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Felicia's 40B Predator Reef

Looks great - Really nice purpley rock! Are you still on a 40B or did you upgrade somewhere? 5 anthias is quite a bioload!
Yeah I'm hoping it doesn't look too fake. Definitely colorful :) Yes, its still the 40B. I know I'm a bit heavy on the bioload front, but I talked to quite a few people who thought that 5 of the dispars would be a good number and would do fine in the 40B as long as I didn't add any more fish. I've got a good skimmer on there, a refugium, and a reactor and I plan to keep up with larger water changes, so I'm hoping it will be ok!
 
Current view from my couch. I'm in love with these new fish. Having a school is just too fun! Even if it is a big bioload
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[Youtube]


You can hear Lily at about 1:06
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4) My new Two Little Fishies Phosban 150 reactor came yesterday, so I need to install that tonight. I also got the new gate valve yesterday and I got that all installed with no problems and no leaks. This one works perfectly, so the plumbing is 100% done.

Gave up on the Resinator? Mine hasn't been hooked up in a while but I'm planning on hooking it up again but on the new setup.
 
Gave up on the Resinator? Mine hasn't been hooked up in a while but I'm planning on hooking it up again but on the new setup.
Yeah I gave up on it a while back. It didn't seem to be working as well as my regular reactor and I kept having issues with it clogging since the tubing was so small. Also I had issues with the pads shifting and the media getting forced out of it all over my sump. I switched back to my original BRS reactor a few months back and then originally put that on this new build. I don't like the hard plastic tubing for the BRS reactor though because it doesn't want to bend and then the bends pull on the fittings and make them leaky. It's also bulky and kind of a pain to remove for maintenance. I decided the TLF Phosban reactor was the way to go and it was only $35 on Amazon with free prime shipping. I got it installed tonight and it takes up way less space and will be much easier to pull in and out for servicing. Also it uses clear flexible tubing with barb fittings which is nicer.
 
Ahh, no other fish? So boring! We'll see how long that lasts!
Well no, I have other fish. I just meant these are the absolute last fish. I'm at 10 fish total which is a lot, but I had 8 in my 30 gallon for a long time with no bioload issues. I think with my beefed up filtration, 10 should be perfect, but absolutely no more. Here's the list of fish:
1) yellow watchman goby
2) pair of ocellaris clowns
3) very small yellow candy hogfish
4) exquisite wrasse
5) 5 dispar anthias
 
Is that one of those halloween urchins? Easy to keep?


I saw some cute tiny long spine black urchins at ca reef before and was so tempted to buy one. They were as big as a quarter! But the whole thing about them being venomous and the potential for eating zoas turned me away.
 
Is that one of those halloween urchins? Easy to keep?


I saw some cute tiny long spine black urchins at ca reef before and was so tempted to buy one. They were as big as a quarter! But the whole thing about them being venomous and the potential for eating zoas turned me away.
Its a blue tuxedo urchin. They're easy to keep other than the fact that you have to have lots of algae for them to eat or they will eventually starve. I think my tank is probably too small to maintain it long term, so I got it as a temporary solution to my hair algae problem. Once it cleans up the algae, I'll be taking it back to the store.
 
Ok so here's a few photos from last night.

First, a pretty shot of the school of anthias!


I got the old BRS reactor taken off and installed the new Two Little Fishies Phosban 150 reactor last night. Right now I just have it running carbon. I decided to set it down in the sump to make it easy to get to for maintenance and also so that if it ever leaks it won't be an issue. Its hooked up to the tee in my return line and flow is controlled by a gate valve.


I also installed some racks inside the doors of the stand yesterday evening to help with keeping things organized.




And finally, I got most of the corals off of the sand bed (I just tossed them into spots, so not where they'll be staying.) and messed with the scape a bit. What does everyone think?






Also, I wanted to ask, what does everyone recommend in terms of media? I have this new Phosban reactor and I'm debating what would be the most beneficial to my system. Carbon, GFO, a mix? Something different like biopellets?
 
Oh! Let me know if the urchin works against the hair algae.

I have nubs of hair algae growing and would like an urchin if they take care of it.

Not sure about the media. I just run gfo and carbon.
 
Felicia,

On the media I guess my question to start off is what type of water parameter are you going for.....

For example I ran a BRS GFO & Carbon Dual reactor (I brought it to sell at the Frag Workshop) and worked great until I decided to go to a ULNS tank and switched over to Bio-pellet reactor...

If you go Bio-Pellet reactor not all pellets work the same....I had not to good results from BRS Bio-Pellets, but when I switched to EcoBak+ pellets got great results....
 
I think you'll like the TLF Phosban reactors. I've run them for a year or so on our previous tanks. You may be able to combine carbon and GFO in a single reactor if you get some extra foam filter separators to keep them apart.

I just setup a second Phosban 150 on our sump, so we have one running carbon and one running GFO. I put them in series and I'm driving them with an MJ1200. I like your manifold off the return, but I was worried a manifold would make the return flow less consistent and require more frequent tuning of my herbie drain.

Tank and sump are looking good. The anthias look great.
 
Oh! Let me know if the urchin works against the hair algae.

I have nubs of hair algae growing and would like an urchin if they take care of it.

Not sure about the media. I just run gfo and carbon.
The urchin definitely eats algae. That's why its hard to keep them alive long term in a small tank because they eventually eat all the algae.
 
Felicia,

On the media I guess my question to start off is what type of water parameter are you going for.....

For example I ran a BRS GFO & Carbon Dual reactor (I brought it to sell at the Frag Workshop) and worked great until I decided to go to a ULNS tank and switched over to Bio-pellet reactor...

If you go Bio-Pellet reactor not all pellets work the same....I had not to good results from BRS Bio-Pellets, but when I switched to EcoBak+ pellets got great results....
I've always just run GFO and carbon, but I know there's a lot of new stuff out there, so was curious what people like. I'm intrigued by biopellets, but I'm not sure if I want to try them. I hear there is quite a bit of dialing in with the biopellets.
 
I love how you really utilize the space in your sump! .
Also wondering what you max out on your razor? And do you like your fixture?
Thank you! Was trying to make it so there was plenty of space and it was well organized this time around.

I run the Razor at about 60% at its max, but a lot of the day I have it lower than that. I like it a lot. Its easy to program and is super sleek. It also runs super cool. It has built in fans that will kick in if the fixture ever warms up, and my fans have never even turned on. Definitely a great light fixture and the price is very reasonable compared to some other fixtures.
 
I think you'll like the TLF Phosban reactors. I've run them for a year or so on our previous tanks. You may be able to combine carbon and GFO in a single reactor if you get some extra foam filter separators to keep them apart.

I just setup a second Phosban 150 on our sump, so we have one running carbon and one running GFO. I put them in series and I'm driving them with an MJ1200. I like your manifold off the return, but I was worried a manifold would make the return flow less consistent and require more frequent tuning of my herbie drain.

Tank and sump are looking good. The anthias look great.
I actually saw several places that you can just mix GFO and carbon in the Phosban reactor and tumble it very lightly. I may just try that and see how it works. I don't really want to get another one for space reasons.

The manifold on the return doesn't seem to cause the return flow to fluctuate because there's a gate valve right at the tee, so the same amount of flow always goes to the reactor unless I change that gate valve.

Thank you! I'm really enjoying the anthias. Such cool fish!
 
Just a few updates:

1) Everything is looking good and has settled into the new tank well. All the corals and fish seem very happy, so that's good!

2) I finished organizing the cords and controllers inside the stand, so now I just need to move the light fixture and I think I'm pretty much done with this build. Then its just letting everything stabilize and finally getting some new corals! Oh, and I do need to get the dosing pump up and running. I've been procrastinating because I've been dreading doing that.

3) The dispar anthias are doing great. They still hide a lot, but they're coming out more and more. They're also eating like champs! I haven't gotten them to go for mysis, but they're loving cyclops and a frozen coral food blend that's got very small pieces. I picked up a pack of frozen plankton and another coral blend that has cyclops and rotifers and such from Aquatic Collection for them today. The one anthias still has popeye, but otherwise is doing very well and eating, so I think she'll heal up given time. I'm uploading a video of them right now, so stay tuned.

And just some fun photos
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The urchin was cleaning the side of the derasa clam's shell earlier.


And Lily had quite the night last night
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The wine bottle cat toys came from Petco as a present to Lily for putting up with all the aquarium upgrade mess.
 
I actually saw several places that you can just mix GFO and carbon in the Phosban reactor and tumble it very lightly.

If you mix them don't tumble. GFO is much harder than carbon and will grind it up. The only reason GFO is tumbled is to prevent clumping. It won't clump when carbon is mixed in. This is all in a BRS 'how to' video.

Your tank is looking good. Anthias are cool.

Is Lily working on a catnip buzz? :D
 
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