Funky's 60g Rimless SPS - (in progress)

[Funky_Fish14]

Hey Folks,

So I finally got my head out of my rear and decided to move on from my last embarrassing salt tank. It was basically a neglected ball of hair algae...

I’ve always had the SPS itch... I dont have a ton of time to do something crazy, but want to do something clean, manageable and colourful. I got a decent deal on a new semi-cube 60gal w/corner overflow, 3 holes drilled in bottom (sweet, perfect for herbie and return). Ordered a sump from concept aquariums in calgary (holy crud they are quick, and do great work!). Had been accumulating assorted gizmos over the last year so here is where its at to start with:

60gal trimless tank, (outside dims, 27 front to back, 30wide, 18 tall),
55g sump? (27x 33 wide x 15 tall?)
Apex Lite Controller
1x Vortech MP10w ES
Deltec APF600 Skimmer
Hamilton 250W halide fixture & 20K Reeflux bulb
NextReef MR1 w/bio pellets
Prodibio dosing system on order
Mag3 return pump


Because threads are useless without pics (and we all want to know what's what):

Tank is cloudy as I just did a glass scrub before taking pics










Current livestock list:

2x Cinnamon clownfish ("Boso" the clown is 8 years old, first SW fish I ever bought, and has been my avatar forever)
1x Threadfin cardinal
1x Orange Line Cardinal
1x Red Tailspot Cardinal
1x Starry Blenny
1x Bullet Goby “Gobiosoma macrodon”


















Inverts:

3x Berghia Nudibranch
2x Peppermint Shrimp
8-10 Hermit Crabs?
4x Nassarius Snail
1x Astrea snail
2x Margarita snail
1x Cerith snail
2x “Rock-boring Urchins”



These two were having a standoff while I was taking shots of the tank, haha.












Corals:

2x No-idea-what-kind Acros
1x Staghorn?
1 Colony Star Polyps
1 Tiny BTA

















There were a few aiptasia (10-15?) around the rocks when I first set it up, so I picked up some berghias and peppermints. (Peppermints for ‘long term management’... i’ve had previous success with them against aiptasia). There are only a couple aiptasia left now I think, in just over a week of having the berghias in there.

The softies just happened to be making in it the old tank, so they were moved to the new one. I added 3 random SPS to track the progress of colours and growth from the start. (I am so ‘out of the game’... have not kept up with all the names etc... forgotten some... all I know is the colours can be sexy, and I love fuzzy sticks!). I used D-D epoxy to secure the frags to the rocks. None of my rock-work is secured because I do plan to upgrade the tank to cover the whole stand, 30x36 footprint, at some point. (yeah I set this up and already have an upgrade planned... lol)



Equipment:


Vortech
The vortech is sexy. I love how the thing runs... the hum/winding up/down sound it makes is kind of annoying, and i hear it best from the TV room next to it, but not in the fish room? Anyways we all know vortechs are sexy... but a lone MP10 is not enough for the tank... I have no dead spots around the rock work... but I would like to push more water around the tank. I am not interested in the MP40... just because of it’s physical size, so will go with another MP10 and see how that goes.




Skimmer

My Deltec... i’ve had it for 3 years... the feed line from my bio-pellet reactor is aimed right at it... i have a gate valve on it... I clean it regularly... but feel I just dont get the skimming I should out of the darn thing. I dont feed a crazy amount, and only use dry foods... I used to have a fuge, and I still have 3 mangroves and cheato. Maybe these take some of the D.O. away, or maybe the skimmer is oversized? I’ve always had a low bioload... in fact i haven’t had 7 fish in a tank for like 5 years, nevermind this many inverts too. This is probably the heaviest i’ve stocked a tank. This may be my problem? (its too light stocking/feeeding for skimmer, or the skimmer is oversize, pretty sure thats it). Maybe I should ditch the mangroves and cheato? Anyways, starting prodibio might improve my production... but maybe I should just try another skimmer? There are a heck of a lot of neat skimmers out nowadays. Skims, BM, Vertex, Bubble king still of course. I don’t know... They all sound like they work great. Any input appreciated!


Lighting

Lighting... I got the hamilton dirt cheap... the reflux bulb was a quick solution for colour and getting away from the crappy hamilton bulb that came with fixture. The tank looks alright under this light... but I would like to get maybe a little more blue... and I would like to get more light over it. I DO want to keep the halide... With additional lighting switch it to a good 10K bulb. Now this may sound weird... is it dumb to do something like add an LED fixture, or LED spotlight type fixtures, over the tank as well? I like the look of lights being quite high off the tank, so horsepower is good. Any suggestions on fixtures? Should I just add T5’s instead? Another 250W halide? Basically... ‘what would you do?’. The board members here are pretty smart, and with all the good stuff on the market, I feel like I cant go wrong with board suggestions.



Apex Controller:



Fun toy... looking forward to using it remotely, but pretty much know nothing about networking... I use a mac, but the ‘house computer’ is a PC. Mac cannot access the apex controller from the http://apex address on the home network... so you need the IP. Its automatically a dynamic IP, so here I am worried about the Apex IP changing, so I tried to set a static IP and i did something wrong. PC pooped itself and apex became inaccessible, and then I got a little worried lol. Reset buttons are good, because that was about the extend of my networking understanding Anyways got onto it, running my lights off it and heater etc... its nice to see the temp graphs... (*edit - will attach graphs later). The amperage graph is neat to watch too.

Im looking forward to running my 2 FW tanks off the same controller.



Plans to expand the apex:
Enable remote access
Add webcam remote access
WXM controller to control Vortechs
Digital input expansion unit
Float switches for FW topoff, waterchanges, and topoff my FW tanks.
extra temp probes for freshwater tanks
EB8 powerbar
Salinity probe (to do auto waterchanges/monitor)
pH probe

(put it out right now - are you super awesome with networking etc...? $100 will be paid, looking for someone willing to come set-up remote access of my apex and webcams in a month or so. I just dont have hours to lookup how to do it, and dont want to screw it up haha).



Return Pump

The Mag-drive return pump... Its actually suprisingly quiet... my skimmer pump is obnoxious compared to it, but eventually i’ll replace it with something quieter/more efficient. (Eheim, red dragon, or one of the other million new brands of terrific pumps whos names I cant remember at all? hey anyone want to pick one? lol)



Prodibio:

I’ve ordered 2 “Biokit Reef” kits. Im looking forward to starting this sytem. As I am not home on any regular schedule, (well, my tank’s home at my parent’s place), the apex will make my life much easier and the prodibio’s low dosing frequency and ease of use will be a great advantage. I plan to off-line the bio-pellets eventually. Hopefully prodibio will help clear out the last little patches of hair algae remaining and pull out crazy colours on the corals.




I have ordered the calcireef+ as well for now... but I’ll probably end up going with the simplest looking dosing system, (well not that i’ve really checked any others out, but...), the profilux standalone doser? It seems like a solid system, pre-mix the bottles and it can dose for a good period of time.


Water
Water Source: The house is on well-water, and I use an Aquasafe R/O unit w/booster pump to filter all my aquarium water. The water starts out SO high (comes in variably, from 800-1200ppm TDS), so even out of my membranes i end up at about 20-40ppm. DI would get saturated too quickly at this rate, so I dont bother. (the incoming water is very cold too, the well is 180ft).

I’d like to chat with BWI about getting something a little higher volume/more efficent, as we use quite a bit of R/O water in the house as well (watering house plants, making coffee, sometimes drinking, boiling, etc...)

Salt: Im using Royal Nature salt. I was using D-D H2Ocean before (not that I really had corals who cared lol), but I figured i’d give the Royal Nature a try with this tank. We’ll see how it goes. Thanks to Snappy in Calgary for the salt.




So, things that I need to start/get/upgrade:

-Additional Lighting
-Vortech MP10
-Prodibio
-Return pump
-Apex accessories
-Skimmer (get new? cry over and live with this one?)
-Hanna Checkers (Phos/Alk) (didnt discuss these, but I need test kits for everything)
-Other test kits

Also - planning to add some waterchange and topoff bins under the staircase in the wall behind the tank. These will be where topoff water, excess electrical cords, and waterchange bins will be located.



Pictures were all taken with a “Cannon Powershot SX10is”. I have no idea what im doing with a camera, but I did use a Tripod (hurray for finally getting one... its much easier to get pictures that aren’t completely junk now lol). Anyways, my point and shoot will have to do till I get a DSLR someday.



I appreciate any and all input. If you have suggestions on equipment or techniques, please toss them in! If you think I suck at taking pictures, or have no idea what im doing, dont hesitate to poke fun at me! Haha.

Thanks for looking!

Cheers,

Chris