Mobile Bay Reef Keepers

What a great forum! I was surprised to find such an active and high quality site.

My name is Sidney, I live in Pensacola, and have been into reefkeeping for about 3 1/2 years. I am looking forward to sharing information, experiences, and maybe even a few frags!

My setup has evolved considerably over the years, but currently is as follows:

120g 48x24x24
20g sump
2x 400W XM 20K Halides/ 2x 110W VHO actinic
incandescent moon light
Dolphin Ampmaster 3000 pump for closed loop circ + 3 MJ1200's
Iwaki MD30 main pump
1/3 horse CSL chiller
Euroreef cs8-2 skimmer
Precision Marine Ca reactor + effluent chamber
Neptune Aquacontroller II controls EVERYTHING

The tank is plumbed to the outside where the pumps, chiller, top-off water, and RO/DI are all housed.

Parameters:
temp: 79
pH: 7.9-8.1
ORP: 420-430
Ca: 390
Alk: 12dKH
Phos: 0
Nitrate: 0

I run carbon or chemi pure about 90% of the time. I will occasionally add some iodine or some magnesium when the mood strikes me. I will also use Turbo Calcium from time to time to boost Ca.

Water changes are very infrequent. I may upset some folks with this one, but I havent done one in about 6 months. However, I believe that I have been quite successful with changes only every 4-5 months.
I am actually in the process of doing a 50g change this weekend and will be trying Oceanic salt for the first time.

Here are a couple of pics

Welcome to the club Sidney.

Wow what an incredible tank, god you missed an awesome meeting we had today, try to make the next one if you can.

Sorry you missed the meeting....Great looking tank...hope yoiu can make the next one.... Terry

Welcome to the forum Sidney... yep, you should have checked us out 1 day earlier so you could party with us. No worries, we'll do it again next month.

Kevin & Jason... 2:00 AM? Were you guys still at the party? Even stranger is Terry's post at 6:00 AM... is he not human!?!?

Welcome! You have an SPS keepers dream tank there. What is the orange coral on the lower right side?

I was helping Brandon move tanks at 2:00 am.

Thanks for the kind response. Please let me know when your next meeting will be.

Scott,
The orange coral at the lower right is Montipora Digitata. In fact, there are three colonies around the tank. When I added the Ca reactor about 5 months ago, Montipora growth exploded as did several of the Acropora colonies, especially the red millepora. Here's a couple of pics. the first is from March and the second was taken in June

Sidney

WELCOME!

Nice looking tank. Always good to see some more reefers....

Welcome!

Joe

Great looking tank, we hope to see you at the next meeting.

Wow gorgeous tank, we have several members who have primarily SPS dominated tanks. They are going to love that...

Do you have a close up picture of the digitata? My orange digitata is no where near that color. What size and how many bulkheads are you using on your closed loop?

Scott,

I don't have any close-ups of the digitata. This particular variety just happens to do well in my tank and has colored up quite well. I also have a purple digitata that is just now doing well after 3 months in my tank.

Regarding the closed loop, all of the bulheads are 1 inch. There are 2 drains on the back and 2 returns on the bottom. The bottom 2 bulkheads are further split into 2 3/4 inch loc-line that go high and low on either side of the tank. Originally I had two little giant pumps running the closed loop that were under the tank. due to noise and heat and poor flow, I settled on the Dolphin pump and placed it outside. The flow is much better. However it's not as good as it could be due to 1.5inch fittings on the pump going down to 1 inch then ultimately to 3/4inch.

Sidney

I have been thinking of going with more flow on my CL but I only have 2 1 inch bulkheads for the inlet and I have 1 inch pipe going to 4 loclines. I had thought that anything over 2000 gph was too much but I think I could use a AM3000.