[jrpark22000]

The new tank is 1 year old this month. There were some bumps in the road, it took about 8 months for me to stop tinkering with major components, but the last 4 months have been hands off enjoyment. Except for monthly maintenance, water testing, and stocking changes the system is running autonomously. The coral is growing like crazy and the fish are fattening up nicely.

Notable observations;
1. The BB with marble appears to be working well with no noticed harmful leaching. I lifted a few tiles during the 1 year maintenance and found no detritus under any. Detritus only collects in the small joints between the tiles, but spaghetti worms and amphipods also live the cracks. I use a diatom filter monthly and suck all the accessible joints clean.
2. I don’t use the UV sterilizer since I needed it to clear the initial bacteria bloom, but it is a nice backup.
3. I changed from and ehiem to a iwaki skimmer feed pump and am very glad I did, it’s a much better pump.
4. I’m currently treating for red bugs and will now treat all incoming coral with interceptor in QT before being introduced in the display... The outbreak never got bad and I only noticed them on 3 SPS pieces but I wasn’t going to risk anything. The Interceptor treatment is going as easily and painlessly as advertised and I don’t foresee any problems.
5. The copepod setup runs by itself. I change about 50% of the water monthly but otherwise seldom touch the tank. The phyto multiples faster than the copepods eat so I very rarely add more. When I change the water, I filter the bugs out and dump them into either the sump or display.
6. Water quality is great. Nitrates and phosphates are both low, cheato grows out of control, the ozone keeps the water invisible and the diatom filter clears all the detritus great. I feed the fish and coral medium to heavy and have no nuisance issues.

Recent changes;
1. I built custom screen tops for both the QT and the display. I used BRS 1/4 “ netting and homedepot window screen frame. Instead of sitting the frame on top of the rimless tank I recessed the frame inside the lip of the tank. I made acrylic corner pieces and riveted them on top of the frame. These acrylic corners sit on the top of the tank and allow for the frame to hang into the tank. The screen top has little visual impact but will hopefully prevent any further carpet surfing…
2. I’ve added the 4th AISOL about a month ago. I’m going to wait another month or more before I add the other supplemental cyan, violet and white LEDs. I learned my lesson, it is far too easy to bleach corals under LEDs, even when using a par meter.
3. I’ve lost and added some fish; lost 2 to the carpet, 3 in QT, and 2 to a crazed killer Kole tang. I brought in a pyramid butterfly fish that gave the 2 other noobs in QT something nasty that killed all 3. Whatever it was ate the face off the butterfly before killing the fish. Since adding the replacement pyramid butterfly, the dominance issue with the Kole has subsided and hopefully it’ll no longer slash any more fish.

Future changes;
1.The Supplemental LED build will use some new to the market LED drivers from MeanWell. Instead of the ELN series I was originally going to use, the new LPF series are; current output fixed, have active PFC front ends, have up to 54V output, and are as small as 16W output. I’ll see how they work when received from powergatellc.
2. I’ll redesign and reimplement the AutoWaterChange. I just don’t like how the new saltwater reservoir is located and plumbed.


There is probably things I am forgetting, but onto the good stuff… The pictures.