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Marcus and Camille's 75 gallon (1 Viewer)

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TooMuchDog

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So we started our reefing journey about a year ago with a used 75 gallon tank, stand, canopy, and canister filter we got from a business in the Woodlands. I figured it's finally time to start a build thread.

When we started we used about 50 pounds of live rock, some filter floss, and some little rocks in filter socks inside the canister for filtration. After a few months we attempted some corals and had mild success but saw I was having phosphate problems, so we started with adding a HOB skimmer and some GFO into the canister to help. This still wasn't enough and had me believing it was the rocks leeching. Luckily, we won the algae reactor from the MARSH bingo. Setting that up without a sump proved a challenge because it was leaking everywhere. Eventually we gave in and turned a 15 gallon tall tank into a simple two chamber sump with a HOB overflow and the algae reactor pump as the return pump. This quickly stabilized our phosphates from about .3 to .07ish. We also had a huge algae bloom twice in the tank so we ran the little green machine UV sterilizer from petco to clear that up.

In terms of pumps, we just use two small tunze pumps we got from another reefer as the tank is mostly LPS and doesn't seem to enjoy higher flow. For lighting we have two AI prime 16s and 4 48" T4 bulbs we built into the canopy. Unfortunately these T4s put out enough heat to overheat and shut off the LEDs during the day so we had to get a bit ghetto and put a desk fan in the canopy to pump some heat out.

Currently we are just starting to dose using the kamoer x1 pump. Alk kept dropping down to 6 so we spent a week bringing it up to 9 using soda ash. Now I'm just trying to dial in the daily amount to dose. We also ordered an ATO and need to find an auto feeder because the tank will be alone for a week around Christmas. If anyone has any auto feeder suggestions please let me know.

For inhabitants Camille likes the stranger ocean life to be in the tank. This leads to us having things like:
Tiger tail sea cucumber
Wandering dendro
A huge feather duster
Blue linckia star which surprisingly has made it a few months now, found out they don't live long in the tank after we already purchased it

Many LPS in the tank plus a sherman bta we got when we started that has split once already
A gigantic green carpet anomene that has claimed a whole rock to itself with our pair of clowns as it's defender
A huge engineer goby that loves burying my things in sand
An orange back fairy wrasse and pintail fairy wrasse
A one spot fox face
A yellow eye kole tang

Now for some pictures of some of the tank, which is all that is interesting anyway. I'm sure Cody will recognize a lot of his corals in here.

Engineer goby stealing a whole algae round from the tang and foxface
20201119_095438.jpg

Left side of the tank with some of our oldest corals. The red goni, elegance, smaller acan, and golden hammer were all some of the original corals we tried.

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Clowns and their nem we got from galactic coral about 6 months ago. They started hosting this after we tried to force them into the rbta using a breeder box. There's also our mushroom rock in the bottom left. That red shroom already has two babies on that rock.

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Chalice in the back turning into only eyes, foxface being in my face as usual, and our zoa rock.

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One of my other favorite fish, our pintail wrasse.
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NY Knicks torch we just picked up from TAP anniversary sale.
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That's it for now. Let me know what you think. Any suggestions or advice is welcome as we are still kind of new to this.
 

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Erin

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Looks great! What's your secret for keeping the goniopoa alive? Mine only lasted a few months before fading away... I haven't tried one on over a year.
 
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TooMuchDog

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Looks great! What's your secret for keeping the goniopoa alive? Mine only lasted a few months before fading away... I haven't tried one on over a year.
Thanks! Wish I could say we have some secret for them but I really don't know. Our tank is probably "dirtier" than most with phosphate around .07 and nitrate around 5. We tried a yellow goni that didn't make it after seeing our red one doing so well. I've heard that the red are the easiest ones from other reefkeepers. We just recently got a pink that seems to be doing good too that you see in the same photo but it's too early to tell. We also feed reef roids on rare occasions. Used to be weeklyish but have been getting lazy with it since it seems to bring phosphates up.

Attached some goni progress pics.

20200722143516.jpg 20200628171010.jpg 20200309_153200.jpg
 
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mittens

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Green killing machine UV is awesome, esp for little tanks, until it’s not. Once the bulb kicks the bucket you need to buy a whole new housing with bulb, which is half the price of the entire unit.


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TooMuchDog

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Green killing machine UV is awesome, esp for little tanks, until it’s not. Once the bulb kicks the bucket you need to buy a whole new housing with bulb, which is half the price of the entire unit.


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That's what I've heard as well! We've only used it for the two times we had a huge algae bloom and that was 6 months ago. Photo attached of how bad it got, pardon the blues. Hopefully it'll last for just the rare occasion it is needed

20200418_095710.jpg
 

mittens

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That's what I've heard as well! We've only used it for the two times we had a huge algae bloom and that was 6 months ago. Photo attached of how bad it got, pardon the blues. Hopefully it'll last for just the rare occasion it is needed

20200418_095710.jpg

The customer service is outstanding though. I explained the situation where all 3 of mine went dead at the 3 month mark. The bulbs are supposed to last 6-9 months being on continuous. He had said there were batches that were off. He sent me 3 new bulb replacements at no cost. Also, they’re a lot cheaper on Amazon.


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TooMuchDog

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Got to add our new ATO today. Pretty simple setup. will be nice to not be scooping cups of water every morning.

Also got some murlok fittings for our dosing containers I need to add. Might drill the ato bucket I'm using as well.

But of course one of my powerheads decided to go out today too. Always something to buy with this hobby.

Looking to upgrade from our basic tunze dc powerhead. I didn't like the narrow flow pattern it had. Deciding between an icecap 2k or mp10. We don't need a ton of flow but have been experimenting with sps lately and I'd hate for the milli to be lacking flow.
 
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TooMuchDog

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How did you narrow down your options to the Icecap 2K and MP10? Just curious because I'm building a 75G and am shopping for flow.
Well we started with a pair of tunze dc pumps. The controllability I'd say is a must for me. Also I really like that tunze sells all the replacement parts for their pumps. My flow needs have gone up through the year the tank has been up but the pumps have been able to mostly handle it by just increasing turbulence or power.

To me though I had some complaints that for the price point being close to the other big names i didn't see a reason to buy again. They seem to add a lot of heat, so the vortechs help with that. They're a pain to clean because you have to remove the whole controller, point for vortech again. And they have a pretty narrow "cone" where the flow is high which leads to some dead spots that seem to be favorites for the fish to go poop in, so a point for the icecap.

I haven't totally narrowed it down. Seems that those two may have their own issues. Which pumps were you considering?
 

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I haven't totally narrowed it down. Seems that those two may have their own issues. Which pumps were you considering?

I'm planning to keep macroalgae and softies so I don't need a lot of flow. The dream is to get MP10s (for the aesthetics) but I don't think one would be enough movement for a 75G and two are outside of my budget. I've heard good things about the Jebao gyres but the low price tag comes with zero customer service. The Current USA eFlux wave pumps look interesting, too, because they are affordable and come with a controller that handles the pumps and lighting, but I'm having a hard time finding reliable reviews about them.

All that being said, the first decision I have to make is whether to go with a gyre or more traditional pumps (or both). I've never had a gyre before so I don't know if that's the flow pattern I want.
 
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TooMuchDog

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All that being said, the first decision I have to make is whether to go with a gyre or more traditional pumps (or both). I've never had a gyre before so I don't know if that's the flow pattern I want.
Ya with softies and lps like I have i definitely have to keep the flow down. It might be the biggest challenge I've had with my tank looking back. Keeping it low enough to not piss off my goni and elegance, but high enough to keep pockets of crap from forming. you might be able to get away with a high flow return pump on one side and a vortech on the other if you really wanted to though.

That's what has me leaning gyre. From what I can tell, it will allow me to cover more tank in flow while having it still a low flow. I'm leaning away from the jebao and other budget option just because I really don't want to be replacing pumps, we bought the tunze used and cheap planning to replace down the road when we know more what we want. I imagine the vortechs have good reliability being that the expensive parts are outside the tank not exposed to saltwater. I've also heard the gyres take a good bit of maintenance taking them apart and cleaning every few months.
 
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I haven't found an auto feeder I trust. I tried the ehiem one and I felt like I couldn't control how much food was dropped well enough. ALWAYS seemed to over feed when I used it. Tried tape to make the hole smaller and could never get it to where I felt like it was doing a good job. Gave up on auto feeding after that. That nem looks awesome!
 
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TooMuchDog

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I haven't found an auto feeder I trust. I tried the ehiem one and I felt like I couldn't control how much food was dropped well enough. ALWAYS seemed to over feed when I used it. Tried tape to make the hole smaller and could never get it to where I felt like it was doing a good job. Gave up on auto feeding after that. That nem looks awesome!
Thanks for the help. I'm just planning for vacation so if it over feeds a bit that's better than starving I guess. I'm gonna try out the lifeguard aquatics intellifeed instead of the eheim then. I'll let you know if it seems a bit more precise in the feeding
 
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TooMuchDog

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The wrasses hogging the new magnetic algae clip from the foxface and tang. Unfortunately the focus went to the hungry acan in the back but it was a quick shot i had to take. Magnetic instead of suction will be nice because the foxfaces aggressive ripping would pull it away all the time. 20201201_121532.jpg
 

Cody

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The wrasses hogging the new magnetic algae clip from the foxface and tang. Unfortunately the focus went to the hungry acan in the back but it was a quick shot i had to take. Magnetic instead of suction will be nice because the foxfaces aggressive ripping would pull it away all the time. 20201201_121532.jpg
That orange back wrasse is gorgeous.
 
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TooMuchDog

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That orange back wrasse is gorgeous.
Thanks! He's super personable and curious too. Always coming up to see why I've got my hand in his home. I love his bright purple head. We were a bit nervous about putting two fairy wrasses in a 75 gallon but they seem like friends.


20201203_092853.jpg
 

Cody

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Thanks! He's super personable and curious too. Always coming up to see why I've got my hand in his home. I love his bright purple head. We were a bit nervous about putting two fairy wrasses in a 75 gallon but they seem like friends.


20201203_092853.jpg
I left my screens off on accident for one night and BAM! Out he went. Didn’t find him until the next morning.
 
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TooMuchDog

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I left my screens off on accident for one night and BAM! Out he went. Didn’t find him until the next morning.
They never jump in my tank. But of course if I take the top off overnight I'm sure they'd be crispy on the floor when I wake up.
 
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TooMuchDog

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Got the tunze ato setup and running well. Seems to need a refill of 5 gallons every 8 or 9 days. Alk and calcium kamoer pumps are holding everything steady. The auto feeder we got seems to have the same problems @nightster mentioned but I think it'll be fine for a week vacation or so. Went with the vortech mp10 pump and everything seems pretty happy still. Our heaters temp sensor broke recently and raised temp to 82F so I added an inkbird controller for that and now it is steady 78-79.

The bubble tip seems to really want a fight with the carpet anemone. Here he is stretching hard to get past it 20201211_111539.jpg
 

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They never jump in my tank. But of course if I take the top off overnight I'm sure they'd be crispy on the floor when I wake up.
It’s like they’re wanting to jump bad just waiting for the opportunity...
 
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