Neal's SPS Barebottom system...

[pallobi]

Hey guys! After introducing myself in the intro forum, I figured I would follow that up with a few pics of my system, and start myself a system thread here in Reef Talk...

I am very much looking forward to mingling with you all from here forward, and hope you enjoy my setup...

Brief explanation of my experience, ideas, and system overview...

Even though i am only less than a year into sps keeping, I have had saltwater since April of 2006... I am a very avid and active hobbyist, and do a TON of research, and have learned ALOT in a year... I am looking to keep many kinds of sps as well as zoa's and certian paly's, have them grow out nice and healthy (fingers crossed), have them grow into big, beautiful colonies, and hopefully have a small frag farm in the not so soon future...I believe in t5's, shallow tanks (21" or less imo), barebottom, lots of skimming, using carbon, and very high flow, circulation, and turnover... I also believe less is more, and simpler is better... but that is just me...

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SYSTEM: 75g RR Barebottom Sps/Zoa/Paly/Clam Display w/ 2 Vortech MP40s, 8 bulb 48" t5 Teklight (4 ATI Blue Plus, 2 ATI True Actinics, 2 ATI Aquablue Special) & Mag Drive 9.5 return pump... 40g breeder Invert & Live Rock Refugium w/ Mag Drive 7 return pump... 40g breeder Sump w/ Reef Octopus 300 Extreme dual pump skimmer, Finnex 300 watt submersible heater & 2 BRS media reactors (carbon) fed w/ Mag Drive 3.5 pump

DISPLAY: 32 Sps, 8 Zoa & 4 Paly species, Purple Tang, Sixline Wrasse, 3" Crocea Clam, 5" Maxima Clam, 15 Turbo Snails, 6 Blue Porcelian Crabs

REFUGIUM: Purple Reef Lobster, Fancy Brittle Star, Tiger Conch, Arrow Crab, Blue Coral Banded Shrimp

WISHLIST (subject to change): Pair of Fire Shrimp, ORA Blue Mandarin, and perhaps a Golden Midas Blenny

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the following pics where taken with my 8.0 megapixel Droid Incredible camera phone, so plz excuse the quality...

 

[pallobi]

 

[pallobi]

I also have 10 really nice sps frags coming overnight from a Long Island reefer this afternoon... so I am pretty stoked on that

 

[CrazyCorals]

very nice.......

 

[pallobi]

also those pics are about a week old at this point, as I am trying something different... i will be changing the aesthetic look and feel of my display, actually it has already started.. it is a bit different than most approaches i have seen as far as presenting the corals and taking the idea of having them be the centerpeice of the tank to another level... i havent seen anyone go in the direction as far as presentation that i am going, so i am really excited (and scared lol) to see the responses once i am finished... again the only change that will take place is the look of the display and the presentation of the corals themselves... of course i will update with pics once finished

 

[pallobi]

as far as my coral selection thus far... i have the following 8 coming in today, as well as 2 soon to be mentioned freebies once i find out what they are lol...

Montipora Setosa
Tyree Purple Monster
Tyree Pink Lemonade
500 Efflo Acropora
Sunset Montipora
Red Planet Acropora
Icefire Echinata
Karl's Candlelight Acro

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and the following is what I have to this point...

German Blue Polyp Montipora Digitata
Crayola Plana Acro
Blue Tortuoso Acro
Orange Cap Montipora
Green Highlighter Acro
Blue tipped Emerald Stag Acro
Tyree Flower Petal Cap Montipora
ORA Joe the Coral Acro
ORA Hawkins Echinata
Bonzai Acro
Green Montipora Confusa
Green Millipora
Blue Millipora
Tricolor Valida Acro
Green Stylophora
ORA Green Birdsnest
ORA Bird of Paradise
ORA Pink Birdsnest

with hopefully many more to come

 

[pallobi]

as far as fish, i do not plan on keeping many, i do not believe in heavily stocked tanks as far as fish go, or even moderately stocked for that matter... again, to me, less is more...

the Harlequin Tusk you can see in the pics is no longer under my care and found a new 180g reef home this past weekend... the Purple Tang you see was a real score as i basically traded 4 small frags for him... he was left in a 30g tank for nearly a year, under fed and mal-nourished (spelling?)... he had alot of head rot, and lateral line disease... i took him in, QT'd him for 7 days, and within days of feeding him vitamin enriched mysis, omega one flake, spectrum small pellets, and PLENTY of nori, he is nearly completely recovered, fattening up, and well on his way... as of today, he has been in my care for 18 days... what a turn around... i am very very pleased... i also have a small 1 1/4" sixline wrasse in with him as well...

 

[stingythingy45]

Nice set up.
I guess your more into corals than anything else.
You should have a very clean system without fish adding any bioload.

 

[pallobi]

a coral tank, that is my idea... well a few fish anyhow... i do not ever want to have do any of the extra stuff people go through... vodka dose, biopellets, big water changes (jus regularly scheduled small changes),sandbed issues, etc... I am in the process also of adding flow to my refuge so nothing settles there either and removing the little sand i do have in there so it is jus the live rock doing its job with bio filtration, nothing more... well aside from housing a few inverts i love to keep... i do not use dosing pumps as i feel the manual application of 2 part is much better monitered and nothing can go wrong, given i test regularly, which i do... i do not plan on adding a calcium reactor for as long as i can get away with it either... some will snub this idea, but the more stuff going on, the more that can go wrong when you are not looking, and the more electricity is used...

one of my next big purchases will be a pair of ecotech battery backups for my mp40's and another battery backup for the heater and return pumps... we dont usually have problems with outages, where i live, or at least for long, and i do have a small generator, but i think some nice battery backups will do the job well... however, hopefully they are never needed

 

[pallobi]

and i forgot to add, i also have for sps...

Pokerstar Montipora
Idaho Grape Montipora

and i nice little purple frag of some acro of some kind, yet to be identified...

 

[ScottyD]

Sweet setup for sure. Thanks for sharing the pics. Im interested in the changes you are doing. Great job

 

[FOXYB]

Looks nice, very clean and lots of room for growth

 

[pallobi]

mystery freebies

Got my frag pack late this afternoon, and all was well for the most part... the efflo is quite pale however, but all the tissue seems fine... either way, I was dealing with a very reputable guy, and if there is any problem in the coming days they'll be replaced

As for the freebies, I received an Orange Digitata, a Blue Turaki, and a Tyree Tri-color...

So that's pretty cool...

 

[jfourn83]

how do you like the bb?

 

[Turbosnail]

Nice looking!

 

[pallobi]

how do you like the bb?

personally I love barebottom... i have had dsb's and shallow ones, and barebottom a couple times... i love lots of flow, so barebottom works great in combo with that imo... nothing settles at all, my display stays completely detritus free

 

[jamesdong009]

Looking good Neal! Your skimmer looks a little on the small side though

 

[pallobi]

yea, i like me some overkill, gives me peice of mind LOL... my buddy always says "that thing is bigger than my kid" who is a small child mind you lol

not as big as some externals i have seen, not by a long shot, but for an in sump, its pretty darn big, and with dual pumps, it rocks out, which i love...

 

[Jacksparrow]

very nice setup, I love the idea of a bb sps tanks. I will have to give that some thought it changing my tank around. Very awesome system.

 

[bossreef]

Nice tank. What are you using for your single frag, magnetic plugs? Are those retail or DIY?