Reef rio180

[jake87]

Hi there. I've been into reef keeping since last January, I started with an aquael nano 30 and of course that soon got upgraded to a 60litre and told myself that would be the last tank I would buy - I liked the charm of small reef tanks until it sprung a leak. I found a rio 125, transfered everything over and was offered my current tank, a rio 180 a week later
Which brings me on to how it is now.

I have roughly 20kg of live rock and the following corals ranging from soft to lps and sps..

Green and purple mushrooms
Leather toadstool
Leather tree coral
Pulsing xenia
Various zoas and buttons
Torch coral
Frogspawn coral
Duncans
Hammer coral
Candy canes
3 star polyp colony's
Green Ricordia
Trachy
Twiglet coral (call me an amateur but unsure of real name)
Tube anemone X2
Small plate coral
Birds nest
Seriatopora

Livestock is:
Cromis X2
Common clown X2
Flasher wrasse
Yellow tail damsel
Dotty back
Orange spotted goby
Yellow tang

And of course there is some clean up crew
Blue hermit
Red hermits x5
Nassarus snails x5
Cerith snails x4
Turbos x4
Sand sifting starfish
Tuxedo urchin
Conch X2
Brittle starfish
Cleaner shrimp
Flame scallop

Many thanks for reading and here is a short video of the tank
[video=youtube_share;yH4DXSq8Gas]https://youtu.be/yH4DXSq8Gas[/video]

 

[Bob1888]

Lovely tank loving the torch looks stunning

 

[penzo]

Nice tank,I had a Rio 180 many moons ago,you've certainly good some fab inhabitants,+1 on the torch.

 

[jake87]

Thanks for the replies. Yes the torch is lovely it's currently two heads partially splitting into 3.
A bit more about the spec of the tank although it's pretty basic

Filtration:
Juwel internal filter worked down to one sponge along with floss changed regularly and chemical filtration consisting of sea chem matrix and phos guard.

Powerhead: jaebo rw4

Lighting: standard t5 setup with juwel marine lite bulbs
To get some blue into the tank I have an arcadia marine stretch light affixed to the underside of the back lid.

Weekly 25% water changes.

 

[penzo]

Thanks for the replies. Yes the torch is lovely it's currently two heads partially splitting into 3.
A bit more about the spec of the tank although it's pretty basic

Filtration:
Juwel internal filter worked down to one sponge along with floss changed regularly and chemical filtration consisting of sea chem matrix and phos guard.

Powerhead: jaebo rw4

Lighting: standard t5 setup with juwel marine lite bulbs
To get some blue into the tank I have an arcadia marine stretch light affixed to the underside of the back lid.

Weekly 25% water changes.

Do you get enough flow with one 'rw4?

 

[jake87]

I believe so. The rw4 is on a high pulse and the filter flow is pushing towards it creating a whirlpool type effect through the middle. I feed the tank a rotifer cube once a day with the lights on and it all moves through the tank nicely without any noticeable dead spots - other than the inevitable settling under rock work.

 

[Andi]

That tank is lovely! It looks like it's been set up for a good while.

 

[CEECH]

Great looking tank good job Big Thumbs Up

 

[Hazey]

You have a nice set up there Jake.
The 25% water change you do, is this a water mix you make up yourself ie produce your own RO & add salt, if so what salt are you using?
OR do you buy your salt mix from your LFS?

Have you got any plans for your current tank, any new purchases on the horizon?

Dave

 

[Cestrian]

Great looking tank Jake. How long have you had the Flame scallop for. I was always under the impression that they were hard to keep especially with feeding?

 

[jake87]

Thanks for the comments.

Dave, I buy mine ready mixed and heated from a lfs so it's pretty much old water siphoned out of my tank and new straight in again. He uses red sea salt. The calcium content is very high and with weekly water changes the readings in my tank are between 400-450.

Funnily enough i have another update to post tonight. A new addition to the tank!

 

[penzo]

Thanks for the comments.

Dave, I buy mine ready mixed and heated from a lfs so it's pretty much old water siphoned out of my tank and new straight in again. He uses red sea salt. The calcium content is very high and with weekly water changes the readings in my tank are between 400-450.

Funnily enough i have another update to post tonight. A new addition to the tank!

'Are you keeping us all guessing.lol

 

[jake87]

Noooooo:whistling: took a video as well

 

[jake87]

Started off with the usual 25% water change. Like I said I buy mine ready mixed and heated and salinity at .24 so it's an easy change

I ordered a mandarin a couple of weeks ago and collected him today. I got given a sps frag so both were allowed to temp match for an hour in the tank. I know it's a bit of a touchy subject not quarantining new fish prior to adding them to a display tank but I haven't had an issue with this method.

Quick video of the mandy getting introduced to the tank. Can only apologise for the change in camera angle. He hid behind the zoas for the test of the day but came out when the lights switched off
https://youtu.be/r3DUlRMTliM

 

[jake87]

Great looking tank Jake. How long have you had the Flame scallop for. I was always under the impression that they were hard to keep especially with feeding?

Hi mate we've had it for a couple of months but wouldn't recommend one. They are very clumsy movers and go where they like with no grace! They are filter feeders so should be OK if there's enough nutrient in the water.

 

[jake87]

Updated video
[video=youtube_share;IkcI4aY5-m4]https://youtu.be/IkcI4aY5-m4[/video]
Had a wipe out of stock due to the mandarin. It broke out in white spot and within the following 3 weeks I lost all fish except the chromis and flasher. I did introduce another tang, yt damsel, 2 tank bred dotty backs and gave 2 chromis back to the lfs. I then had an outbreak of nudis which destroyed my zoa colony although I got rid of all of them. The next issue was a spurt in aiptasia popping up everywhere, I tried joes juice which was useless and had to get two peppermint shrimps. They soon ate every single bit of aiptasia but then started eating my torch and then working on the trachy - I gave this to a friend to recover and currently working on trying to get the peps out.

As for equipment I removed the internal filter box as it was just used to move water around rather than filter. The t5s were not doing much for growth and we're creating a lot of heat under the canopy. I bought a 300w mars aqua led light unit and built a canopy to house it, the pc fans were wired in to aid air flow and reduce co2 levels - unfortunately I need a canopy as my cat likes to sleep on top of the tank l. The last addition was a tmc auto top off, the improved air flow in the canopy was increasing evaporation. It's a good bit of kit although I'm having a slight issue with the pulse of the wave maker causing the float valve to bounce up and down which sometimes makes the pump turn on and off continuously so I'll need to look at that

Essay over!

 

[jake87]

Last night I shone a torch into the tank with the lights off and saw hundreds and hundreds of baby peppermint shrimp. I must have just missed the pep giving birth as it was at the front of the tank near the babies. Haven't seen any this morning so more than likely will get eaten by the fish