Whiskey's Experimental tank thread!

[Wiskey]

I'm going to combine a couple of posts here into my first post because I don't want any one to get too long. The first will be the past, second the present, and the third will be my entry's setup thread, the first two will explain why I am doing this.


The past:


As many of you know I am a big fan of BB tanks; however up to this point I have not had allot of success running a BB SPS tank Here is what would happen to me:

1. I would get a new healthy frag
2. It would start to encrust very quickly
3. PE would start to disappear, and the coral would start to have a ragged look, this usually went with the corals going to a light tan color regardless of their original color.
4. At about 2 months or so the frag would start to STN in the areas that it had encrusted in my tank, then pause.
5. At around 3-4 months the recession would re-start taking out the rest of the frag, this would happen slowly.

At the very end, I would usually move the frags to a friends tank, where they would recover and begin to heal and grow, I only lost completely 4 frags.

Full colonies would also follow this path, but would take longer to do it in most cases.

Not all corals did this, Stylophora, Policopora, and Birdsnest all did very well for some reason, where Monti caps would die much faster.

At only one time was I able to partially reverse this process, I was at home for a full week due to vacation from work. I literally dumped about $125+ worth of food into my tank that week, feeding 8 or more times per day! Fish loved me, I think they grew an inch that week, and the corals got a little color back and stopped receding but when I went back to work the went back downhill.

It is obvious that I could not continue feeding like this, but I tried about everything else for a year:
Feeding more (3 times per day, large portions), skimming wet, skimming dry, siphoning all the time, not siphoning, T5 light, MH light, more flow, less flow, more LR, less LR, more fish, no fish, a few fish, long PP, short PP, no 10K light at all (Just atinics) I really ran the gambit without success.

I'm not saying BB tanks don't work, they do, for plenty of people, I'm just saying I couldn't do it

I never did find out what I was doing wrong,.. but eventually I had to throw in the towel.

[Wiskey]

The present:


After I through in the towel I moved all of my SPS into a 125G SPS and Clam tank, it is lit by 3X 250W XM10K bulbs and except for red bugs it has been a wonderful tank, I have growth, PE, and all the corals look great.

But:
It's a DSB tank, and not the look I really want, that little thing I could get past, but I have a constant problem with sand in the water column. I also have the pending issue that DSB's don't last forever, in a few years it will have to be replaced, which means the whole tank has to be torn down.

SPS love flow, but with the DSB even a meager (IMO) 50X turnover is a major problem, I have roving sand dunes that like to attempt to bury my sand dwelling clams, I constantly have sand in the water column that likes to land on corals (especially large Monti caps) and if left too long will cause dead spots, and I really want more flow!

With the current setup more flow would not be possible, so I started thinking about other ways to do this, and came up with what I hope will be the answer.

When I move, or when my 125's sandbed crashes I would like to move into my 180, but I would like to leave the sand out, this experiment will involve having 2 sandbeds in a remote location. These sandbeds combined will be about 2/3 rds the size of the tank's footprint.

This leaves the main tank BB and getting the benefit of that setup while getting the amazing sponge quality of the sand in a remote location, and since there are 2 of them one can be replaced at the sign of trouble (algae) without disturbing the tank in any way!

Sounds like a good deal eh? Only if it works

[Sprayin70]

Sounds like a good idea. I hope it works for ya!

[Wiskey]

The setup:

The tank is not going to be simple, but will be small for reasons of the experiment.

The main tank will be a 15G AGA that I drilled for a closed loop, drain, and return. It will have a 10G sump, and on the back it will have 2 DSB's, one on top of the other. The water will drain from the tank, go directly through the skimmer (Which will be a CC moded SeaClone grav fed) then be pumped up to the top DSB, water will run across that, then drain down to the second DSB then finally back into the sump where it is pumped back into the main tank.

LR will be light, probably around 5 LBS because I am going for the simple overseas look with this tank, coral, coral and more coral.

Fish? A fire fish has to make it in, and I will decide on one or two others when I set the tank up.

Lighting will be provided by a pendant that houses 1 250W MH and 2 32W PC atinics, this will be driven by a magnetic ballast.

CL will be driven by a 500 GPH pump with a SCWD, I may add some PHs later.

I have most of the equipment laying around, I built the stand about 2 years ago and have been using it as a Q tank since I tore my nano down a few months ago.

I expect to use Kalk for top-off in a DIY reactor, but we will see if it keeps up.

I made some drawings that will give you a good idea of what I am planning, so far no work has been done.





Comments welcome!
Whiskey

[Casey]

Good luck I will be watching im not good with small tanks.

[Wiskey]

I did very well with this 15G tank before I went BB with it, then I had trouble. I am hoping all goes well and maybe we can both figure something out.

Good to have you on board!
Whiskey

[Wiskey]

I've been foiled already!! My plan for 2 DSB's has to be scrapped because I couldn't find the type of continers I wanted to use.

I did find one continer that itself makes up 2/3 of the tank's footprint, and is deep enough to do a proper DSB with about 3 inches of water ontop to prevent the sand from going into the sump.

I also got the bulkheads and plumbing I need! I plan to start on accually hooking it all up this week or next weekend.

When I get going on this you can expect some pics
Whiskey

[Wiskey]

UPDATE!!!

I've done nothing I hope to get started this weekend though; so look out for some pics!

Whiskey

[dobejazz]

Thanks for the Update

[Wiskey]

No problem Kelli! It was no problem, really

Whiskey

[tashier]

I'd like to see the results of this experiment when you're all done.

[DevilBoy]

Wow Whiskey... i really hope this works out. It is going to be very intresting to follow this build...

Thanks for the update...

[Wiskey]

Thanks all! Follow along, I will enjoy the company

I have a couple ideas in my head for stocking.

1. How many firefish can you put in a 15G tank? Do they do ok together?

2. I was thinking about using 3*55W PC insted of the MH and doing a montipora dominated tank,... thoughts?

Montipora was the coral I had the most trouble with when my tank was BB, that's why I was thinking about going this direction.

Whiskey

[davidsreef]

How deep will your remote deep sand beds be? And about how many lbs. or gallons of sand will your containers hold? Sorry if you already stated this, but I couldn't find it in this post.

[YLChik]

here's what I could find...
summary says no more than 2 and a 15 gallon maybe be to small for that... reds are gentler, purple is more agressive, and helfrich is the most timid of all - but only one of those per tank - start saving those pennies!