrived and they rock, I really like the look with or without supplementation. Very very bright don't look any dimmer than the phoenix really and definitely slightly more blue, which is what I was looking for because Phoenix were white white after burn on with my ballast.

I did a t5ho retro to my fixture, wanted a little more oomph for dawn and dusk then what I had, which was 2x24w PC's (they are still a part of the fixture but I might not run them now with the t5ho's).

The light now has 2x250W DE's, 2x24w PC's, and 2x54W t5ho's. Definitely a lot of selection and colour tweaking power now, not to mention mega amount of light into the tank!

For the retro, I bought a 2x54W 48" tek 2 kit from Ray... came with everything I needed.  The bulbs right now I'm using a ULV Super Actinic and ATI blue plus. I must say the UVL super actinic is very very very close to the URI or UVL VHO actinics. Looks awesome. Both are incredibly bright and together give an amazing blue/purple/super radioactive look to the tank.

It looks reallly washed out in the pictures (iphone pics) but in person it rocks. I think I will stick with these bulbs for now.
Also, compared to the 24w PC's (which are on in one of the pics)... the brightness is incredible. The PC's are blue bulbs, and even the super actinic absolutely dominates them. I might not even use them... or I will with some kind of stepped dawn and dusk with two stages.

I should mention the end caps were not originally black, I painted them and the stand offs black (heat resistant gloss pain) to match the fixture. Drilled holes, used self tapping screws to secure, and drilled holes to route the wires through the fixture. The ballast is external because I was concerned about heat inside the fixture.

It turned out pretty well and you'd probably say it was stock if you didn't know better!





Both t5ho and PC are on in this pic... I'll let you decide how much brighter the t5's are wow.

[mikerobart]

Pinktail trigger - great fish. Keeps scratching himself up on rocks because he likes to rocket across the tank at mach 3 and then stuff himself through small holes. Doesn't seem to phase him... he eats like a pig! Very cool fish.



Getting some really cool sponge growth on this rock... my oldest piece of LR, got it from Pat and had it in my old tank about a year ago. Started with one head of hairy mushroom about 1 " across. Now there has to 7 or 8 HUGE ones, that expand to about 6" across. This really cool neon yellow sponge thing is also growing like wildfire and is starting to show up on other rocks as well. As is quite a bit of the whiter sponge. So many things growing on this rock!



Filefish... now in the prison tank. Decided he likes zoas and some sps. Once the few aipstasias were gone had to get him out. YMMV !

[Cheebs]

Nice stuff mike!  Same thing happened to me with my filefish That Trigger looks mean though!
I think those yellow sponges might be some bigass squirts, not sure if they are the sponge family. Wicked tank!

[mikerobart]

Thanks Cheebs! Darn filefish wish he would only eat aipstasia guess that would be too perfect eh ? Trigger looks mean sometimes but he really is a gentle giant! Have had no issues with him as far as I can tell. Thanks for clarifying on the sponges er bigass squirts ! To be honest I like what you are calling them better  .

[mikerobart]

It is just too difficult working in my stand with my current sump (33g.. or 36" x 12" x 16").. even though it's a 48" perfecto stand, the corner braces eat up a bit of room inside, and the front doors only open about 24", so no chance of removing the sump through the doors, can't get my current skimmer out to clean etc. etc.

With this in mind I am thinking of a smaller more functional sump.. a 20g long will probably be the best dimensions without going custom acrylic or something like that. So 30" x 12" x 12". A 30" x 12" x 16" would probably be better but this is not a normal size I think. 18" tall and I am starting to lose too much height inside the stand for working and electronics mounting etc. I also am not super happy with my skimmer ... I think it's an issue with not enough bioload and the massive 8" body just not being able to get a stable foam head with my current bioload. Also eating up so much sump space.

So looking at small foot print skimmers like the swc 160 cone... which would be 9" x 7" footprint approximately.The sump will need room for a filter sock, the skimmer, a small refugium area to run chaeto, and of course a small section for the return pump and ATO. I am basing this pretty much off my current sump, and want to keep it pretty simple. I only have one drain line and one return.

Tough decisions to make as is common with this hobby it seems... my first idea was to just get a cheap steel stand which would give me tons of room under the stand, and skin it with plywood w/ magnets for super easy access. Then I realized that to keep a hanging light fixture using the electrical conduit hanger I made I need a wood stand to secure that into so I think I want to stick with what I have despite it's small crappy doors  .

With the smaller sump there should be plenty of room in the sump for my big carbon reactor, and another one for GFO eventually, maybe even the ATO reservoir could be squeezed in.

Tell me what you think of this sump design:

[Rybren]

Assuming the tank is 12" deep, your return section would be ~2.2 gal.  I don't know what the flow rate is on your return pump is, but that seems small to me and doesn't leave much room for evaporation.

I'm in the process of setting up a 75G with a 35G (36x12x19?) sump.  The doors in my stand aren't high enough to allow me to do much of anything from the front.  I really wanted the volume of the sump, so I set up the tank in a corner with enough space to squeeze behind the tank.  This gives me tons of room behind the tank to work, a place for the top-off reservoir, and eventually, a place for my skimmer (I have an Octo recirc that I can use externally).

[mikerobart]

Assuming the tank is 12" deep, your return section would be ~2.2 gal.  I don't know what the flow rate is on your return pump is, but that seems small to me and doesn't leave much room for evaporation.

I'm in the process of setting up a 75G with a 35G (36x12x19?) sump.  The doors in my stand aren't high enough to allow me to do much of anything from the front.  I really wanted the volume of the sump, so I set up the tank in a corner with enough space to squeeze behind the tank.  This gives me tons of room behind the tank to work, a place for the top-off reservoir, and eventually, a place for my skimmer (I have an Octo recirc that I can use externally).

Well my auto top float switches seem to be sensitive to about 1/8 " so evap is not an issue as it will constantly be replenished... now if you mean in the event of failing to keep my ato reservoir filled up and running out of top off water yeah I guess I would burn that pump pretty fast! I hadn't really thought of it as too much of an issue with a ATO system.

Flow rate on my pump is probably 900 gph max, but with my plumbing and current head maybe 700 wide open and I have it dialed back even more to 400-500. I am going for relatively low flow through the sump for good contact with filtration equipment.

I also have to make sure that there is room for all the "live" water in the system to drain when the return pump is turned off. I think this allows for about 7 gallons before it hits the rim of the 20g long (with this baffle configuration and depending on the water level in the return section)... and I have to double check I don't have more than that currently.

[Hookup]

I like it.  Maybe you could use the two little fishes reactors and hang them on the outside of the sump to save space.

[mikerobart]

Well right now I have a NextReef MR1 which is a beautiful beast of a reactor... only running carbon right now but it's big enough that I could easily run phosban in it as well and just use the one reactor.. might suck for changing carbon and phosban at different times but by separating with filter sponge should not be a problem. If there is room I may add a nextreef shorty for the phosban... I really love this reactor. I am using it in the hang on configuration on the side of the sump. I guess I could easily bring them outside the stand altogether if I need to.

[mikerobart]

In the interest of maximizing space ( and due to a small oops in placing / siliconing one of the baffles) I will probably just be using three. The first two are as in my plan above, but I used only the lower one before the return. I really don't see the need for two there anyways as microbubbles shouldn't be that much of an issue. My silicone work was kinda messy but it is just a sump and I am not too worried !

Now maybe time to pull the trigger on a nice compact skimmer... 

[holachicka]

Pinktail trigger - great fish. Keeps scratching himself up on rocks because he likes to rocket across the tank at mach 3 and then stuff himself through small holes. Doesn't seem to phase him... he eats like a pig! Very cool fish.

I've noticed Severums bluethroat trigger do that a number of times...and agreed, boy are those little guys FAST! At any given time the trigger has scratches on his cheeks/forehead...only difference is, judging by what you say, your trigger makes it into the wholes...this trigger, not so smart, he ends up running into the rock head first...and liek you said, eats like a freakin pic He is one of my favs!

[mikerobart]

Yeah it was a toss up for me between the blue throat and pinktail... did not have the $$$ for a cross-hatch but maybe someday. Have not had any problems with respect to the fish not being reef safe other than it possibly being a snail killer... haven't seen him do it but has been a lot of killed snails lately  .  Oh and the yellow tang the trigger may or may not have killed. 

[holachicka]

really?! I don't know about the snail killer part...I don't think I have noticed that but then again, I am not there 24/7, Maybe Severum can clarify on that but I do know that his flame angel LOVES to nip at the snails little antenna's and the flame (also known as BULLY) has taken over the pistol shrimp/goby burrow You never know how the fish will react - I mean, you have an idea but in the end, I am a strong believer that every fish can totally surprise you and go against their supposed "should be" and "should not be" boxes we humans have tried to put them in

Good luck finding your snail killer