Kaybee's 65gal Reef

[kaybee]

Last year I reconfigured my 5-bulb T5HO lighting fixture back to 1 daylight bulb and 4 actinic or actinic equivalent bulbs. This follows a year or so trial with 2 daylight bulbs. It seems that the corals I have do better with a little less light. Multiple daylight bulbs seemed to cause bleaching in some of my corals and seemed to restrict the explansion of some fleshy coral polyps, even those on the sand bed.

I'm still using the Aquactinics TX5 fixture (individual lamp reflectors) with the following T5HO bulbs (from front to back):

Bulb 1. ATI Blue Plus (450nm)
Bulb 2. Giesemann Pure Actinic (421nm)
Bulb 3 ATI Aquablue Special (12000K)
Bulb 4 IceCap Actinic (420nm)
Bulb 5 IceCap Twilight (460nm)

Bulbs 2 & 4 come on one hour before and bulbs 1-3-5 do and go off one hour after those bulbs go off. Photo-period 1pm-1030pm

Filtration:
-Octopus BH-800S Hang on Back protein skimmer (Sicce PSK2500 pump), rated for 130gal tank.
- Dual Phosban Reactors. Reactor 1 utilizes pelletized granular ferric oxide (GFO). The outflow of Reactor 1 feeds into Reactor 2 which utilizes high grade carbon.
- XP2 Canister filter configured for mechanical filtration only (50-micron filter pads which are cleaned weekly).
- Live rock. 60-80+lbs. I can't recall exact amount.
- Live sand/Deep Sand Bed (depth 3"-4")

Phosphate and nitrate at undetectable levels.

Salinity: 1.026 (Salt of choice: Oceanic)
Temperature: Currently 76F
I use a fan for evaporative cooling when it is warm. No heater. Heat generated from circulation components keeps the tank 6-10 degrees (fahrenheit) warmer than room temperature.

Primary Circulation: Koralia 3 (850gph) and a Koralia Evolution 1050 (1050gph): 1900gph (water flow dissipated somewhat since I have the two powerheads mostly aimed at each other (otherwise the flow would be too great for a lot of my LPS corals), additional circulation provided by the XP2 canister (+250gph).

I have an overflow intake box magnetically attached inside the tank for surface skimming. Because my system is sump-less the water in the overflow box is drawn by the canister and the protein skimmer and back into the tank via their respective outflows. The reactors output into this box as does the the auto-topoff. It's also where I keep one of my temperature probes.
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For alkalinity I use Arm & Hammer baking soda, though I did give two liters of Seachem's Reef Carbonate a trial (which lasted about a year give or take). The baking soda seems to do the job and in a more economical fashion.

I currently add 1 teaspoon of baking soda about every day or every other day to maintain alkalinity 9-11dkh and replenish carbonates. Once the weather warms up and my tank's cooling fan is utilized 24/7 (which will increase evaporation rate), I will add baking soda to my auto-topoff water container.

I still use Seachem's Reef Complete and add about 30ml usually every weekend to maintain calcium at 400-420ppm between water changes.

I do fairly large water changes about every 40-45 days (usually 50%) even though the tank is lightly stocked.

Fish:
1x royal gramma, 2x azure damsels (in the tank since the very beginning). They're feed exclusively New Life Spectrum pellets (Small Fish formula), one small pinch (which comes out to about 1/20th of a teaspoon) every 3rd day.

Clean Up Crew: 1 maroon serpent sea star, 1 white shelled nasarius snail, 1 black shelled nasarius snail, 1 turbo snail. There's a small hitch hiker crab about half the size of a plain m&m candy that has been in the tank since 2007. It never ventures more than 1cm from its crevice and I only see it at night. I'm not sure what it eats but I consider it CUC.

Corals:

Soft Corals (various zoanthids and palythoa's, blue snowflake polyps, anthelia, red sea pulsating xenia, tubipora, various mushrooms and ricordia, green elephant ears, neon green and common toadstool leather corals).

LPS Corals (candy cane, torch, frogspawn, galaxy, fox, blastomussa, favia, war coral, leptastrea, trachyphyllia, lobophyllia, possible euphylia hybrid (frogspawn x hammer), pectinia).

SPS Corals (branching hydophora, encrusting hydnophora, montipora capricornis, pink birdnest, pocillopora).

Due to a fast growth rate I had to remove 80-110+ heads of candy cane coral and large numbers of xenia and anthelia from this tank.

65gal Reef (will be 5 years old this year)
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[Brhino]

lovely tank! It's very colorful.

[KatzeSlaugen]

great lookings tank you have! ive been reading up about saltwater quite a lot lately as a few years down the road i plan on setting one up. seeing your tank makes me want it even sooner!

[KingFisher]

The tank is looking awesome kaybee. All the corals look great. thumbs2:

[EmmanuelJB]

WOW! I almost fell out of my chair when I saw that picture. That has to be the one of the prettiest tank I have ever seen in my life!!!!!!!!!!!

[CassieLEO]

Holy MOLY!!! Incredible tank! Look at all those amazing colors!!!!!! WOWOWOWOW!!!!!!!!!!

[Cliff]

Great looking tank.

I love the look of a reef tank

Great job with the coral stocking

You didn't list this in your list of coral, but is that a orange acan (LPS) coral near the lower right hand side ?

[flydustydawg]

One of the most colorful tanks I've ever seen. Great job! This is my future plan for my 65g. It will be a year or so down the road.

[hockeyhead019]

Wow that's fantastic... absolutely stunning! Awesome tank

[kaybee]

Thanks everyone, I appreciate all the kind comments!

You didn't list this in your list of coral, but is that a orange acan (LPS) coral near the lower right hand side ?

Good catch! I forgot to list the acans!

I've got three different types of acans in the tank but none are in the lower right hand side. What coral(s) is the coral you're inquiring about next to? At the bottom right (left of the green open brain and below the light colored toadstool) are some common red mushrooms.

By chance did you mean lower left hand side?

[Trillianne]

Absolutely beautiful! And that is the same size as our current freshwater tank. I was just saying to my bf that it would be a good size for us to try saltwater when we upgrade.... your picture is quite a wonderful inspiration in that direction.

[Cliff]

Thanks everyone, I appreciate all the kind comments!



Good catch! I forgot to list the acans!

I've got three different types of acans in the tank but none are in the lower right hand side. What coral(s) is the coral you're inquiring about next to? At the bottom right (left of the green open brain and below the light colored toadstool) are some common red mushrooms.

By chance did you mean lower left hand side?

Actually, the one I was looking at was next to the blue shroom & green candy cane. Your red mushroom is colored like some one my favorite acans. I did notice your other acans tho.

I was going to ask if you were doing any to help keep there red color. Mine is fadding a bit and I'm a little concerned. I'm going try a liitle lower light and feed him some more.

[ILuvMyGoldBarb]

Kaybee, that is an incredible looking tank. Definitely something to be proud of. Goes to show just what you can do without a sump. :D

[kaybee]

Thanks ILMGB. Yep, not all reef set ups require sumps, and I'm actually using a canister filter which is typically not advised for SW tanks (though I don't have it configured as I would if it were on a FW tank.

Trillianne, I find the 65gal tank to be a decent size tank for SW it's not too large and not too small, plus has adequate height and width.

Actually, the one I was looking at was next to the blue shroom & green candy cane...

Oh, ok. I think I know which one you're talking about. My blue mushrooms are on the far left. The blue corals you must be referring to which are near the green candy cane are actually blue snow flake polyps.

I believe the coral you're inquiring about is my 'super red' blastomussa, a fleshy polyp'd LPS. The camera is washing out its true color a bit in the photo, in person it's the color of tropical punch or cherry kool-aid:
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I've got a larger blastomussa colony (the common red variety) in the tank as well (its obscured from view in the rear right corner of the tank).

Indirect lighting may help prevent the lightening of color with some acans.

[ILuvMyGoldBarb]

Yep, not all reef set ups require sumps,

Nope, they sure don't. :) My new 75 doesn't have one either.

[labnjab]

Very nice set-up kaybee :ssmile: I hope ours looks half as nice in 5 years.


My main reason for a sump is I absolutely hate HOB equipment. If I had the cash I'd have a sump/wet/dry on all of our freshwater tanks, lol

[kaybee]

Size comparision:

Green elephant ear mushroom adjacent to small and normal-sized common red mushrooms
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Sometimes the elephant ear will expand to the extent that it completely conceals the red mushrooms and even the nuke green paly's on the adjacent live rock.

[kaybee]

I moved my green torch to a different area in the tank (to the upper far left) section of the tank. Under the larger frogspawn one of the heads was getting deprived of light and the torch was a little too close to my blastomussa.

There was a crevice that held the torch's skeleton base very nicely. It fit very well wedged in. But my darned damsels dislike changes and kept bumping it out from below, forcing me to epoxy it in place, but not in the position that I wanted.

I also relocated some excess candy cane, xenia, palys and anthelia to a different reef tank.

Here's a close up of my orange leptastrea frag (a small-polyped LPS coral, if that makes any sense:14:). Green-centered leptastrea can be seen in the background:

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My most recent addition, a small pink lobophyllia:
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I'm observing something with my green-polyp toadstool leather coral that may be of concern:
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It's been retracting its polyps for maybe 4 to 6 hours about every 2 or 3 days. It seems that the last one or two polyps don't completely retract, instead they're being ejected and detached into the water flow (the entire 'stem' and polyp head).

It seems to producing new polyps at a rate equal to or greater than the loss so it's not visibly missing any polyps. Is this normal? Is this a form of reproduction? I'm going to try to capture one of the detached polyps and place it in a different tank to see if they live.

[Cliff]

I love the pink lobo, I've actually been looking for one like that but havn't been able to find a pink one (wife's favorite color).

Wish I could help with the leather. Mine has only done that a few times