Mikeymikemike's Shallow Reef Iwagumi - SPS Edition: Updated July

[sam_the_reefer]

Been following your tank for a while. I was hoping you'd stick with softies and let things grow in similar to how one typically does a plnted tank iwagumi but I guess you got bitten by the SPS bug.

Question: how much skimmate does your MAME skimmer pull out weekly? And is it a light/medium/dark tea color?

[Mikeymikemike]

Been following your tank for a while. I was hoping you'd stick with softies and let things grow in similar to how one typically does a plnted tank iwagumi but I guess you got bitten by the SPS bug.

 

Question: how much skimmate does your MAME skimmer pull out weekly? And is it a light/medium/dark tea color?

 

I have been bitten by the sps bug. I must admit and swallow my own words as I remember telling a friend, "I don't think I will do SPS..."

 

I still have all the zoas and since doubling my AA dosing and getting my phosphates a bit higher they seem to be happier and growing faster. My gold zoas that i started off with only 2 polyps are now 6 in the space of 2 weeks.

 

Sps growth has been good and poci growth I notice over the course of a few days.

 

------

 

The mame skimmer pulls out about 30ml of skimmate daily. I tend to wet skim and the water light brown to grey. Since carbon dosing the skimmate has gone darker.

 

I have already purchased a coral box d500 skimmer which is a little bit of an overkill for this tank. Let's see how that goes.

[xcom]

people are more sensitive than marine invertebrates LOL.

Great looking tank btw.

[duncan-junkie]

Your tank is impressive, as are your aqua-scaping skills. I really enjoy'd looking over your tank thread.....keep kicking ass!!

[Mikeymikemike]

Thanks guys

 

So this is the sump my friend helped me with designing. I've gone for an adjustable return baffle, and built in ATO chamber.

 

 

 

Here it is getting cut on the CNC router. The level of detail that goes into this is amazing. Each join and line needs to be perfect as it all slides into place with cut grooves.

 

[RollaJase]

Very nice work on the sump, should flow really well. My only issue with integrated ATO reservoirs is that they are a PITA to clean, especially in confined stands. Excellent for space saving though. Your design will help cut down on a lot of the maintenance issues caused by excessive light though which is a big bonus.

[Mikeymikemike]

A small update

 

(picture taken with an orange gel filter and 25% white 80%blue lights.

 

I added more to the left side to get balance and moved the montipora to a lower light zone.

 

My corals have been going a little more pastel due to ulns but now I'm feeding more to get darker colours

 

 

 

 

For those curious: here's a photo without the orange gel filter or any editing.

You get a lot of blue/blurple. I use a cloth over the lights to stop glare.

[metrokat]

Very impressive growth, it's just 6 months old right?

[Mikeymikemike]

Thanks Kat, the sps are growing slowly, while the poci seems to have had a growth spurt since I started using a dosing pump.

 

The tank is now 11 months old

[Mikeymikemike]

Mini video update

 

[metrokat]

Whatever you are doing, bottle it and sell it to me.

[Mikeymikemike]

You can have it for free (I use natural sea water)

[jstuver]

Beautiful tank, I actually prefer the second picture myself the ones with gel filters look way to fake on the colors to me and being a photographer it just throws me off.

[Mikeymikemike]

If you saw this tank in person, the picture with the gel filter is closer to what it looks like with our eyes under my maxspect light daytime settings. One downfall is that the camera sensor can only compensate for white balance so far on my 60D that goes up to around 10k. The maxspect lights use a combination of very deep blues and yellows on the opposite end 3500k 5000k. (older units 16k version had 8000k cool white) The resulting look is a super "blurple" look, or if yellows are only used then the tank looks very warm. It is hard to explain to anyone who does not have the light unit themselves. I am thinking of experimenting with t5 lighting. I have access to a whole bunch of ATI units but they are all 4ft...

[cnseekatz]

Gorgeous tank bro...Well done.

[Illuiix]

I call this shet kray.

[Mikeymikemike]

Just a bit of an update on things. I have converted my system over to artificial salt water. After I noticed that my source had around 30ppb of phosphorus I decided the stability was not there every time i did a water change. I'm guessing it was due to recent storms stirring up the beach water and perhaps some collected run-off water from drains.

 

I'm now using Marine salt from an Australian company called Ultimate Aquacare. They make some amazing products for anyone who is in Australia.

[Mikeymikemike]

SUMP!

 

Here it is in all its glory!

[holy carp]

That sump looks great. What kind of a sump had you been running until now?

[dropped]

SUMP!

 

Here it is in all its glory!

 

 

Damm are you pretty much going to double your volume? that sump is massive compared to the tank haha.

[Mikeymikemike]

That sump looks great. What kind of a sump had you been running until now?

 

Thanks, the sump was designed from the bottom up. It's made with PVC gloss panels and are plastic welded. Definitely over engineered. The volume of water will double with this sump.

 

So far I have been running a canister filter

[RollaJase]

That thing turned out great, looks solid.

[Mikeymikemike]

Topdown Tuesday!

[RollaJase]

Topdown Tuesday!

Just like Topless Tuesday but better .

 

Everything is looking great. When is the sump going in?

[Mikeymikemike]

August update:

 

Corals are growing and my poci has made a 100% recovery

 

Before

 

 

After