135 reef tank

Ok, so here is the history of this tank.
I started out as a reef and ended up having a huge fight with hair algae. It eventually won and I ditched all the corals that didnt get smothered and die. I started buying for a fowlr tank.I took the whole tank apart and scrubbed all of the rocks tryign to get rid of the algae. After 8hrs and four bloody nuckles later I put the tank back together. I bought several fish and some huge powerheads, seio 2600's. After a couple of weeks of adding fish, the powerheads had sucked up three fish, inclucing a $90.00 trigger. Needless to say I got rid of the powerheads and decided to go back to corals because I got rid of the hair algae.
So from there I have been collecting tons of coral.

The tank has curently over 200lbs of rock.
I have the tank hard plumbed with a 30gallon long refugium. It is setup to allow slower flow into the macroalgae area, and the rest of the flow goes into the area with the skimmer. My skimmer is an aqua-c ev-180 with a gate valve and run by a mag 5 pump, which I will rplace with a mag 7 when i get the chance.
Here is a pic of the plumbing and refugium setup.




The lighting has just been upgraded to 4-72\" vho at 160wts per bulb.
There are also three metal halides, two 175wt moguls with bluline 20,000k bulbs and one 250wt mogul with 20,000k bulb as well. I added the 250wt mh and reflectors to all of the mh's. I will eventually change the vho's to t-5's as soon as I can get some more cahsflow.
here is a pic of the lighting setup.


Here is a pic of the current setup. I will go into more details on the livestock and corals later.

Excelent setup. I know where your comming from Im in the middle of a fight with hair algae at present , it is taking up all my spare time.

Thats a very nice tank, Qes what part of the states are you from.

I am from Tulsa Oklahoma, it in the northeast part of Oklahoma.

My real name is Sean I got the name Father Jack for a few now famous drunking post I did with Anthony, is it true you can not drink in some parts of Oclahoma?

Chainging the subject I one did most of the R&D in the early 90s for all the Phillipine fish been shipped coming into the states form the Phillines. The company was called International Sea Board, long gone now, with office in LA, Chicago, N. York, and Manila Aquatics in (my base) Tampa Florida, all the blue water you see fish shipped in now a days and the acid water drip technique use in the states even today were copied from a drunken Irish priest. if you google: manila aquatics you can still gets some traces of Manila. I have done 2 posts on reef central and got bored all they talk about is a thing call a refuium thingy which is realy just a fancy word for a sump, boy dont they go on and on about he same thing.

quick one gm, how long is the tank up and running and how would tackle hair algae if it appeared in the new setup

Looks the bizz mate. Get some more pics up.

Fr. Jack, there are only a couple of counties in Oklahoma that are considered partially dry counties which mean they are not allowed to serve anythign over 3.2% alchohol.

Paul M, The tank has been set up for over 2 yrs. The hair algae occured from neglect, overfeeding, combined with new bulbs.
The best for hair algae is prevention. Keep up maintenance, waterchanges, adequate feedings, good clean up crews and a phosphate reactor helps as well.
Once it gets started it is difficult to get rid of.

Anthony here are a couple of older closer pics of the tank. I have yet to take recent closer shots of the tank.

GM can you just use phospahte resin in granuales in a bag and just repalce them every few weeks, or are us e using a non chemical method and if what is the phoshate reactor?

cracking tank gm

I have found the resin doesnt get rid of the phospahte, it exhausts very quickly. I use this type of reactor with a good phosphate media. I am currently using one from e-bay that seems to work pretty good.
Here is the reactor I am using, www.marinedepot.com/ps_ViewItem~SearchSt...eactors~vendor~.html

By design there will be more contact with the water/resin using the reactor, but if you put xyz media (assume its a commercial available media) in a stocking bag and through it into a eheim canister filter it will do the same thing chemical, put may not look as professional, Qes. your media you put tin the reactor is it not a resin type thing any way?

P.S I like your tank there is alot of intial investment followed by alot of husbandry to keep it like that.(relatiative atleast to my maintance regerim:unsure: )

Yeah the media is not a resin. I have used resin in a bag and found it to not work as well, mind you I dont have a cannister filter to put it in anyhow. I hav used this type of media in pantyhose in one of my freshwater cannisters. ]
Yeah the tank does take a considerable amount of maintenance, but it is definitly well worth it. I still have a hard time sitting down to watch TV and not look at my tank instead.

gm*333 wrote:

Yeah the media is not a resin.

Then what is it? I can beleive by just using this chamber with any given media it will do the same thing, after all its just really a fluidized bed type plastic container passing water through a media, it must be the \"secret media\" that is doing the work...what is the media?