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.


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)

[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.

[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?