The Washington Reef 75/200 Gal Reef Tanks

@elinder wrote:
Since you posted your fish list have you been able to keep all the chromis. I was just wondering because I started with 5 and 2 made the leap of death. I've heard keeping that many doesn't work and then I see your pictures. said:
Thanks for the comments.

I had not heard that about Blue Green Reef Chromis in fact I always thought that they were an easy fish to keep and are not as aggressive as regular Damselfish. When in numbers of five or more they tend to school and hang out in the upper portion of the tank. I also have some Dark Blue Reef Damselfish that also hang out near the top of the tank and also tend to school together. I think that the color mix in the tank really sets it off along with the Anthias. We are trying not to have too many fish in the tank and just concentrate on SPS corals.

When you say a leap of death do you mean that they jumped out of your tank? Anyway I would give them another try if you really like them.
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Just wanted to provide an update on our 200 gal tank project that has been up and running for just over a year now. All the SPS corals are showing great growth. Did have a small patch of cyano and after a 2 day dark period, suggested in RC, it is now gone.

Yesterday I added a JBJ Arctica Chiller, model DBA-250 that is located in the garage and plumbed into the Sump/Fuge. The temp is set at 78 degrees and it is working great. Before the chiller the tank temps would range between 79 to 83 degrees when the lights came on yesterday it never got above 79. Using a Mag Drive 9.5 to push the water through 20 feet of tubing and the chiller which is a lot of flow and we will see what the effect is of having the chiller located in the garage when it really gets hot outside. The temps in the garage run around 100 degrees during the summer months.

I also purchased a backup Sequence Dart pump since the one return pump was a single point of failure I wanted more redundancy.

By the way the side cabinet is still not complete, the person building it started his own business and that is taking all of his time. Hope to have this complete sometime this summer and that will make the installation look much better.

With the Geo Cal reactor and the 25 gal Kalk drip system along with the auto top off the tank will sustain PH, Cal, and Alkalinity for over a week with any intervention, all that is required is for someone to feed the fish can you say vacation…
 
Since it is Mother’s Day decided to do all the things that I have been putting off. For example this morning I changed all the filters in the RO/DI unit including the RO filter TDS was measuring 10 p/m also performed a 35 gal water change on the 200 gal tank. Today I also plan on building a frag rack to hang on the back of the 200 gal tank, just in time for the Frag Swap.

Yesterday pickup three nice ORA corals at Salt Water Paradise during their 50% off sale, this is really a good deal for members. Next week it will be time to clean all the Tunze’s.

The new chiller is working great and now we can finally turn down the house AC and this will save a lot of money this summer. Last Aug our highest bill was over $800 and this year I expected it to be a lot less.
 
This in an inspiring build.

I too, really love the blue sponge. Hopefully, if you ever frag it you'll bring them to a meet.


Vy. nice job. Obviously a significant investment.

BD
 
TCU Reefer came up with a design for a frag rack that I really liked. I have wanted to add a space for frags that would be on the same water and filtering system as the main tank but just did not have the room in the sump or under the cabinet. This frag rack was the answer. I am hoping that it will blend in better once incrusted in coralline algae.

Here are some pictures of my new frag rack.

Top View:
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Side View:
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Bottom View:
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The three frags on the rack are ORA corals that I got from Extreme Corals this past weekend.

None of the parts that under the water are glued so the rack can be re-configured and made larger if ever necessary.
 
Looks good David. Lots of room for a lot of frags. You'll hardly notice it once the coralline takes over.

It looks as though in the picture, the rack is not sitting all the way down on the tank rim. Why is that?
 
If you look on the right hand side you will see a rock in the way of lowering the rack and I just decided to leave it for now. Since the parts are not glued I could cut off about one inch and then it would clear. I will do this if I determine that the corals are getting too much light and need to be lower in the tank.
 
Thanks Angela for your kind comment. I would try to take a better picture if I were going to enter into the contest.

I will be updating all the tank pictures of both our tanks in the coming weeks.
 
Trying out 2 ea Reeflux 250W 12K bulbs in the center of the tank the outside tank is still lit by XM 250W 10K’s. I will let the tank run like this for a month so that they have a chance to break-in and to see if there is any change in the color. Will also observe the livestock during this period here are some pictures.

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@orchidsnfish wrote:
[img]http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid220/p371e2eca9545deb6e154771fe3b799fd/ebae9409.jpg[/img] alt=""> This pic is so awesome. You should enter it into this months photo contest. Angela said:
Here is approx the same view taken today with the mix of the 10K & 12K lights. The other picture was taken this past Jan.

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Our two Urchins are MIA and we have not seen either of them for over a week now.

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We fear the worst. :sad: :sad: :sad: They were hitchhikers on the Tampa Bay Live Rock and have been in the tank since day one (over one and a half years).
 
I recently added more capacity to my Kalk dripping system with the addition of a new 26 gal Rubbermaid container with lid that I modified with an IV drip hose. This means that I can now drip for a full 14 days. The only thing that I need to dose is Mg when it drops below 1200 ppm.

Also added a Pinpoint wireless thermometer to the tank that allows for remote monitoring anywhere in the house it is connected to both our tanks since it has two transmitters.

Still have not completed the cabinet for the electrical equipment hopefully the guy building it for me will have it compete before Christmas.

And last added a new Powder Blue Tank this week here is a picture.

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Dave,

I remember reading this post when I first joined DFWMAS.
I always had this image of a certain mix of fish that I wanted. After reading the thread again, it seems that part of the inspiration came from your tank. Thanks for posting your expierence!

Great work, it looks absolutely beautiful!!!

Now we need a full tank shot with the powder blue to compare the additional growth. :D
 
Was hoping that it would never happen but it is, our very large Purple Tip Acro is going through a STN event. It started several weeks ago when the Green Digi touched it. Even though I cut the pieces that were touching the STN process is spreading all through the base of the coral. So far have not been able to see any apparent cause such as Red Bugs etc. and the water parameters are perfect and stable. Looks like I am going to pull the coral out and frag the healthy portions it in order to save it.

Here are the corals involved.

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Really hate the fact that I must pull and frag this coral since it has been in the tank over a year and has growing nicely (it is huge) but just can’t let it die now.

Here are some pictures of the STN event.

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By the way none of the other corals in the tank are going through this event or have any negative signs.
 
Getting a little bit of Cyano in the tank so started three days of lights out today it has been about two and a half months since the last time.

Here are some pictures taken with just the Reeflux 250W 12K bulbs and actinic lights on.

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Today we added about 40 pounds of LR that we got from other members. This fills in the back of the tank and enables us to be able to add more corals since with all the growth over the last few months we were running out of space. We will need about 15 more pounds live rock to complete the fill in.
 
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