Hi All,
I need your help! In a nutshell, I lost my 3 year old reef tank last January due to a power outage while I was out of town. When I came home, everything was dead and I was SICK at the loss. Now I have the chance to do it again but I don't want to make mistakes that can be avoided. Basically I will put pictures up of my tank and describe what all I have in the tank, sump, filtration, rock, circulation, lighting, etc., and let those of you who have many more years experience than I do, advise me what needs changed and to what. I can take as many pictures as needed to accomplish this. So if there is something you want to see to better, closer, or a different angle just ask and I'll post those. I want to do this right rather than figuring out I have some major problems a year or so down the road. Thus far I’ve had no major problems with my water chemistry but I can go into that as well if need be. I’m 2 months into re-building my reef tank right now so I think now is the best time to make changes since I didn’t have the advantage of this forum and everyone’s experience 2 months ago. I’m sure this won’t be my last tank, or the biggest tank I'll ever own and the more I can learn now, the easier it will be as time goes on so let the critique begin.
My tank is a 48" Wide x 24" Tall x 18" Deep.
My lighting is 2 150 watt, 14000 K Aqualight Advanced Series HQI Metal Halide Fixtures.
The overflow is in the back Left corner which drains into my sump after filtering through two fine foam filters.
The sump (Oceanic Systems - Reef Ready) dimensions are 36" wide x 12" deep x 17" tall. I have 1 gal of bio-balls in a home made Plexiglas box and a phosguard filter where the water exits. There is another 20 ppi foam filter in my sump where the water passes from one side to the other. My return pump is outside the sump and connected via plumbing. The pump is an Ehiem Hobby Pump although I can't remember exactly which one it is and it’s out of sight.
My UV Sterilizer is a Turbo Twist x3 9w and the pump for that is a Maxi-Jet 400 (106gph).
The skimmer is a Pro Clear Aquatic Systems out of Jacksonville, Florida.
Starting from the bottom up inside the tank, the substrates are 4 bags of Aragamax Sand on the bottom and two bags of Florida Crushed Coral/Shell on top of the sand.
I have spaghetti worms living in the substrate as well as a Diamond Watchman Gobie, a Lawnmower Blenny (Salarias fasciatus), 12 Nassarius Vibex snails and 10 Scarlet Hermit Crabs which all keep my substrate aerated.
My Live Rock is mostly Fiji Premium Live Rock but some is Caribbean Live Rock. I would guess that it’s right around 100 Lbs.
I have an external box filter that is a Rena Filstar xP3. The bottom canister is the 30 ppi foam on the bottom, on top of that is 20 ppi foam. The middle Canister has Ceramic rings in the bottom half and the top is SeaGel which takes care of organics, silicates, toxic metals, acids and phosphates. I’ll include description of the flow in and out of the filter under Circulation.
I’ll leave the coral description out as you can see most of it in the pictures.
Circulation: This will be very challenging to describe but I’ll give it my best try.
My return is split into two flat directional pieces and both aimed across the top of the water giving me good surface mixture and water flowing the length of the tank from left to right.
On the right hand side of the tank on the front corner half way between the top and bottom of the tank, exactly opposite the return flow, I have a power sweep power head giving me a very good current across the front of the tank.
Additionally I have a small Mini-jet 404 that is at the top of the tank just below the water level mounted on the back glass aiming the water forward to the front glass.
My return from the Filter box is 6� below water level, aimed toward the front glass from the back glass. The water is distributed evenly out eight holes in a 1� piece of PVC. The intake to the Rena Filstar xP3 is in the right hand back corner and 5� up from the substrate.
Hmmmm…. What have I left out?
Some questions I have right off the bat are:
Should I do away with the bio-balls?
Should I get rid of the crushed coral and use only the sand?
Should I keep the ceramic rings in the external filter?
Do I have enough circulation?
Should my LR have more space between them?
What other things do you see or suspect could cause me problems in the future?
I'll post some more pictures tomorrow that are higher resolution and closer to help determine if I need to make some changes.