New here, advice appreciated

[Dave C]

I'm new to reefs, this forum & bb reefs so I'd appreciate any advice you can give me. My tank has been running 25 days and I've been stocking it with softies for a couple of weeks. I've also got a sailfin tang, yellow tang & a copperband butterfly. I want to have sps in the upper half and softies below. I cooked/cured my tonga rock for 6 weeks prior to starting the tank and it went through the cycle in the bins and the amm/nit had dropped to 0 there. I say cooked because I did what most would refer to as cooking rather then curing even though it was new rock.

The tank is 225g, starboard bottom, 300 lbs of tonga, 95g sump/refugium, 4xTunze 6100, 2xTunze nano 6025, Deltec AP851, Deltec PF601S, Deltec KM500, 3x250w MH 8x39w T5 Sfiligoi/ACLS, Ozotech Poseidon & dryer & MTC Ozone reactor, Aqua UV 114w.

So far the tank is doing great. My biggest concern is bleaching sps as I've heard & seen that as a problem. I don't dose anything but kalk with my topoff. The ca reactor is not yet running as I'm still waiting on a few things.

Here's the tank empty...



Filled on day 1...



My equipment...



A closeup on equipment...



And the way it looks today...

[Leonardo's Reef]

First, welcome to TRT!

I have seen this setup somewhere before As I said there, very nice tank!

About the "bleaching" corals, I think it is not bleaching, but STN.

I also experienced this STN in my tank. The lesson I've learned that BB is not about a super-clean tank, but about control.
You can control the amount of nutrients in the tank, and I was running it too sterile; I was starving the SPS.
Get yourself a decent bioload. What that is? That depends on your equipment, feeding schedules, maintenence schedule etc. In other words, it is different for every tank.
Increasing my bioload, and increased feeding took the problem of STN away. I have better growth and colouring of my SPS.

This is only my experience, I think others can say a lot more about this.

Good luck with this nice setup!

Leonardo

(btw, reading the "how to go BB thread" can be very useful, just in case you've missed it )

[andregarcia_73]

Beautiful tank! Im still doing my research before i start a reef tank. im still very interested and amazed but im still very clueless!

[Dave C]

Originally Posted by Leonardo's Reef

About the "bleaching" corals, I think it is not bleaching, but STN.

I also experienced this STN in my tank. The lesson I've learned that BB is not about a super-clean tank, but about control.
You can control the amount of nutrients in the tank, and I was running it too sterile; I was starving the SPS.
Get yourself a decent bioload. What that is? That depends on your equipment, feeding schedules, maintenence schedule etc. In other words, it is different for every tank.
Increasing my bioload, and increased feeding took the problem of STN away. I have better growth and colouring of my SPS.

I wasn't suggesting that I was experiencing bleached corals, just that I'm aware that it's often an issue with bb tanks & I would like to avoid it. I plan to increase the bioload but as it's a new tank I don't want to jack it up too fast. I've probably already done that though you couldn't tell from the lack of nitrates in my tank. But everyone locally that I talk to about having a bb tank warns me that bleached corals will be the end result.

[gwaco]

quote// .. everyone locally that I talk to about having a bb tank warns me that bleached corals will be the end result.
that is complete b.s. ! the end result is the complete opposite ! leonardo speaks words of a true expert ! the end results are up to you . if your worried about bleaching or rtn then get your bioload up and going first . figure out how much you are able to feed the fish and keep the levels with in range , then start plunking in your corals .

[gwaco]

welcome to trt ! beautiful tank by the way !

[Viv]

Love new builds, new systems, new thoughts!! Hi

[Loverotties]

Welcome to TRT! NICE TANK & SETUP!

[Little Luey]

Welcome to TRT!

that is a nice setup you got!