65 Gallon AIO Peninsula SPS Dominant Tank

[Shiizee]

Behold, my first foray into fish tanks. I elected (stupidly) to start with an SPS dominant saltwater reef tank. This tank started cycling in May 2021 so It's approximately 1.5 years old. Not a lot of progress to start as I couldn't keep my hands out of the tank. It seemed as if I was always changing the aqua scape, coral positions, fish etc etc until It settled into this final aquascape around December 2022. The corals have progressively been added over the past year, so as you can see there are more mature colonies as well as fresh looking frags. There are only two things that I would do differently with this system... 1) Avoid putting my hands in the tank...but seriously...just don't.... and 2) I would have dosed Kalkwasser on a peristaltic dosing pump consistently throughout the day instead of putting it in my ATO, or not using it at all. Kalk has done wonders for me, as long as it's dosed consistently.

Tank and Equipment Specs:
Waterbox AIO 65.4 Peninsula with Waterbox stand
2 - Hydra 32s
1 - Nicrew light (Amazon)
Sicce Syncra Silent 3.0 return
Eheim 150W heater
2 - Nero 5s
1 - Nero 3
Tunze 9001 Skimmer
Two little fishes Phosphate media reactor converted into Chaeto Reactor
(cheap Amazon pump to feed water to reactor)
Uline 25 gallon container for Kalkwasser solution
Kamoer peristalitic dosing pump for Kalk
4 - Kamoer X1 Pro dosing pumps (Calc, Alk, Mag and Nitrate dosing)
ATO

 

[Shiizee]

 

[xshmoox]

Tank looks great!

 

[pshootr]

Wow nicely done, tank looks great.

 

[dstockwell]

Lookin good

Welcome to the Reef

 

[blaxsun]

Well done!

 

[FishTrader]

Love it! I got the same tank 2 weeks ago and just finished adding water! Following!

 

[Shiizee]

Quick update on Frank the Tank!
There have been a few changes since my last post....most noticeable might be the removal of 3/4 of my sand bed. My flow is rocking in there so I took it out to avoid sand blowing on corals. I've kept a bit at the back of the peninsula for my 'wrasse-bed'.

I've removed some equipment and altered some others and added a few things.....

I replaced my Amazon Nicrew light with a hydra 54
I added a Nero 7 and set my flow to an alternating gyre style which helps get water movement at the end display panel
I've removed my media reactor/makeshift algae reactor
Removed my ATO (optical sensor kept gunking up causing an overdose of RODI every once in awhile)
Added an Apex Jr as well as a Trident
And my Uline container is only 15 gallon, not 25 (messed up my original post)

I'm motivated recently by simplifying...less equipment = less opportunity for things to go wrong. There were some additional Orphek lights I installed for a bit but removed those months before making this post.
The addition of the Apex Jr and the Trident has allowed me to be confident in knowing my tank's parameters lack serious fluctuations.

Anyway, hope you enjoy the pics!

 

[Shiizee]

It's been awhile since I've posted but figured it would be a good time to update.

Since my last post I had done some re-scaping and the tank settled in pretty well shortly after. I saw some great growth and progress in my SPS particularly, but became unsatisfied with my scape and coral selection. I always wanted a tank where the corals seemed to grow right out of the water and due to my minimal scape and coral selection, it became apparent that I wouldn't achieve that....

In May 2024 I did a substantial re-scape. I brought in many of my SPS colonies to an LFS, chose a scape that I felt was more visually appealing in the long term, and re-seeded a portion of the tank with some frags.

It was rewarding to grow out an SPS tank that was jammed with coral, but I'd like to make an effort to establish something that truly realizes the vision I had when I first embarked in the reef aquarium hobby. I'll be honest, it was nerve wracking at first, but I'm almost as excited now as I was when I first dove into this hobby

Anwyay, here are some pics of the tank just before I tore it apart. I'll post some of the new scape soon, in the meantime I hope you enjoy!