# Sharing some pics of my reef tank



## DonH (Jan 25, 2003)

Here are pics of my 90 gallon bare bottom reef equipped with a 30 gallon refugium, an oversized skimmer, 2 x 250W metal halides run on IceCap ballasts and XM 15K bulbs and 2 110W VHO actinics. There's also a 1/3 HP JBJ Artica Chiller and 2 Koralias for circulation since it's mainly an SPS tank. 10% water changes/week with Tropic Marin Pro Salt, kalk drip for top off - supplemented with B-ionic 2 part alk + calcium and magnesium and some ZeoVit additives (Coral Vitalizer, High Concentrate Amino Acids, Sponge Power, Coral Snow). Thinking about going full Zeo...

Fish are fed at least twice a day with combinations of mysis, brineshrimp, spirulina and cyclopeeze soaked in garlic, Zoecon, and Zoe multivit. Corals are fed DT phytoplankton, Reef Nutrition's Rotifeast, and cyclopeeze about 3 times a week. Water is tested weekly with Calcium @ 460 ppm, Alk 8 dKH, nitrates 0-5 ppm, phosphate 0 ppm (API test kit). Getting a new Salifert Magnesium kit today...

Inhabitants:
female crosshatch trigger
sohal tang
chevron tang
purple tang
2 Anthias dispar
1 sunburst anthias 
M/F pair of Watanabe angels
2 neon gobies
Had a beautiful small regal angel that ate well but started developing a taste for clams and polyps so it's gone)

Corals:
Birdsnest:
ORA green
purple tip
pink

Montipora: 
Green capricornus
Red capricornus
Purple rim
Tyree sunset 
Tyree monasteriata
Tyree Idaho grape
Green base orange polyp digitata

SPS:
yellow tort
Cali tort
Oregon tort
Acro. suharsonoi
Tyree Bali tricolor
Unidentified orange base purple tip acro
Tricolor nana
GARF bonsai
Tyree Royal Plum acro
Mike Paletta Turquoise lovelli
Steve Elias Stag
Acro. turaki
Porites sp. 
Green horrida
Crayola Table Acro
Green polyp Pocillopora
Acro. granulosa
Ultimate's Insane millepora

LPS, Mushrooms, polyps:
frogspawn
Green Ricordea yuma
Orange yuma
Green mushrooms
Superman mushroom
Red mushrooms
"Armor of God" polyps
Tubbs blue polyps
Red People Eater
Cespitularia sp. (Blue Xenia)

and various other palys and polyps

I think that's it...


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## jasert39 (May 1, 2003)

wow really nice. How does the trigger get along with everything? Are you planning on upgrading sometime?

Really nice tank and corals look beautiful...how long has it been setup?


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## DonH (Jan 25, 2003)

Thanks... The crosshatch trigger doesn't bother anything now. She did eat all 5 of my Banghai cardinals the first week she was introduced to the tank.







Other than that, she has left all coral, inverts and fish alone. The sohal tang is also a model citizen which suprises me...

I am planning on upgrading to a 180 gallon starphire front LeeMar tank soon. This tank has been set up for about 2 months but the live rock and larger coral (like yellow scroll, frogspawn, green capricornus, some of the acros and polyps/mushrooms), we have had for about 2 years. It was initially my sister's setup but I took over since she didn't have the time.

Just got home from LFS with a new Zeovit reactor and the basic 4 so I'm going full Zeo.


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## nismo driver (Jan 27, 2004)

have you tried any other system to run low nutrient system before this current start of zeo?

were are you that a LFS carries zeo?

More pics!!!!


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## DonH (Jan 25, 2003)

My tank has always had low nitrate/phosphates (not sure if it's because of the huge ball of chaeto in the fuge or the amount of water changes I do) but I wanted to see what happens to color/growth/PE when I bring it down to VERY low. I really want the purple and blues to really "pop". I was thinking about doing a hybrid Prodibio/Zeovit system to save a little money but decided to just run the whole Zeo system. People I've talked to who ran Zeo and then went to Prodibio returned to Zeo. So I'm just going to take the initial hit and get the reactor. About $500 later, I'm going to have it running by tonight.

I'm in SoCal so everything is pretty much a short drive away. I got my reactor from OC Aquatics in Fountain Valley.


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## nismo driver (Jan 27, 2004)

DonH said:


> My tank has always had low nitrate/phosphates (not sure if it's because of the huge ball of chaeto in the fuge or the amount of water changes I do) but I wanted to see what happens to color/growth/PE when I bring it down to VERY low. I really want the purple and blues to really "pop". I was thinking about doing a hybrid Prodibio/Zeovit system to save a little money but decided to just run the whole Zeo system. People I've talked to who ran Zeo and then went to Prodibio returned to Zeo. So I'm just going to take the initial hit and get the reactor. About $500 later, I'm going to have it running by tonight.
> 
> I'm in SoCal so everything is pretty much a short drive away. I got my reactor from OC Aquatics in Fountain Valley.


i considered trying the prodibio but have been doing carbon dosing instead, at first i was noticing a definate reduction in nusance algae growth but that trend seems to have reversed, im running a shallow sand bed in the display so i think this might be part of my problem i need to either go deeper or go BB and for my tank its difficult to vac under alot fo teh overhangs so BB would be best. at this time i cant really do that since i have a yellow coris wrasse that needs a sand bed to burrow at night. even with the nusance algae growth my sps still has decent color and growth.

do you have a sand bed in your fuge? if so how deep?

why do you keep your calcium so out of balance with your Alk? do you have problems with calcium precipitation or gunk build up in our powerheads or pumps?

sorry for so many questions.


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## DonH (Jan 25, 2003)

I was thinking about doing the vodka/sugar/vinegar method too but I've read recently that people were experiencing the same problems you are having so not sure if there's going to be any long term success with that method.

I just have a bunch of rubble rock for copepods and chaeto in the fuge. I didn't use a sand bed because it would have to be at least 4" deep for denitrification and didn't want to use that much sand. The chaeto seems to be doing a good job on it's own. It's a moot point anyway since I had to remove every thing from the fuge to start Zeo. The only thing in there now is a filter sock, protein skimmer, Zeo reactor, and a little bag of activated carbon.

The calcium is a bit high and I'm in the process of slowly lowering it to 420 ppm by dosing less calcium in the 2 part. I'm still tweaking the system because I just started kalk dripping a few weeks ago. Some SPS keepers on RC have had great success with lower alk and higher calcium. My SPS's, especially the montis, are growing great with the high calcium. There's been no precipitation in the tank but coralline algae is growing all over the place and it's a lot of work to keep it off the walls. I like the black background clean and try to limit coralline to the rocks but you can see that the overflow box is now covered and so will the glass bottom soon.

BTW, just tested magnesium and it's at 1250 so I'll need to bump that up to 1300.


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## Grosse Gurke (Jan 3, 2003)

Beautiful tank Donny!


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## thePACK (Jan 3, 2003)

TASTY...does the sohal play nice with the others?


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## DonH (Jan 25, 2003)

Thanks guys... I bought the sohal tang from a RC member who's had it for over a year with no problems with his other fish. So far, so good...


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## redbellyman21 (Jun 27, 2004)

very nice tank, and insightful list/setup


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## notaverage (Sep 10, 2005)

WOW!
That is a very nice tank...You have a very nice collection there DonH


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## upgradepc (Jan 30, 2009)

yeah thats a beautiful tank!


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## His Majesty (Apr 5, 2005)

this is pretty old not sure why it was dragged up again

however it really is a beautiful tank. i like the no substrate look.

you got any updates on the tank?
anything major change or it still going strong?


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