Denver 200 Gallon IM Peninsula LPS/SPS Dream Tank

[Devaji]

Hey how do you like the soft plumbing for the return. I was thinking I might do the same on my IM 200 pen. IDK yet but seems like a good idea.

 

[DenverSaltyFarm]

Hey how do you like the soft plumbing for the return. I was thinking I might do the same on my IM 200 pen. IDK yet but seems like a good idea.

I like the serviceability of the soft line used for the supply side. While piping in colored pvc looks nicer I had a hard time with my last tank to service my main pump even with the disconnect union also had a few main pumps fail and found out that not all pumps sit at the same height when replacing so changing to soft line was something I always wanted to do and happy I did on this tank. I also feel like there is less flow restriction with sweeping bends vs 90s on pvc. I should have done that to my drain side as well. Had to change a few things and once its glued is hard to do.

 

[DenverSaltyFarm]

Finally another update. I wasnt liking how dim the tank was looking so I added 2 radion xr30 g4 pro lights to the tank which did the trick. Im running the LPS schedule on all 5 lights at 60% and getting 410 par on upper rocks, 350 par mid and about 275 par on the sand. I moved around a bunch of the torches and put in some acropora frags converting this tank to a mixed reef

I'm 2 ICP tests into the reef moonshiners and everything is getting dialed in. very happy with the program. Im still having to dose 15ML of Neo Nitro per day to keep at 6 nitrate and might bump that up to 20ml per day to get that number a bit higher. I unfortunately found 3 aiptasia in my tank and took every precaution not to get those and they still found a way so i will be battling. other than that the tank going steady. more to come

 

[Gumbies R Us]

Tank is looking great!

 

[tritonpower]

looks great.

 

[DenverSaltyFarm]

Update: I had a small stent with dinos starting to show up. Tested and found my phosphates dropped to .02 so bumped that up to .08 and those went away. My nitrates are currently sitting about 7 and dosing 20ML of neo nitro per day to maintain those numbers. The torches have colored up the best they have ever looked, but some of my sps have paled out slightly. Talked with a few reefers who told me to up my nitrates to around 20 and my sps should color up nicely.

I also added 300ml of carbon to filter any unforeseen chemicals in the water and will slowly work up to 600ml of carbon for the tank volume.

I have the skimmer only working at night and off during the day. Black friday hit me hard I ended up buying a TSA Fruity splice frag that will hopefully be the centerpiece of the tank. I cant stop buying sps frags atm and more to come
when I search forums I love photos so ill start posting more pics. here is some top down pics of the reef.

 

[Jmp998]

Beautiful torches!

 

[DenverSaltyFarm]

Beautiful torches!

cheers thank you!

 

[DenverSaltyFarm]

This was my Black Friday purchase TSA Fruity Splice that has both colors. Unfortunately it will ship to me mid next month. I currently have an all green rainbow splice in the tank and am waiting for the red to show up. Will be neat to see them both in the same tank.

This is the TSA Fruity Splice mother colony. Photo from reef builders

 

[Kasrift]

Looking good. Just got the same tank delivered today, so following along.

Do you have a list of your fish stocking? I'm still trying to plan out what I want, it's my first big tank so tangs and things are on the table. Wondering what you have particularly since you mention having to dose nitrates.

 

[DenverSaltyFarm]

Looking good. Just got the same tank delivered today, so following along.

Do you have a list of your fish stocking? I'm still trying to plan out what I want, it's my first big tank so tangs and things are on the table. Wondering what you have particularly since you mention having to dose nitrates.

Thank you, you will love the tank such an awesome setup.
Current fish:
-White Tail Bristle Tooth Tang (Highly Recommend, Always Working Hard Eating Algae From Rock)
-Orange Shoulder Tang (Another hard worker clearing algae and highly recommend)
-Naso Tang (awesome fish as well Crazy fast grower and probably my favorite)
-Blue Hippo Tang
-Yellow Tang
-Clown fish
-Blue-Green Chromis (Started out with 14 and over the course of 2 years they slowly kill each other and only have 1 left that made it to this tank)
-2 Cardinal fish

I will be adding a bunch more smaller fish in the future and no more large fish. All the tangs get along very well for the most part. there is a few times I see chasing but does not last long.

Also I have started to get aiptasia showing up in my tank and I know in the future I will be needing nudibranch to control the aiptasia so I will be staying away from adding any type of wrasse to this tank. they will feed on those nudis (expensive meal)

 

[Kasrift]

Thank you, you will love the tank such an awesome setup.
Current fish:
-White Tail Bristle Tooth Tang (Highly Recommend, Always Working Hard Eating Algae From Rock)
-Orange Shoulder Tang (Another hard worker clearing algae and highly recommend)
-Naso Tang (awesome fish as well Crazy fast grower and probably my favorite)
-Blue Hippo Tang
-Yellow Tang
-Clown fish
-Blue-Green Chromis (Started out with 14 and over the course of 2 years they slowly kill each other and only have 1 left that made it to this tank)
-2 Cardinal fish

I will be adding a bunch more smaller fish in the future and no more large fish. All the tangs get along very well for the most part. there is a few times I see chasing but does not last long.

Also I have started to get aiptasia showing up in my tank and I know in the future I will be needing nudibranch to control the aiptasia so I will be staying away from adding any type of wrasse to this tank. they will feed on those nudis (expensive meal)

I was going to add a molly miller blenny since I hear they eat aiptasia. I don't trust the aiptasia eating file fish. Looks like a good stocking list. I've been very on the fence with chromis since I want a group of fish, but they don't seem to fare well in tanks in groups.

 

[DenverSaltyFarm]

The Tank has been running good. I have not killed any corals and getting great polyp extension on the SPS also great colors with LPS and SPS. I've been researching heavily on tank nutrients NO3 and PO4 and the role they play with coral growth and coloration. Also bacteria good and bad in relation to over all tank health and algae in the reef tank.
I am getting some algae on my rockwork and sand that I am working on to make go away using one vile of Bio Digest bacteria every 15 days and dialing in my nitrates and phosphates to a great relation. I'm currently sitting at 14ppm nitrate and .14 phosphate which is a 100 to 1 ratio and while my corals are coloring up nice my tank is still phosphate limited and have to constantly dose phosphate daily to keep those numbers. I am going to try the Buddy Buddendorf ratio of 2ppm nitrate and .2 phosphate then see how my tank and corals react.
The SPS corals are starting to encrust the frags as well as seeing new arms starting to pop up. I have started to move my torches around to make room for new sticks and in the future I can see my torches ending up on the sand. getting very addicted to acro corals. This Wednesday my Fruity Splice comes in and very excited the wait is almost over.

This is my daily list of elements I dose with the reef moonshiners program per my tanks requirements from monthly ICP tests:
-Iodine 10 drops per day
-Selenium 12 drops per day
-Chromium 12 drops per day
-Cobalt 20 drops per day
-Iron 22 drops per day
-Copper 6ml per day
-Liquid Mud 2ml per day
-Manganese 6ml per day
-Strontium 1ml per day
-Fluoride 9ml per day
-Phosphate 8ml per day

then my brs 2 part
-Calcium 65ml per day
-Alkalinity (Sodium Bicarbonate Solution) 80ml per day
-I stopped magnesium since it climbed a bit above 1500 I'm waiting for it to drop a bit (slow process with my tank)

Then I have my auto feeder feeding the fish 4 times a day with pellets and I am hand feeding flakes 3 times in the afternoon evening to keep them happy.

I also settled on the AB+ light setting and modified it to come on at 12:00PM then Ramp up to peak lighting at 2:30PM until 7:30PM then ramp down to a color pop mode (better tank viewing when im home for work) until lights off at 10:30PM

Lastly more and more aiptasia is popping up in the tank so I will be using F-Aiptasia to spot kill the larger ones or ones easily accessed until I find a more permanent solution. In the past I have been very successful with the aiptasia eating file fish but don't want to risk it eating my OG bounce mushrooms

I Added A Reactor in the sump and using 500 ml of pelletized carbon replacing every month for clarity and to remove chemicals that could cause harm to the corals since I don't do water changes using the moonshiners method

 

[DenverSaltyFarm]

First update for the new year!!! I found out how hard it is owning tangs in an SPS tank. superglue is not strong enough to keep them in place and they are always getting knocked around. I had 2 frags get bumped off a ledge and fell on top of a torch coral. I saw this happen and within 30 seconds I had them off the torch but it was already too late and the torch killed them. I have started moving my torches to the sand bed and think they will all eventually end up there to make room for more sticks.

I stopped the moonshiners program to see if that would help stop the algae growth and it did. My coraline growth also exploded when I stopped so will be using the BRS Balling method to get some trace elements back to the tank from here on out. I also stopped dosing nitrates and phosphates and those numbers are holding steady. A big change for the good happened to my tank ever since dosing Bio Digest bacteria to the tank. Very awesome stuff.

I also am diving back into bio pellets using only 25% of the recommended amount for 2 weeks and see if I need to add more. I went down the rabbit hole non-stop research on beneficial bacteria to a reef tank and how important it is to the health of the tank. Ever since switching to this approach on reefing things look much better and I'm not battling algae like I did.

I took out my activated carbon for now. I have a feeling it was soaking up some good trace elements.
I'm now in the process to bring my nutrients down a bit very slowly to get better SPS growth. currently sitting at 7.9 PO3 and .15 NO4 my goal is to hit 4 PO3 and .07 NO4
Happy Reefing!

 

[DenverSaltyFarm]

Today I added more bio-pellets bringing to amount recommended to a 100gallon tank. I will keep it here not to overdose these. I also adjusted flow and happy with how they are tumbling

 

[DenverSaltyFarm]

We got Light!!!!! I wasn't liking the shadowing on the sides of the tank so ended up ordering 5 foot light bars for each side of the tank and now I feel like there is a solid blanket of light across the entire tank. I ordered what were called Nico bars on my other tank spending about $480 each per bar a few years back and found the Chinese supplier that Nico used at a fraction of the cost only $250 for 2 of them shipped to my house and came with dimmable power blocks. They do have an $18 option for wifi but I have my hydros doing the controls. They also give you the option on lenses and I got the wide angle 120 degree lenses. Here is a link to that supplier and I highly recommend to anyone looking for light bars. FYI these are the UV bars

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Also my algae is going away with time and bringing down the nutrients in the tank with the bio pellets. I'm just patiently waiting for the sps to take of and grow

 

[drcrook]

Been hard at work taking down my other display and getting more frags in the peninsula. I was able to get my 100 gallon mixing station ready to make water. I started getting a little bacteria bloom in the peninsuls and Im sure its all the coral I added to the aquarium so tomorrow im going to get my UV up and running as well. more to come.

I dropped the inside pipe about 2/3rds down the container and added a Venturi flow nozzle to hopefully get a nice amount of water movement in the container.

Is the entire system within the heated living space? If not how do you handle freezing temperatures?

 

[DenverSaltyFarm]

Is the entire system within the heated living space? If not how do you handle freezing temperatures?

Thanks for checking out the build, yes the mixing station is in a heated utility room In my basement and air temperature stays about 72 year around. I noticed the pump heats up the water as well keeping it about 74.

After all the work setting it up I ended up running the aquarium without water changes, but in an emergency I can make water fast

 

[Gumbies R Us]

We got Light!!!!! I wasn't liking the shadowing on the sides of the tank so ended up ordering 5 foot light bars for each side of the tank and now I feel like there is a solid blanket of light across the entire tank. I ordered what were called Nico bars on my other tank spending about $480 each per bar a few years back and found the Chinese supplier that Nico used at a fraction of the cost only $250 for 2 of them shipped to my house and came with dimmable power blocks. They do have an $18 option for wifi but I have my hydros doing the controls. They also give you the option on lenses and I got the wide angle 120 degree lenses. Here is a link to that supplier and I highly recommend to anyone looking for light bars. FYI these are the UV bars

Aquarium Reef Led Light Seawater Marine Led For Aquarium Tank Fish Coral Reef Led Aquarium Lighting Wifi Knob Dimming - Buy Reef Led Light,Aquarium Tank Fish,Led Aquarium Light Wifi Light Bar Knob Dimming Product on Alibaba.com

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Also my algae is going away with time and bringing down the nutrients in the tank with the bio pellets. I'm just patiently waiting for the sps to take of and grow

Those new lights look great!

 

[Tonycass12]

This build is looking great! I've had my eye on one of the IM peninsulas for some time now. Following along