400 Gallon Starfire Build - Mixed Reef

[monkiboy]

any updates AJ?

 

[jam583]

Very nice .. just read from the start. Curious where you landed with the humidity?

 

[BkReefBaby]

subscribed, looks great!

 

[rayn]

Beautiful!

 

[FrankAbagnale]

Update! Update! Update!

 

[monkiboy]

what's the latest?!

 

[Clarksski]

Hey there AJ..read your entire story. What a bunch of heartbreak... I just moved my 90 gal out of the way to make room for a new Red Sea reefer 525xl. Not nearly as big or bad as your set-up but during the move, big mama saddleback got jammed under a rock. Went into emergency mode to get her released!...
Jeez, today she ate and everything's ok. Can't even imagine what you've been through.
No posts from you now for many months. Hope you and your fish friends are all doing ok.. If you get any time soon..An update would be awesome!

 

[hybridazn]

I can't believe I read the whole thing….

Great build thread! I smiled, I cried, I smiled again, I cried again lol

any new updates @AJsTank

 

[Daniel Strickland]

Awesome tank!! Would love a update..

 

[Fin]

23 months since his last post. Wondering myself if this tank is still going. I do hope so.

 

[AJsTank]

Laziness. That's all it is. Pure laziness is why I haven't posted. Quick rundown of what's been going on.

I was full 100% SPS. I had a turf algae outbreak for a year. This stuff almost made me quit the hobby. I basically moved my coral to another system, let it go dark for 90 days. I even pulled out rocks covered in turf algae and put them in the snow for 3 days, tossed it back in the display and it was still thriving after 2 days. That stuff DOES NOT die. It survives and grows with very very low nutrients, no light and harsh water conditions. Nitrate reactor, GFO, Tangs, Rabbits, Snails, Crabs, Chitons... I tried it all and it kept growing. You can search this forum and you search the "other" big forum and there is not one person that has destroyed it at this scale. I even reached out to quite a few marine biologists with zero help. Everyone thinks they know the answer because they think it's just a normal algae you can eliminate by starving it out. Well, this is what I did to get rid of it....

URCHINS. I added every type of urchin I could find and I put in 50 of them. It took about 60 days, but they devoured every piece of turf algae in the tank. I had 4 or 5 Urchins in the system, but they are SO slow. And there wasn't enough for me to actually see that they were making a difference. This was incredibly expensive, especially because I had HUGE Urchins. Some of them were 15 inches in diameter. After they ate all the algae, I kept about 10 of the medium sized ones and donated the rest around the valley to public aquariums and friends with larger systems.

So where am I now?

I replaced my 2 returns with Ecotech's pumps. I like them much better. I've added Gyres at the top for surface agitation, I've replaced 3 MP40's and 2 MP60's with quiet drives, I added a Vertex Calcium Reactor (I regret not doing this sooner) and I'm replacing my Gen2 Pros with Gen 4 pros next month.

I'll get some more pics up, but this what I have on my phone. I have added quite a bit of SPS. I still have all my angels and yes, they still nip, but all the corals are growing and are healthy.

 

[revhtree]

Laziness. That's all it is. Pure laziness is why I haven't posted. Quick rundown of what's been going on.

I was full 100% SPS. I had a turf algae outbreak for a year. This stuff almost made me quit the hobby. I basically moved my coral to another system, let it go dark for 90 days. I even pulled out rocks covered in turf algae and put them in the snow for 3 days, tossed it back in the display and it was still thriving after 2 days. That stuff DOES NOT die. It survives and grows with very very low nutrients, no light and harsh water conditions. Nitrate reactor, GFO, Tangs, Rabbits, Snails, Crabs, Chitons... I tried it all and it kept growing. You can search this forum and you search the "other" big forum and there is not one person that has destroyed it at this scale. I even reached out to quite a few marine biologists with zero help. Everyone thinks they know the answer because they think it's just a normal algae you can eliminate by starving it out. Well, this is what I did to get rid of it....

URCHINS. I added every type of urchin I could find and I put in 50 of them. It took about 60 days, but they devoured every piece of turf algae in the tank. I had 4 or 5 Urchins in the system, but they are SO slow. And there wasn't enough for me to actually see that they were making a difference. This was incredibly expensive, especially because I had HUGE Urchins. Some of them were 15 inches in diameter. After they ate all the algae, I kept about 10 of the medium sized ones and donated the rest around the valley to public aquariums and friends with larger systems.

So where am I now?

I replaced my 2 returns with Ecotech's pumps. I like them much better. I've added Gyres at the top for surface agitation, I've replaced 3 MP40's and 2 MP60's with quiet drives, I added a Vertex Calcium Reactor (I regret not doing this sooner) and I'm replacing my Gen2 Pros with Gen 4 pros next month.

I'll get some more pics up, but this what I have on my phone. I have added quite a bit of SPS. I still have all my angels and yes, they still nip, but all the corals are growing and are healthy.

WOW! Back from the dead you lazy thing you! LOL!

Welcome back man and nice to see the reef still running!

 

[Jen_h]

I seriously just read your whole build thread start to finish in one sitting, took me about 2 hrs! I wanted to ask you how you like the bio denitrator? Is it easy to maintain? Easy to dial in? Do you use gfo as well? I currently run bio pellets and gfo on my 180 but was looking to try something on my new 240 I'm about to setup. My bio pellets keep clogging after a few months so I'm kinda getting tired of taking it all apart and fixing it. Your tank is amazing [emoji3]

 

[AJsTank]

I seriously just read your whole build thread start to finish in one sitting, took me about 2 hrs! I wanted to ask you how you like the bio denitrator? Is it easy to maintain? Easy to dial in? Do you use gfo as well? I currently run bio pellets and gfo on my 180 but was looking to try something on my new 240 I'm about to setup. My bio pellets keep clogging after a few months so I'm kinda getting tired of taking it all apart and fixing it. Your tank is amazing [emoji3]

WOW! Thanks for taking the time to read, I really appreciate it. The bio-denitrator is super easy to do. You only have to swap out the media about once a year. Why would your pellets clog? You're either not tumbling them enough or maybe you should put a filter or cage on the intake before it enters your reactor. I'm not really sure how yours is set up, but you shouldn't have to clean it out.

 

[Jen_h]

WOW! Thanks for taking the time to read, I really appreciate it. The bio-denitrator is super easy to do. You only have to swap out the media about once a year. Why would your pellets clog? You're either not tumbling them enough or maybe you should put a filter or cage on the intake before it enters your reactor. I'm not really sure how yours is set up, but you shouldn't have to clean it out.

It was like a book I just couldn't put down haha! Yea I'm really not sure why it keeps clogging either. I clean it all out, get it all dialed in so it's not tumbling like a cyclone or going to slow then next thing you know a few months later it starts slowing down/clumping at the top. It's an aquamaxx bio pellet reactor with a sicce 2 or 3 can't remember. I may just make the switch though.....

 

[Zero Nitrates]

Update pics are beautiful!
Thanks for sharing about the urchins. I just added a calcium reactor too. It's amazing how stable it keeps everything.

 

[AJsTank]

Update pics are beautiful!
Thanks for sharing about the urchins. I just added a calcium reactor too. It's amazing how stable it keeps everything.

I'm still having to dose, but it's much cheaper on the monthly maintenance bill with the calcium reactor.

 

[awais98]

Just read through the whole thing!!
What a ride!
Thank you for the Aquarimate app. Just bought it, it's awesome

Just a suggestion for safety.
I see you have all your electricals under the tank.
I've learnt from mistakes that should never be the case.
I had an electrical fire under my tank at 3 am when I was at work few years ago.
Wife was home alone with little kids.
Thanks to the GFCI it wasn't spread, and fire alarms that went off my wife found it on time before the whole stand was on fire and was able to put it off.

I've learnt my lesson.
I will never ever have any electricals under.

 

[Nocturnal]

Awesome read! Beautiful tank. Thank you for sticking with it!

 

[AJsTank]

Just read through the whole thing!!
What a ride!
Thank you for the Aquarimate app. Just bought it, it's awesome

Just a suggestion for safety.
I see you have all your electricals under the tank.
I've learnt from mistakes that should never be the case.
I had an electrical fire under my tank at 3 am when I was at work few years ago.
Wife was home alone with little kids.
Thanks to the GFCI it wasn't spread, and fire alarms that went off my wife found it on time before the whole stand was on fire and was able to put it off.

I've learnt my lesson.
I will never ever have any electricals under.

Interesting. I purposely don't put certain plugs on GFCI so they don't get shut off by accident. I do recall reading about a gentleman in one of the Facebook groups putting his cords and power supplies inside a metal chase for this reason. Maybe I'll look into it, I've got a ton of cords zip tied around my tank. Good thing is if the stand catches fire, 400 gallons of water should put it out lol (KNOCK ON WOOD)