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Cronic's 75g Reef (100% Biological Filtration)


CronicReefer

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Hello everyone and thanks for stopping by my tank thread. I started my first reef tank in June of 2014. It was mostly a success considering it was my first tank and so I decided an upgrade was due. This time I could correct the mistakes I made and create a reef that will last for hopefully a decade or more. Build progress, equipment, stocking, and lots of pictures below. All comments and advice are greatly appreciated.

Current Goal: Stock tank with chalices and various brain corals. Once the tank has matured further I hope to get a Fingered Dragonet. Absolutely beautiful fish but I want to make sure it is not going to be relying on frozen foods for its nutrition.
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Water Parameters:
pH - 8.0+
Alkalinity - 8.5dkh
Calcium - 400ppm
Magnesium - 1250ppm

Salt:
Red Sea - Red Sea Salt

Supplements:
Microbacter7
Calcion, Magnesion and Sodium Carbonate to replenish major elements

NO3-PO4X

Lighting:
Aquatic Life 6x54W T5 w/ Moonlight and Controller

        2x ATI Blue+, 1x ATI Coral+, 1x ATI Aquablue
Truelumen Pro 36" 453nm Blue LED Striplight x2
Reefbreeders Superlux for Refugium

Equipment/Filtration List:
Marineland 75 Gallon Aquarium
Eshopps PF-800 Overflow
Eshopps R-100 Refugium/Sump
Aquamaxx ConeS CO-1 Protein Skimmer
Sicce Multi Quiet 4000 Return Pump
Jebao RW-4 and RW-8
4-5" Deep Sand Bed
~100lbs of Haitian Rock

Refugium with 10lbs of Miracle Mud and Chaeto

Brightwell Aquatics NO3 Brick

Clean Up Crew:
15x Banded Trochus Snails

10x Turbo Snails
1x Giant Mexican Turbo Snail

1x Turban Snail
4x Nassarius Snail
1x Emerald Crab

1x Fighting Conch
Berghia Nudibranch

Livestock:
Breeding Clownfish Pair

Tomini Tang

Foods:
LRS Reef Frenzy fed daily.
Julian Sprung's Green Marine Algae

Coral List:

Yellow Eye Favite

Luigi Favia

Red/White/Blue Chalice

Unkown Orange SPS

Blue Tipped Pocillipora

Green Millepora

Black/Orange Zoa

Pink Chaos Zoa

PPE Zoa

Red Acan Colony

Fluorescent Yellow Hydnophora
Various Ricordea Yuma/Florida
Purple Tipped Green Frogspawn
Cherry Blastomusa

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Just got the protein skimmer in the mail today :D. I'll be putting this thing in a vinegar bath to get it nice and clean for the new tank. It's much larger than I originally thought it would be but it will still fit with plenty of room in the sump I bought. It's constructed very well and comes apart quite easily for cleaning each part individually. I took a picture of it next to my computer for scale. I'm still undecided on lights for the new tank. I can't decide if I want to go with T5s for all the great color combinations or buy some of the v3 boards from NanoBox and create my own LED light. Decisions, decisions.

 

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Got the rest of the equipment today for the filtration. The R-100 sump from eshopps arrived in great condition without any scratches. I should be getting the tank within the next week or two once the holidays are over and then I can finally begin cycling.

 

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Going to be picking up the new tank today once the carpet is finished getting cleaned. Got to figure out the landscape still but I'll be making a 4-5 inch DSB, mainly for my lobster's burrow. Going to use 140lbs of Nature's Ocean No.0 marine white as it has the smallest rated grain size I've been able to find at 0.1mm-0.5mm. I will also be using 20lbs their live reef substrate for larger particles for the burrow and to seed the new tank for cycling. I'll be using dry rock from the LFS and my current live rock for the new scape (my lobster would miss his glowing rock house). I'll be posting pictures once I get it wet and to test some landscapes.

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Finally got back with the tank. I had planned on getting a 65 gallon but the LFS had a 75 gallon with stand for only $100 more so I decided to go for a longer rather than deeper tank. Maybe now I can get the flame angel I always wanted. I'm going to clear coat and reinforce the stand with brackets before assembling the plumbing and installing the sump as I'm expecting this reef to last many years to come.

P.S. stand not pictured

 

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After much research and contemplation on what lighting system to buy for my new tank I finally decided on an Aquaticlife 48" 6x54W T5HO fixture. I had originally planned on a DIY LED system with all the works but for the price of only $285 new with bulbs I couldn't pass it up. It also comes with a 2channel timer for actinic/daylight and a third 4w moonlight channel. The bulb configuration I'm going with is 3x Actinic, 1x Purple, 1x 10,000K, 1x14000K. I plan to suspend the lights over the tank so I'll have to figure out a good distance as I plan on keeping mostly SPS in this tank. I also ordered 200lbs of sand to create a 4" sand bed for my lobster make a comfy burrow with. I should start plumbing by next Wednesday if everything goes to plan this week.

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It sounds very nice! I had an Aquatic life T5HO. I love the digital timer that was built in. Mine was a 30" tank but the bulbs were only 24" and I did not love that. Also mine was finicky and the bulbs flickered and some times went off when I moved the fixture. Hopefully that was only an anomaly with my fixture.

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It sounds very nice! I had an Aquatic life T5HO. I love the digital timer that was built in. Mine was a 30" tank but the bulbs were only 24" and I did not love that. Also mine was finicky and the bulbs flickered and some times went off when I moved the fixture. Hopefully that was only an anomaly with my fixture.

I would be happy with price even if I had to wire it myself :P. I'm glad to hear you liked it though. I'm a little curious as to the color as I see most people seem to use ATI lamps.

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I would be happy with price even if I had to wire it myself :P. I'm glad to hear you liked it though. I'm a little curious as to the color as I see most people seem to use ATI lamps.

My fixture was a 4x24 watt and I had 10k, actinic, coral and magenta. I have never used ATI bulbs but I would love to try them. I have bought whatever my lfs had but they have since gone out of buisness. Now my Coralife fixture uses 30" bulbs so I will probably have to order them online anyway since 30" is harder to get.

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It's finally wet! Just leak testing it today and tomorrow I'll start filling with ro/di to mix up the saltwater. Going to take 24hrs to fill this thing up. In the mean time I'll work on some aquascapes. I'm heading to the LFS to find some nice dry rock to work with.

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First of the rock structures. My LFS sells a type of cement for creating rock structures so I'm using that to hold everything together. Just got to wait for everything to cure now :D. Planning for this to go in the back right corner.

 

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Some FTS of the aquascape so far. I need to find another piece or two to finish it off but I like the look of everything so far. I'll probably add a second shelf on the rock structure on the left about mid way up and maybe extend the rocks a little further along the back wall. I'll probably add another shelf if I extend the back wall as well and throw down a few pieces of small rocks in the sand to finish it off. My goal is have the tank cycle started by the end of the week.

 

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Okay so I did a little rearranging and added another large rock I had to create more of a back wall. I'm liking this look a lot better. The bottom 2-3 inches of the rocks will be covered with sand.

 

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Time to get sandy! All my sand has come in, almost time to cycle! 120lbs of Natures Ocean Marine White #0, 0.1mm-0.5mm grain size. 40lbs of CaribSea Bahama Oolite, 0.25mm-1.0mm grain size. 32lbs of Natures Ocean Reef Substrate, 1.0mm-2.5mm grain size. Also grabbed a 10lb bag of Miracle Mud for the refugium.

 

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Got the tank filled up over the course of yesterday and last night. The powerhead I was using slipped off the rock and blew a bunch of sand everywhere so I'm letting that clear up in the mean time while the salt is mixing. Picked up two buckets of Brightwell NeoMarine today, I highly recommend this salt to anyone looking for an extremely consistent mixing salt with an almost 1:1 identical match of natural seawater. 20151231_131847.jpg

 

Once everything settles and I get the live sand in to start the cycle I'll post pictures of the final aquascape.

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